Last night we were guest of one of the board of directors of HCS Family Services “In Bloom – A Garden Art Sculpture Event“.

How bad are my bow tying skills?

Like most women, I’m a complete sucker for dressing up. At the last minute I was able to borrow this great dress from my friend Elissa. Thanks Elissa! Unfortunately you can’t see the cool swirly flower at the bottom or my very tall, purple strappy heels with matching flower on top.

Whenever we get invited to these types of events I only think about dressing up and looking pretty. I always forget until we get there and hear the spiel on the charity that these events serve a great purpose – raising money for people in need.

HCS family services help low income families raise above their circumstances through guidance, support and education.

The event had these huge, some totally crazy some beautiful statues they auctioned off. People at our table (not us, we are city dwellers and would have no place for something this size!) bought three…

Our Green Earth

Stanley

These two were bought by one couple. I’m now dying to see what there house looks like! The pictures don’t show the scale but that is a real bench that two or three people can sit on and the frog is just as big. Stanley was signed by all the Black Hawks players. To display them, they had four guys carry them to a runway type stage, put them on a pulley and rolled them around.

In The Spirit of Harmony

Adam’s colleague and our host bought this fountain as a present for his son. I thought it was the nicest one there.

The bench that Adam’s law firm sponsored was sold for $1,700. I think the highest price for one of these sculptures was $6000.

The best part of the evening was sitting next to a couple who recently invited us to their halloween party. I wasn’t going to mention it at all, since not everyone at the table was invited. But it ended up coming up so I asked, “Since this was an annual event, do you change your costumes every year?”. They looked at me strangely for a moment then said, “It’s not a dress up party.” Thank goodness they were there. It would have been very embarrassing to be at an intimate dinner party full of guests who show up to this party every year and be the only ones in costume!