Making it to Mackinac

Whew!  What a long drive!   We headed up here to Michigan on Sunday after church and a last lunch with family.  Driving through Tennessee, we took a quick peek at Crown College where Wesley is going to attend in the fall. 

Sunday night we spent the night just north of Lexington, KY.  Kind of funny incident;  as we were heading to our hotel room, a  door opened and a man stepped out with his dog.  Wally stopped to be friendly and pet the critter, asking, “is that a rescued greyhound?”  Maybe the wrong thing to say to a man in town for the saluki dog competition!  It was a kind of sad looking dog though, especially wearing a diaper!  Oh well!

Wally was thinking we had an easy drive Monday and would get in kind of early for a change.  Hope I don’t hurt anyone’s feelings but there’s not much about Michigan that we enjoyed…it was pretty boring!  And gas was $4.15 a gallon!  What a killer!  No such luck getting in early either, we arrived in Mackinac City about 8:30 pm.  We barely found a place to get some dinner.

Another interesting experience was checking into a hotel.  You might think we were a piece of raw meat in a lion’s den!  We went into the first hotel and asked for a room.  The woman pulled out a paper and jotted down a number, a big number!  Just like a car salesman would do!  Then she lowered it, just a bit, and circled the number on the paper like we had a deal.  We asked to see the room.  It was kind of an okay room but not worth the the three digits she had written down!  When we said we wanted to check out a couple of other hotels, she all of a sudden had us in for the night at 69.99.  We experienced that little scenario at three different hotels! 

Tuesday morning we drove over Mackinac bridge…a five mile suspension bridge…into St. Ignace on the upper peninsula.  We took the ferry from there over to Mackinac Island. 

Here we are on the ferry, ready to cross

The Bridge from the ferry

Our destination was the Grand Hotel…

Let the grand time begin!

Made It Myself Monday

It’s Monday and I have internet (though we are still on the road) and a completed project.  So I am linking up for Made It Myself Monday sponsored by Alex at You Had Me at Craft.  You can show off any project you have made, cooking, sewing, crating, whatever. 

These are the centerpieces I made for the tables at Kenny’s rehearsal dinner.  It was pretty simple really but looked very nice. 

I used the Sweethearts cartridge to cut the figures for inside the vases.  One couple was the Bride and Groom and the other was called the “honeymooners”.  I taped them to a cardboard base which was covered by the red rocks. I tied some sheer ribbon around the vases.  I used black and red polka dot sheer ribbon. I placed on the tables a red 12x12 sheet of  cardstock covered with a black swirl cardstock.  A tea light off to the side finished it off.  Yankee Candle had the dark candles, (they looked black to me), called  “Midsummer’s Night”.

I Am So Blessed!

It is Monday as I write this post and my hearts is still full of all the goodness and joy and blessings of Kenny’s wedding.  We feel so very blessed with Kenny's choice in Becky.  We are blessed by their lives and their love for the Lord and desire to serve Him.  We are blessed by the family that came so far to celebrate with us.  We are blessed by the Shahan family we met and got to know a little bit.  We were blessed by the relationships of friends who participated in the wedding. Blessing after blessing after blessing!

Take a peek...we would have gotten better pictures but dog-gone, there was always a photographer in our way!

Our handsome son and his beautiful bride!

My new daughter

Becky’s Bridesmaid’s

Kenny’s Groomsmen

Family

Becky’s Parents, Sandy and Woody Shahan

Indeed, my blessings overflow!

Go…

Saturday arrived.  Pictures were before the wedding.  Wally helped by painting Elaine’s nails.  Really it just kept both of them out of trouble while we got ready!

A Grandpa does what a Grandpa’s gotta do…

Everyone looked wonderful…pictures were being taken outside and we hung out in the AC as long as we could before going outside for the family pics.

Kenny, Grams, and Wesley

Ben, Elaine and Andrea

Uncle Harold and Aunt Lucy

Grandma and Elaine

And of course handsome Uncle Kenny

After pictures Becky’s Mom had arranged for lunch for the wedding party and family before the ceremony.  Really the church family did so much to help put the wedding together…decorating, lunch, the reception, and clean-up.  It was such a blessing.

So begins Day Six.

Pool Baby!!

After the Rehearsal was over we all went back to the hotel and headed to the pool!  Elaine was getting all the attention now!

And really, can you blame us?   She’s awfully cute!!

Ben and Andrea had spent the night in Roanoke, VA and went into an outdoor pool with Elaine.  Andrea said the water was cold but Elaine didn’t want to get out!  So they picked her up a swim ring and arm floaties.  She was loving the water!

Local Lifeguards

 

Splish!!  Splash!!  End of Day Five!

Set

Friday was spent setting up for the Rehearsal Dinner and welcoming family as they arrived for the wedding!  On Thursday my sister Robin was flying into Charlotte on standby but got bumped in Atlanta.  Both of her future opportunities to get out were not looking good at all.  Wally encouraged her to rent a car and drive the three hours to us and she did. Kenny and Wes rode the motorcycles out to meet Robin and escort her through the back roads…at 1:30 in the morning!  Much later in the morning, Wally went with Robin to the Charlotte airport and collected her luggage while the boys helped me set up.  Ben and Andrea hit town about 12:3o and we all met up at the Chickfil-a.  Wally’s Mom and Uncle Harold and Aunt Lucy also rolled into Chickfil-a.  It was quite a family reunion!

The dinner was delicious…catered by Mr. Dallas, who also heads up the school cafeteria at Ambassador.  We had tri-tip steak with raspberry BBQ sauce…Mr. Dallas’ specialty!  We also had crème brulee' cheesecake for dessert.  Another specialty!!

This was the fastest rehearsal I have ever experienced.  Pastor Camp knew what he was doing and Woody Shahan was hungry! 

Becky was rehearsing her “gotcha” look!

Ready…

Thursday was full of lots of little details getting done.  We cleaned  Kenny’s house up so it would be nice and spiffy for Becky.  Then we packed up as well as Kenny.  We had to go to Asheville and  fix a snafu with Kenny’s tux.  It was late afternoon by the time we checked into our hotel. Becky opened the Barber shop and cut hair… Kenny’s and her brothers. What a bride!  Then we had dinner at a place called Tony’s.  Kenny and Becky had been having supper with Becky’s Mom and Dad there on Thursday nights when Kenny came down each week.  Most of Becky’s family came and we had nice visit.

And so, feeling very tired and getting a bit nervous, Day Four ends!