My Diary of Wednesday and Thursday (last week)

This blog serves as our family's diary.   Whenever we want to check on the details of any event we always say,  "Just check Mom's blog."   So I will be documenting every little detail of our past weekend and the preparations for it.   Parts of it may be offensive to some readers, and I'm sorry for that.  But it was a beautiful experience of working together as a family and celebrating with many others, and I want to write it all down.

Last Wednesday I babysat Hunter as I usually do.  He was blissfully unaware that his world was about to be invaded!

I was cooking a bit more than usual because I knew that the "troops" would soon arrive.  I made fried rice and sweet and sour chicken.  Somehow the fried rice, which I have often made before and always seems like a huge amount, did not seem to be that much after all, hahaha!!

I did not take one picture that evening!  So I have taken pictures from other days and other people for this part.  The first to arrive were Mike, his mother Martha, and the dogs.

Mike, trying out the new hammock the next day.

What a blessing that Martha could be here all the way from California where she lives with Mike's sister's family.  She has been battling cancer for three years, and has had some very disheartening prognoses, even just since she was here at Thanksgiving.  She is indeed a survivor, and it was such fun to spend so much time with her.

Imagine Austin's delight when he got home from school on Wednesday and discovered that Watson and Molly were at his house!  

A bit later Jeremy arrived with his "assistants," Megan and Amber.  

Megan, a former co-worker of Jeremy's who now lives in Portland, was the wedding planner/organizer.  She did a fantastic job of keeping many lists and checking them many times!  She was AWESOME!!

Amber, who works for the company Jeremy is with now and lives in Tampa, was handling work business for him while they were here.  She even kept his phone some of the time!

The first couple of nights Jeremy, Mike, and the dogs stayed at Anthony and Lori's, Martha slept at our house, and Megan and Amber slept at my friend Peg's lovely airbnb apartment.  It was really dark when I took them there Wednesday night, but I promised them they would have a beautiful view in the morning.  Sure enough!  One of them posted this picture the next morning! (We live over there in that clump of trees closer to the mountain!)

On Thursday morning Martha and I, Megan and Amber trekked over to Anthony and Lori's, and I made a sausage and pancake breakfast for everyone.  Well, not quite everyone.  Lori was already at work, Hunter at daycare, and Austin at school.

Miki called to let me know that she and her two friends (Maria and Christel) had arrived at my house late morning. (This picture was actually taken yesterday at the Dulles Airport.)

So after Martha and I did some grocery shopping,  we went to my house to welcome the Swedes.  Then we all headed over to Anthony and Lori's where the crafting got into high gear.  They were putting Jeremy's designer labels on each little bottle of beer, which was brewed by one of their DC neighbors.  These would be the guest favors.  Miki was working on the flower girl baskets.

Outside, the carpenter was working on the framework for the new hammock.

Anthony and Jeremy strung up the lights.  By the way, I didn't mention that it was HOT!!!  Like in the high 80's and low 90's and very humid!

Two park benches by the pond had been completed.  I took these pics from the house.  One bench is at the far end of the pond where Austin likes to catch newts in the stream.  It will be so nice (for me or Lori or whoever accompanies him) to have a place to sit while he does that.

The other one is closer to the driveway.

While all this activity was going on, I was making a huge pot of taco soup.  I was also texting people, trying to work out transportation for Destiny to the wedding.  To my great disappointment, I had found out that Frank and Lauren would not be able to come.  They had very legitimate reasons, but I was very sad.  I knew that Destiny was very much looking forward to coming and seeing everyone, so I was wracking my brain for ideas.

Jeremy gave me the phone number for his friend Daryl who lives near Reading.  I put his phone number in my contacts and wrote him a long text message, describing in detail what the situation was, where she goes to school, her address, etc. and wondering what time he was coming up Friday, and was there a chance he could bring her along.  A minute after I sent the text I got a reply, "You must have the wrong number.  This is Annette."   What????  I gave all that information to the wrong person??  We checked Daryl's number, and sure enough, I had put a 6 instead of a 9 as the last digit of his phone number!  GRRR!!   But we did get a good laugh out of it.  We kept joking about Annette, and how she was no help at all, haha!!  (As it turned out,  it didn't work out for Daryl to bring Destiny either, but we figured out a way for Bjorn and Jess to bring her Saturday morning.)

After Austin got home from school we tried out the hammock.

Jeremy hung up the new welcome sign he had made.  

I took this picture while sitting on the bench at the far end of the pond.  There was a slight breeze blowing, and it was so serene.

I took this picture from the upper driveway as we were getting into the van to go home Thursday evening.  

We had a houseful Thursday night!  Maria and Christel slept in our guest room, Miki on our sofa, and Martha on the love seat!  What a trooper she is! 

Well, I'll do Friday on the next post!