Reception pics

These are Devanie's reception pictures. Read the post below this one that tells about all this.

Guest book with toss bouquet. Part of my gazebo with the picture on it. The gift table with the paper flowers behind it.

I had a display table. Ryan made this fantastic lego Twin Falls temple. The goblets with lemon, gel beads and lights inside. My computer crashed so I couldn't lable the stuff I put here but I brought Amber's first white dress. One of the great flower arrangments. The wavy frames have pictures of Amber and Ryan on the day they got engaged.

All of us at the arbor with the lamposts. I never got to watch the slide show Ryan's mom made. The center of the gym with park benches and lamp post in the center. You can see the ceiling.

Not sure why these two pictures are so much smaller.

The dessert table. And the small square centerpieces with lemons inside. All the yellow tables had these and the gray tables had the larger flower arrangements.

To see more pictures that the photographer took of Amber and Ryan go to:

http://www.katejenningsphotography.blogspot.com/

Keeping a promise..Wedding

I promised a couple posts back that the next post would be happy but I broke the promise with the post before this. So here is the promised happy post. Blogger is barely pulling these pictures up and it is taking forever. So I can't post as many pictures as I would like to. It will take hours.

Amber and Ryan finally had their big day. Well they were super happy. I was bit of a basket case at times. Amber, Kelsea and I went to Twin Falls Thursday night and had a nice time together. Lee Joe had to wait for Kylee and Autumn to get home from girls camp and he came Friday along with everyone else. I enjoyed my two oldest girls hanging out together. We laughed at Kelsea's goofiness. And they were the silly sisters they have always been together. Amber put her dress on and we tried to figure out how they bustled her dress. I think the gal forgot to finish it or something. We watched youtube videos on how to bustle a dress but Amber's dress only had stuff on one side. So it wasn't going to work. Kelsea did Amber's hair and make-up the next morning and then we all went to the Twin Falls temple. You know, our family always makes for great drama. Lee Joe's recommend had expired. He didn't realize that until he was headed home. So as soon as he got back he had to chase people down to get his stuff taken care of. He almost had to drive in the mountains up to girls camp but lucked out because one of the people we needed came home from camp early. So that bit of stress was set aside. But at the temple we were waiting for Lee Joe's mom and dad and uncle to show up. They finally got there and we found out his mom and dad ran out of gas on the way there. But they had past their exit by 20 miles and were headed back when it happened. Lee Joe's uncle had gas on his truck and was coming the direction they were headed so they were lucky. The Other uncle we were waiting for didn't make it. His wife brought him the wrong pants since he had been working so he didn't come in. We were all there for the temple ceremony finally. I didn't have family but I had my great friend Mindy who came to be my person and support. I can tell you, I may not have expressed it well enough but her presence meant so much and helped me cope. What was wonderful was how happy both Amber and Ryan were the whole time. I don't think I have ever seen my daughter so happy.

I love these people. I have gained a son. He has called me mom a few times and it sure makes me smile.

Our friends are starting a new flower business together. This was beautiful. When I saw it, they had pretty beads and things on the flowers and it just added to the fantastic look of her bouquet. The flowers had been sent to wrong place and they got the flowers later than they had hoped. But you couldn't tell with how it turned out that they had been rushed.

So I had hoped to have all these great reception pictures. I failed, my sister in law succeeded a bit more than I did. A great friend from our ward was a huge help. They kept reassuring me all was well and calmed me down. There was tulle hanging from a circle at the center of the gym ceiling with icicle lights. There were lamposts and park benches and tulle hanging from the walls. There were lemons in some of the flower arrangements and in other decor. We stood in front of a beautiful arbor that had lights around it. I reused our gazebo corners. I spray painted them black and hung tulle in the back of them and had some pictures hanging from the front of them. The biggest job was getting the creases out of 64 chair covers and the thing that went wrong was that the AC stopped working in the gym. We had to open the overflow doors to get cool air from the chapel to circulate in the gym. I had three wonderful friends show up and manage the food and lemonade bar. I suppose with how hard it was for me and my poor little brain to cope, it all went well. The gym looked as I had imagined it would. I loved that the most. There was high praise for the reception. Before we had it close to being set up, I was given compliments. One lady asked if a wedding planner was setting it up and I said no. She said her son took pictures for a bridal magazine and she thought it looked wonderful. I had another lady say she had hired a wedding planner for her daughters wedding and she liked what we did. Another friend said later that she had been to many receptions and ours was by far the best she had been to. One of the friends that was helping with the food said when she saw it that it almost brought tears to her eyes and gave her chills. She thought it was beautiful. Ryan's grandma use to plan receptions and she gave the reception high praise. She may have been part of the reason I was in overdrive over it all. I am so glad it was well recieved. I am so glad it's over. I hope I don't have to do another one anytime soon. No, I don't want to be a wedding planner. I have just said that I wish I was a happy party planner. I would be nice if I could enjoy it more. But really, a week later, I just need more sleep. I am still trying to put 280 yards of tulle away and half of the 64 chair covers are waiting to get through the wash. Now where I am going to store all this stuff? I have 4 more daughters to marry off. But I am counting on a nice long stretch between weddings.

I quit

First of all, I quit trying to post a picture of Buddy for one. It wouldn't post so sorry for the boring word blogs with no pictures and it would have been even sadder to see. I picked up his ashes today. They are in the family where he was trained to stay. I do OK and then I feel sad again and the room is not the same. (update-posting the picture finally worked, editing this post here would make this post not work)
I am grieving still, for everything it seems. I know I am not alone but I feel very alone right now. Life is really beating me up all at once. It' so funny, I am bewildered by my sad emotions and then I review it all and the list gets longer and longer and I reminding myself that there are a lot of good reasons to be sad right now so I try to let myself feel sad instead of trying to put it away.

I quit my job. I needed too. It was for so many reasons. I love kids, I love quotes from kids, I love teasing them too. I work with some really fantastic people. But it was time. I need to take care of me. Because nobody else will do it for me. I still don't feel well and it all comes back to stress. According to doctors, I am allergic to everything that's green and have something going on in the vertebrae in my neck and ridiculous migraines but other than that nothing else they can find. So it's stress and most illnesses are triggered by that anyway. I am sad about leaving and so relieved at the same time. I don't want to play frogger with cars anymore and stand out in the rain and snow all winter long. But I did tell them I would sub. So I won't be gone forever.

Wedding post to come. I just need to be able to post pictures. Amber was beautiful.

I'm sorry, I am sad. This is super sad.

I posted last summer that I thought our dog might not be with us much longer. He did make it another year. Our dog Buddy became part of our family 12 years ago. We rescued him from the pound. He's 13 or 14 years old and a rather large dog. The past six months he has been in decline. July 4th he must have had a stroke or something. He never pees in the house but he did that day and couldn't get up for 24 hours. I wasn't sure what to do but when he has been bad it will usually pass. It took until later the next day though before he got up. Talking with Lee Joe, he wanted to wait until he was home before we did anything unless he went on his own naturally. I wasn't sure he could make it that long. But Buddy rebounded enough and we dealt with his issues. Then almost as soon as Lee Joe came home, the dog was unable to get up without a lot of help. He wouldn't even eat or drink, until we gave it to him.
We have had a short time with Lee Joe this week. Kylee and Autumn were at camp until Amber's wedding (a happier post to come) so we didn't want to do it until the girls were all home and we didn't want to do it before the wedding. So it was today. Lee Joe goes to North Dakota tomorrow. It was hanging over us while we prepared for the wedding. After much debate on how to deal with this we figured out what we do, we told the girls it was time. It was hard for us all. The two youngest have never known what it was like to not have Buddy around. Hannah wants him to live forever and everything to live forever. She has also had the hardest time with Lee Joe's absence. She has cried off and on all week as we have tried to prepare her for what needed to be done. Lee Joe struggled with admitting it was time. But I couldn't take care of it on my own. He finally admitted Buddy's quality of life was gone. I finally figured out what the dogs biggest problem is. I suspected it was the case, but he was suffering from dog dementia.

Be warned, the rest of this is the painful story of our goodbye.

We have no van so getting him to the vet was a dilemma but Amber's Eclipse has a hatchback. So we put his bed there and Lee Joe and I lifted the seventy pound dog into the back and he settled comfortably. The youngest three sat around him and Kelsea rode with her dad and the dog in the front and I followed in the car with our other dog Spot. I felt she should be there. They have always been together she needed to be there too. Amber left on her honeymoon but she knew what we had to do. We had talked to vet ahead of time. Lee Joe didn't like him being in a sterile room scared so I had talked to the vet about how to handle it. Buddy had walked around outside some. Lee Joe put his bed in the grass and Buddy laid down there. We are all crying. The three youngest made bouquets of flowers from Amber's wedding for him. So he was outside on his bed with flowers all around him and we were all in tears. Quite a sight for everyone that saw us there. They got him ready outside. We had then we had to wait for the vet to take care of poor cat that came that was badly injured. So we had more time to pet him and cry some more. Finally he was able to come out. He explained what we were about to see happen and needless to say, when it did happen it was hard. They let us have our time with him and then once they got ready to bring him inside we even had the one of the vet techs in tears. I am not sure if that family lost their cat or if they had watched us outside but they were crying too when they came out the doors. I really wish he could have gone on his own, that we didn't have to make that decision for him. Man, it hurts.

I will share the sad about the wedding so I don't have to post it with all the happy and good parts of it. I am sad when I realize that when I talk about MY family and MY genepool that could share in the event is my husband and my children, then my mom came to the reception and my niece and that was all the family I had. I am sad that my daughter is going to depend on someone else now. I have always realized how much my children mean to me and now I will have to share her with her husband and his family now. She has removed herself from me quite a but through the planning process of her wedding. I already miss her. I am sad that the photographer didn't get pictures of even Lee Joe's family that came to Amber's wedding. She was too wrapped up in getting pictures of Ryan's family. I am sad that my husband is leaving tomorrow morning and I haven't had any time with him to just be with him without all the chaos. I miss Kelsea too since she is living with my mom and am sad that the photographer took away her moment to give her sister her bouquet at the temple and broke her heart. I probably feel all the event emotional letdown combined with several significant losses in my life all at once and it feels unbearable right this minute. Not to mention the monster migraine that I can't find relief from and my inability to sleep for the past few days. So I will end this tale of misery. The next post will be happy. I promise.