APRIL - Johanna’s Fortieth Birthday, Ridgecrest Auction, and Pre-Easter with the Family

I turned 40 on a Monday. Eben and I celebrated with a nice dinner in Edmonds the evening before. One of my work committees that meets on Mondays after school had an “off-site” meeting at Elliot Bay Brewery that afternoon and then we had a nice family dinner (take out Thai food!) with my dad to celebrate that night. I don’t feel any different, but it is nice to reflect back on one’s life and be really satisfied with how it is going and the direction it is taking.

It was a busy week with final preparations for the Ridgecrest Auction that weekend happening several nights, so we didn’t have much other time to celebrate at the moment, however we have a big rafting weekend with friends planned for my birthday party. With a few parent friends of mine, we decided to start up an auction at the kids’ elementary school. The PTA needed a new, bigger, fundraiser and we felt like we could pull this off. We had some visioning meetings before winter break and have been steadily working at the details the past few months. Everything came together for the big event in a big way the final few weeks. I worked on managing the facilities, set up, clean up, and tech during the event as we were using the Commons at Shorecrest. I also designed and ordered ball caps and glassware and helped in all the planning. Our unique take on the auction was to try to make it a fun, low-key event that would have a many opportunities for social interaction and community building. We did not want a stuffy, formal auction. We brought in a few food trucks and your auction ticket included a taste at each truck and an entrée of your choosing at your favorite one. We had lots of live music, a few crowd participation games (including a “name that tune” that I put together and hosted and a teacher trivia Kahoot that Katie made), lots of auction items (including an art project done by each classroom), and a minimal live auction finale. Our cabin was one of the two live auction items and it was won by a group of teachers who will use it this summer, which is fun. We had a giant set up Saturday morning with finishing touches Saturday afternoon. The event kicked off at 5:00 and we had a bunch of people show up as doors opened. We sold a lot of tickets at the door and everyone there seemed to be enjoying themselves. It was an overwhelming success and I am looking forward to finding out how much money we raised for the kids as we close out the books. Clean up went pretty smoothly, except for the final truck exiting the courtyard got stuck in the muddy grass. Luckily Eben was there and successfully used the Durango to tow it out of the mud. Phew! Eben and I had to go back early Sunday morning to tamp down the dirt and fix the mess.

The next day we did a family “pre-Easter” event at Karen and Franks’s house. They had just finished their new back deck and covered patio and hosted a very nice family celebration. The kids enjoyed the Easter egg hunt (indoors, due to heavy rain), and we had yummy dessert in honor of the early spring birthdays that had passed since our last gathering at Christmas. The cousins got along well, too, and I had a chance to catch up with a lot of family I hadn’t talked to in a long time. The rest of that week was a blur with two evenings devoted to a school event (The Unity Festival) and every spare moment being consumed by trip preparations.

 

Edison made a model of a wagon for his Oregon Trail project:

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