Make New Friends and Keep the Old, One is Silver and the Other is Gold

I loved that little song about friends and it was Lew who used to sing it as a little tiny girl going to Small Planet Montessori School.  This past week was full of new faces to Soul and two very difficult goodbyes.  Elliott and Shirley will be missed by many and their love and light will last as we celebrate their gifts and their unique connections.  I had the pleasure of making new friends when I worked with a new family this past week.  It was such a pleasure to be with them that we have already talked about an update shoot in about a year.

On Saturday Lew, with Megan’s help ran her first work party.  It was a wonderful success as we got to reconnect with 11 Soul families and some very special gifts were created for a group of important volunteers.  We welcomed a new volunteer that day, a young client of mine, Katherine who recorded more of those popular little videos for Soul that we had been putting up on facebook.  We will share these new ones soon.  My husband even got into the creative spirit as his bowling buddy Sarah was here for the party and they have to work together as they are such good pals. 

I only got to spend about an hour at the party as I was headed to Maple Valley for the memorial for our wonderful volunteer, Shirley Schulke.  It was a very special and meaningful celebration of Shirley’s life and I am thrilled that I got to meet her son, daughter and mother.  I don’t mind public speaking as long as long as I take a bit of time to prepare but for some reason the week had been very busy and it didn’t occur to me that there might be an opportunity to thank her family for so graciously sharing her with Soulumination.  Being unprepared I mostly cried but managed to say that we will be forever grateful for not only her book keeping but for her mentoring.

I also invited Shirley’s family and friends to join us at the 2012 Shirley Schulke Memorial Album Making Party which will be on April 24 here at the studio from 10 til 8.  We hope to again make enough of the special albums for the year and a few hundred trifolds.  All who have precise skills are invited to join us at this fun and rewarding event.  If you would like to be part of this day please let us know.  If you want to help but are not skilled in working with crafting we need food for the troops.  Last year my sister graciously bought pizza for all the workers so maybe someone else out there would like to donate that this year.  We will need a few breakfast type treats—-muffins etc for the morning workers as well as cookies or brownies through out the day.  We always need clean up help as well as precision paper cutting.

Last night was the beautiful fund raiser at the James Alan Salon in Shoreline honoring Charlotte’s birthday.  Charlotte and her family have been some of our biggest fund raisers and we are so grateful for their efforts in putting together such a wonderful event.  The Salon hung the photos so beautifully, the food and wine was delicious, the music by Danny Godinez was outstanding and the supporters were generous.  Huge thanks to Angie, Paul and Maddie for putting together this beautiful tribute and raising funds and awareness. 

Today I share two new faces to Soul.  The photos at the top of this entry are of Gavin who was photographed by Jodi and the two here are the closing are of Axel who was recorded by Dawn.  We are honored to share these stunning faces.  You can read more about them on the gallery soon.

In love and peace, Lynette