All-Nighter

Part I:  Misi's Wedding
My sisters and I and all our fist cousins decided to meet on Thursday night to make all the party favors and the majority of refreshments for Misi's wedding dance.  We figured if we got most of it out of the way on Thursday, we wouldn't have to rush and run around all day on Friday.  We had all planned to meet on Thursday night at 5pm. 

I didn't end up getting there until about 7:30pm because I just felt like I needed to go to the hospital to visit a friend.  I had heard just the day before that my sister-in-law's sister's daughter was in the hospital with heart problems.  Right when I heard my heart sank.  I have a soft spot in my heart for sick kids, and especially if they're in the hospital.  I've seen first hand how stressful it is having a child in the hospital (through my neice who had a liver transplant and my nephew who still has to get chemo for the tumors in his neck) and I know that every bit of support is needed.  I just felt like I really needed to go.  I came straight home and asked Tea if she would go with me to the hospital and I explained the small bit of information that I had heard.  She, of course, was right with me in the thought of going to visit her so we headed to the store to buy her a little teddy bear and we were off.  Nothing would have prepared us for what was going to happen.  We walked into the waiting room and saw her mom sitting on the couch by herself.  I said hi to her and she looked at me and said "who are you guys here for?"  we told her we were there for her and she just started to cry.  She hugged me and hugged Tea for the longest time just crying.  I can't imagine what she's going through or how she feels.  We didn't really know what was happening or the whole story of why she was there.  Her mom told us.  Then the doctor's came in to give her an update on her daughter.  Tea and I were going to leave, but she told us we could stay.  We listened to the doctors and just sat and cried with the her.  It was one of those moments where you wish there was something you could do, but you just can't.  I know she probably would have rather had her husband or any of her family there with her at that time, but we were glad we could be there to support her.  Like I said before it just breaks my heart to see kids going through that. We pray for their family everyday.

After the trip to the hospital I dropped Tea off at home and headed down to good old Lake Shore to get started.  We had a LONG list of things we wanted to get done that night..... make 500 party favors (cake pops), de-crust 1000 peices of bread for our toasted egg salad and chicken salad sandwiches, make 1000 rice crispie treats, boil 480 eggs, peel them all and make the egg salad ready, toast the 1000 de-crusted pieces of bread in muffin tins to be ready for the next day, and we were going to make 1000 fruit tarts but I'm so blessed to have Tea and Namu who ALWAYS help me with EVERYTHING....and they made those at my house so I could go help make all the other stuff.  I know, I know, I am really blessed with great in-laws!!

We would have gotten done really fast because we had the young women there helping too, BUT Pola's family was on their way to my parents house to do the koloa stuff (Tongan tradition where the bride's family takes a bunch of blankets and food and stuff to the grooms family, and in return the groom's family gives a bunch of blankets and stuff to the bride's family)  It should have been me and my aunties and cousins that went to that, but we were the ones that had to stay to make the stuff while the whole ward went to my parents house (I still think that was a little backwards....but whatever)  They left at about 8pm and honestly didn't come back until like 1130pm......so there went most of the night!  I didn't realize how tedious the party favors were going to be.....they turned out really nice, but they were a pain in the butt.....hahaha.  Freakin' Misi is a spoiled brat!!  hahaha

We were making cake pops, and really they're not that hard to make and they look really nice...the tedious part was putting the M sticker on each individual selaphane bag, and the dipping it white chocolate part.  The rest of it was pretty easy!  My auntie Denise is amazing in the kitchen, and she makes some of the most delicious desserts I've ever tasted....she was the one that was getting the batter ready for the cake pops and scooping them onto the trays and putting the sticks in them to go into the freezer...

You had to put them in the freezer for like 10-15 minutes just so they could get hard enough to dip and not fall apart in the chocolate. 

My first cousins Lexi & Sarah and I got to put all the stickers on the bags...

We tag teamed the dipping job, but Lexi did it the best so we just let her do it.....

even though she wasn't too happy about it....haha

After the chocolate is dried (and they dry really really fast) we put them in the bags

And after all the hard work was done, everyone came back from my parent's house....so the rest of the night went pretty smoothly.  We have a group of people helping to tie all the bows on the cake pops...

The finished product...

And we made 500 of these cake pop party favors for the reception

Once those were done, we made 1000 rice krispie treats

We peeled and smashed 480 eggs

And we de-crusted 1000 slices of bread to be toasted

Needless to say it was a busy busy night but we got a lot done.  I didn't end up leaving to go back home to SLC until about 5am.  I would have stayed and spent the night at my moms, but I had finals the next morning......just more stress to add to an already stressful weekend!!  haha