Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Thanksgiving at Joel & Sherry's

This is my brother Joel and his wife Sherry. I took this picture of them in front of their home in Florida. We stayed with them through Thanksgiving.


They have always had a lovely home with many decorations to make the holidays special and this year was more beautiful than ever, it seemed to us. I was telling Cathy in CA how beautiful everything was and she wanted me to blog about it show it in pictures. So here it is.




The front of the house




A little closer to the front door.




The entry..



With a grand piano,



Entry table,



Christmas tree,




With a little saying about family being the best part of Christmas by the tree,




..and even decorations in all the corners and spaces everywhere. I didn't take pictures of everything.. because they are in all the bathrooms and little areas where pictures just do them justice but everything looks great.




The living room from the entry..




Fireplace,




From the dining room,


sideboard,




end table,



coffee table,


and really beautiful candle screen.


Looking out toward the pool and golf course from the living room.




An angel collection in Sherry's office.




The dinette area in the kitchen, complete with gas fireplace.



a different angle,




looking out the window while sitting at the dinette.


Joel on the golf course. Well..



Actually, he's in the dining room. This picture was painted by a famous artist in their area and it was in the home when they purchased it. They didn't realize until later that it was actually a canvas painting on the wall. They have talked to the artist about it since and he told them he painted it for the former owners. When Joel & Sherry remodeled the home, the original artist helped them to preserve the painting so they wouldn't ruin it and could keep it in the home. It's a beautiful picture and was painted to look like the golf course behind the home. I'm sorry I don't remember the artist's name.



The family room with a real, wood burning fireplace.


Comfortable furniture and good friends, Don,




Julie, and their daughter visiting with Grandma.




The coffee table in the family room.



The dining room table decorations.



The Cornucopia




Thanksgiving dinner..







Joel & Sherry and their daughter Autumn. Autumn's husband, Michael had to work during the week but they spent Thanksgiving together in Williamsburg, PA.




Here's a picture from L. to R. of Autumn and her dog Star, Will, Nate with Sherry's dog, Chablis, and Micah. We were all so happy to get to spend some time with Autumn that week before Thanksgiving, even though she had to leave the day before.



Mom with Joel & Sherry. She was so thankful to be there with them and to see all the family while we were there. That was the highlight of her life this past year. Sorry, I didn't get many family pictures.. but that's how I am I've noticed. I take pictures of things.. more than pictures of people.. and when people are around I'm visiting and don't seem to think about taking pictures unless someone else starts taking pictures. Oh well.. I have lots of happy memories in my mind. :)

A few days before Thanksgiving

Sorry, these are sooooo late but I still want to post them. After the game we went back to Joel & Sherry's. Early in the week Sam, Judi, Bambi & Shawn came to see us. Sam was on call over Thanksgiving so they couldn't stay. Frank came to stay and visit with us for the whole week. We all went out to "Aqua Grill" for lunch and they had two really awesome tofu dishes on the menu that we ordered. The best tofu I've ever had! They were both delicious. Most of us ordered one and shared the other with someone else so we could have some of both. We also had their famous baskets of deep fried vegetables. The whole meal was wonderful as always.

The whole gang from left to right: Shawn, Bambi, Nate, Will, Sherry, Joel, Mom, Frank, Me, Bob, Autumn, Micah, and Bill. Bill is family and lives in Ponte Vedra Beach too.


The aquarium's at the restaurant were so nice and we sat between them, so we had fun watching the all the tropical fish.


Back at the house before Sam, Judi, Bambi & Shawn had to leave.
We got a picture with mom. Mom is holding Chablis, Sherry's dog.


All the cousins: from L to R, Autumn, Micah, Nate, Will, Bambi & Shawn

It was great to see all of them in a more relaxed environment than the wedding even though they weren't able to stay long.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

The Jaguar Game

Joel & Sherry (my brother and his wife) took us with them to a Jacksonville Jaguar game.
Before the game began, three military flew over. Later the pilots were on the field for us to meet.


When Grandma lived with them she went to the games all the time. In fact, she was at the very first Jaguar game. She was really excited to be going to another game. This game was against the Minnesota Vikings. We all had a great time even though the Jaguars didn't win. We enjoyed the pizza, nachos, pretzels, peanuts, and soda. Jackson de Ville made us laugh. Being there... it's like a big party with lots of fun things going on that you don't see on T.V.

THANK - YOU Joel & Sherry!!!

The Wedding

The groom, Shawn, and the guys, ready for the procession to start, while the drummers play very unusual and lovely sounding music.


The judge. This is his property. Most of the people Bambi and Shawn know hung out on the judges property since they were young. The judges kids grew up with them. He's a great guy.
He performed the ceremony. Here he is ready for the procession to start with the father of the groom ready to take pictures.

The bridesmaids.. On the left, Autumn, the brides cousin and my niece. The next bridesmaid is a friend of the bride. Then the 3rd from the left if Patty Ann, the brides cousin, and my niece.

The maid of honor with the ring bearer, Sasha. Sasha is Bambi's dog. Bambi is the bride.
The flower girl. She is Shawn's niece. When they asked her to be the flower girl it was around Halloween and she said, "I want to be a fairy". Bambi was fine with that and found these wings for her to wear, and some for Sasha too. :)
The bride has her parents walk her down the aisle together...

...and gives them both a hug.


The ceremony...

Our son Will reading a prayer poem.

The scripture reading by the grooms brother.

A poem by the brides cousin, my niece, Dawn.

The wedding cake... depicting a big bonfire.
..and the top. The tombstone says, Love Never Dies.

The drummer
The stage for the band. The band is Bambi's favorite band. They are all personal friends of both the bride and the groom.

The wedding party.

The other end of the wedding party. Somehow, I managed to cut one person off of the end in all my pictures. ::eyeroll::

Sweet little Sasha sitting under mommy's skirt...


...and standing up with her fairy wings.


The groom reveals the t-shirt under his wedding attire. I think you can read it.. but just in case, it says "GAME OVER".


Sasha in her mommy's arms.

Bambi's grandparents, Barbara and Eddie Johnson, and great uncle Herb & his wife.

Grandma Ferree sitting at a table waiting for a bowl of hot vegetarian chili with saltines and tortilla chips after the ceremony. The chili was so good and perfect for the weather. It warmed us up and we had hot chocolate to drink.

Getting the bonfire started. We found out later that they really wanted the fire burning during the ceremony but it wasn't. It was cold there. Thankfully it was sunny and clear, which kept things nice for the ceremony but shortly afterwards as the sun went down it got really cold. It was supposed to get down to 23 degrees that night and I never heard what it actually got down to but it was cold. The bride & groom, and lots of the younger set, including our boys camped out all night in tents that night.

Cutting the cake.. ready to machete the thing.. or so it looked like.

But then they decided to cut it into a nice slice.

Sitting around the campfire after eating dinner... roasting marshmallows and listening to the band.


Staring into the fire...

Grandma sitting by the fire nice and cozy warm. They had hand warmers for everyone that wanted them. They felt really good in our hands.

The bride's brother, Sammy and his girlfriend, Kristen.

Bambi and her mom, Judi...
...and her dad, Sam.

The band... "Fractal"

You can play this video to hear them play.

It was a really fun wedding in a beautiful place and we all had a great time!

Congratulations Bambi & Shawn!