Quick Run Down of Our Lives Since September Tenth

My new header picture

Stephie Jean Manley's Honey Comb at the 2010 Puyallup Fair

was taken on the first day of the Fair.  With lots to do for Anna’s wedding and only eight days, well seven really, to do it in, the girls and I went off to the Fair for a whole day.  The shot is of my oldest daughter, Stephanie Manley’s prize winning honeycomb.  (I figured it was fair game since I grew my daughter on Vicktory Farm & Gardens and she grew the honeycomb.  Just don’t know how macro it would have been for the header challenge that I missed this week, oh well.  And I won’t be around next week with a new header for the challenge either.)

It was my intention, as much as possible, to spend some special time with my baby girl before she got all growed up in one day and went off to be a wife to a wonderful fella.  So off to free-day at the Puyallup.  We picked up a little camera on the way to the Fair as mine didn’t make it to the car and I knew I had a header challenge pic to take.  I gave it to Anna as a belated birthday gift.

We clicked a few pics made sure we had some candidates for the Macro Header Challenge, watched the giant pumpkin weigh in, patted cattle rumps, ate a fair burger, wore our feet to the bone and then headed home.

Then on Saturday, the eleventh, Justin came to visit for the weekend, mostly to have a little pre-wedding brother time with my other two sons, Eric Manley and Mike Stone.  I think they were helping him to prepare to be related to some of the strangest people he will ever know!  They know full well the adjustment normal folk have to make!

And then wedding week began.  Anne Bowerman, Anna’s little sister from a different mother (and father), hosted a little ladies luncheon for Anna, Anna’s new mom and her sisters.  It was lovely right down to the little swans that held our mints.  Sorry no pics.

Lots of shopping nearly each day.  Yep, each day.  Nah, I think I parked the car on Thursday afternoon and pronounced myself done.  And hopefully I will not be driving the twenty plus minutes to town any time soon.  Especially to shop.  Especially to shop for shoes and girly stuff.

Anna’s new Mom and Dad came down for the whole week and stayed across the highway at our dear friends’ guest house.  It was great to have them here to drag shopping and to help Dirt put up the two twenty by thirty awnings in the back yard.

Friends came and went and cleaned like crazy, chasing the cob webs that were being ignored for the last month.

Then came Friday, the day before the big day and when the worker bees really came out of the wood work, speaking of bees did I mention that I got three stings in one day last Sunday and Monday.  The two I got on Sunday were from cleaning out the barn/garage area.  Then on Monday morning I sat on one in the dining room.  Did I mention we live in a very old farmhouse that the wildlife find easily accessible?   Any way back to this last Friday, Dirt and I have some awesome hard working friends and a few of them showed up to do as much “day before” set up and cooking as possible. 

EBet was an amazing sister, baking something like ten loaves of beautiful bread amoung other things.  Oh, did I mention the bride got terribly ill this last week?  Not that she was actually working to begin with, mostly working on being homesick before she even left. 

Rain cause the guys to spend approximately fourteen hours working on a gutter system where the two awnings systems came together.  I hope someone got pictures of it so you can see it in all its splendor! 

Saturday morning came with nearly clear skies and more work and more workers giving their all to make Justin and Anna’s wedding day phenomenal.  The rain held off until the middle of the ceremony, but we had a bucket of forty some umbrellas for the eighty guests, it was just too wonderful as Pop, Lucas and Ellie passed them out and we stood ’round the couple and heard their declarations to spend the rest of their lives as one flesh living for God.

The wedding was beautiful, in spite of the rainy weather.  I hear there were tears all around. It was tender and sweet and truly an innocent day.   I, of course didn’t take any photos, so I can only share one tonight.  When I get home from our five days at the fair with our Farm’s turkey display I will most likely be able to post some more photos of the wedding, but for tonight I will leave you with one shot of the young couple with a promise of more and more details about the day they became one flesh.

Anna and Justin Coulter September Eighteenth, Twenty-ten