Golden Memories!

April 22, 2010

It was an amazing weekend!

As you know, my parents celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary this year – and my siblings and I wanted to honor them.

But what do you do with a Mom who hates Open Houses, and a fun-loving crazy bunch of kids and grand-kids?

You create a Golden Event!

So all 34 of us met here – at my house – last weekend for a unique celebration full of food, laughter and memories.

Unique describes it well!

Family started coming in on Thursday – with Saturday being the day of the Event (which we kept a surprise from Mom and Dad.)

Okay – a word here about trying to surprise my mom – she has been known to open presents early and re-wrap them because she can’t stand the suspense! Mom quizzed one of my sisters so much that my sister finally had to say, “Mom – I am not a present for you to shake for information! And no fair shaking my children either!”  :)

It may be hard to surprise Mom – but we pulled it off in a really big way!

After lunch the grand kids decorated the car before we all got “dressed up” in our fancy attire for the big Event which we dubbed “The Golden”.  Since playing with dress-up clothes has always been a favorite activity – we had a lot of fun with this.

We had everything from the glamorous to the outrageous! One of my nieces came as a cowgirl, one nephew wore a bright plaid suit coat with a pink tie and holey jeans while my brother wore plaid shorts, a striped t-shirt and a Hawaiian shirt!

My costume? I actually found an ecru (almost golden) lace dress at the thrift store for 10 cents. Score!

Why the fancy attire? We were heading to a “Red Carpet Premiere”!

That’s right! My brother – in his eye-numbing ensemble – led our caravan of vehicles to the newly renovated Princess Theater in town – which we rented for a few hours to show 3 amazing homemade videos.

My youngest sister made two of them.

The first showed Mom and Dad’s courtship, marriage and our growing up years. The second covered everything since then – including all the grandchildren.

Together they covered 50 years of memories.

Let’s just say that we went through a lot of Kleenex.

The third video was made by all the grandchildren – it was a crazy documentary full of family humor and inside jokes. We laughed so hard we cried!

Mom and Dad loved it!

Everybody loved it! I can’t tell you how amazing it was to sit in that darkened theater holding Jan’s hand and watching Mom and Dad’s love story play out on the big screen. Tears flowed as picture after picture reminded me of the rich heritage I have – a heritage of love and laughter.

The kids just thought it was pretty cool to see themselves on the screen in a real movie theater.  :)

From the theater we went to the local REC where we had rented the community room for the evening. We sat the entire family around one extra – extra long table and served a nice meal (nothing fancy – just good home cooking!).

The rest of the evening was spent dancing, singing, playing games, eating, and reading mom and dad’s love letters (Dad will never win awards for his poetry – but  gets lots of points for being very romantical!)

It was such a special time – and so much fun!

I feel so blessed to be a part of this crazy bunch – to have grown up surrounded by all this love and support – to be able to call my siblings my best friends – to have parents who are still crazy about each other after being married for 50 years.

It was an amazing week-end.

By Country Gal | Posted in Holidays, Memories | Tagged , , , , | Comments (7)

Bridal Satin Memories

April 14, 2010

There’s “wedding” in the air!

With my parent’s 50th Anniversary Celebration coming up this week-end and my niece’s recent engagement – it seems like every family conversation involves weddings.

It’s making me a bit nostalgic. :)

But then spring always brings back memories – I starting dating Jan in the spring and he asked me to marry him a little over a year later.

When I heard about the super-romantical proposal my niece received – it made me wonder – how did Dad propose to Mom?

I remembered back to the afternoon when Jan proposed to me.

It was sweet.

It was simple.

It was Jan.

It was (and is) priceless.

But the proposal is just the beginning – then the wedding planning starts!

Fifty years ago my mom made her own wedding dress on her treadle sewing machine. She went on to make wedding dresses for all four of her daughters – me included.

Last week-end she cut into bridal satin once again as she started on my niece’s wedding dress.

I remember how exciting it was to see all that beautiful satin laying there – and knowing it was going to turn into the wedding dress I would wear down the aisle to marry the man of my dreams!

I’m sure my niece was as starry eyed as I – as she watched Mom lay out the material and pattern.

I know she was excited when she heard about the white Bible tradition!

When Mom got married she carried a small white Bible she received from her grandma. All of my sisters and I carried it with our bridal bouquets as well.  As soon as my niece heard the story – she was anxious to “carry” on the tradition.

I’m glad that in the midst of all this planning and excitement we have a weekend together to remember what all the fuss and preparations are about.

It’s about a man and a woman promising before God to love and honor each other till death do they part.

It’s not just about bridal satin and white Bibles – they are only the beginning – the celebration!

It’s really about the marriage.

The commitment.

My folks have kept it for 50 years.

Now that’s a tradition to pass on!

By Country Gal | Posted in Family Traditions, Memories | Tagged , , , | Comments (8)

And On the Farm He Had a….

April 2, 2010

The very first afternoon that the girls were here – they heard the Amish neighbor’s goats and were very curious! So curious that they sat on the hillside and and watched them for several minutes.

Katie would say “maa – maa – maa!” as loudly as she could and the goats would answer “Maa- maa- maa” from the other hillside.

Then everyone would explode into giggles!

So I decided to stop at the neighbors and ask if they could meet these goats. Cora very graciously said we were welcome to come out after nap time. The girls were very excited!

I thought it would be a short trip, we’d see the animals and pet them and head home. But it turned into something much bigger!

Katie fell in love with the baby goats – even tried to kiss one! We all giggled when the goat ate her hair instead! Then we walked over to the barn where the big goats were. (This was so exciting for Katie – she had been talking about “see barn” ever since she arrived!)

While we were there, one of the Amish girls came in and asked if we would like to see her feed the goats? YES!

She then feed the big goats, and we followed her while she feed the baby goats, the calves, and the horses.

She was rewarded with some very special smiles, many excited comments and lots of giggles.

Then she offered to hitch up the pony cart and give the kids a ride! I wish I could have captured the looks on their faces as they rode off – but we wanted to respect the Amish belief in no photographs.

Trust me – they were shining!

Then we all tromped into another barn and watched her milk Susie the cow. The kids were quite impressed that Susie did not always obey and had to be spanked on the bottom.

They stamped their feet and pointed at her and said “Naughty cow!”

Annie told us, “I show my Daddy how to milk cow.” Then she pretended to milk a little, stopped to pat the pretend cow and said “Move over Susie!”

And Emie giggled.

There were kitties all over to chase and and something new to look at around every corner.

When the milking was done, the kitties got fed some of the warm milk.

Emie looked up at me with her eyes shining and said “Kitties dinking!” and giggled.

God bless our wonderful Amish neighbors! What a special memory this will be!

By Country Gal | Posted in Children, Memories | Tagged , , | Comment (1)

A Trip to the Hundred Acre Wood

April 1, 2010

In which we take an “explore” on a warm spring day through the woods and over the hills to the Hundred Acre Wood….

It was a long hike for little legs, but we had lots of fun riding “cowboy” and “bunking bronco’s”….

When we finally arrived at the Hundred Acre Wood – we looked all over for Winnie the Pooh, but we couldn’t find him.

We think he might be visiting Christopher Robin since we saw his tracks in the mud under the footbridge.

We did find Pooh’s tree house and we climbed in and peeked out Pooh’s window! We also went down Pooh’s slide, and went back and forth across Pooh’s bridge.

We had a picnic of peanut butter crackers and oranges (sorry Pooh Bear – no honey- it’s too messy!) and threw our orange peels in the ravines for the mice and birds to eat.

We played a little Pooh sticks in the creek and even left a Katy track, an Emie track and an Annie track for Pooh to find.

Then we mounted our “horses” and headed back up the hill and through the forest back home.

Good-bye Hundred Acre Wood!

By Country Gal | Posted in Children, Memories | Tagged , , | Comment (1)

Easter Dresses and Muddy Messes

March 29, 2010

Yesterday was our first full day with all the children- and boy was it a day of contrasts!

Our day began with sweet little girls all decked out out in their Easter dresses complete with gloves and hair ribbons. (The gloves lasted all of 10 minutes!)

It included a trip to church, palm branches and goody bags full of Cheerios, pretzels and mini-marshmallows.

The girls really got into waving those palm branches! And even though they whacked us in the face several times – and whacked their brother’s heads in the row in front of us, I’ll still call the morning a resounding success.

The afternoon, however, was a different story.

It wasn’t the girls though – they had a wonderful time! They were finally able to go outside.

They discovered that their pretty pink boots made big splashes in the mud puddles; they fed the chickens, gathered the eggs and walked the length and depth of the yard.

Oh the happiness!

No, the girls had a very lovely adventure. It was the big boys who had a misadventure – a very muddy misadventure!

Remember my overconfident declaration – “I’m not worried about the boys, we’ll feed them when they’re hungry and make sure they wear clean underwear when they go home”?

Yeah – we might be rethinking that one.

Right after lunch they headed out to explore the ravines. I just told them to stay away from water, stick together and stay off the road.

They stuck together all right.

I’m not sure of the details, but the story goes that they were down in the ravines exploring when James stepped into the “Mud Pit of Death”. It instantly sucked him in up to the top of his boots. Of course the older cousins had to “rescue” him.Muddy Jeans

In the heroic attempts to “save” their cousin – all of the older cousins got into the “Mud Pit of Death” with him – which instantly started sucking the boots and shoes right off their feet.

Yes – just like a giant vacuum cleaner. What a sacrifice!

The final causality count was three boots, three shoes, and an untold number of socks.

Aunt Julie and I were shocked with the muddy, shoeless group who drifted back to the house.

But don’t worry – we  aunts got our revenge! There was no way those mud- encrusted jeans were setting foot in my house – so the boys had to drop their drawers outside the basement, wrap a towel around their skivvies and sheepishly walk upstairs to the showers – carefully navigating all the safety gates we have in place.

It was priceless!

Then this morning they had to go outside in their pj’s and spray off those jeans to remove the biggest chunks of mud before I could wash them. (They loved this part!)

We’ll be off to the Amish store  in a few minutes to replace some of the boots, Aunt Melinda found shoes in the shoe bucket to replace some of the ones buried in the ravine, and the jeans did come clean in the wash.

So, while the outward evidence of the misadventure are gone – the memory made will last forever!

And that’s what this week is all about.

By Country Gal | Posted in Children, Memories, Rural Realities, Spring | Tagged , , , , | Comments (4)