Wyoming Vacation Photos... and stuff

Thought I'd pop into blog land here quick-like and update. I am waiting for my washer to do it's last load, so I can switch it to the dryer, and then it's bed. I say that now, but I'm going to find forty other things to do so it probably won't be bed for a while.  I'm running on moving adrenaline right now, so I should probably apologize in advance for any strangeness in this post. 

I should, but I don't. Moving adrenaline affects me very weirdly.

The moving truck is showing up tomorrow morning, so I've been living in the land of random to-do lists. Granted, it's not anywhere near as bad as it has been in the past when we were selling a house and moving. I can't even say how much of a relief it is to be moving from a rental instead of a "ownal". Hardy har har.

And, thank the Lord for that, because seriously. I've got a four month old who WILL NOT sleep through the night. I can't even begin to list the crazy-stupid things I've done in the past few months. 

But, that's all right. This too shall pass, as long as I can outlast her we'll be good. 

I'll sleep when I'm dead.

She sure is cute. Good thing, too.

So, this is a post of the first part of our super long vacation that we took right in the middle of this moving frenzy. Thankfully Garrett was able to join us for it, because we really miss him.

The vacation started with a wedding. This is one of two pictures that I took, because I was coordinating that wedding, so I didn't have time to take pictures.   

It was a beautiful, lovely wedding. My mother deserves special thanks from me for handling Daria through the whole thing so I could coordinate it.

 I coordinating almost the whole thing commando. True story, we had a bridesmaid underwear situation and they needed my slip. But then my underwear showed so I had to take them off. Haha. Is that TMI?! Sorry, don't care. It's funny, is what it is. That's the stuff memories are made of folks, and since I got me no pictures, well, at least I have a good story. 

It was a great time, with people we love. At one point we were all laughing hysterically and Keira walked in the room and said disdainfully, "Clearly there hasn't been any growing up done around here."  Clearly.

We've reached the point where I'm embarrassing her constantly. I find this equal parts delightful and terrifying. 

And, after the wedding we headed to my brother's house in Wyoming with almost all of my family. Except a few peeps who had to head home from the wedding right away. Which was sad, because there isn't going to be a Famuary Famiganza this coming January. Because we will be having a baby. I use the word "we" loosely here, as I won't be having the baby. I just did that. Someone else in my family will. So you know, "we" will be having a baby, so no Famiganza for us. But we get a baby, so it's a very good thing.

The good news is I took my wonderful camera of blessedness out of it's Pelican Case, and used it! So not all pictures on this post are from my iPhone.

Shock and Awe, groovy people, Shock and Awe. 

Every time we go to Wyoming I wonder how I'm going to leave. Someday I might not. I felt particularly much that way on this trip because of the whole not-being-outside-very-much thing, what with a newborn and all. 

Miss this guy... less than a week now, YAY!

We all had so much fun together. We always do.

So happy to be using my camera. 

These photos are from a hike we took one day... more like a glorified stroll, really. But that's all right. It was beautiful, and we had fun.

At one point the bridge on the trail was out, so we did what any reasonable family would do, and rock hopped over to the other side. On the way back Garrett and I got impatient and just plowed through the water to the other side. Then we went out to dinner with very wet feet. That wasn't weird at all. Actually it wasn't. We had good socks and boots on, so our feet were warm and cozy. And slightly squishy.

We (by which I mean "they" as I was wearing Daria) did some rock climbing types of maneuvers. 

It was SO SO SO beautiful. 

A "camp" fire with loved ones is the VERY BEST kind of therapy. If folks ever figure that out, there's going to be a lot of unemployed therapists out there. 

Stay tuned. But don't hold your breath, because it might be a while.

Also, folks should read the word "we" very carefully all the way through this post. I'm not sure that I used it correctly once. We wouldn't want to get confused about who is doing what now, would we?!

E&T's Wedding Day

This past weekend we had the pleasure of helping some good friends of ours on their wedding day... most of my readers know this couple... I didn't actually get a pic of them on my camera, so this is their engagement picture from their invitation, which the bride designed herself, and they were SO beautiful... Frank smoked the Texas style brisket for them, and since he was working I lent a hand in the kitchen getting the meal put together with some other family friends... it was really fun. We worked hard, but I think we'd all agree that most of all we had a really great time. Since I was in the kitchen for most of the event, I never actually got people pictures. And, that's a little painful for a blogger, haha! But, I think we all were pretty pleased at how great the meal turned out.


The dessert table was a collection of desserts made by family and friends...

The food tables... the meal theme was Pacific NW meets Texas, since that is where the groom is from, so it was grilled salmon and brisket, with lovely summer salads.

My cupcakes... lemon cake with lemon avocado frosting. When E asked me to make a dessert for her wedding, in our discussion about different kinds of cakes, I ended up telling her about this recipe. As we are both foodies, she thought it sounded about as cool as I did, so she gave me permission to do it at her wedding. Believe it or not, it works pretty well. I know people are hesitant to try new (possibly weird) things, but I think most of us are happy when we do. Whether you like it or not, it's always good to try new things, wouldn't you agree? Of course, I'll try anything once, and rarely eat things that I don't like, haha!

The fruit trays... with lavender from my garden...

One of the amazing salads... Orzo salad... and mango salsa and lemons for the salmon. And, one of the shining details from the wedding was the handmade paper flowers. Normally I am a "very strict about flowers" girl--flowers must be real to be acceptable in weddings--I can't help it, I love flowers. But, these were AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL! Wow. And, so fitting since the bride is a graphic designer, and she definitely does awesome work with all things paper!

More examples of her amazing designs. I happen to know her and her mom worked very hard at these, and they were worth every moment, they were gorgeous. I'm not done yet... haha, you're in for a few more flower pics before I'm finished here.

See, I told you so. :-) Wow. Some of the paper was patterned too, which looked so neat, and really added depth to the floral designs.

The beverage table--cucumber water (so refreshing!) and iced tea.

In lovely apothecary beverage jars.

Flowers... :-)

I must say too, that the grounds were amazing. The wedding was held at family friend's house as well--R&R did amazing work on their grounds in preparation for the event, and it was spectacular. Their home is so lovely, and opening it to 200 people for a wedding was incredibly sweet of them.

The Salmon grilling area... The salmon was spectacular, and this Pacific NW girl knows her salmon. :-) It was great!

My guy's amazing brisket. He really knocked it out of the park with these. Five 15-ish pound briskets, smoked to perfection, starting at 4am, and coming off the smokers at 5pm. Then he sliced them all. I knew he could do it, and I was expecting it to be awesome, but I was still impressed when it was even more awesome than I expected it to be. That was some award winning brisket right there... we know that for a fact, because several Texans were at the wedding, and they said so themselves. While all the compliments he got were pretty cool, the one's from the BBQ'd Brisket capital of the world truly meant a lot. He also made our super secret family BBQ sauce recipe, which also got rave reviews... which is nice, because we happen to think it's pretty fabulous ourselves. :-)

Testing each brisket is an important part of quality control. :-) I can assure you that the kitchen staff made certain every brisket was of most excellent quality before it was served to the guests. :-)

And, since I realized I didn't get nearly as many pics as I wanted to of all the lovely details that made up months of work on E's part before her wedding, I assembled just a few things from start to finish on my kitchen counter this morning to take a pic of them... her lovely invitations--I can't even say how amazing these were... her re-labeled bottled water... I heard so many compliments on these. Not to encourage your insane attention to details there, E, but they were quite cute and I know it was a detail that was much enjoyed by your guests... :-) And, my lovely corsage. Cute! E&T's gift to us was a magazine about meat. Since we share an infatuation with all things meat/food/BBQ with E&T, this was a highly appropriate gift for us, and much appreciated. We love it!

Thanks for letting us help you out on your song-day! Praying for many blessings for you as you start your life together. We shall be saving our dinero for a trip to Texas to visit you, and do a Texas BBQ tour. :-)

And, I must also say, THANK YOU to my dad who drove all the way up from Portland to babysit my girls for one very long day so that Frank and I could do this on the wedding day. We appreciate it so much dad!!

The Adventurer and Auntie Ten get hitched, part II

Okey dokey, here we go on part two of the week of wedding, birthday, and family craziness...


Somehow we always end up on the floor... do other families do this too?! I would like to know.
I'm planning on getting as much mileage out of these dresses as possible, since I put hours into sewing them, and they realistically can't wear them again... they don't fit in car seats too well. So, I have now posted every decent picture I have of my girls in their dresses, please send more. (Not really!-grin!)

I dearly love how K (the ring bearer) appears to be dancing a jig in this picture...

Goofy pre-wedding girls!

M and Debris, being goofy at the rehearsal dinner...

The fam. Excuse my constipated face.

Awwww! Momma's heart melts.

So, Auntie G promised Kiki and Debris that she would ride home between them in Rovey if they did a good job in the wedding. They did, so she got the pleasure of squeezing between them all the way back to Grammy and Poppa's house--unfortunately for them, they did not really get to take full advantage of Auntie G being in the car with them, because they fell asleep about 5 minutes into the trip... and she held their heads all the way home.

Then, Saturday we had Frank's Sisters & Spouses come up for the day, so we celebrated Kiki's 5th birthday, which is actually this coming Saturday.

And, just a few family snapshots from the week... Cousins and Aunt on my dad's side...Thanks for this pic, Aunt J!! There may be a slight family resemblance... :-)

And, Sisters (Frank's side), thanks Momma G for this one. :-)

The Adventurer & Auntie Ten get hitched

Yesterday The Adventurer and Auntie Ten got married. And, in the spirit of Randomosity, I believe I will randomly share photos from the event and days prior... I dig random. So, here we go.

This is easily one of my favorite pictures so far of the wedding. Auntie A being all pretty, and the crazy guy we call our brother. Rehearsing...

Auntie Ten, and Kiki and Debris, on the day of the wedding...

Auntie Caca, and N, the best hairstylist EVAH! on the morning of the wedding. I also love this picture... they look so stressed out about the wedding, don't they? :-)

Rehearsing.

Debris very nearly missed the entire rehearsal, she had such a snuggly place to nap. :-)

The highly organized, calm, collected and happy bride. Probably keeping track of the lists and schedule in her head at this point. :-)

Boy, this is random. The wedding was at the Abernethy Center in Oregon City. The grounds were gorgeous, and the food was amazing!!

The night before the wedding we went to The Adventurer and Auntie Ten's new place and tried to fit as many of us as possible into one small corner.

The painting I did as a gift for Auntie Caca--my first ever. I'm calling it Ransom-Note Style.

Auntie Ten's gorgeous hair.

We did a girl's pedicure night on Monday... Kiki gave me a foot massage, it was wonderful, and very sweet.

A fun photo we did at the wedding...

My Kiki, posing... how is it that I have a (nearly!) 5 year old, I would like to know?!

The Line-up of Ladies...

A family picture.

The beautiful and excited bride!

The Sheriff and Auntie G... Um, didn't we just do this?! :-)

Copious amounts of Smarties make for well behaved flower girls.

Mr. and Mrs....

Debris entertained us all with faces during the ceremony...

Auntie Caca and her guys.

Stay tuned for more wedding pics... we have a bunch!