Natalie and Justin's Wedding

My niece Natalie and Justin really know how to throw a party.  They were married 4th of July on picturesque Columbia river property.

The temperature was 97 degrees. After all the official wedding pictures were posed for, it was time to cool off.  Several of us headed for the river.  Smart parents brought changes of clothes.  I wore my flip-flops and shorts in anticipation of the inviting river. One half hour before the wedding, many in the wedding party were soaked and sandy.

"OK you made us get dressed up again, now what do we do while we wait?"

 My sister and her husband on the way down the isle.

 Natalie had three bridesmaids and one best-friend-bridesman (being escorted by one of the groomsmen)

Coming from two large families, there are a lot of nieces and nephews to escort the bride as flower girls and honor guards.

One mom went all out for the occasion with an elaborate flowergirl braid.

 Natalie with her dad.

Natalie's dress from behind.

 Natalie's future father-in-law was the proud minister.

 Natalie, the stunning bride.

 They wrote their own very moving vows.

 The kiss.

 The newlyweds joined everyone after a delicious BBQ meal.

A slightly overwhelmed Justin with his new sisters-in-law.

With a 4+ hour drive home and dogs that had been out in the kennel all day, I chose to dine and dash. But doing so, I missed the dance, cake, fireworks on the beach and sparkler send-off.
Congratulations Natalie and Justin. You truly are made for each other. Here's to a wonderful life together and welcome to the family Justin.

Wedding Family

On July 4th, while the dogs stayed home and played with Lupin, we celebrated my niece Natalie's wedding.

I took 300+ pictures and even winnowing them out, the ones I want to post would crash blogspot if I tried to do them all at once. This blog will introduce the bride's family.

My sister, Linda and daughter #3 - Natalie.

 Groom Justin, Natalie, Linda and her husband Chuck.

The five Brown daughters (yes my sister and I both married a Brown) lined up in birth order: Amanda, Kendra, Natalie, Vanessa and Emily.

 Amanda with her family.

 Cadence hugging her favorite aunt.

 Keegan adding to the party merriment. 

 Foster son.

 Kendra with her family

Luke and Abigale giving there favorite aunt a kiss.

 Vanessa

 Vanessa with her husband

 Emily - now the only single daughter.

 Emily with her boy friend.

Trask the Photo-Bomber

My niece Amanda with her active family of 5 stopped by on their trip from Nevada. When I looked through the photos of the day I noticed a re-occurring theme - Trask, with tongue at ready, was in a whole lot of the pictures - including two selfies my niece was taking with the youngest on her lap...

 Surprise!

 Amanda with Keegan...

 Surprise!

 Trask giving his first surprise kiss to Keegan.

Amanda, Noah and the boys...

 Surprise!

We had all been picking berries. Trask's ready tongue made short work of cleaning up the sticky juices covering baby's face and hands.

 Cadence was posing for a picture when...Surprise!

 Amanda relaxing with the boys...

 Surprise!

 Cadence also had sticky red hands.

 I wanted a family photo but Trask up-staged Cadence.

And then of course there are other pictures of the visit.
First task: exploring the house. Keegan navigating the stairs.

Dog beds make great wrestling mats.

Family picture in the woods...

where we went for the boys to watch the "big diggers" work.  (I got them Good Nite Mr. Digger for Christmas.  All big machines are "diggers"). Because they were logging, we could not get pictures of the kids on the machines this visit.

 Keegan, Noah and Cadence back from the woods.

 Lunch time. All three dogs were very attentive to every piece of toddler dropped food.

 Another Aunt Kay Lee visit tradition is picking berries. I got these great buckets for the kids.

 Not that many berries actually made it into the buckets.

And the premier tradition: driving the toys. Noah and the boys following Cadence driving the tractor.

 Baby on the tractor.

Keegan was wearing down after the long drive to Eugene and long, hot, (99 degree) day. He wasn't into driving the tractor by himself and almost fell asleep when riding with dad. 

 In 2011 Cadence first drove the tractor by herself - first gear and mom for wheel adjustments as needed.

2013 - Cadence was in total control of the tractor - second gear and a huge reluctance to give up the wheel to anyone else.

2015 - Cadence discovered the accelerator. Her legs just reached. Watch out when she discovers the gear shift!