Yard Tour 2013- Early Season

We love to work in our yard. Yes, I did say that. We will especially love the time that we spent out in the hot sun digging and building so that we can enjoy the fruits of those labors over the years to come. When we moved into our house, there were no trees in our yard. We've since planted over 20 trees, mostly edible vegetation. Here is a sampling of a few of the things we've planted.

My favorite springtime tree. 

Redbud in bloom!

This was our first attempt at broccoli. It didn't work out so well.

Flowering Sage. One of the many herbs in my large herb garden.

Our Peach tree! That little nub grew into the most beautiful and tasty peach! We finally harvested it last week!

Golden delicious apple. We've had so much rain that the tree doesn't look so well. Hopefully it will revive itself for next year.

One of our many fig trees. 

First and last tulip to bloom before I ripped up that area to create a new flowerbed. 

a family 4th

We've had some very interesting weather here lately. Its been unseasonably rainy and I for one, can't believe its already July! Since the 4th was on a Thursday this year, my office decided to close today, which is great. I love a 4 day weekend! Nathan and I had been watching various WW2 documentaries and mini series, which seemed appropriate to finish "WW2 in HD" on Wednesday night. We had a date to Sonic, tried the new pretzel hot dog -- which is delicious, you should definitely try it -- and came home with milkshakes to enjoy during our movie/show marathon. Yesterday, we got up and got ready to go to Nathan's parents house. I took squash and zucchini from the garden (someone at work brought in a TON!) to grill. We got there around lunchtime, discussed what the plans were for dinner and hung out. Nathan and Stephen played the Playstation Move and were thinking about playing some yard games but thennnn the rain started. We had woken up to storms but they were only supposed to be sporadic so it hadn't been raining at Rick and Pam's house. Stephen got out croquet and bocce but it was raining too much and the grass hadn't been mowed due to all of the rain, so we didn't end up playing anything. Between the rain showers, Nathan and I took a walk around the yard. Later in the day we got the burgers and hot dogs ready for the grill. I cut up squash and zucchini, seasoned it and we got the table ready. Rick and Nathan went out to grill the burgers and then it started pouring which then produced some irritation and also some snickering from the peanut gallery. It was quite comical but the weather was less than ideal.  Dinner was delicious and gobbled up very fast.

After dinner we all lounged around the living room and between watching fireworks on tv, several different attempts were made to make ice cream. Pam had made 2 batches of ice cream mixture. One with goat's milk for her and Stephen and one regular vanilla recipe for the rest of us. She didn't realize that she had to have 2 inserts for the indoor ice cream maker so the rest of the family embarked on the basement adventure to find another way to freeze ice cream. First, there was, "no, no, no...we're not making it." and "just forget it". Then there was Stephen saying, "yes, we're going to make the ice cream." Yes. No. Yes. No. Scramble up and down the stairs. Slamming doors. Squabbling in the kitchen. Me? Yeah, well.. I was camped out on the couch snickering to myself as this drama unfolded. Somehow, I looked up and everyone was gone. Between the kitchen and the front porch, Samson and I were left alone. Oh yeah, and Anna was in her room. It was 9:30 pm when this started.

Out on the front porch, Stephen and Pam were trying to get the electric ice cream maker to work. The motor was making a horrible sound which was making Rick mad and causing the curious dog to investigate, which led to a space debacle. In the whirlwind, the front door was open for a few minutes too long. In those few minutes 2 june bugs and a red flying beetle met their end in the living room. It was determined that the electric maker was a "piece of crap" and "that manufacturer needs to get a phone call". Then came the hand crank mixer. Oh my. I think the crank was broken. Enter drill. Turn, turn, turn. Drill broken. Exit drill. Enter socket set. Socket success! Ice cream failure = milkshakes? 

Well...sort of. After all of that, the mixture tasted like the after taste of TUMS or Pepto Bismal. Blech. Everyone else seemed to like it. I guess after all that work, anything would taste good.

Overall, the night was a lot of fun and of course a lot of memories were made.

Samson could have cared less that I was taking his picture

The Third Castle

Nathan and I had the privilege of attending the wedding of our friends Emily & Jonathan on May 11, 2013. As I was sitting there waiting for the wedding to start, I realized that this is the 3rd --and last-- Castle wedding that we've attended together. Jacob in 2011, Dwight in 2012 and Emily in 2013! :) Yay, for weddings. We love this family and despite the weather of the day, had a fun time celebrating this union.

Andrew playing intro music

The week preceding May 11, was forecasting rain and storms on Saturday. I think there were more prayers sent to heaven that week, that the rain would hold off since the ceremony and reception were planned for outside. There had been much back and forth about a "plan B" should the weather prevent the original plans from going through. We had a lazy Saturday morning and got ready to head off to the festivities. It took us around an hour to get to the church and when we got there, the parking was a little scary. We ended up parking on a hill next to several other cars and after readjusting several times, we made our way through a cemetery to our seats. Nathan's family was coming to the wedding too, however we did not sit together due to the rest of his family being late. Stephen and Anna got there with time to spare but Rick and Pam came running up the path just in time to see Emily being escorted down the aisle. :)   

Beautiful Emily!

The ceremony was beautiful and went off without a hitch. Well, there seemed to be some sound issues with the pastor's mic. It kept cutting off and on throughout the ceremony. Nathan and I kept looking at each other like, "what in the world???" but then realized that they probably were trying to get audio for their wedding video. There were a *few* light raindrops but nothing to worry about....yet. *insert- evil grin and monster laugh*

After the ceremony, Nathan and I hurried into the church to use the restroom, which was a good plan and good timing. We managed to avoid long lines since everyone else headed over to the tent for snacks (peanuts & popcorn) while the wedding party took photos in the field nearby. 

Nathan made his way through the throngs of other guests to find the chalkboard with the seating chart. Our table? 20!  We found our table, got some drinks and were content to camp out until dinner was ready to be served. After a couple minutes, our other table friends came up and we all visited and caught up and then that's when the storm started. We could see it coming from down the road. Holy cow. O.M.G. it was the mother storm of all storms. A storm, that if you were home, you'd hide-in-your-basement storm. The wind was so strong that the tent was being lifted off of the ground. I looked around and there were at least 4 men on every pole. Even with their combined effort to keep the tent down, the poles were at least a foot off of the ground. It rained sideways and just about every guest was soaked. Several of the outer tables were in complete shambles, centerpieces on the ground, tablecloths drenched. 

Everyone was huddled in the center of the tent and somehow Nathan and I managed to stay fairly dry. His poor mom, brother and sister looked like they'd stood under a fire hose. We found out later that Rick had ditched everyone and run into the church when he saw the storm coming. He was perfectly dry. LOL. After a few minutes, the storm blew over leaving a drenched wedding party, soggy ground, muddy dance floor and destroyed tents in its aftermath. Amazingly, no one was hurt and the food was saved. 

The wedding party had barely gotten under the tent before it started pouring and poor Emily and Jonathan were soaked. I looked over a little while later and Jonathan was pouring water out of his shoes. Order was shortly restored and the dancing started! :) The bride and groom had their sweet dance and then Emily and her dad danced the most amazing and memorable father-daughter dance in the history of father-daughter dances. It was hilarious. You'd have to know this family to realize how awesome it was but they started out with a typical dad/girl song and then it morphed into a montage of radio hits from the "Macarena" to "Gangnam Style". Everyone was laughing so hard that I think the rain was just about forgotten. 

After a delicious Little Richard's BBQ dinner and cake cutting and chocolate and vanilla cake, there were toasts from the best man and bridesmaids and then more dancing. 

Wedding Cake :) 

We had some good vising time with our friends Dwight & Stephanie.

Somehow the rain and the storm didn't take away from the love and excitement of the day. Nathan and I left the wedding feeling so blessed to be apart of the day and to call this Castle family- friends. 

It is so funny how things could go so horribly wrong --according to what was planned, anyway-- but the outcome is sometimes more beautiful than our plan. The rain and then the beautiful sun reminded me of how God has a much more beautiful plan for our lives than we could ever imagine. Our ways are not his ways and even in the midst of the storm, something better is being worked out. 

There was definitely no shortage of love that day and we left the day driving into the most beautiful sunset over Pilot Mountain. 

Beauty even in "disaster"

Pilot Mountain after the storm

Congratulations, Emily & Jonathan! May God bless your marriage and give you many happy years together.