A family (and friends) affair!

The reception was held at a picnic site just outside of the park.  It was all dressed up with paper lanterns, hanging flower baskets, candles in colored jars and towers of cupcakes.

(photo courtesy of StO - Thank you!)

Just to point out all the DIY (that I know of!)....

Groom - ingenious hanging of paper lanterns with lights that came on in the dark....
Bride - gorgeous hanging plant center piece, as well as plants and flowers scattered around
Father of the Bride - sturdy, huge, cupcake towers
Mother of the Bride - hundreds of napkins and table runners for all of the tables
??? - painted jars, filled with sand and candles
Aunt and sisters of the Bride - cupcakes
Many hands - cupcake wrappers
StO of the Bride - coconut cake for cutting
Many many hands - clean and set up of site

I'm pretty sure that someone on the groom's side of the family designed the invitations and did much more that I just don't know about....

Congratulations and Best Wishes!!!

Teary-eyed and tired...

We're back.  And they are married.  We had a great time visiting with everyone.  I even managed to beat Dad in a game of Cribbage the first evening we were there, but it was a very close call and really came down to the last two hands. 

Thanks to my sister and aunt, all the cupcakes were done and frosted and looked and tasted fabulous.  I did help (baked three batches of the S'mores and frosted two more), but it seemed short to me.  Since I wasn't in charge of the camera this trip (too much else to do in too short a time), I don't have any pictures of the reception and the mountains of cupcakes to share with you.

What I do have, are the pictures of the Canyon that Mark took on his excursion with the boys.

That white tip is where the bride & groom hiked to on their first date...

(photo snapped right as they were pronounced "man & wife")

And this was the wedding ceremony site

 

Me & Mark, all dressed up

Ohio, Part Two

Let's see, where was I?  Ah, yes, Sunday.

Sunday we had a quiet breakfast under the honeysuckle vines and then headed to the Wegerzyn Gardens MetroPark to view an recent installation.  It's a nest of sorts, of woven willow branches, called "A Wiggle in Its Walk".  It's big enough to walk through, filled with windows and doors that frame the views.  The Wegerzyn Gardens is free to the public (sweet!) and not only has a formal garden, but there is also a wetlands, a children's garden, and a vegetable garden.  If this garden were in Dallas or in the Bay Area, I'm sure that it would be mobbed on a Sunday afternoon.  As it was, I think we encountered three or four family groups?  At least, until the Playhouse let out - they were putting on The Producers.

 
 

The Irises and Peonies were just starting to show bloom, but the hostas were out in full force.  There are more pictures at my Photo Blog.  After dinner and a thunderstorm (I miss those - occasionally!) at my Brother's house, we headed back to the folks' place for the night.

Monday found us shopping for most of the mid-day.  Gotta find some wedding finery for Mom too, doncha know?  I believe, fingers crossed, that we found a couple of outfits that Mom will be happy to wear to the event.  That night I met up with one of my nephews and his wife for dinner at a local steak joint.  We managed to stay and close the place down.  About mid-meal, we noticed the lights flickering, but didn't think much of it.  Found out later, there was a tornado in the area and most of the locality was without power. 


Tuesday was crafty day - Mom finished her sock, and we spent some time making jewelry.  I got to use memory wire for the first time and made some bangles, as well as some earrings and some stitch markers for yarn play.

I flew home on Wednesday, again through Las Vegas.  There were huge thunderstorms in the Chicago area, so the airport in Las Vegas was full of stranded travelers.  Normally, the flight from Ohio to Las Vegas wouldn't necessarily fly over the Grand Canyon (shout out!), but to avoid the thunderheads, we headed directly south and then across the panhandle of Texas and south of the Grand Canyon.  Of course, I was sitting on the wrong side of the plane to get a picture of that, but I did get a good view of the Hoover Dam and the new bridge they've built to go beside it.

Whales and Tales

StO came with her family last week for a visit over spring break.  A good time was had by all.  The adults went to Napa one day, we took the boy-o's to San Francisco for a look-see, and spent the sole sunny morning on the water on a whale watching tour. 

The kids spent a couple days playing x-box and had a blast sliding or rolling down the hill.

StO and I made some straight-from-the-box French Vanilla cupcakes and attempted to make the White Truffle Frosting to go with them.  Fail.  Either my white chocolate wasn't melted enough or it cooled too quickly and we ended up with some unforeseen chunkiness in the frosting that clogged up the piping tip several times.  It was tasty though.  Backup plan - frosting in a can.  Since StO has taken the Wilton class at her local Michael's, we spent more time playing with the piping tips than worrying about the flavor profile.  We decided that a large tip and a simple swirl were working the best.   No evidence (they looked bad - mostly!), but Mark said they were long gone from work by lunch time.  He also said that I was getting a reputation for fancy cupcakes.  Yikes.  So a second version is in my plans - a white cupcake with white chocolate shrapnel (a la "S'mores") topped with a White Chocolate Buttercream and if I can get it working right, some chocolate curls. 

The deck is seeing progress, although it seems a bit stalled right now.  We've gotten quite a bit of rain the past week and a half, and it's not supposed to let up until Monday.  But that's okay ~ Ralph is working on the hand rails at his shop, and they even cleaned out the gutters for us yesterday.  I think they were protecting all their hard work, but extra cupcakes for them next time.  Look - I have the frame for a pergola!

This morning, we woke up to a small surprise.  One of the trees up the hillside from the house decided to go on walk-about.  It's a pin oak that was planted in what is, at least now, some very soft ground.  It was  root ball failure, not Sudden Oak, which is an issue around here.  It obviously grazed the house - made it to the front door and torqued some gutters - but I don't think it did any real damage.  Looks like we have firewood for next year and Ralph has some more work!

Things

Thing the first:  Mark & I spent a wonderful weekend in Las Vegas last weekend, celebrating our 24th anniversary.  We had a great dinner, saw a rib tickling comedian, and played some pretty awesome cards.  There's more, but it's a bit TMI, so I'm not sharing... ;-)

Thing the second:  Just before we left, Mark had read that a 1980's icon was going to be playing at the Oracle Arena in Oakland  last week.  Tickets were going on sale on Friday at noon. So, we got up "early" (early for Vegas that is!) and thanks to the marvel that is an i-phone, we got tickets to the show on Wednesday.  Oh my.  Prince.  I don't think I've had that much fun at a concert in a long time.  The show started at 7:30 and we were not out of there until 11:30.  There were two encores and even a tribute to Morris Day by Prince.  The crowd sang themselves hoarse - I can't imagine what it does to the actual stars of the show.  And Shelia E.  Just freakin' beautiful.  The girl can still pound on a drum like nobodies business and look mighty fine doing it.

Thing the third:  On checking the mail when we returned home, we found a Valentine letter from the IRS.   According to them, there were some discrepancies between the income reported by third parties and the income reported by us on our return, resulting in additional taxes, penalties and interest of $213,766.  No, that is not a typo.  Two hundred and thirteen THOUSAND dollars.  A couple of phone calls to some very knowledgeable and helpful IRS agents later, and I believe that we have cleared things up.  No, I did not mess up our return that badly.  Codename Mr. Grey (I know, right?) apologized and said that the letter should never have been sent in the first place.  We should have a "cleared" letter from the IRS in just a few short weeks.  I'm not holding my breath, but my fingers are crossed.

Thing the last:  All this excitement has landed both Mark & I with a cold.  I don't know if it was the petrie dish of Las Vegas, the contact high we got in Oakland, or the stress of dealing with the IRS.  But for now at least, we're snuggled under some blankets, beverage of choice at hand, feeling all miserable and stuff. 

Later gators...

Bison Drive-By

Hey look honey!  Cute Bison on the hill side.....

Look honey!  There's a bison in the road....

And he's getting closer!

He's headed straight for us!

Can he get any closer?

I guess so....

Advice for Yellowstone...

We had a blast, came home more tired than when we left. I’ll be posting blog pictures probably this weekend – I just downloaded the 1000+ last night from the 5.5 day trip.


Words of advice:

• If you can postpone this trip until after Labor Day, you might want to – it’s crowded with end of summer parent/kid combos in August.


• We didn’t need the bear spray or the bug spray, but ran out of two bottles of sunscreen. But we only went on the trails that EVERYONE was going on – if you are off-roading or taking trails less traveled, I’d still bring the bug/bear sprays.


• They were working on the roads near “the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone” and the traffic was horrible. However, don’t miss it, especially if the sun is shining – it’s kinda awesome. (Look for the Osprey nest near Inspiration Point on the North Rim)


• The construction between Madison and Norris (I believe) was advertised as being really bad, but we didn’t really have a problem with it. However, there’s not really that much to see along that road side, so you can avoid it and not feel like you are missing anything.


• You have to see Old Faithful (obviously!), but do it as early in the morning as you can. We got there for the 9:00am “show” and I laughed at how large and empty the parking lot was. At noon, you couldn’t find a place to park and the restaurants were just jam packed with people. Oh, and the cafeteria isn’t open for breakfast – we had ours at the Old Faithful Inn.


• If there are people pulled over on the side of the road and you don’t know what they are looking at (ie. Upcoming Scenic Vista), pull over too – it’s usually some large mammal like a BEAR! Or a BISON! Or even a BALD EAGLE! (I know a Bald Eagle isn’t a large mammal, but it’s still really cool!)


• Which also means – bring your binoculars and the longest camera lens you own. The critters usually aren’t in the middle of the road, but are up the hill a ways from you.


• Usually, means that sometimes, the Bison is coming straight for you down the middle of the road and you could reach out your hand as he walks past your car to pet him. Highly not advised (the petting part – which we didn’t!), but still a story to tell. (Can’t wait to show the pictures!)


• If you have a need/desire for a vegetarian meal – bring it yourself. My veggie sister wanted eggs and hash browns one night (it was on the menu) but they stopped serving that at 8:00 even tho they were open until 10:00 (huh!?!?!). The next restaurant was advertising black bean burgers in addition to the hamburgers and bison burgers – but they were “out”. I suspect they didn’t have much call and so stopped ordering them.


• Bring as many gig for your camera as you can. Those 1000+ pix were on three cards, totaling 20gig (the last card wasn’t full). But I missed a day when we went whitewater rafting – I didn’t bring my camera that day, so I can only imagine if I had the day full of pix too. I had 28gig to play with tho, so I was in no danger of running out. (RAW+L format for my Canon)


• Go whitewater rafting – but do the half day trip, not the full day. You still get the experience, but you don’t spend all day on the river. We used the Flying Pig Outfitters in Gardiner, MT – they had dry bags, storage cubbies, jackets (life and dry), and water booties – all for your use, and free. If they offer to let you “ride the bull” do it – it’s the best seat on the boat! And get there kinda early – parking is a pain.  If you do the full day (including lunch), and you have a special diet, let them know and they will do their best to accomodate you.


• Be prepared for weather. The folks from TX were in jeans and sweatshirts the whole time, while Mark & I were in T-shirts and shorts (or short pants) most of the time. Put the rain jackets/ponchos in your backpack EVERY DAY even if it looks like a clear day! It will rain on you some time – maybe not for long or even hard, but it will rain. Friday night we were at the campsite and we got a winter mix – rain/sleet/snow. So bring sweaters/sweat shirt/layers just in case…


• We went down to the Grand Tetons on Friday and did the boat ride/hike to Hidden Falls on Jenny Lake – way cool. The boats run every 10 min or so, and again, the parking lot was jam packed at noon – get there earlier if you can.


• Plan a full day the night before – you probably won’t see everything you want to, but without a plan, you definitely won’t see half of what you want.  Be open to the unexpected/detours though as well.

Viva Las Vegas

We headed off to Las Vegas (again!) this past weekend to celebrate my newly acquired ancientness.  We got there late, really late, Thursday night and did our usual run to the Wally-world to get snacks and check out the cheap clothes that we can never find here.  It was after midnight before we finally checked into our hotel, the Southpoint.  It's a newer hotel, south of the airport and the outlet mall, on Las Vegas Blvd.  The rooms were great - clean, comfortable, large, with pillow top mattresses and quality cotton sheets.  Also, you didn't hear the kids screaming up and down the hallways, so that was nice.

The highlight of the trip was the Garth Brooks concert on Saturday night.  Again with the late  hour, a 10:30 show, but that meant they weren't trying to clear out the theater for the next show.  It was a smallish theater ~1500, with just Garth, a mic, and an acoustic guitar.  Trisha came out in the middle of the show and did about three songs, with the great ear-worm "walk-away joe".  That song is still running through my head.  Garth did the usual suspects (Friends in Low Places, Wolves, Thunder Rolls and many others), along with selections from his musical idols.  It was after 1:00am before we got out of there.

It was a bit of a challenge to get the tickets, both on the day that they went on sale and the day we went and picked them up.  Since he's not doing other shows any more, and only limited shows in Las Vegas, the tickets went fast and furious.  And they are quite concerned about scalpers - you had to give all the names in your party when you bought the tix, it was printed on the tix, they wanted to see both of our id's when we picked up the tix the day of the show, and then we got wrist bands and "club" stamped.  At show time, they scanned the tix, the wrist band and the stamp to make sure you were the ones who had bought the tix.  Oh my.  Can't say as I blame them, but still. 

All this was follwed up by a shopping spree at the Lane Bryant at the Outlet Mall.  T-shirts, dress shirts, a skirt and a dress (unbelievable!), jeans and a jacket.  Fun fun fun!