I want to personally thank the many people that visited with me at the Leesburg Flower and Garden Show this past weekend. Your visits gave me lots of strength, and hope. Time with each of you brought me true pleasure. Many of you came to thank me for your past garden show bouquets or to thank me for your wedding flowers. I heard from countless people that my bouquets were the reason many of you came to the show. This of course was huge praise. The joy of seeing so many of you and hearing so many kinds words about our flower studio brought tears to my eyes. It was so much fun to hear stories about past garden shows, weddings I had done, or to see my brides pushing strollers or sporting very pregnant bellies. I needed your love and kind words because last weekend I pushed myself harder than I think I have ever pushed myself before. Many of you know that I arrived home from an educational trip from Holland on Friday evening at 4pm.  Once home, I went over our wedding orders, played with our bridal bouquet, caressed the designs that had been created for the 16th birthday party we were designing, and approved the designs for the Dazzling Details Bazaar. Once all designs had my stamp of approval, I began loading the van for the Leesburg Flower and Garden Show.  I have been a participant of the show for 22 years. Truthfully its my hardest weekend of the year, getting the tent, work benches, and thousands of flowers into the middle of Leesburg is grueling. As we headed to our little booth at 4:30 am in the morning I thought I must be truly crazy to attempt to do this show with serious jet lag, and several other events on our schedule.

As Evan and I struggled with the stupid pop up tent, we both agreed that there would be no more flower and garden show. If after 22 years we still cant figure out how to put that stupid tent up in a quick and easy fashion we should call it quits. Honestly every year we consider not doing the flower and garden show. The show is so physically exhausting  that even in my 20’s it would take me days to recover. As I age its flat out bone shattering!! However about 1 hour into the show you came…. each one of you, bringing me such wonderful stories and kind words of encouragement. You gave me the strength to complete the day, you filled me up with enough love that I was able to finish the show on Saturday, head to the 16th birthday party that we had designed and coordinated, where I worked until 12:30 in the morning, and you gave me enough strength that I was able to stand outside in the rain all day long on Sunday. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for believing in us and supporting us.

Big things happened while I was away in Europe, I new desire is growing inside of me, and many of you nourished that new idea this weekend. Please keep believing in us and if you are reading this blog please comment. I was surprised to hear how many of you read the blog. I need comments and support just like my flowers need water and sunshine.

I will see you tomorrow with more stories from my Belgium and Holland adventure. A million thank yous for making the weekend so sunny in spite of the rain!!!