Mammmma Mia........Mia.....Mia....

On Saturday afternoon when it was raining in Duluth, another couple and Bob and I went to an afternoon movie matinee. It's been a long time since we've been to the movies, but I have been wanting to see "Mama Mia" for a long time. It's been here for a long time, and I have been afraid it would soon leave. I've heard good things about it. I wanted to see the live show in Las Vegas the last time we were there, but it was sold out. Anyhow, my husband of course would never want to see it, (a musical you know, and a "girl" movie), so my friend and I went to Mama Mia and the guys went to "Righteous Kill" (one I know I wouldn't be interested in, even if it does have both DeNiro and Pacino both in it).

We absolutely loved Mama Mia. My friend has had a tough couple of weeks, especially last week, and I told her I knew that the movie would be just what she needed, and she told me I was right. We really enjoyed it (and who knew Meryl Streep could sing like that...she did her own singing!). (However, we thought that Pierce Brosnan could have used a few more singing lessons, but we'll forgive him, since he's SO good looking!) We sang, laughed and just had a ball, and we weren't the only ones in the theater to do so. We came out of the movie singing the Abba songs (yes, you know them too, even if you think you don't). The guys were ready to throw us out of the car!

They told us they loved their movie....said it was really good. But, of course, us girls KNEW OURS was the best!

"MAMA MIA" - the highlight of our weekend! All you women go see it, you won't be sorry!

Our Own Coco Chanel!

We have the pleasure of dog sitting again this week, our Grand Dog, Coco. Our son in law lost his Uncle, who lived in Milwaukee and they went there for the funeral. Since we are the “dog sitters”, (by choice) I happily met Bob half way in Hinckley to get our Grand Dog. Of course, we have been enjoying her ever since Wednesday night! Next weekend we will take her home, as we were planning to go down to celebrate our Granddaughter’s 8th birthday. We have so much fun with her.

Last night I watched the new movie on Lifetime about the French fashion designer Coco Chanel that brought us Chanel suits, and Chanel No. 5 perfume and more comfortable fashions for women.

Our daughter named Coco after Coco Chanel (Dawn, being a very fashion minded person). So, when I was watching the movie, I kept telling Coco that I was watching a movie about her namesake!

I looked on Google images tonight for photos of her, as I wanted to see what she looked like, (Shirley McLaine played her). When I put “Coco Chanel” in the search bar, I could not believe all the photos of Maltese and Yorkie breeds of dogs that I saw that were named Coco Chanel! There were even two that looked exactly like our Coco!

I thought that was pretty interesting, especially since Dawn thought she had come up with a real original name for her! Funny, funny!!!

Hope Celebrates 7 Years!

This morning HOPE UMC congregation celebrated our 7 years of being Hope UMC. As you may remember my telling you before, two struggling congregations went together in Sept., 2001 to become one (Woodland and University). A few months later we renamed ourselves Hope UMC, after voting on many name possibilities. Our pastor this morning mentioned that maybe we chose Hope because our coming together was on the first Sunday after the 9/11 tragedy of the Twin Towers. It was our first Sunday to worship together, it was bittersweet because we were all still in shock over the tragedy that had happened earlier in the week. We grieved together for all those lost and all those affected, as well as worshipped together. Our pastors at the time, were very good at helping us deal with what had happened. Our pastor this morning talked about 9-11 as well as talking about our anniversary. His sermon this morning was on “Forgiveness”, the scripture was from Matthew 18:21-35, the parable of the unmerciful servant. He talked about the anger he still feels about 9/11, how he thought he had “forgiven”, but often realizes that he has not, and how many of us have probably experienced the same thing at one time or another, in our lives. Thinking that we have forgiven, but in our hearts, we really haven’t. We have to remind ourselves to forgive, as God forgives us.

We celebrated our 7th Anniversary by renewing our Baptism vows. I thought that was very appropriate and very touching.

Nominated for "MN Concrete Project of the Year "

We have accomplished in our seven years of being Hope UMC, not only the successful merger of two congregations to one, spiritually and socially. We are now one, we don’t hear the words “from Woodland” and “from University”, anymore when we are talking about our members, we are ONE in spirit, we are HOPE UMC. We also made many improvements in our physical plant, new more efficient heating system, the addition of an elevator, a new roof, new carpet and most recent, a new parking lot. We just finished the project and last Sunday was the first Sunday we parked on it. We used a new method that will prevent water run off into our nearby creek, the concrete is “pervious” which means that the water goes down through it, rather than pooling on the top, then running into the creek. We heard today that ours was the largest concrete pour north of the Twin Cities. The project has been nominated for “Minnesota Concrete Project of the Year”!

Our next project is Phase two of the Parking Lot project. We had hoped to do it all together, but the parking lot cost more than expected. Next we hope to raise money to do the Memorial Garden between the parking lot and the creek. We also want to landscape around the parking lot and the building. We will get it done too.

This and That

Well, once again other things have been taking up my time and I haven't written in a while, there have been things on my mind to write about, like the doings here in Duluth, the conventions, September being here already, etc, etc.

This morning I took time to catch up on reading the blogs of my friends. AND decided that instead of writing today I would ask you to click on Michelle's link that I have on my blog. She has written things that I think would interest all of my readers. She lives in St. Paul and has a St. Paul prospective of things going on. Thank you Michelle, for your posts and have a great week!

Check back later in the week, I will try to do some posting. Wishing my readers a great week!