Wedding Weekend

This weekend we went to a wedding in Manhattan, Kansas. Daniel's cousin, Josh, married his sweet girlfriend, Danele. We all really like her and are super happy for them! They had a somewhat eventful wedding (or reception technically), that will be quite memorable for years to come. Here's some pictures from our weekend.

The wedding party waiting for the ceremony to begin. They actually were all supposed to be waiting in a limo out of the heat, but it never showed. :(

The Moms of the bride and groom going over last minute details. On the left is Aunt Dory, Daniel's mom's sister. Follow that?

Daniel's nephew Caleb was the ring bearer. He was entertaining everyone all weekend! :)

Caleb and Danele's niece, Joss, walking down the aisle. Caleb was a perfect little gentleman. Cute!

Danele walking down the aisle with her brothers.

Our kids were getting a little antsy and hot, so Daniel took them back into the shade to watch.

Check out their enthusiasm. :)

Thus I ended up alone in our row. (Besides the dude I don't know sitting there!)

Vows

Caleb being a 5 year old! :)

I looked over and saw Daniel pointing the camera at me, so I thought we'd have a little fun.

They did unity sand. (I'm not sure what it's actually called) Where they each pour different colored sand into one vase to represent their lives blending together in marriage. Pretty cool.

The view from a bit further back.

At the end they came back and dismissed each aisle.

Abby and I sitting patiently awaiting our turn. She came back to sit with me for a bit.

About to give some hugs of congratulations.

Now to some of the other excitement. :) For the reception we went to the Wareham Theater. It's an old opera house built in the late 1800's, I believe. Everything was going well. We all ate dinner, there was lots of socializing, and the DJ had gone around and collected song requests. The bride and groom were getting ready for their first dance, when firemen arrived and told everyone to evacuate because there was a fire there. I was downstairs in the bathroom. Joanna had asked to go upstairs by herself while I was washing my hands. So, I said OK, and off she went to find all the other kids. They had played quite a bit in the balcony area. When I got upstairs I heard what was going on, then found Daniel. He went to look up in the balcony for the kids and I went down to the bathrooms to be sure Joanna had come up. When I got to the bottom of the stairs 2 firemen stopped me and told me to go back upstairs, so I told them I was just making sure my daughter wasn't down there. They said they would check and when I went back upstairs, Daniel had all 4 kids with him. (Big mommy sigh of relief!) We couldn't see any fire or smoke inside, so their wasn't mass panic or anything. When we got outside we found out the marquee sign was smoking.

The Manhattan Fire Dept. setting up the truck.

The firemen working on the sign.

Josh and Danele posing by their smoking Congrats sign

and a fire truck!

The kids thought the fire trucks were pretty cool, especially Isaac. He was quite intrigued and told us he wants to be a fireman!

We were across the street watching everything and there was a costume store right there. So, Daniel's Uncle Harry bought 2 firemen hats and the kids delivered them to Josh and Danele.

They graciously posed for a picture. :)

Then Uncle Harry generously bought out the store of all their firemen hats for the nieces and nephews. They loved that!!

"Thanks Uncle Harry!"

Unfortunately, the excitement wasn't quite done. One of the DJ's they hired ended up getting arrested. I only saw a little bit of what happened, but it was quite a scene! Here's a few pics. They aren't very clear, but it was night and Daniel wasn't able to get the best shots during the whole thing. :)

The DJ wasn't cooperating with the cops about anything and was being pretty belligerent, so that's what you get.

When things were wrapping up with the fire, the firemen were very friendly and passed out hats and stickers to anyone who wanted one.

Here we are walking over to get in on the action!

The firemen also offered to take the bride and groom up in the bucket. A nice way to end the whole thing!

Getting safety belts on.

Are you ready to do this?

Up, Up, and Away......

So, after almost 2 hours we were given the "all clear" and let back into the theater to continue with the dancing. Daniel and I were busy dancing the night away (with the kids, too!) that we didn't take anymore pictures! Around 11pm he took the kids back and I stayed to help clean up. We were there until about 1am. What a memorable experience! Oh, we found out that a pigeon had shorted out some wires in the sign and that was what caused the fire.

The next day we attempted to take a quick family picture with all the Ashers that were there. (We are missing Michelle's husband and 3 of her kids.) Later, I thought we should have taken a family picture with all of us dressed up for the wedding. I especially wished we'd thought to get one of just our fam! :( Oh well, too late.

Here's a few attempts:

Back Row: Michelle, Mom, Daniel, Me, Joanna, Brenda, Dad, and Heidi
Front Row: Caleb, Brian, Levi, Abigail, Mathias, Calista, Hannah, and Isaac

Mathias thought we were done and started to walk away. Brian's telling him to come back, look we're not done yet.

Mathias reluctantly returning. :)

September 7th

September 7th is a very important date. It's my wonderful husband's birthday and I haven't posted for his birthday yet! Bad wife!

There are so many wonderful things to say about him. I love many things about this man. He is absolutely incredible to me! I couldn't have asked for a better man to run this race of life with and he definitely keeps things interesting! :)

I absolutely love just being with him. Do not underestimate this aspect of marriage! There certainly is a lot of "just being together" time in marriage. Sometimes alone, sometimes with children, with friends, with family, etc. It helps to have someone that it just comes naturally with. Stop and think for a minute, who would be your first choice to experience some amazing new adventure with, or the mundane tasks of daily life? Mine is always Daniel. (Except for maybe a chick flick! :) He is the best!

I know that I am spoiled and I don't appreciate him near enough. I will talk with friends or family and hear all types of marriage stories and situations - good ,bad, happy, sad, etc. and I always come back to the same thought. I am so happy that I married Daniel Asher! We have an amazing relationship that can only be credited to God.

We are both very "broken" individuals, with many annoying habits and such, but with God we truly become one. Don't get me wrong, we have our misunderstandings. We've brought each other to tears and had some really tough times, but we just come out stronger and loving each other more. I don't know how many times we have talked about how it's when we behave selfishly and make ourselves the priority that we have the biggest struggles in our marriage. I thank God that we have an open and honest relationship with each other and can really tell each other how we feel and know that the other person is really listening too. It's so amazing and freeing!

So, I'm just feeling really thankful and appreciative of him today. He is my now 33 year old husband of 8 1/2 years and still an amazing man! I look so forward to many, many more interesting years together. Happy Belated Birthday, Hon!!

(He is so often behind the camera, that I don't have many pics of him!)

Random Photo Post

I was looking through some of my pictures and thought that I would post just some random ones.


Gotta have some bath time pictures! :)

Isaac and Joanna

One of Joanna's friends, Naomi, was over playing so I had to take some pictures.
Such cute little 3 year olds!

Notice Joanna's swimsuit. :)

Naomi - cute little red head!

Joanna - big smiles, fun times!

Isaac asleep with his beloved pocket knife.

One evening when I was out for a girl's night, Daniel took the kids to a park. They love going to the park! Some seesaw time.

Hannah and Isaac

Joanna and Hannah

Joanna

Now to some swings.

Joanna

Old style merry go round.

Hannah and Joanna

weeeeeeeeeee

There is a big dirt hill there and the kids loved playing on it.

Hannah, Joanna, and Isaac

Oh yeah, a boy's dreamland.

You just can't go near a drinking fountain and NOT take a drink!


Here's a mixture of girl toys and boy toys:

Abigail and Isaac playing together.

Pollies and Lincoln Logs

Fishing in Missouri with Grandpa.

Daddy, Hannah, and Joanna fishing together.

Abby's catch!

I told Isaac to smile for the camera and he did this goofy boy routine. Check out all the faces! :)

Daddy joining in! Silly boys! :)

Labor Day Weekend

We had so much fun over the weekend, that we forgot to take pictures. I only have about 6! :) So, mostly words will have to do.

One of the main reasons for this get together, besides great family time, was for all of us to meet Rebecca's new man, Jon. We all like him very much! He adores Rebecca and the feeling is definitely mutual. We will all continue to pray for God's clear direction and guidance. I am so happy and excited for her!!

I didn't think to get a picture of them until the night before they were leaving. So, this is it and they were pretty tired. I think they were operating on only about 4hrs of sleep at night. You know what it's like to be in love! ;)

Rebecca and Jon

Emily & Jason, Rebecca & Jon, Daniel, me, Hannah, and Abigail all went on a float down the Black River, Saturday. Also, Em and Jason's dog Benny came, too. It was a lot of fun! I said it was like marriage counseling trying to communicate and make the canoe do what you wanted it to do!! We were busy having so much fun, that we only snapped 2 pictures. We even brought our new underwater camera we bought for our trip to Hawaii. Oh well.

Stopped to play some Ultimate Frisbee in the water. It's quite difficult to move quickly in the water and on a rocky bottom to boot!

We did have a couple canoe tips, but only one casualty. Jason lost some nice sunglasses. :(

The girls had a blast! They moved around from canoe to canoe and everyone got a chance to experience the float with a curious little one who doesn't always help keep the boat "balanced and generally upright.". ;) Though I don't think the girls were responsible for any of the actual tippings.

Abby in her life jacket.

Daniel brought his snorkeling stuff to practice and attempt to teach me some before Hawaii. He found a quick little turtle and chased it around then caught it to bring back for Isaac to see. He absolutely loved it! He would carry it around all day if we let him. Here he is holding it.

Isaac with the turtle. He didn't want to let it go, even to eat. In fact, at one point the kids were having a donut for a snack and he really wanted one, but was so conflicted about having to put the turtle down first and wash his hands. You could see him standing there trying to decide what to do. So, his compassionate mommy offered to feed him the donut while he held onto the turtle. He thought that was a great idea!

See the joy!

He and all the kids liked it so much that we decided to bring it home and put it in Daniel's old frog tank. So, now we have a pet turtle named Genny. In honor of Gen and Waylon. (You know, the one that caught the lizard!) :)

Labor Day Weekend

I am hoping to post soon. We had a great family weekend in Missouri over Labor Day and I do have some pictures to post, too. So, hopefully soon. We are back into the school routine and life's "busy as usual." :)