Fur Elise

With play practices every day after school, our piano teacher kindly gave us the month off from lessons, with some encouragement to keep practicing when and if she could.  I'm so proud of Ella for polishing up this tricky song on her own!

A Few Fall Photos

Our fall can be summarized in nearly one word: PLAY.  Both girls were thrilled and blessed to land major parts in our Middle School's production of Alice in Wonderland.  Though the daily practices have consumed our lives this season, it's been wonderful having a front row seat to watching this spectacular play come together.

 These are the big smiles on the day the cast list went out and the girls got their scripts.  Delia plays Alice, Ella is the Cheshire Cat narrator.  

Besides juggling play practices and dress rehearsals with church groups and homework, here are a few other things we squeezed into October/November...

 A band and choir concert.  Delia decided band was not for her and switched her musical contributions to the school to choir.  We're fine with it.  Ella continues to do both band and choir and even secured the First Chair position for her saxophone section!

 A lost tooth.  The tooth fairy jig is up, but the girls continue to play along for the cash.  I love finding their sweet little notes tucked into the tooth pillow!

 A couple football games.  We had a really good team this year that has made it to playoffs.  We've enjoyed some exciting games while visiting with friends under Friday night lights.

 A church harvest party that we decided we are NOT too old for!  It was discussed if it might be time to retire from this tradition, but these girls can't be talked out of a night of dress up!  Because we were unsure about going, these costumes were literally put together the day of!

And a date lunch with Dave starring one amazing order of shared nachos.

Honestly this is not my normal amount of pictures or recaps for an entire month, but really we've just been living in the car and the school auditorium these past weeks.  It will be nice to get back into a slower routine over the upcoming weeks...you know, of family visitors, holidays, and parties every weekend! ;)  

My Birthday Hike

For my birthday, which was on a Saturday this year, one thing I requested was "a family hike with no complaining."  When you are the Birthday Girl, you can demand grand gestures like this! ;)

We decided to check out a new hiking path for us-- the caves at Natural Bridges in the foothills.  We weren't really sure what to expect and the hike ended up being MUCH more of an adventure than any of us were planning!

The cave system was pretty cool, but you had to submerge yourself in the icy water to swim through and fully explore it.  We were entertained for a while watching people work up the nerve to do this.  But, we did not wear swim suits, so we didn't have to brave the numbing water ourselves (much to Delia's relief!).

But we did make the whole drive and hike down to the caves, so we thought we should make the most of it and keep hiking.  We decided to venture about a mile up the creek.  This was where we encountered jungle-like poison oak, terrifying alligator lizards, and rocks so slick, they did make one of us slide into the water and have to hike in wet pants.

The hike back up was very hot and along the way we had to watch several people on the path in front of us get stung while passing a huge wasps' nest in the trail.  The kids were in tears by this point!  We covered them with extra layers of clothes we took off to swing around at wasps and ran past avoiding stings.  Through it all, we never heard any complaints!  And after a little stop for ice cream and some distance from the poison oak, alligator lizards, freezing water, and wasps, we were all able to laugh about the crazy adventure and memorable birthday gift this hike ended up being! 

Bonus Time with the VMs!

Oops, also realizing I never blogged about the great day we got to spend with our VM side of the family before flying back home after the wedding!  Unfortunately, timing was tight, so this visit could only be for a day-- but it was Labor Day, so everyone was off work and school and able to donate lots of time to family togetherness!

The day started with an amazing gourmet breakfast buffet at Chris and Karen's.

Then we headed over to Mom and Dad's place for two fun reasons: 1. They had a photographer friend lined up to take pretty outside pictures of the whole family and 2. We had an awesome Labor Day pool party planned.

 Well...the weekend was full of crazy storms and all our outside plans ended up being thwarted.  But, standing on Mom and Dad's 5th floor balcony in the middle of a down-pouring thunderstorm was actually a great treat!

And we were able to throw together a still-fun Plan B.  We took the family pictures right in Mom and Dad's lobby.

And we headed to their condo building's Community Room for several hours of board games and laughs.

Our always-favorite Telestrations once again did not disappoint in delivering wacky artwork and hilarity.

The time off and great efforts made to get back to the Midwest in the middle of school time for us were totally worth it for the joy of celebrating Heather and Andrew and the core memories made at their wedding.  This bonus time with Dave's family was just icing on that wedding cake!

'Cuz Who Doesn't Love Wedding Pictures?!

One month ago we were celebrating Andrew and Heather (which, I'm realizing is also the last time I wrote a blog post!).  This week the wedding photographer's pictures came in and we are so delighted to pour over them and relive this special weekend!  The pictures are SO GOOD, here are a few favorites for your "ooohing" and "aaahing" pleasure too...

Lake House Wedding Weekend

Last weekend we had the joy and privilege of witnessing my sister Heather marry Andrew, a guy we've been loving getting to know this year and welcome warmly into our family.  Heather's vision for her wedding was a pretty unconventional one.  She wasn't interested in any of the typical traditions or hoopla.  She just wanted a weekend with all her people in her favorite place.  As 40 of her family members and dearest friends assembled from all over the country, it was to share much more than just a ceremony and dinner one night, but an entire 3 days together in this gorgeous lake house in Michigan.

Heather's family and Andrew's got rooms in the amazing home, everyone else stayed in the hotel or cottages next door.  It was a real pleasure to get to know Andrew's family better during this time of shared living space!

Dave was also asked to officiate the wedding, which was a real honor for him.  He did a wonderful job!  I snapped a few pics of him preparing himself and the happy couple for the ceremony.

Soooo, the weather for our Lake House Wedding Weekend was actually pretty insane!  One major storm system rolled in after the next!  This video was taken about 2 hours before the ceremony.  Though an indoor Plan B needed to be quickly thrown together and workers had to scramble to reset tables and dry off chairs, it actually cleared up beautifully for the actual ceremony.  And Heather stayed surprisingly chill throughout it all!  Later during cocktail hour, the rain came down again, but the party was small, so everyone could huddle under the awnings of the beach house.  We all kept singing, "It's like ray-e-ain on your wedding day..." :)

Here we are getting ready.  Delia got lots of spiral curls in her hair and Ella headed up an effort to decorate the boat with Just Married signs, balloons, and cans.  Funny story: we didn't pack and couldn't find string or twine, though-- so all the decorations are tied up with dental floss!

 I include this picture to show the crazy Midwest humidity that we've become super wimpy about!  My phone and glasses kept fogging up!

 Here's Uncle Andrew's first look at Auntie Heather.  Most of the guests were able to witness it from the balcony on the lake house.  

And here we are headed down to a beautifully landscaped wall of flowers where some family pictures were taken.

 A real wedding weekend highlight was getting tons of time to catch up with Anna and Derek!  I'm SO thankful for all the deep talks and laughs we got share!

The ceremony was right on the property of the lake house.  It was intimate and personal and perfect for Heather and Andrew.

A favorite wedding memory will be a boat driving RIGHT past blaring the song "Love Shack".  Dave was unfazed, but the rest of us had to stifle giggles and the desire to dance in our seats.  

These are a few pics we've gotten to sneak peek from the photographer.  Another blog post will probably appear when we get the full set.  Wasn't this the most picturesque setting?!  It was such a special and beautiful wedding!

Heather and Andrew escaped for a bit on the boat we decorated for them for some Just Married photos.  

After multiple thunderstorms during the day, the sky cleared and turned the most magnificent shades of pink-- a backdrop gift for the photographer!

Since the crowd was small, Heather wanted her reception to feel like an intimate dinner of friends and it did!  The food and drink were delicious.  We all took turns playing DJ and putting our favorite songs on.  Uncle Andrew taught both girls how to swing dance.  We roasted marshmallows and made s'mores.  And Anna, Derek, Dave and I played a fierce game of corn hole...in our formal wear!

After the wedding night, the festivities were not over!  We still had a whole day to spend together taking boat rides...

 Swimming in the lake and hotel pool...

 Lounging lakeside...

 And playing lawn games.  (This one pictured is called "Flippin' Chicken".  It's bocce ball with crazy, bouncy rubber chickens instead of balls and it was hilarious!)

All in all, it was really the perfect wedding weekend.  I love that Heather was bold enough to imagine and pull off a different kind of wedding-- one where uniting her most important people for some quality time together in an idyllic setting was the main focus.