A Tale of Tea & Really Good Friends

Well, we have survived one half of the move.  I can't remember which is more painful - packing or unpacking.   Anyway, the packing & leaving part is done.  Now we wait until February for all our stuff to arrive & then we unpack & realize we brought waaaaaaaay too much.  I will write more about arriving in Germany tomorrow or by the weekend - there is so much to tell, but right now I wanted to write about the wonderful tea my friends took me to & the gifts they showered on me.  It was beyond generous.

I actually got most people on this pic - Michelle  (Cozy Egg) is cut off & Kim is only half there, but you can see her fabulous sweater well.  On the left bottom is Gloria ( who not only organized this whole thing but also researched & found this wonderful tea room), followed by Nancy who was my secret stitcher last year, then Marie with whom I spent many hours helping Gloria with her business.  Next is Stephanie who is such a nice person to be around & last but not least there is Ava with whom I got to go to the last Shepherd's Bush retreat.  Here is the whole group

We had a High Tea which was so delicious - here are a couple of pics of the goodies.  We also drank at least 4 or 5 pots of different tea.

Everyone wrote a little something about their favorite memory of me - it was so touching - drinking wine & eating Cheetos on the balcony at the Shepherd's Bush Retreat, meeting Michelle for the first time while working on a Lizzie Kate piece during a guild meeting and feeling the need to assure her that was not my usual stitching fare, helping Gloria during Market with Kim and laughing a whole bunch.    Everyone brought a gift which I did not expect at all - the tea & getting to see everyone before I left was gift enough.  But see what those guys gifted me with:

Marie made me the project bag that is serving as the back ground and she also gave me a Stacy Nash book - A Simply Early Christmas.  Ava gave me a hand painted Santa on a wooden spool - how cute is that??  Nancy gave me a beautiful pair of Dinky Dye Scissors.  Stephanie stitched the very cute Santa, Gloria stitched the fabulous ornament leaning against the apples ( a close-up is down below) & Michelle gave me the All-in-one Wristlet from Vera Bradley to match my Vera bag I got for my Birthday.  The biggest surprise though was what Gloria, Kim, Ava & Michelle stitched for me:

Wow, wow, I still can't even express how incredibly touched I am.  I just love it!!  Right now it is leaning againt the window in our eating area, & I am waiting for my DH to bring home some wall hangers to I can get it on the wall.  Have I mentioned how much I love it??

I leave you today with a picture of the humongous semi that carted away our storage stuff.  I think we managed to fill 5 of the 6 crates they brought.  The truck that came to pick-up our overseas stuff was much smaller & we overflowed into another truck....hmmmm, Houston I think we have a problem.