It Was a Wonderful Weekend

The smiles in these pictures are only a hint of the laughter that filled the weekend with Ken and Susan celebrating Susan's birthday. It began with a wonderful dinner at their favorite Italian restaurant in Huntington, WV. (Bankers from NY used to eat with the Ashland Oil executives there and say it compares with anything they find at home.) The manicotti and gnocchi and fettucini were wonderful!
Then Susan was squealing and giggling with delight when we turned into their driveway and the headlights caught Susan's sister, Jean Carol, plus Scott and Amber and Amber all sitting in a row waving at us. It was a surprise! Susan knew Jean Carol was coming, but not the kids. Big fun! We spent the rest of the evening laughing and talking and catching up.
All that continued the next morning as Susan put out a wonderful breakfast spread with a wonderful egg and sausage casserole plus pumpkin and zucchini bread, PLUS some saucer-sized glazed donuts that we had picked up at Keim's market on Route 32 on the way there. We were all thankful for the Amish Saturday morning!
We walked through sprinkles of rain to see Ken's latest project, an orchard bounded by a wooden and barbed wire fence worthy of a prison camp, but actually constructed to keep the deer out. We inspected poop piles inside the fence and wondered what creatures had breached the barrier looking for food and proving to us that they'd been there.
Soon we were helping put final touches on all the preparations for the 5:00 birthday party. The ladies prepared fruit and vegetable trays, and I took a mountain of wildflowers Ken had cut from the meadow and transformed them into four bouquets for the serving table and three of the tables where guests would eat on the deck.
We posed for pictures before Susan's family arrived from Irvine, and then more than a couple dozen of their friends came to enjoy the catered buffet, and a wonderful birthday cake with the best cream cheese icing you've ever tasted.

Susan is only 11 years old in dog years! (Sofi is their pet golden retriever.)

Then we adjourned to the family room to watch Susan open her gifts followed by a couple hours filled with the happy chatter and hearty laughter of folks who obviously knew each other well and have a great deal of affection for Ken and Susan.

We enjoyed more laughter with breakfast this morning before leaving for church at 9:30 and enjoying a wonderful time of singing with a good sermon based on the book of Isaiah. Evelyn, Amber, and Jean Carol posed for me after church before we headed home to enjoy wonderful leftovers from dinner the night before. 

We left about 2:30 and got home in plenty of time to unpack, relax a little and get ready for the week ahead. It was a wonderful weekend!

Friday of Wedding Week

Today was our wedding rehearsal, preceded by a stop at Memorial Hall to take plants and sound system and other goodies for decorations at the reception. It was blazing hot, and all of us were sweating at Memorial Hall, despite the presence of air conditioning, but that was a small negative in light of the perfect way the hall has turned out, under the able direction of Carol Ray with David, Jan Cummins, and Shannon Penrod adding their help, along with Wendy and Evelyn, of course.

The rehearsal was a relaxed and nostalgic and pleasant experience, led so well by Bobby Jackson who will perform the ceremony tomorrow. We shed tears at the magnificent processional played by Geoff  and Emily Plank. I was glad I got to hear Lisa sing, because I probably won't get to tomorrow (she sings before the bride and I enter). And the whole rehearsal was special because we got to be with Byron and Katie Cartwright.

Just as we arrived at CCU for the rehearsal dinner, the sky opened, and we had to hustle inside under umbrellas through the downpour. Later we learned that the storm at our house had caused one side of the pear tree in front of the house to split off. And when Matt got to Dan and Cindi Cooper's house to spend the night, he discovered that they're without power!

But the dinner was what Jennifer wanted, I think, a relaxed, fun time together, with lots of laughter and way more food than we could all eat.

Scott, Amber Lyn, and Amber Jo Aulen 

Ken and Susan Aulen and Lisa Sweeney-Taylor 

Wendy Wagoner, Jana and Greg Perry