Nothing Like a Family Wedding Celebration

There's nothing like a family wedding! We looked forward to this one for several months in advance, and it was even better than anticipated. Our oldest granddaughter Kory married Samuel Miller on October 8th, in a beautiful country venue. We don't have the professional photos back, but here are some of my favorite random snapshots taken during the day (in no particular order).

 You may now kiss the bride....

 Granddaughters Amelia and Macy...

 A victory sign of 'it's finally done!'

 Julie, Papa and JoAnn

 Julie came all the way from West Virginia with Jameson (in her arms), Amelia and Benjamin. She is also carrying her 7th son, due in December.

 Joy, Kendall and Grammy...I love this one.

 Mom and daughter

 Snappy looking Benjamin and Neil.

 Posed by the photographer...so nice

 Bride and Mom

 Very special sisters

 Kendall's dress was so pretty!

 Vows. They did the traditional ones, then each their own written ones.

 Actually dancing at the reception. Papa doesn't dance, I mean DOESN'T dance! But the granddaughters have his heart, and he joined in the fun. I think he shocked everyone there.

 Joy, Kendall and Kory while getting ready.

 He even managed to dance just with me...a sign of a really special celebration.

 Macy and Millie. These two got on famously.

 James kept wondering where he was and who all these strange people were!

 Treated to her own special 'bride' coffee while she had her hair done!

 This was the cake for Kory and Sam, and the cake deliverer.

 Ben and Macy manned the guest sign up table. Kory used a book of her engagement photos for the guest book. Cute idea.

 Bride and very proud grandparents.

 Ok, maybe my favorite photo of all time. 

Introducing Mr and Mrs Miller

At a family breakfast the next morning...We don't get one all together much anymore. It's always a treasure.

Tea Time Anyone?

I have so many photos to show, that I hardly know where to begin! We have had so much family fun around here, with Julie, Ben, Amelia and Jameson's visit, and Kory's wedding. One day last week, the three of us girls decided to slip away to Redmond and a tea room there. We had been talking about going there for the last couple of years, and we finally made that happen!

It was a great time, great food and a great little shop.

Julie, Amelia and I all had smiling faces, and happy hearts.

Beautiful china always makes me happy...

We had two pots of tea, one was a pumpkin spice, and a cranberry scone each with clotted cream and lemon curd. Doesn't sound like it would be good together, but oh boy!! Then we each picked a dessert. Amelia picked a 'butterfly cupcake' shown above, perfect for 9-year-old girls.

I can never get enough lemon, so I picked a lemon torte...

and Julie picked a pumpkin spice cake. All were delicious!

Full and happy we enjoyed it to the last sip. Here's to you Millie : )

A Fun Time at the Harney County Fair

We have been spending a bit more time in Burns with my in-laws this summer, which has been fun. In September, we enjoyed attending the Harney County Fair and activities with them. Dad was a good sport and enjoyed everything right along with us. We got up early and went to an annual 'Cowbells Breakfast', which is what the ranch wives call themselves. Actually, the wives get to enjoy while the ranchers grill up steaks, eggs and pancakes for breakfast. A big crowd as usual.

We enjoyed the fair as usual, stopping for breaks every once in a while. We saw all the exhibits, a horse race or two, the 4-H animals and a couple of the shows. 

 And of course, we enjoyed some of the fair food. A treat to look forward to every year. The Harney County Paiute Indian Tribe has a booth where they cook up Indian taco's on Indian fry bread. Mom especially loves those.

And finally, a friend of Mom's contributed two items of hers to the fair, and she won a 2nd prize on both of them. This is a photo of Mom and a photo she took, that won a 2nd in the photography section. That was fun to have her entries there.

Harney County Fair is a fun place, with cowboys (big & little) everywhere, horse races and a great little rodeo, The weather was great also, not too hot and not too cold. o glad we could all be there.

Welcome to our Autumn Garden

Hello there...welcome to our autumn home and garden. It's dahlia time once again, and I just knew you would love for me to share the beauties that we grew this year. One big difference was that we were able to winter over all our tubers (we dug them up) and didn't have to buy any. We actually remembered to wet them down each month during the winter. One result was that we got more of individual flowers and less variety. An interesting change.

A really nice patch of dahlias, and I have so enjoyed them.

We got a variety of 'mutated' dahlias this year, interesting specimens.

 This one was a two sided dahlia, with two different dahlias grown right together. Two sides, one bloom. At least they color co-ordinated.

And yes, it is an Autumn garden now days. 

Virginia Creeper is brilliant

                               

Burning bush and autumn sedum

Sumac just starting to turn

And lovely crab apples putting on fruit and leaves changing. Yes, definitely 

autumn colors. But the leaves are still on and theres a bit of Indian Summer left too. I love this time of year in the garden. Hope you do too!

Tourist Spelunking

Well, finally here is the next post...whew that took me a while to get to it. Anyway, while Joy and Macy were here we decided it would be fun to visit a local cave for some spelunking adventure. We drove out south of us in lava flow country, parked and got out our lunch. We haven't had a picnic together in quite a while, and it was fun and made us wonder why we don't do it more often. Simple good food, sunlight on the pine trees and family...a great mix.

The insurance man  took an afternoon off and we were all glad he was with us.
The cave we went to is called Lava River Cave, and it is a large lava tube running underneath Highway 97, and was originally found in the 1930's. Today it's a tourist attraction. Back in the day that we were raising our three girls, we investigated this cave, as well as three other local caves. Some were flat, some rocky and all adventurous. So now it's the granddaughters' turn to do a little cave exploration.

We look prepared, with jackets, gloves, headlamps, a walking stick for me, and smiles!

 On our way....

Nice to have ramps over the rocks as you descend.

 It's quite a ways down into the cave, and it's an even 42 degrees all year round. 

There were several informative signs along the way which was helpful. When Macy started she was hanging back and wouldn't let go of her mother's hand. By the middle, she was running ahead of all of us, and telling us to hurry up! We had a fun few minutes when we turned off all our lights, and actually FELT darkness. Macy was OK with that, because there really were no living things in the cave (besides people). 
A fun time, and probably my last time, so I thoroughly enjoyed it.

August Doings

 We have been spending time in Burns with my in-laws. Good summer times together. Here we are relaxing in the shade of their front porch and watching the world go by.

 We always enjoy good food together, and Mom baked an apricot pie...my first! Her pies are always great!

We had a visit from granddaughter Kory, always a fun time.

We wanted to cook together, so we tried out a ham and veggie Risotto. It took a lot of stirring, but between the two of us, it wasn't bad at all....and the results were tasty! With a bit of fresh dill on top.

We got creative with breakfast too, and made an Eggs Benedict, only used fresh spinach instead of an English Muffin (gluten free) and I tried a Hollandaise sauce made in the blender. Loved how easy it was. We took it outside to eat, and it sure was fun having Kory here. She has now officially begun her first year as a high school science teacher. Good luck Kory!

 Next came a week's visit from Joy and Macy. We were blessed to have Macy with us for two weeks this summer. 

One night I put on some Frank Sinatra, good dancing music of course. We listened to music and danced as the sun went down on another beautiful summer day.

 Joy is a walker these days, and an early  morning one at that. She got up the first morning and enjoyed a great walk at sunrise, with the beautiful Cascade mountains in view...

and along our canal. After she got back, she joined the sleepyheads, and we all went for a walk together.

 One night we had a bonfire in the back yard, complete with S'mores. 

 A really fun time together as a family,

and Aunt JoAnn joined us too. We really enjoyed their summer visit. More about that in the next post.