Odds and Ends

Renaissance Festival
After the wedding rush was over we took some time to do things we enjoyed. I have wanted to get back to the Michigan Renaissance Festival for years now. As kids our family used to go frequently but it had been many years since I had last been. The big attraction was to eat some of the great treats you only get at these festivals, like a giant turkey leg or a bowl of soup served in a bread bowl.

Dave Eating a Turkey Leg

If you’ve been to a Renaissance Festival before you know in addition to the food there is always great entertainment. We watched the joust while we ate. Lucky for us there was a fiddling group on a stage nearby so instead of paying attention to what they were saying about the joust we relaxed to some great music while we watched guys on horse back try to knock each other off.

Joust

Fiddling Group

The highlight of the festival for me is watching the glassblowing demonstrations. As a kid I remember sitting at this booth for long stretches at a time mesmerized at the molten glass being sculpted before my eyes. So I wasn't surprised to find ourselves at the Royal Glassmakers booth. For this demonstration they were making a customized goblet for a lady in the audience.

Glassblowing Demonstration

Adding Glass for a Sturdier Base

Sculpting the Base

Almost Finished

What Next?
Now that all our obligations of weddings and shed building are completed dave and I had to decide how our journey would continue. A quick look at our budget told us we needed to find work before we could continue to travel to the places we would still like to see. The next question was where to hunker down and work. For a variety of reasons we decided to spend the winter at my family’s cottage. Although the job market isn’t great due to the horrible economy in Michigan we figured we would be able to find something that would allow us to scrape some money together. We’ve applied at the grocery stores and pizza places but it looks like our best chance for a job will be with Pioneer Sugar sorting the sugar beets as they come in from the farms nearby. We’ve both taken the orientation class and are just waiting on the call that says they need us. We’ll keep you posted as we find out more.

Patty and Noah Get Married

The weekend after Jenny and Tommy’s wedding our friends Patty and Noah got married back in Michigan. This time both dave and I were standing up in the wedding. (As a result I have very few photos of the big event.) Patty and I have been friends for over ten years. As I said in my matron of honor speech, we met through our ex boyfriends but we ditched them and kept each other.

Patty and Her Mom (We were getting ready in the church library.)

Patty and her Sister Jennifer

Patty and Noah’s event was very different then Jenny and Tommy’s. They got married in a church and had the reception in a nearby banquet hall. There were a lot of people standing up in their wedding including seven bridesmaids, six groomsmen, two junior bridesmaids, a flower girl and a ring bearer. In order to transport all of these people between the church, all the different photo stops and the reception hall Patty and Noah rented a huge bus with leather seats and a dance pole in the back. We had a blast on the bus drinking cocktails, chatting with the bridal party and having an overall great time. Unlike other weddings we were able to spend quite a bit of time with the bride and groom without the distractions of the other guests. We were having such a good time nobody noticed when we were over an hour late getting to the reception hall.

Patty and Two of Her Bridesmaids, Andrea and Neesha

Patty and Noah rented a cabin near the Smokey Mountains for their honeymoon the week after the wedding. I spent the week at their house watching their two dogs, Yager and Otis. dave spent the week at his folk’s place building them a new shed.

My sister and Tommy’s Michigan reception was the weekend after Patty and Noah’s wedding. Once that was done it wrapped up the month of September and the wedding marathon was now officially over!

Jenny and Tommy Get Married

From northern Michigan we dropped off the dogs with dave’s folks near Detroit and flew to California to attend my twin sister, Jenny’s, wedding. Since I was standing up as the matron of honor but hadn’t been able to do many of the duties expected of that position because we were traveling, dave and I decided to arrive a little over a week early to help them finish some of the final details for their big day. They had four events planned; a BBQ on Thursday at their community pool, a rehearsal dinner, the wedding itself and a brunch the following Sunday. The BBQ and rehearsal were great for dave and I because we got to meet some of Tommy’s family we hadn’t met last time we were in California.

Jenny and Tommy got married overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Laguna Beach, just south of where they live in Irvine. The wedding was outside, just before sunset so it was possible to see the breathtaking sunset and hear the waves crashing on the beach.

The View

Mom and Dad Walking Jen Down the Aisle

The Kiss That Sealed the Deal

The Newlyweds Walking Out in a Sea of Bubbles

dave and I All Dressed Up with Someplace to Go (dave got his entire outfit, shoes included, for $24 at the thrift store in Bolder, Colorado. This has become dave’s wedding uniform since he wore the same thing to three different weddings now.)

One of my favorite things about Jenny’s wedding was that our childhood friend, Joni, was able to make it from Fort Collins, Colorado. Joni’s mom watched my sister and me before and after school for many years. Joni became like a second sister. One of our parents took a photo of the three of us on our first day of first grade showing off our new backpacks. The photo clearly shows the new backpacks which we were all incredibly proud of while we are looking over our shoulders at the camera. We had some fun on Jen’s big day and recreated the pose.

Jenny, Joni and I in the “Backpack Pose”

My Mom and Dad hosted a wedding reception in Michigan for all our friends and family who were not able to attend the wedding in California. Two weeks after they officially tied the knot Jenny and Tommy, along with Tommy’s mom, Helma, flew to Michigan. The reception was held on the banks of the Saint Clair River. (Lake Huron flows into the Saint Clair River just north of Lake Saint Clair. If you hold your left hand up to look like the state of Michigan, the reception site was near your thumb joint.)

Before Jenny and Tommy’s big day in California we were able to get away for a couple of days to drive to San Diego to visit with our friend Matt and his wife Angie. (Some of you that have been faithfully following the blog will remember these are the people who got married in San Francisco last March.) They were visiting Matt’s parents in San Diego. We had a nice time catching up and eating dinner with them before we headed to our friend, Adam’s place, also in San Diego. It was the last day of a weekend long skateboarding expo so he had members of the Natural Koncepts skateboarding team staying at his place. These guys have a neat life. They are paid to do what they love, skate. Not to mention all their clothes and skateboard parts are all given to them so they will promote them. But watch out when they all get together and start talking skateboarding. I thought they were speaking another language!

The Joys of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula

We spent the month of August in our home state, Michigan.

Family Reunion
It only took us a couple of days after we got back from Hawaii before we were on our way to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (UP). It was time for dave’s family reunion. For the past 12 years Roger’s (dave’s dad) family has been meeting near Newberry, in the central UP, for a weekend of catching up, eating and playing games.

The 2007 Reunion Crew

Chow Line

In addition to the usual activities, this years’ reunion had a special purpose; dave’s uncle Jim passed away in March and the family wanted to gather together and spread his ashes. Jim lived a full life and the stories about him go on and on. Such as when he drowned in the Detroit River but was later resuscitated; or when he got caught in a huge storm while boating with some friends after the engines went out. Many say they were lucky to have survived. He was a bartender extraordinaire for most of his life and as a result it seemed like he knew everyone in the Detroit area. He was an incredibly loving and caring person and he will be dearly missed by many.

Uncle Jim
Photo to come soon.

Praying and Singing for Uncle Jim
Photo to come soon.

Lake Superior Shoreline Near Jim’s Final Resting Spot

Hanging Out in the Upper Peninsula
After the reunion was over dave and I spent the next couple of weeks traveling around the UP looking for places to explore. First on the list was a visit to dave’s family cabin not far from Newberry. We hadn’t been there since last October when we first got back into the states after traveling from Alaska through northern Canada. We spent three or four days cleaning up the interior of the cabin and pruning the entrance drive of overgrown trees.

dave Pruning Trees

After a couple of days of cleaning we decided to go fishing. We cruised around on the back roads checking out as many of the nearby lakes as possible. dave had a Michigan fishing license but I didn’t. So I spent the time soaking in the sun’s rays, reading and helping Sprout launch off the piers. All in all it was a wonderful way to spend a couple of summer afternoons.

dave and Sprout Fishing

Sprout Checking Out dave's Catch

Sprout and her Launch Pad into Sunken Lake

Upper Peninsula Farm Tours
Since we hope to finally settle down one day and have a small farm in the UP we decided to take this opportunity to visit with a few of the small organic farms near Marquette. We visited two farms with different farming techniques. Dancing Crane Farm is a vegan, organic farm and MarJayMic Farm is a smaller organic farm that started as a couple’s home garden. Both provide fresh produce for members who have bought a share in their community sustainable agriculture (CSA) program. In addition to the CSA, Mary Jane and Mike of MarJayMic Farm grow most of their own food, including raising and butchering chicken and sheep for meat. We learned a lot from both farms about the joys and the hassles of farming in a short growing season.

MarJayMic Farm (The raised beds are in the foreground and one of the fields in the background.)

Chicken Tractor (This allows the chickens to forage outside their coop and also prohibits predators from stealing any tasty snacks.)

Mary Jane and Mike were an interesting couple. I see a lot of dave and I in both of them and can only hope that one day we have half as neat of a set up as they do. They don’t have running water and have only limited electricity. A hand pump, just like the one at dave’s cabin, provides the drinking water and solar panels provide what little electricity they need. They have a wood cooking stove very similar to the one we recently saw in our friend’s cabin in Bolder, Colorado and they use a solar oven for almost all of their cooking needs. I had never seen a solar oven before and was impressed to learn they can get over 400 degrees and are capable of cooking a Thanksgiving turkey or boiling a kettle of water for tea. No electricity needed!

Solar Oven

Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival
Before we left Michigan for my sister’s wedding in California I attended the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival with dave’s sister, Kim and her friend Lori who dave and I had visited in Bolder. This festival has been taking place in the woods of western Michigan for over 30 years. The festival is run for womyn by womyn, no men are allowed. It has been a communal event since its first inception and everyone who comes contributes in any way they are able. I was amazed at the organization and quality of the services provided. Womyn were in charge of everything. They helped load your camping gear onto shuttles, administered first aid, cooked three meals a day for over 3,000 people, set up the stages, provided sound and lighting for three stages, dealt with the large volume of trash generated and had an overall friendly, welcoming and caring demeanor. Everyone there was incredible. If anyone saw a piece of trash on the ground it got picked up. You could leave your chair or backpack on the ground and it would still be there when you came back to it an hour later.

In addition to the diverse musical line up there were an assortment of workshops you could attend. The topics varied widely from Dutch oven cooking, to belly dancing to stilt walking. I found it hard to make up my mind on which ones to attend. While this was Lori and my first festival, it was Kim’s fourth time. Since she had been to past festivals she knew what to bring. As a result Lori and I showed up with very little gear and were confident Kim would have everything we needed. We had such a good time. The heat prohibited us from going to as many of the workshops and concerts as we would have liked but we had a great time anyway. I can’t wait to go again!

Sorry no photos!

Now that September is here the wedding marathon will begin!