We Have A Daughter-in-law!

When I arrived at the wedding venue today, the first thing I saw was these handsome boys! I was overcome with love and admiration, dropping my bag and keys on the ground and rushing over to admire them. My son's wedding day! His gorgeous bride was nearby being photographed with her bridesmaids so I couldn't barge in there.

 Oh these handsome boys, and what a gorgeous garden in which to be married! (O & L Gardens on Tangent Drive). I should have taken more pictures, but the photographer took tons, and we'll have access to them, so I tried to just enjoy the moments instead of being a crazy picture snapping mom.

Now I know you'll be wondering, where are the pictures of the bride and groom? I figured the pics the photographer took would be better than any of mine so I'm waiting on that! As I look at my pics though, I'm wishing I had more of the bride and groom cause I mostly took pics of family and guests. Oh well, be patient and wait for the digital pics from the photographer. 

After I posted this, I got this one from Will's sister, which she had discreetly taken with her camera on her knee during the ceremony.  So lovely.

 I like this picture of my own handsome groom and I.

 This is the picture Eric likes. Thanks Eric, Way to make me look good!

Christina took this picture of our handsome grandson Kam before she left home. No, he's not standing on his own at the tender age of 3 months, he's lying prone. Adorable.

And finally, a picture of the gorgeous bride! Kam was nearly asleep at that point.

 Kam did so well, happily going from person to person and napping in spite of the activity around him. He and my nephew Duane are pretty cute together.

My Uncle Ves and Aunt Jan are visiting from Missouri. It was so lovely to have them here for the wedding. It was wonderful to see all the other friends and family who came. Thank you all so much for coming and sharing the day with us.

And guess who caught the bouquet….yes, that's Molly, who just happens to be Eric's girlfriend. Hmmmm.

Since I didn't take many pics today that showed how beautiful the setting was, I'll share some from rehearsal last night. Craig really wanted to strike this pose when he walked out to wait for Stephanie to walk down the aisle, but he was quickly voted down!

 I knew the place was beautiful, but it was beyond my expectations with the combination of all the huge flower baskets, pond, fountains, enormous trees. Absolutely gorgeous.

They exited by following this path..

 …across the bridge. I couldn't very well photograph it today while they were in wedding finery, but you can get a glimpse of the loveliness!

Oh look what I found on Facebook, posted by their friend Skye. I downloaded it and here you go, a picture of them on that bridge today. 

I must mention our wonderful wedding coordinator extraordinaire, my sis-in-law Anisa, pictured below giving instructions at rehearsal. She and Steph work together and she has come to love Steph so much, as does everyone who knows her! We were so happy when she volunteered to help in this way! She made sure everything happened in a timely manner before, during and after the wedding, got the set-up, clean-up, and everything else taken care of. She has amazing organizational gifts, and her husband Doug, son Duane (and son's girlfriend Rachel!) and daughter Venisa cheerfully assist her,  all working hard with set-up and clean up and many things in between. What an awesome family. We appreciate you SO much!

We are so thrilled to have Stephanie in our family as our first daughter-in-law, or as my Aunt Jeannine always said, our daughter-in-love. Can't wait to see the photographer's pictures!

Oh, yeah. Eric came up to me during the reception and asked me if I had everything I needed. Several times. Kind of him but really? I didn't need anything. Until he held up my keys and said, "You're sure you're not missing something?"  Remember how I dropped my bag and keys on the ground at the gorgeous sight of my son, the groom, and his best man? Well, I picked up the bag but not the keys! Thank goodness Eric and Molly happened to notice them in the grass! Oh, I have to say, God takes care of me in mysterious ways sometimes! And I am so thankful that He takes care of my family too!

And now we get to enjoy our guests, Will's sister Sue and cousin Juanita, who drove over from Idaho, as well as Uncle Ves and Aunt Jan from Missouri.

It's hard to believe the wedding is really over already!

Father's Day

Watch out, I've started blogging again! I thought I might do a post of some of my favorite pics of my beautiful adorable sweetest grandson, but I came across Father's Day file and must share these with the family.

What a special Father's Day it was! My nephew Steve and his family from Fort St. John, BC were visiting. They had been to the graduation of my niece Faith's daughter Dannette and brought her and Jewel's daughter Betsy back from California with them. Galen and Carol invited all of us to their house for a Father's Day dinner. And here are some pics of our day.

 My son Nick became a father on Mother's Day, so here's our first Father's Day picture with a grandson. Unfortunately Craig had to work so the Father's Day pic is incomplete.

 The baby brings lots of smiles to Nick's face.

 Nick, Christina, and baby Kam.

 My niece Brittany is their next door neighbor, and she was great with child on Father's Day. Her dad/my brother Dave was there to share the day. Brittany is now the happy mother of Brody.

 One of the Canadian cousins, Rachelle, holds Kam while Lucy looks on, and oh how I wish I would have gotten all of Katelyn's lovely face in the picture!

 What an awesome group of men! Left to right, my sister Hope's husband Brian, my nephew Steve Troyer, niece Jody's husband Kevin Konzelman, brother Doug, niece Dawn's husband Kevin Headings, brother Galen, son Nick, brother Dave, and Will.

 A crazy game or two of Dutch Blitz took place among the younger crowd.

The world's problems could probably be solved by these guys if they could meet more often!

 The younger boys, (Hope's, Jody's and Dawn's) had a great time with basketball.

 Kevin Konzelman seemed to be having fun with it as well!

 My sweet sister Hope and I always enjoy being together.

 Dawn, Jody, Carol and Steve's wife Katie are pretty cool to hang out with too!

 My sister Linda with Dawn and Jenna.

 Hanging out on the patio…

 …watching some kickball.

 Very action packed.

 Plenty of entertainment by these energetic boys who go and go and go!

 Hope's Brandon doesn't like to have his picture taken so I'm so pleased when I get a good one!

 We took a group walk to the Santiam River nearby.

 Lots of rock skipping and picture taking happening...

 Rachelle and Betsy are so cute.

 Steve can hold his own with the rock throwing!

 This family has so many musical talents!

 Time to head back

 with just a little horseplay and silliness involved!

 Galen and Carol walking with Lucy.

And the last rays of the sun caught the artistic eye of these girls and they need to take some photos.

It was a great day together.  I am so grateful and blessed to belong with these brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, great nieces and nephews,  and all their spouses. Family! Can't imagine life without them!

Kam and Brody's First Lunch at Great-Grandma's House

About a week ago, I was talking to Mom on the phone and she invited me, Christina and Brittany and their babies to come down for lunch. I volunteered to see if Wednesday would work for them, and promptly sent a text to the two of them. But as soon as I sent it, I noticed that the message had been sent to Christina and Bruce, the person next to Brittany on my contacts. I was hoping maybe it had gone to his home number instead of his cell (which saved me one other time when I sent a really embarrassing text to the wrong person!) But I couldn't tell which number it went to. So I quick texted Christina telling her what I had done and asking her what the other person's number showed as on her text. Only I didn't only text the message to Christina, I texted it to Christina and Bruce!!  So then of course Bruce texts me back to tell me he's pretty sure I texted the wrong person, but what's for lunch?! 

Anyway, I did finally get the proper people invited and we all made our way to Brownsville yesterday for a wonderful lunch.  We were also joined by my sister Jean and her two youngest. 

Jean gave me a good chewing out because the she is sick and tired of checking my blog and seeing the same old post there since May 25. Has it really been that long since I blogged? I have a couple of drafts started, so I hadn't completely forgotten it. Life is so busy. I'm a grandma now. I'm about to become a mother-in-law. I like to be outside until the sun goes down. When is there time to blog?  But  I love my sister and it hurts me deeply when she is disappointed in me, so here I am staying up late the very next day to post some pictures of our fun lunch!

Serena is so very grown up these days. She wanted to take some pictures of the babies. See the tall glass of iced tea in front of Jean? A gust of wind knocked it over and iced tea spilled all over Christina's lap. Brittany thought it was quite funny. Well, so did I but I didn't practically fall over laughing like Brittany did! Brittany and Christina are next door neighbors in a duplex, so they have plenty of opportunities to laugh at each other.

 Christina was a very good sport about it. She remained calm, cool and collected. Of course this picture was much later, while eating fabulous peach pie after the delicious lunch which include chicken sandwiches on homemade crescent rolls.

 Serena enjoyed holding her cousin Brittany's baby Brody.

 And so did his Great-Grandma!

 Jean's Jamie was the new baby not that long ago. Here he is trying to show me a frown. But he was unable to frown without smiling!

 Kam was born May 11 and Brody was born June 27.

 Kinda looks like they're doing some aerobics!

 I think Brody wants to hold hands!

After lunch while we sat in the living room visiting, Serena served us some beautiful cinnamon rolls that she "twisted and rolled" out of play dough. She also made a birthday cake with candles for Jamie and let him pretend he turned 4.

 Jamie took quite a liking to Christina!

I posted the picture below on Facebook last night, tagging Christina, and a friend of hers commented, "Is that Barbara Troyer? How do you know her?"

Today Christina told me this friend was one of her best friends in high school but they hadn't seen each other in years. Her friend's family came from Russia 20+ years ago and was sponsored by my parents and stayed with them for awhile! Her mom is very excited that Christina is connected to our family! Her friend came to town today and they took their kids to the park and had a great time! 

I love it when Facebook re-connects friends!

Are you happy now, Jean?!