Yikes! We did it!


Holy moley!
Weddings are huge beasts.

For over a month we weeded, trimmed trees... which led to cutting logs out of the big branches and doing something with the bark chips afterward... taming, trimming and giving the vinca a new do, not to mention my endless battle with the berry vines.


I have come to the belief that yard work is like cleaning a spot on the wall... you get one area looking great and the rest looks like crap!
Before you know it, one thing leads to another and then its time to start over. Sheesh!


Fortunately for us, there were many who helped out with the yard.
Likewise with the wedding!
On Thurs. Bear's bunch showed up and took up residence in the pop-up trailer. That is one hard working girl!
The next day Boo, Saucy and Squeaky showed up to help, along with Big E, a friend of ours' son. We looked like ants swarming over the yard and house. :-D


By Saturday... "Judgment Day" and our wedding day... the joke was that Randy had waited until the last day on earth to get married.

Big grins!


We scurried around. Bear finished the 6 layer, 3 tier wedding cake about an hour before the wedding. Phew!


Then T asked Randy about my bouquet.
Bouque? What bouquet?


In the flood of all the other things we needed to do,
we had forgotten the bouquet!
So T and Rev. Jimmy ran out... and I did not know this part...
and made me a beautiful bouquet with white hydrangea and mums and some lovely purple lily-like flowers and some fun green things.
They wrapped it all in voile with trailers that hung down and it was a huge surprise to me.


I was very touched!


We all battled for shower time.
Someone left the door open to my room... and my clothes were on the bed
within view of the folk standing in the hall.
I was stuck with only a towel.
Yikes!
I decided to become a blur and slam the door shut.
Later someone asked me about that, and we had a good laugh over it.

We waited for some missing guests for what seemed forever, then finally they arrived and it was time to get the show on.
Boo and I began to walk...
but I'd forgotten my bouquet.
"Wait!"
I ran back to get it and then before I knew it, I was standing there with Randy in front of Rev. Jimmy.
He said something very nice about marriage,
but I didn't hear much of it.
I went into zombie shock mode.
I don't do well in front of crowds. I have serious stage fright issues.


Okay... you must sympathize with me now.
I demand it!
Randy began saying his vows and was slipping my rings on my finger.
I began to cry.
I am a dedicated cry baby.
;-)


He put my rings on backwards...
but who cares?
My tears choked him up a bit, but he did a much better job than I at getting his lines out.


Then it was time for me to slip his ring on...
and my much, much beloved C4C dropped it!
Ha!
That was a very welcome bit of comic relief!


Over Randy's shoulder I could see T wiping a tear off his face...
which made me cry more.
Yikes!


I barely managed to croak out my vows and slip the ring on his finger.

Then Rev. Jimmy wiped a tear from my cheek...
I was so touched by that!

And he pronounced us married.
I was never so glad to kiss someone in my life!

Time to celebrate and barbecue!

Phew!

We survived!

Done deal.

Of course now I have to change all my ID again.
Crap.


Am I happy?


What do you think?

Ha!


(Yep, the bride wore brown.)

Tomorrow I'll post some of the pics of other people.


Special thanks to all those who helped us to get ready for the wedding:
Bear, Mikey P, Turkey, Boo, Saucy, Squeaky, Max, Mom, Ron, Joshua,
Big E and and always... my dear, dear C4C!
Thanks too to Rev. Jimmy... who was amazing
and T, who did everything from dishes to grilling.
These are my treasures!

So what about Roxy?


She had a ball playing with the guests...
she LOVES people.
And she didn't mind at all when people dropped
barbecue tid bits on the ground.
:D
Roxy was in dog heaven.
So many to worship her and give her pats!
Ha!


Today, my wish for you is that you are all as happy as I am now.


Be thankful for those you love...
and for those who love you.
Big grins everyone!

QUACK OUT LOUD

What a great week and weekend!  

First my kids came to visit.  Notably: Bear

 ...her Turkey

 ...Max 

...and Squeaky.  

 Not the best photo of this fella... operator error!

They arrived Thursday evening and stayed until mid-day on Friday.

The idea of course is to give them and Randy an opportunity to get to know each other.

The Bear and Randy have met before and spoken on the phone... most notably when I broke down at a rest stop one night and my phone died as soon as I managed to get the information out of my mouth to Randy, who called Bear and worked out rescue.

It's a story you have heard before, but it did create a good beginning to a relationship between them.

We did our usual things... a BBQ of course!

We wanted to have fresh muscles or oysters in a wonderful Asian chili sauce, but alas, there were none to be had that day.  We opted instead for burgers or brats, little smokies in a lovely habenero

sauce or kielbasa in  sweet sauce for nibbles.

I intended to serve some fresh green beans with peppered bacon, but that did not happen and with all the other chips, etc, who needed something healthy in this wonderful heart attack mix?

Mostly we yakked and yakked.

Ah... as in talking, not the other version.

I got some great photos and then they were gone.

Sigh.

I miss them, but we text or yak on the computer all the time anyway.  They are never truly far away.

:-)

We spent the rest of Friday running errands we needed to do... check on a job for Randy, clean up, though Bear did the dishes and left everything else tidy.  We were so full from the day before that we did not even bother with diner... just hit the sack exhausted.

Saturday my eyes popped open at an ungodly hour.

I was so excited!  

My first ever Ducks game at Autzen Stadium.

I did not know the drill and though Randy did tell me when the game was, "my rememberer is broke".

I thought, because the idea of a party before noon does not compute in my brain... that the tail gate party was what began at 12:30.

Wrong.  That was kick-off time.

The others began tail gating at 9:30AM!

YIKES!

I still had my jammies on.

I left my camera at home in my excitement.

But we drove to a shopping center parking lot where the shopping center is gone, but the lot still exists and took our place in line to ride the "Duck Bus".

It wasn't a long ride, but a pretty one.  The mood was energized and everyone gabbed with each other.

The scenery here is beautiful and we crossed the river a couple of times... yeah, the same river... don't ask, I still get lost and don't understand the geography here.

The Duck Bus let us off at the back of Autzen.

No worries... a bit of a walk to where the big bus sized RVs were waiting with our friends and their families.

I was assured that 11:00 beer is tradition and imbibed two.  This is supposed to make the game more enjoyable.  I can't say if that is true because I had a wonderful time but it was my first live game and I doubt that it could have been less enjoyable, beer or not.

Time for us all to part.  They had season tickets that they have had for over 20 years.

We had one game only tickets that we got with a two for one deal through Bi-Mart.

"There are no bad seats in Autzen."

Even if you are not in a prime location, you have a giant screen to watch and the tiers allow you to see over the tallest folk.

We were admittedly in the nose bleed section.

Row 92, on the aisle.

By the time we got up there, I rued the beer and had to use my asthma huffer.

But the view!

We could see everything.

The game itself was fun... ending score was Ducks 72 to poor New Mexico's 0.

As near as I know the Lobos are not even rated and we are last year's Pack 10 champions.

Not what you would call a challenging match.

I did feel bad for the Lobos.

But tons of fun.  I enjoyed everything.

Autzen is a very loud stadium and its fans are fanatical.  Every single time the boys of fall line up, the sound begins... all fans wind up with yelling 

"Oooooooooooooooooo!" in a crescendo until the ball is set into motion.  Every single time.  It is an incredible sound meant to encourage our boys and unnerve the enemy.

When the slaughter of woeful wolves ended, we made our way back to the RVs for a bit more nosh and mingle, then we were off to the Duck Bus for the ride home.  Spirits could not be higher... and neither could some of the passengers.  Hee hee.

We're talking happy fans.

So what did we do with our evening?

Well, our arch nemesis... The Oregon Beavers

were on the tube playing Texas Christian and even though the plan is to grind up those nasty Beavers in our Civil War game, we are after all, Oregonians and had to back our state.  Yep, Beavers for a few hours, but TCU took it 30-21.  Oh well.

Can you ever get enough college football?

Nope.

Then we watched USC vs Hawaii... a much closer fight, with USC winning 49-36.

There was another game, Oklahoma vs Utah, but the old gal fell asleep part way into it...

we were watching in bed by then.

It was a long, delightful day.

Today I have a couple of aps to fill out in the hopes of working at Uof O.

Now wouldn't that be a hoot?

And maybe a discount on tickets!

Oh, the title of this post comes from one of the many great fan shirts we saw... QOL (quack out loud!) .

But I think my favorite one was " High on quack, cranked on Duck".

That pretty much says it all.

Okay, so you know we are getting married.

We want a casual wedding... BTW, I hate weddings.

So far the plan is to BBQ... now who would have guessed that?  We're thinking shorts and flip-flops, make the ceremony as brief as possible within the law.

Got any ideas for decoration or amusement?

Hey... no joke there was talk of Elvis performing the rites!

Any idea is fair game.  Our main theme is to be together with friends and family and have fun.