Wedding Week Festivities

I have SO much to share with all of you.  

We left for NC last week.  

We stopped part way down at the Skyline Resort for the night on Sunday night.  

This was our view from our room.

We arrived in time for me to go to Kelsey's final dress fitting.  

The lace was a topper and the blush skirt was put on over the dress.

The belt went over both and tied in the back.

I made the veil out of some tulle and hand stitched it to a comb.  

We ended up cutting off one layer so that the back was more visible.

The rest of the next few days were a blur, to be honest.  

We had a lot to do and it was so much fun!

We all met up and went out for dinner on on Tuesday night too.

Kelsey, her friend Jess, her future MIL, Julie and I all went to get our nails done.  

Kelsey had a Bride shirt and Julie and I had Mother of the Groom or Mother of the Bride shirts on.

Jess was so funny.

Everything tickled her feet!

Can you guess who's toes are who's?

Such a fun day!

Thursday afternoon we had the rehearsal.  We all needed LOTS of practice!

Kelsey and her MOH, Amy.

I guess we cleaned up pretty well!

Future Mr and Mrs and the officiant, Tom.

Nick's 2 brothers on the left and my son on the right.

MOB and MOG hanging out at the rehearsal.

All our boys, Nick, his dad, Rick, his brothers Cam and Austin and my son Thadd.

Our little flag waver, Jack and his mom, Kara, both in the wedding.

Practice giving the bride away.

 Time for the vows.

MOH and sister watching and listening

Recessional.

Rehearsal dinner was at a place called The Pitt.  

REALLY great food.  

Rick and Julie put on a fabulous party to celebrate the kids!  

The 2 on the right are my sister and her friend.  On the left my oldest daughter and her hubby.

Just LOOK at that food!!  SO GOOD!!

Bride and Groom to be and Kara, a bridesmaid

 Food line!

This is what it looked like inside and there was an outside too.  

After the dinner we all moved outside for live music and drinks.

My crew plus our family and family friend with all the bridesmaid and groomsmen gifts

MOG and MOB

My In-Laws that came all the way from Florida to NC to celebrate with us!

My sister and her BF.  

They flew all the way from Grand Rapids, MI to NC by themselves.  

I was not sure how that would go but American did a fine job getting the 2 of them to the party!

This is super photo heavy so I am going to stop here for the minute. 

I will add more as soon as I have a few more minutes.

Trying to catch up with work too.

Hope you are enjoying the preview of the wedding though.

~XOP~

A Little Trip to Shipshewana

We go to Shipshewana several times a year.  We have only been there once this year.  

I was getting anxious to go and spend a day there so last week we did.

I'm still excited every time I see the first buggy.  

I love the "buggy parking" lots too.

Their fall decorations are always spectacular.  Just look at those horses!

So many gorgeous flowers on this wagon.  It is truly covered (in flowers, LOL)

Loved this rainbow chair.  It was showing off the colors you can choose to get the chair made in.

I found a gnome friend.

Look at all these gorgeous quilt blocks for your house (or barn)

If we had a finished basement I would love to have something like this for the bar.  

I saw this dining room set and in my next house this is the style I want to have.

Hey a girl can dream right?  It was beautiful!

We went to E & S Sales (bulk food) and I found these

Until I went on Keto, I would not touch pork rinds but now they are a great crunchy snack.  

These were the BEST of all of the pork rinds I have tried.

Of course I went to Lolly's and Yoders but I didn't take any photos of my purchases.

Wedding stuff seems to be occupying all my actual time outside of work with things I can't share until after the wedding.  

So get ready for an absolute GLUT of photos after the 20th!  LOL

One week from tomorrow is the wedding!!!  

I will not be posting again, likely, until we are done with that.

~XOP~

Mother and father of the bride!

Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge

On Monday hubby and I decided to check out a New to us, wildlife refuge.  

It was fabulous.  Part of the refuge borders on Lake Erie. 

 We went for a 4 mile hike and saw so many cool things. 

 Some I was able to get pictures of and some not so much, LOL.  

We saw a bald eagle but it didn't land where I could get a good picture of it.  

So that was kind of sad.

I did get a photo of one of the eagle's nests though.  

It was HUGE!  

This photo of hubby was at the beginning of the hike.

 Walking along the road we came across a Painter turtle in the road.  

Hubby rescued him and moved him to the grass near the water so he would not become road kill.

There were a lot of wild flowers (some would say weeds) but they sure were beautiful colors!

This sun dappled field of Queen Anne's Lace was so pretty!

We saw this tree with the most beautiful cones on it.  

The mint green color was just striking in contrast to the vibrant green of the tree.  

Come to find out it is a Cypress tree.

As I walked off the trail to investigate the cones I happened to notice this beautiful moth.  

I think it is a White Lined Sphinx Moth.  

Also known as a Hummingbird moth. 

 I had one of these in my garden once but didn't really see the wing pattern. 

 I was excited as I thought it was a  hummingbird, until I got close enough to see that it was a moth!  He let me get pretty close for the photo too.

We saw this blue heron and it had caught a snake and was eating it.  

I didn't dare try to get closer for a better picture as I wanted to watch him.  

Right after I took this he swallowed that snake whole!

There were large areas covered in these water lillies.  

When the flowers are finished there were these weird "pods" left over.  

I know you have seen them as dried flowers.  

They are circular shaped with holes and turn brown.  Now I know where they come from!

You can see them in this picture.  The leaves on these are gigantic too.

Herons were everywhere!

While we were eating our lunch a Great Blue Heron landed on the breaker.

This was our view of Lake Erie from our lunch spot from a beach log.

We walked along the beach and picked up a few cool shells too.

After lunch it was time to head back to our car.  

Hubby spotted this water snake when he looked over a bridge we were walking on.  

There were several places that had swans. 

 They were never close enough to get really good photos though. 

 This is the closest I was able to get and my poor phone camera did the best it could.

There is a great birding area in this refuge, Magee Marsh.  

Next time we will head to the birding area and see what we can see.  

We were pretty happy with all the things we were able to see though.

It was nice to have a day away with hubby to just hang out and relax.

I am so looking forward to being able to do this more in retirement.

Only 9 more months!

(but who's counting?)

~XOP~