July 2005 Archives

For Mom. It's a great picture.

Now, don't get mad at me, Barbara. I wanted to show the bloggers our good family friend who is always there sharing life's precious moments with us. (Everyone, Barbara and Sue have been friends since grade school. Which grade?) I am so appreciative of your helping my sister and her family with the rehearsal dinner. You are a treasured friend. It was so nice to see you in Georgia. This picture of you and Samuel was the very first picture taken from my new camera.

On the right sidebar below the Movable Type button is something called a FlickR Badge. I like it and it will find a permanent and more prominent spot on the blog page as soon as I can figure out why its not working properly in all browsers. It seems to work like I want it to in Internet Explorer but Firefox is placing it at the bottom of the page. Not sure what AOL users are seeing. Anyway, I'm going to keep working on it and I just thought it was neat.

Update (5:59PM): I figured out a workaround and moved it up a bit. If anyone is having trouble with it, please let me know.

I just felt like adding a couple more pictures from the wedding. I'm also adding in a couple of pictures from our hike in the GA mountains/foothills. We hiked to two very pretty waterfalls. Samuel was a trooper hanging out in the Baby Bjorn. Joey and I took turns carrying him. Of course, he got to hold him on the hike up.

It was a beautiful ceremony and fun reception!

Samuel's first "Second Line".

Minnehaha Falls

Angela is still here and walking me through how to post pictures. When she leaves, she will take with her my picture posting abilities! Sorry, I have short term memory loss personified!!

Katie and Scott pulling pork from the roasted pig.

Stephen and Kellie as 2 year olds and as seniors in high school.

Some of the wedding party and Charlie, Rick's son, at the buffet table.

Joe, Polina, Scott and Brianne at the buffet table.

Sherri, Clay, Larry, Janis (Karen, Rick's wife, is partially visible) and Danni - Kellie's sisters, brother-in-law and parents.

Scott giving "the toast".

Alan, Stephen's best man, giving his toast.

The groom and his groomsmen: Andy, Wes, Chris, Stephen, Alan, Brandon, Michael

Kellie and Stephen's groomsmen!

My dear friends (to whom I am extremely indebted) who helped me with the rehearsal dinner. I could not have done it without them. Their friendship is priceless! Pictured from left to right Peggy, Barbara, Melanie, Sue, Nanci. Melanie's husband Robbie was a huge help, too, but he was taking all the pictures so is not in many! Also not pictured are Katie and Rick. Both were a tremendous help to whom we are so grateful.

I bought a new camera on the afternoon of the wedding. I will have to improve my aim. 50% of my pictures are of the backs of people's heads. Or, they have their eyes closed. Or the strap of the camera was in the way. I liked this one of Kellie and Stephen.

I cropped this one from a photo of a guy I don't know. I will put them all to disk and give them to Sue and Scott. I took 92 from the church, reception, and lake.

The guy in the middle is Brianne's boyfriend, Greg. He seemed very nice. David was an altar boy for the service, and Brianne did the readings. I think I had the same readings during my wedding. They don't give you much of a selection for readings, so I think I hear the same two at each wedding. I wonder if anyone ever picks the one about the barn animals. Hmmm.

When the priest told Kellie and Stephen there will be days that you will wake up and wish you weren't married, Elizabeth and Scott looked at each other and shook their heads "no."

This is what the rest of the weekend looked like; swimming and tubing. The water was warm, Scott C. drove the boat for hours as each took turns tubing. It was so relaxing, despite getting pecked by fish now and then, to just float in the water.

Red and Geraldine are the best hosts. The boys - Lars, David, Jimmy, Aaron, Jackson, Joe, and Charlie (Scott's nephew by his brother Rick)-had a blast being plugged into the games downstairs. There was also a pool table, which Scott's 7 year old niece was a pro at. She gave us all a run for our money.

The food was plentiful with all the leftovers from the wedding and rehearsal dinner. Plus, Joey brought up a bunch of redfish which he graciously grilled for us. That was delicious. We were all engorged. Thank you Claytons for a wonderful weekend.

We had dinner at Lou's the night before the rehearsal dinner. It is a Chinese restaurant that Stephen works at when they are short handed. The owners made Stephen and Kellie this beautiful display called "Happy Family".

This is Stephen's friend, Bob, whose parents own the Chinese restaurant. He is rolling up the Moo Shu Pork in the pancakes as a special favor to Stephen.

Sacred Heart Catholic Church, Milledgeville, Georgia

Kellie and Stephen rehearsing.

Stephen and Kellie at Golf Country, the rehearsal dinner site.

Stephen with his Ferrara relatives.

Scott, Kellie, Stephen, Sue

A very happy family!

The wedding was wonderful. Stephen and Kellie are a lovely couple to behold. I have a picture of Stephen walking Sue down the aisle to her seat, but I don't think she would appreciate my publishing it. They had rehearsed the night before with a groomsman taking Sue to her proper place before the bridesmaids entered. Right before the doors opened for the mother of the groom to come in, Stephen came from around the corner and took her arm. She barely stayed composed. Some of us felt free to let the tears roll. It was a very touching moment.

The highlight of the reception had to be when Scott(the Ed Harris look alike) jumped on the dance floor and cut a rug with Kellie. He did some moves that Sue swore she has never seen him do before and didn't know he was capable of; a jump-split. I have to tell Michael to move over with his jump-kick maneuver, Scott. That was awesome.

Kellie was so beautiful that night. At the rehearsel dinner, Sue and Scott produced a film with highlights of Stephen and Kellie through the years and then to their fateful meeting. It was so sweet. We watched it again at the lake house. Kellie was so adorable throughout. Of course, Stephen too.

It was such a fun event. I am so glad I got to go.

Today is the day before we leave our house at 6 a.m., bound for Milledgeville, Georgia, 9-1/2 hours away according to our Trip-Tik. I have a list of things to do and just this morning I added several items to it. When it's all over, I suppose about one-half of that list will have been forgotten or discarded.

The first thing I'll do is take the girls to their hotel. Liezel has been there before and didn't like it much. Gretel has never been, and she'll not like it either. They have each put on a pound or two of excess weight and since history has shown that they have no appetite when I'm not there to encourage them to eat their food, I'm thinking the excess weight will be gone by the time time I pick them up next Tuesday.

Michael will take of my canary, Noel. There's not much to do there, except make sure he is safe from marauding cats and dogs. This is a problem with being a pet owner, especially when practically my entire family is headed east with me.

Today is Jackson's 7th birthday. He had a bowling alley party on Saturday which was very nice, albeit very loud. There were about ten parties going at the same time and I think everyone had a good time. The scores weren't too bad, especially since there were bumpers on the gutters. No gutter balls. Everyone had a chance of knocking at least some of the pins down, and some of the kids, including Jackson, even had strikes and spares. Imagine that!

Got to run. It's 83 and I have to run. Things to do. Places to go. It's get-ready-to-roll time.

Where were you on this day in 1969?

I was at my friend's house down the street staying up past our bed times watching it on TV. It was history on Live TV. Awesome.

Christina,

Did you tell?

Fun, but very addictive.

Got yours yet? What amazing cultural events these books are turning out to be. Amazon promised to deliver it to us on the day it was released but we got an email the other day saying they may not be able to do so. It has a lot of other people upset. We have a few other things going on so it is not that important to us that we may miss the starting gun. (Update 2:45PM: It was in today's mail. Normal life may resume) I'm only about a third of the way through The Historian. Just haven't had time for reading. I suppose I could give up some computer time........maybe not.


I don't know what made me pick one of them up. Patsy had said I should read them but she's always saying that about one book or another. She's a much more avid reader than I am. I didn't become aware of the phenomenon until the fourth book. My sister-in-law had all of them so I borrowed them not knowing whether I was going to be able to read them. Patsy had already read them all. The first one was cute and the second one was OK. It's the third one, Prisoner of Azkaban, that got me. The next two were tedious but I suppose I have to finish them now.

Experimenting with this image plug-in thingy. It's a little more complicated than I thought it would be. I see other bloggers doing this stuff all of the time. I thought it must be easy. Maybe with some practice. I've already spent way too much time on this entry. Time, I suppose, I could have been reading. Now, it's time to go get a haircut.

What do you call cheese that isn't yours?

I had my three month cancer check up and I am HAPPY to report that so far so good! I have to go back and get checked out again in three months. I will keep you posted on my progress. Thanks for keeping me in your prayers!

After living for a week in a topsy-turvy house, I am back in business. I have a new floor in my kitchen and office that is truly beautiful. It was put in place yesterday and looks like an old-fashioned oak-plank floor, and yet, it is really a Linoleum, Congoleum, Solarian -- what what what -- sheet of stuff that looks fabulous. It would take a USDA forester to determine it wasn't a real oak-plank floor. (It has a name but I can't think of it and can't find the papers, unfortunately.)

The bad news is that when the men asked where the shut-off valve for the ice-maker was, I said I didn't know. I said I thought it was in the attic so they went in the attic. Time passed and the job was done. I asked if they had found the valve and they said no, they didn't need to. I asked if the ice-maker worked and they said yes. They left after having me sign a release that the job was done in an excellent fashion.

Last night, while moving the furniture back in place, Joey noticed there was water by the refrigerator. He looked inside the works and said he thought they might have popped a line. The towel I placed to catch any drips was saturated this morning, so now I'm waiting for the store to open so I can discuss it with the sales person.

Both Angela and Christina (Tasmanian Devils in dealing with stores that don't do right) wanted to make the call but I said no, I could handle it. And when the lady tells me it's my fault for having an old refrigerator, I'll ask her how much I owe her and will she take a check???

So wish me luck today.

Patsy has posted some wonderful old pictures of her family on The Laurendine Blog. My favorite is this one. That's Mom, Dad, Jerry, Bobette, and Patsy. Patsy is the youngest one in the middle. Patsy lost her parents when she was five. This picture had to be taken not too long before that.

Everyone have hurricane plans in order for the weekend? Where are you going, what are you doing, etc, etc..............

We’re back from Destin, FL where we had a fabulous time at the beach. Our condo was very spacious and in a good location. Jackson and Jacob both loved playing in the surf. We were very aware the whole time we were playing that sharks were lurking somewhere in the water, but the draw of the waves was too much. It’s so much fun body surfing and using boogie boards to catch waves! There was some excitement one morning when my sister went out on the beach. Right when she got there the lifeguard and others were running up and down the beach yelling at people that there had been a shark sighted and to get out of the water. But then shortly after that someone came around saying that it had been a manatee. That little scare didn’t keep us out of the water. We had great weather the whole time. Samuel was a good boy for most of the trip. He doesn’t do very well in the car. He will sleep for about 30 minutes at a time and then cry for the rest of the time. Needless to say, we stopped often and I nursed often. He put his toes in the Gulf for about a minute. He loved sitting on the beach in the late afternoon with the wind blowing on him. He would talk and squeal every time. Joey’s mom and dad and brothers were also there in another condo so I had a full-time nanny at my disposal. Samuel is the first grandchild on Joey’s side and his mother can’t get enough of him. She spent some time up in the condo with him, which was nice because I didn’t relish the idea of having him down in the sun and sand for too long. We bought a little tent for Samuel to stay under that worked out great.

We'll forgo the 229 candles today for fear of setting off our smoke alarm.