2009 October « Smalls

Mary & Josh’s Wedding Weekend

October 31, 2009 at 11:30 am | In Family | Leave a Comment
Tags: Family, Memories, Wedding

A few weeks ago we made our way up to Grosse Pointe for my sister Mary’s wedding. On our way into GP on Friday afternoon we stopped at the airport to pick up Julie, one of the bridesmaids. Julie is an artist and lives in Turkey, but she was in the States for her sister’s wedding the previous week, for Mary’s wedding and to visit friends & family. I haven’t seen Julie in years so it was really nice to visit with her!

When we arrived on Friday, I gave Mary and Josh their wedding gift – an Irish chain quilt.

Friday night we had Mary’s bachelorette party at Whirly Ball! Whirly ball is a mix of bumper cars, lacrosse and basketball. We had SO much fun!

I’m really surprised none of us got whiplash after an hour of ramming each other in bumper cars. I did get a nice sized bruise on my leg though. Luckily we were wearing long dresses for the wedding. We took Mary to a Mexican restaurant for dinner afterwards. Here she is opening one of her gifts. The panties say “Take a Ride on the Pleasure Panty X-Press” and came complete with a whistle! The table of old men across the way got a kick out of them. lol

On Saturday we had the rehearsal. Mary and Josh got married at Patterson Park located right on Lake St. Clair. While it was a bit cold, they had great weather for their wedding. It had rained all week through Friday, no rain Saturday or Sunday, and then rain again on Monday. God blessed them with beautiful weather!

My sisters and I at the rehearsal dinner.

Wedding Day! I loved Mary’s hair!

Mr. Z was Mary’s photographer for the day. He was my cross-country and track coach in high school, my wedding photographer, Katie’s wedding photographer and now Mary’s as well. He does a fantastic job with pictures and video!

Josh’s sister Heather stood on his side as Best Woman along with his younger brother as Best Man. His older brother Jeremy officiated the ceremony, so he escorted Heather and I down the aisle. I was excited to find out that Heather and I share the same birthday – St. Patrick’s Day!

Josh built the stage and arbor for the wedding. The stage was large enough that Mary and Josh, Jeremy and all the other siblings could be on the stage together. The ivy draping the arbor was ivy from mine and Eric’s wedding 2 years ago. My mom had planted it in her garden and Eric ripped it up that morning to use on the arbor.

Here we are imitating the portrait that we had done for our mom when we were younger. Our cousins imitate this portrait pretty much every time they are at our house.

My gorgeous husband and I at the reception.

The first dance.

Father/Daughter dance.

Eric and I with the bride and groom.

Dad and his bug-gums.

Dad and his sons.

The Scallens and the Os.

Mary and Josh had such a beautiful wedding and I can’t believe that all three of us are married now!

Thank you Lord for allowing us to meet such kind and loving men share our lives with. We are very blessed!

Funny Video

October 3, 2009 at 9:11 am | In Random Thoughts | Leave a Comment
Tags: Funny Video

Something to Crow About

October 1, 2009 at 10:16 pm | In Family | Leave a Comment
Tags: Canfield Fair, Fair, Food

Over Labor Day weekend, Eric and I went up to Ohio to visit with his parents and go to the Canfield Fair. Eric’s sister Jessi and our friend Kelly were able to come up for the weekend too! The Canfield Fair is the largest county fair in Ohio and our first date was at the fair in 2003. We have so much fun every time we go, but the best part has to be the food!

This is my favorite treat to get at the fair – fried Snickers. Words cannot describe how delicious it is!

My second favorite item to get is a stromboli/pepperoni roll. I think I had about four of these over the course of the weekend. Then of course there is kettle corn, caramel apples, fries, lemon shakes, funnel cakes, and more!

We spent most of the days walking around the fair grounds and looking at the exhibits. Mine and my MIL’s favorite building is the Arts & Crafts building with the quilting exhibit. Jessi and I like to look at all of the baking entries as well. We’ve decided that next year we are each going to enter something in to the fair. My goal is to enter a quilt and maybe a picture. At the moment, Jessi is going to enter a picture as well which just leaves Eric and Kelly to decide what they want to enter. Maybe next year we’ll all come home with a ribbon!

One of my other goals for next year is to earn a t-shirt at the Marines tent. They have a pull-up bar set up and in order to win a t-shirt, women have to do 20 pull-ups or hang on the bar for 90 seconds. Kelly and I have done this together in the past and we will go up at the same time to help motivate each other. We’ve earned key chains or water bottles in the past for our efforts, but never the t-shirt. I couldn’t try this year because of a wrist injury (there was no way I would’ve made it this year), but I’m determined to get it next year! Let the training begin!

One of my favorite animal barns to go through is the sheep barn. I love the sounds sheep make – it’s so funny! Cracks me up every time. One year I caught part of a sheep shearing contest as well which was so much fun to watch! I missed it this year, but maybe next year I’ll catch another one. On our last night we were walking through the barn and I stopped to say hi to this beautiful brown sheep. He was such a gentle animal and I spent a few minutes feeding him some hay.

When we weren’t at the fair, we spent time at home bonding with my in-law’s new puppy Bella. She is a Great Dane puppy and is such a beautiful girl! I only wish we could have spent some more time playing with her!