All Things Anne

We got up early on Sunday to make the two hour drive to Uncle Steve’s church, which turned out to be a 1.5 hour drive! After the service was a “wedding”, where a couple who had been married for 35 years renewed their vows (the man arranged it as a surprise for his wife), which was neat, and there was a potluck, and…of course, wedding cake! The people there were so nice, we felt right at home!

Then the boys and Dad set up the music stuff (which took a few hours), and we did a soundcheck, then went across the street to Uncle Steve’s (he’s the pastor there) for a bit, then we changed into our concert clothes, and went back across the street and gave a concert. I think that one went better than the one at Grandpa’s, too! After that was a very nice finger food buffet (everybody wants us to get fat, I think!), and after a while there, we went back to Uncle Steve and Aunt Barbara’s to change and hang out for a bit.

Uncle Steve restores and remodels cars. I guess this is his latest finished product!
Uncle Steve and Aunt Barbara. In case you can’t tell, Aunt Barbara is the pretty one on the right and Uncle Steve is the other one.

Then we went back to Grammoo and Papa’s, where Grammoo loaded our trailer with food! We didn’t get out of Grammoo and Papa’s until 1:45 am. Duke was very happy to be with us again!

Aunt Jeanie and one of her sisters came, and brought us girls 7 totes full of fabric! Very cool! The boys and Dad went to Grammoo’s to get the U-Haul trailer (we’d left it at Grammoo’s…we left Duke there, too), and when they came home, we went to some Russian’s house. The dad, Mr. N., used to be one of Dad’s drivers.

We had dinner there…it was soooo good! There was a potato-chicken casserole; pink cabbage salad; a salad that tasted like scalloped potatoes; a green salad; and these biscuit/pastry things that were round that were stuffed with sausage, then for dessert: diamond wafers (like from sugar wafers), layered with Russian caramel (that’s better than our caramel, it has the consistency of lukewarm hot fudge sauce, and is less sweet than our caramel), and these cookie shells about the size of a walnut, also filled with Russian caramel. It was all very good!

Us and the Russians…left to right (back row): Diana, Mrs. N., Mr. N., Dad, Mom, me, Beth. Middle: Vita (with the Daddy’s girl shirt), Em holding Elle Jane, Kate, Tess, Jay, Eric. Front: Stephen (Victor’s friend), Victor (who wouldn’t smile for the camera!), Joe, Rase, Abby, Ben.

Friday was another non-busy day, so guess what we did? Went places! We took Paul and went to the Guitar center, where we dropped off Dad, Paul, Ben, Joe, the twins, and Tess; then the rest of us went to Goodwill, where we saw Aunt Jeanie and Uncle Earl! Aunt Jeanie had said the day before she hoped to see us before we left, and there she did! After Goodwill, we went back to the Guitar Center to see if Dad and the kids were done (our phones were roaming in Oregon so we didn’t use them; Papa gave Dad his phone to use, but there was only one!). They weren’t, but Aunt Laurie’s old boyfriend Leo was there, with his wife, and we talked to him for a little bit, then went to Costco. After that, we picked up the ones at the Guitar Center, then went to Grandpa’s.

After dinner, the boys and John and Paul went bowling, and were gone until like 1 am!

Dad, Beth, and I went to Grandpa’s store to get some parts for installing grab handles near the garage door in the morning, and the boys (including John and Paul) went to look at the train yard. Some older fellas had brought some neat old cars to take pictures of next to the one engine they fired up.

Cool old cars
Cool train pic

Cool train pic
Cool train pic

Thursday was a fairly non-busy day, which was pretty nice!