Just a few more memories

The first picture is my Mom and Midge working magic. The second is the result. Pretty huh? Next we have all the food crammed in the dining room and the next are a few guests in the livingroom. Then Sunday Phil and Amanda came over and opened gifts. They received many wonderful things and all in all it was a good time! Now it's time for a rest...

Wedding reception washout

The arch greeted the guests....after the tornado, Jackie and Jerry Parsons sit and ponder the aftermath.

Ok, so I'm an optimist...I had a vision of a beautiful outdoor wedding reception in a luau theme for Phil and Amanda. I actually had a beautiful outdoor reception. All decorated, food all done to perfection, guests arriving on time at 5:00pm....Tornado siren goes off at 5:30. Wait! That was not part of the plan! Some people got to see all the weeks of hard work and planning until we threw them all inside and tied down all the deck tent coverings. We had food put on the tables inside, atleast 80 people throughout the house. Prayers were said, food was served, people chowed down, music played, laughter was heard, everyone pitched to help and I had many looks of pity, or maybe it was the look of "I'm so glad this is you and not me". Time to cut the cake. The cake had to be moved to another table...NO it didn't fall over. The table we wanted the cake on had a HUGE cooler of lemonade on it. Some sweet young men picked up the cooler to put it on the deck outside....Yes, it dropped to the floor and lemonade was everywhere. My only thought was,"I thought it couldn't get worse, but it actually did!" The poor kid was horrified. The poor lady standing next to it actually had the lemonade splash up under her dress! I wondered why everyone was calling her "sticky legs" all night. The floor was cleaned up and the cake was cut and it was delicious. We all had fun but I was glad when the last dish was washed and my house looked more normal. I couldn't have done this without my wonderful family. Thanks Mom, Midge, Greg, Deidra and a big thanks to Stephanie and Donna Starkey. You guys ROCK! I have a plaque that reads "Through the storms of life, you never walk alone" So true, so true.

Dark shadows!

Just for a giggle, here is the only movie I took at the ghost hunt. Kind of dark but that's how it looked all night!

Friday the 13th...BOOOO!!

Yes, marriage is a life sentence..
Jack found a good place to sit and ponder the nights fun! Shocking!

Do you like ghost stories? Ones with thunder, lightning, rain, spooky castle looking haunted buildings? Well, so do I. I dragged poor Jack with me for a ghost hunt at the historical old Mansfield Reformatory. It's an amazing building that has been used for movies, the most famous being the Shawshank Redemption and also Airforce One. It was very interesting, very dirty, very spooky in some areas and very warm! (poor Jack, you all know how he loves hot weather). Mix in moldy, humid, damp, lots of peeling paint...well you get the picture. I actually did get some pics that I'll share. We went with a group of equally funny and weird people I work with and it was fun. We started at 8pm and left around midnight. It actually goes until 6am but I have too much to do on Saturday to be up all night and sleepless in Ashland! Some strange things that happened were the batteries (new ones) in my camera died. The camera started acting up as I was taking outside pics and then completely died near a prison cell that suppose to have alot of paranormal activity. The lights are all turned off and you need a flashlight for the hunting part. Of course those brand new batteries also failed! Thankfully my friend had an extra flashlight so I wasn't completely in the dark. (although many people would argue that point!) This is meant for Chris Howell. NO Quegie(sp?) boards, seances, (or sex) was aloud in the building. So don't worry, we didn't invite any weird spirits or anything! Except for the batteries nothing unusual happened. ..Unless you count our car making strange noises in the parking lot. We investigated and found out we had a huge screw lodged in the front tire (a brand new one of course) and we had a slow leak that was hissing. Hmmmm....paranormal???? No, just my bad luck! Ghost hunting is on my list of 1000 things to do before I die so I can cross that one off! Although after I die I might just come back and haunt something. I'll pick someplace cleaner, cooler and not so many stairs to climb! Gift shop included! Boooooo!!!!!!!

Lake Lure was beautiful and we had a nice tour. You can't hear the tour guide so it's sort of like a silent movie! Sorry! Oh, and after watching Katie jump in the pool, it looked like she was drowning, but really she was swimming fine!

Katie is such a little swimmer! I had fun watching her jump in and swim around all evening! As hot as it gets in South Carolina in summer, she will use the pool alot!

Nice visit with Craig and Amy

We had a great few days with Craig, Amy, Katie and Taylor. Greenville is beautiful and the day at Lake Lure was awesome. We had a nice boat tour of the lake, then went and played a bit in the river in town. We had delicious BBQ at Bucky's. Hmmm...Amy your sweet potato crunch is missing?

Summer's birthday

Here's Summer blowing out her candles while sharing the moment with her cousin Dillon.
Nice icecream cake! Yummo
Let's hit the trail with Mike the horse doing all the work!
This is the perfect operating room nurse! Looks just like YaYa(in her dreams anyway!)

I can't believe our little Summer is really 10. Double digits! Here are some pix from Sunday at Kay and Jerry's (Summer's other grandparents home). We had a great time. The weather was wonderful and a carriage ride was fun up the country roads.

Father/son campout

A beautiful Friday night for the annual Aaronic Priesthood campout. Young and Younger Jack took Anthony and had a great time. It was Anthony's first fishing experience and he was happy to catch a whopper! The air was a bit cool ( for Jack to admit this, it must have been freezing) at night but no one froze and a great dinner and outdoor breakfast was had by all.


Beautifu campsight guys! Please don't tell me my grandson was on that teeny boat in the middle of the lake.

new camera!

My sweet boys gave me a new camera for Mother's Day. Thanks guys, I really like it. I'm just playing around with it and I'm going to try video soon. I really don't have alot of fun stuff so I put some pics from work and one of Jack (my willing photo subject) When we visit Craig and Amy in 2 weeks, I'm sure I'll have more. Maybe by then I'll be a whiz with this camera. Thanks again!I guess I should explain the pics....Jack in his fav rocker in the kitchen, Donna Starkey by her fav piece of eye equipment, my fav new work klogs in raspberry swirl, and me and Doctor Gupta. No he's not my fav Doc but he was willing to pose!

Just some pics to enjoy

If you've been reading the blog you know that Phil was married in April. This is Alexis, his stepdaughter.. She will be two tomorrow and she's adorable. We are very blessed to have her in the family. She is very smart and almost potty trained! She's enjoying her new room in their new apartment above Jack's office. Phil has worked really hard to fix it up and it's looking super. We love that place. We lived up there for 4 years before we bought our first house. Many good memories. We wish him as much fun as we had!

I probably should quit posting flower pics, but I can't believe how beautiful this spring has been. The lilacs are awesome this year, as well as the dogwood trees and my snowball bush is about to burst open with the wonderful white puffs! Soon I will plant my annuals and my veggie garden. Hopefully they will do as well this summer!

Here's our little Summer, she needs the glasses because she just radiates sunshine. It's hard to find her without a smile!

Here's my fav pic of the wedding day. My sister trying to keep up with Mom...you remember, the Mom who just suffered a broken nose, shoulder, and pelvis and was recently released from the hospital??? Zoooommmm!

Here is another pic of the bride and groom and her girls...very cute

Some people were interested in the wedding cake. It was very good tasting, but it did have a bit of a "lean" to it. It had a raspberry chocolate layer, a carrot cake layer, a yellow cake layer. Well, those are the ones I tasted anyway!

Chicago wedding happenings!

The wedding of Laura and Bill went off beautifully. Midge did a great job. She made all the food, decorations, church decorations, rehersal dinner table decorations(I made food for the rehersal.) flower girl dresses, all the flowers for everyone...If she had a pilots license she would probably have flown everyone there too! Grandma came home Thursday..she went from sick Grandma in hospital bed to hottie Grandma at wedding! She's loving being home and is recovering great. She got up and made breakfast Sunday morning for everyone! So here are a few pics of the day. I'm not the best photographer. Congrats Bill and Laura! The first pic of the long table is the rehersal dinner at Grandmas, the other is from the reception. The bridesmaids waving are Katie and Amy and there is the Gord in his second tux of the wedding season. All the brothers made it except Phil and of course Dad and the guys. All the women in the one pic are Midge, Mom , Me and my sister-in-laws.