Fall yard work - Home Coming Parade - New Vehicle

First off I uploaded a few more wedding pictures to Web-shot if your interested. That's it on the pictures except I want to share one last one.

This is my brother Larry, new grandson Dar-Relle and Rob who catered the dinner

I guess Rob has the picture hanging up in his restaurant. He wants to be able to say he knew Dar-Relle when he was just a high school student before he became a college football star.

 We had a great visit with Donna and Grant on Monday. They were passing through on their way to Elkhart and we met them at the Walmart. Short visit but we'll see them in a few weeks hopefully.

The plan is to leave here the 9th but since then we decided to purchase a 2013 Chev Equinox. Now we need to wait for the registration before we can take off. The dealership has to send it to the Sec of State in South Dakota and once that's processed it 's sent to our mail forwarding place than we have to request it to be sent here. Keep your fingers crossed for us. We really like the car and it's going to be nice driving that back to TX.

This week the weather turned out nice so we did some fall yard work. I wanted the grass plants moved to another part of the yard. Than trimmed the flowers and plants. Also did some rearranging in the garage so we could get everything in it.

Last weekend we took the truck out to the farm and put it in one of the barns. Need to go out and disconnect the batteries and put a tarp over it next week.

Yesterday was homecoming here so we met Bob and Diane for dinner than watched the parade. They had their little 15 month of gr-grand-daughter and she seemed to enjoy it. I was really surprised at how long it was. They had every sports league walking from the 5yr year olds to the high school seniors. Really neat to see so many kids involved in sports.

Than we walked over to the high school to watch the football game. We played the school that Dar-Relle plays for so we had to yell for our home school and clap quietly for Dar-Relle's school.

Today was Darrius's football game. The last one and since they won they will go into the play-offs. That isn't for two weeks so we won't see that. 

Next week we have to get busy and get things taken care of on the house for the winter. Now that we've set the date I'm getting anxious to get down there. Besides these 30-40 nightly temperatures just aren't our thing. 

Guess that's it for this week. Till next time.

The Wedding

Don't you just hate changes. I got on our blog today and it was different. I knew it was going to change , they were warning me but I was hoping I would fall through the cracks and it would stay the same.

This week has been so uneventful with not having to think about graduation - open house - shower - wedding events.  Don't get me wrong, I loved being involved in everything and even tho there was a few stressful times (why wouldn't there be) it was fun and Brandi and I had a lot of laughs.

Brandi got the flash card with the wedding pictures but I probably won't get a copy for a few days. But I took some off of Brandi's FB and down loaded them to our webshots if you want to take a look.  Of course I have to share a few here.

And Two families become One

Dad was pretty happy too

 Anissa and I were able to catch a few minutes alone

OK, so the rest you can go to webshot and later when I have more I'll upload them there. 

I mention there was a few stressful moments that would eventually become funny stories. Lets start a few days before the wedding. 

We decided to order the tuxes from this new bridal store here in our little town. I'd stopped in there several times to look for a dress for myself and the girls and was impressed with the owners. A young couple who grew up in GL with a small baby following a dream they both shared. So even tho we weren't able to find dresses we did order the five tuxes needed. Now this place just opened this summer and I'm not sure if we weren't the first time tux renters. I was a little concern with the sizes we would need for our future grandson  Dar-Relle.  I mean there's not a big market for size 16 shoes. Tuxes in on Wednesday but because of football practice for both boys they couldn't try them on until that night. Well boys were good but dads was a little too tight, like he could move but not to fast or it might rip the shoulder seams. Quick call to Emily that next morning and luckily she had a size larger Friday by noon. Stress #1 over 

 

Brandi wanted a popcorn table instead of a candy table. Great idea for a after dinner snack during the dancing and as it turned out the group watching the football game.

Here's the center piece of the popcorn table. There were six other flavors to choose from.

This is the Fruit Salad Flavor and the biggest hit

We ordered the popcorn from this place called Pop Corn Wagon in Frankenmuth Mi and it arrived the Wednesday before the wedding. The minute I opened the box I knew there wasn't enough. Panic call to the company to double the order and was told would be shipped the following day as UPS had already left, but it would arrive that Friday. Hmm, the young man promised me it would be here and since I couldn't do anything else (other than the threat of a mother of the bride jinx on him) I hoped he was right. About a hour later I got a email from the company saying they had processed my order, taken it to the UPS store and it would be at our place before noon the next day. Wow, talk about service. A huge thank you email was returned to them. (will always wonder if the mother of bride jinx wasn't taken seriously). Stress #2 over

For two weeks before the wedding I tried to convince the kids they really shouldn't let Darrius go to his football game the morning of the wedding. I kept telling them he would break a bone and they would be having their ceremony in the local ER while their guests watch it on Skype. But Darrell assured me they are old hands at this and if this happened Darrius would be all fixed up by noon. Ya right. So no there wasn't any broken bones with Darrius but Dar-Relle had a game Friday night and he walked in the house on crutches with a sprained ankle.Stress #3 over - even tho it wasn't the one we figured. (oh and Dar-Relle is doing good, more of a precaution)

Wedding Day: For most of the week before the big day it was calling for cloudy - rain - cool temps. But the day turned out picture perfect for our kids. Stress #4 over

Noon: While Larry and Brian went and got the liquor for the reception Renee' and I finished up on some last minute table decorations. Luckily Renee' went in to check the flowers that we picked up the night before and put in the refridg. Too our horror ALL of the wedding parties flowers were totally wilted and looked like they were two weeks old. Did I mention that this was the day of Lansing's annual Bridal Show and this was the reason we had to pick up the flowers the night before. Our florist was working totally on that show. I called Amy at Delta Flowers and told her what had happened. Now this is 4hrs before the wedding but Amy and Delta came through and within a hour we had all new flowers. This one was beyond a stressful and more of a full fledged Panic Attack #5 over

The "plan" (which we all know goes out the window on wedding days) was for all the family members to arrive a hour before the ceremony to do pictures. Hmm, ok 1-hour ahead - no groom/groomsmen, 45minutes -still no groom/groomsmen, 30-minutes, nope not yet, 15 minutes -  and they have arrived.  Talk about a real stressful hour #6 over.

Finally the wedding began and I was sure we were done with anymore stress events. The ceremony was beautiful with happy tears a flowing. Later I found out that not only did Brandi  have a death grip on Larry but he kept tripping over her dress and was afraid they'd both go down.  thankfully unknown stress #7 over

Nope we're not quite done yet but getting close.

Shortly after dinner Brandi motioned for Renee' and I. She has this problem that when she's cold she breaks out with something almost like hives. Well the air conditioner must have been stuck on high cause it was cold in there and she was starting to break out with a red itchy rash. Not good. So Renee' made a emergency run to the local drug store for some antihistamine. Since Renee' lives in Cleveland and had no idea where this might be in the store she said she went straight to the counter and announce something to the effect "Quick- Bride - Breaking out - Hives -need antihistamine. She was very impressed with the speed the employee had on getting her in and out of there. Stress #8 over

The last and final one wasn't really a stress or panic event. More of a funny one but unfortunately our poor Darrius was the bunt of it. Seems he was standing watching the MSU game with the men and when he turned around his cousin jumped in front of him. The full glass of lemonade Darrius had ended up hitting him right in the face. Of course it didn't help that all the men bust out laughing when this happened.   When he came up to me he was dripping lemonade down the front of him. Poor guy, afraid this was about all he could handle for one night. First he not only had to put on this monkey suit but he had to stay clean, than he had to walk grandma down the isle to her chair, which wouldn't have been so bad but he had to walk all the way back by himself, so he could walk back down again with his sister. Than all these people kept telling him to "smile" for the pictures. Even tho he was thrilled that his mom and dad were getting married this was not what any 8 year old enjoys.   Someday even tho he still won't believe me he will laugh about his lemonade bath.  

That's it for the wedding story. The rest of the evening was uneventful, fun and exhausting.  We got to spend a very special time with family and friends plus a chance to meet several of Darrell's family who live out of State. The last song (loud) was played and the dancers did their best to wear out the wood floor and now it was time to clean up. But with the help of Darrell's family this was done in short order.

There was one kind of neat thing that happened that night. Brandi and Darrell had a anniversary dance where as the DJ would call out the number of years married the couple would sit down. Well we were down to four couples and three out of the four were us with our siblings Larry/Stint and Bob/Diane (who won).

The following three days we did "nothing". Both of us felt totally exhausted. But it was a good feeling and with that I'll say    Till next time.......................

A Wedding Success

The day took a long time to come but than it came so fast. Too all eyes it was a total success with only a couple of panic attacks that now that it's the next day we can laugh at. Some time this week I will re-post another blog with more details -

Brandi's aunt Elaine posted a few pictures on FaceBook that I'll share today with more to come later.

Daughter Brandi and our new son in law Darrell

Dar-Relle (our new 16yr old grandson) and Anissa

Here's new gr-daughter Aaliyah and Anissa

Doesn't this picture of Darrius say it all about mom/dads wedding

But even a wedding can't keep those MSU fans from watching the game. Just takes a little extra thought to make it happen.

That's it for now. Once I get some pictures I'll put a link on our Webshots. But as for now, we both are going to do what the kids say and Chill Out today.

Till next time...........................

A Quiet Week

So this will be a pretty short blog this week. We didn't do much other than wedding things.

We were going to go down to daughter Renee's this morning to take Pepper to a end of the year swim party. A local pool park lets Love a Stray (where we got Pepper from) have the pool the Sat. after Labor day when they close it up for the season. We thought it would be fun to take her down there and play with other dogs in the water. But the weather forecast called for cloudy, rainy, high in the 60's and 15-25 mph winds. Did I mention this is by Lake Erie in Ohio. Nope, not our kind of weather and since Renee' had to work a booth there and Brian (SIL) wasn't going to be around all day we backed out. But as it turned out the weather (although still only in the 60's) turned out pretty good. Should of known.

We're in for a some cool nights this week and days will feel like fall around here. I noticed the other night on Pepper's and my walk that the trees are starting get that tint before they turn color.

Our niece Dawn called this afternoon and invited us over to their place to watch the MSU game and have some dinner with the family. So we went over and spent some time with them, had a good dinner and watched the game. Actually I didn't watch much of it but it was fun.

So that's it for this week. Till next time...............(after the wedding)``

Flowers - grandson - barns

Finally the construction is almost completed and they opened the main street going into town, which I have mentioned is a half a block from us. Now maybe I can get the windows washed and some of this grind off. Dust and dirt have been bad all summer and of course we've had to have all the windows up.

I took a couple of pictures of the front/side of the house showing my flowers. They are starting to die out a little so thought I'd better get some quick.


The weeks are just flying by and only two left before the wedding. Things are going good except for one panic attack by me the other day. I went to laundry mat and took my note book of all the wedding stuff to go over some things. Well the next day I went to get it and couldn't find it anyplace. Luckily someone there took it into the Quality Dairy (attached & own both) and they had it in the drawer. Talk about heart failure. Even tho Brandi has her's, mine has a mothers to do list, not to mention who's been paid and amounts still owed. Will not be taking that outside the house again.

Darrius stayed over night last night. I don't no where all the energy comes from but between him and Pepper I was ready for bed early. Pepper gets so excited when Darrius comes over and they are just about inseparable the whole time. This morning they were curled up together, both sound asleep, so I have a feeling it was a late night of watching TV together. At least after Darrius left this afternoon there was one tired puppy and peace and quiet around here (for about a hour).

I need to start finding a route back to Texas by way of heading north. The plan is to go thru the Upper Peninsula along Route 2 and down to Door County to see our good friends Gary and Marilynn who have a lot next to us in Texas. Can't wait to see them. Than we will head to Brooklyn Iowa to stop and see Larry and LaVila. They too have a lot down in Texas in another park but we first met them out in the desert in Quartzite AZ. Another couple we can't wait to see. After that, it's up in the air. It's a little different traveling with a pet and having to find a motel that allows them. Plus some charge a fee and could be as much as $25 a night. I have a couple of web sites that will help us find them on our route.

Still no takers on the sale of the Kenworth. We found a website for horse owners so we listed the ad on there. Have had several calls but they all seem to be over a thousand miles away. Last time I looked we had over ten thousand hits on the web shot photo's. Larry said he is about ready to "raise" the price. It seems when ever his father couldn't get something to sell he would start raising the price and it always sold.

I shared a picture a few weeks ago of the roof being painted at the old farmstead that I grew up on and that my twin now owns. He had a hard time trying to decide what to do with these barns as they haven't been used for livestock since Larry and I lived out there in the 70's and had cattle and pigs. He thought about having them torn down but than decided the history of these barns and the fact there are so few of these left he hated to do that. So he found some Amish gentlemen and are having all of them resided. This picture shows you one almost completed and the other to be done yet.
I would of hated to see these buildings go down. Not only did I and my siblings spend time wandering these barns but so did our kids and grand kids. Its fun to read on FB our kids and their cousins talking about the memories they have.

So guess that's it for this week. Till next week.......................