Family

Yoda and the Rainbow Bridge…

A post I have never really want to write, one of love and loss and supreme love for a pet… Our Yoda went onto his Heaven over the Rainbow Bridge on Wednesday, June 14th, 2023, Flag Day.
This was Yoda out at Sam Rayburn Park near Sanger, Texas in 2017. 
 
He loved his walks!
 
Thankfully I thought to write most of this post early, long before Yoda had to leave… 
 
So today I thought I’d share my favorite photographs of Yoda through the years with you.
 
💖
 
Yoda relaxing in our first trailer in his old dogbed.
 
Another friend Bernadette who writes The Creative Cat creates beautiful sympathy cards sharing portraits of her former and current kitties and I’ve often thought I should share her site. Do visit there if you’d like to keep some special cards on-hand for when friends lose their beloved pets…
It means a lot to all of us who love our furry and un-furry friends so unconditionally… 🐶🐈
 
His poor eyes… He would rub his cheeks on the carpet (or floor) to clean his face after eating and sometimes his eyes would get dirty and infected.
Our first trailer was tough for Yoda that first couple of winters. The underneath wasn’t heated so he was often cold. I think it took a lot out of him then, but he recovered well and loved the warmth of our second trailer, our Prairie Home!
 
Yoda inside our second trailer enjoying the fireplace’s warmth.
 
 
Yoda in the garden area in front of our big RV.

All dogs want to be good…

Yoda was a young dog in this photograph, maybe 5 to 8 years old? No, thinking on it, he must have been around 9 years here as this was one of my first posted photos and taken when my camera was new…
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Yoda was adopted from a shelter and came to us an angry, frightened, biting young pup of somewhere between 9 months and 18 months old, who bit because he thought his food would be eaten by someone else. Looking back on it now, he grew to his full size after we got him, so my guess is he was even younger, perhaps 6 months old, so we made his birthday March 31st, 2014.
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He became very overprotective of me. He didn’t like anyone coming up behind me and rubbing my shoulders (maybe someone was choked?), he hated long black coats (a friend wore one to tea), he didn’t like African-American people at all and would bark like crazy! I think he came from a drug house… He did get over his fear of dark-skinned people as he met our new neighbors and came to love visiting with them. It was all in socialization! Detoxing the bad and praising the good things.
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He bit all of us at one time or another, and multiple times… It took 10 years of love and non-punishment ~ to work it out of him ~ for Yoda to realize that no one in our household would hurt him, that he could relax and forget the past… and heal. 💕
With love, he blossomed into a good dog who loved meeting people, going for long walks ~ and this is where living in several trailer parks really helped his overcoming his traumatic early days before us. 
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He encountered snow for the first time in Texas up in Sanger! He has enjoyed walking in snow every year for a day or part of a day since we moved to Texas.
Yoda enjoying one of his daily walks at beautiful Lake Skinner!  Yoda thought all 14,000 acres belonged to him and his barks at every new dog that came out to camp. (He also barked at the other dogs who belonged to other camp hosts who live here! Lol!)
August 2015, Riverside County Park – Lake Skinner, Winchester, California)
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Yoda really enjoyed camping when we moved out of our house. That first fall when many people were done camping for the year, mid-week was mostly empty of people and trailers and this afforded us time to go for long walks and heal from the trauma of moving out of the house, especially for me.
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I was most affected by having to “lose our home.” Yoda was probably the second-most affected; he had an $1100 emergency visit to the veterinary on a Saturday night for bleeding in his bowels from stress (after multiple house showings). We all needed to time to detox from losing our house and to adjust to living in a trailer, living somewhere else before moving from California.
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These quiet walks in late fall were a blessing for us ~ time alone with God to cry, walk, photograph wildlife, and the lake, and to heal. Grace is a good thing…
Up at Wagon Master RV Park and Alpaca Farm
In the few years after we adopted Yoda, he learned to play and laugh and race around the house! He began the racetrack game in California and would begin his crazy racing from the family room, through the kitchen into the dining room, slipping and sliding around the corner on the travertine tiles, past the bookcases and down the wide hallway back to the dining room again.
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At the campgrounds, if he ever got out of the door off-leash, he would race around the yard or around a group of trailers! He was hard to catch when he wanted to race… Such a turkey!
Yoda in 2020, turned 15 this past spring (we think).
Other times he waited comfortably and learned that he could relax with our family ~ out by the pool (in CA) or near the trailers in the cool breezes. 
Yoda helping me photograph in the late afternoon sunlight ~ the Golden Hour.
Helping me garden here in Texas. His cheeks are all white now.
He enjoys our new backyard here in Texas, too, except for the biting “no-see-ums” (mites) and fire ants. When the agony of these biting creatures goes away in the fall, he enjoys lying out in the grass…

Best Friends…

Rusty and owner PJ’s feet ~ PJ never wanted her photo taken!
Two buds sniffing for other dogs and squirrels…
My friend PJ passed away from a short battle with breast cancer in early February 2020, before the Corona Virus really took ahold of the country and the world. I don’t have a picture of PJ but I do have a few photographs of Rusty, her beloved full-bred Lhasa Apso. Rusty is one of a few dogs whom Yoda really liked hanging out with.
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You can see in these two photographs why we thought Yoda is probably half Lhasa Apso ~ same body length and height. The fur and face and tail are all Pekingese, though! Our vet thought so, too.
Yoda in the Leaves…
In the early days, I talked a lot with our kids about not throwing away family members, even though Yoda was biting so much (weekly) when we first got him… As a rescue dog, he just needed time with kind people to blossom. So we kept Yoda and worked his troubles out with massive amounts of kindness. It took 10 years for him to outgrow his fears of family injuring him.
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Update to what I’d previously written (knowing I wouldn’t feel like writing this obituary right at the time of his passing.): Yoda hasn’t been feeling well for the past year. His urine was really dark and smelly (this is lately). I took him to our vet in February and we decided to put him on medicine to help with nausea so he could eat and drink regularly.
He rebounded! I thought things were going so much better. But, that was only a temporary fix. Basically, this “time” was to give me time, and Yoda time, to get used to his need to “go home.”  He enjoyed being out in the grass under the shade of an oak tree while I worked in the garden. He smiled there!
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But, he really started going downhill here a couple of months ago. He made it here until the morning of Flag Day, June 14th. Waking him up this morning, he was really stiff. I just knew; he was ready to go.
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Turns out our veterinarian said that he had a stroke. He may have had several over the last few months. Something about the stiffness and the way he held his back legs. The swinging of his head back and forth, trying to “think” but not being able to do so. It was time… So, we all had a good last couple of weeks while I could be home with him and Charles could visit with him during his PTO. We cuddled a lot! I spoon fed him his favorite cooked chicken, veggies and a little cheese. 💖
I am so glad we kept Yoda… He became the great dog he always wanted to be.  🐾
Miss you, Sweet Pup…
                                                                                      Love, Momma 💖
Uncategorized

Sunday Sentiments ~ Having to Say I’m Sorry

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Life is  tough and having to say you’re sorry is probably
one of the toughest things we go through at times.
Like death the hurt we cause others can
often be unbearable…

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I had  to say I’m sorry to my friend this week whom I
drove up to visit and stay at her home above Santa Barbara.
I didn’t think to ask when I took pictures in her home of
her beautiful surroundings and her garden.
I was caught up in the etherealness of it all and the vignettes
I was seeing and so this is my public apology.



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The photographs taken showed her home and garden
in some of its best light but in my happiness to just be there
and visiting with her I forgot and didn’t even think about it.
At her previous home I had often taken pictures for myself.

Happy memories of a beautifully curated all white home where
worries and day to day stresses fade away.
But I had asked.


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I apologize  to you also because I jumped the gun in
talking about her home.
I’m sorry.
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Time heals  and hopefully it will soon.
Kathy is one of my best friends and though you have
never met her ~ you do in every vignette I create.


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Have a blessed day,

Uncategorized

Life is ~ Becoming Different After 50

Becoming more…
Sounds like something odd to write as one who is over 50 years young now, but it is true for me and I feel that perhaps it is true for many of my friends who are also past their Big Birthdays…


Design Bloggers Conference, Beverly Hills, California ~ March 2017 — Listening to Earl Spencer’s talk about his family’s estate and the collaboration of reproducing some of his family’s furnishings to share with the public.

Today’s post is a fun fall link-up with ladies who are all over 50 and things they’d like to share that they’ve learned along the way.  You’ll find everyone’s links down below and I hope you’ll visit them all! My blog post started one way and ended up completely different but it’s from the heart…

Happy Birthday, Charlie

Since this is a “birthday week” of sorts perhaps it’s best to go back in time and share a bit from my past.  It’s not often I do this as after so many years it was time to let all that go, but it is what was the major shaping factor in my life.

My first fiancé was in a bicycle-vs-auto accident when he was 20 years and 5 months old, training for a triathlon and heading to work as a lifeguard in the Placerville Parks and Recreation District in 1983, and I was a very much in-love 21 years old.  I worked two jobs then while going to American River Junior College in Sacramento, California, one as a lifeguard in that same Parks and Rec. Dept. and as a waitress at a Swensen’s Ice Cream Factory.  I was beyond devastated when the doctor told his parents and I that Charlie had died, and made it “beyond” only by the grace of God and with the love and caring of the friends we had in a bicycling/running group we were involved with and with love from my family, my best friends, and his family.

But because of this tragedy, I developed an odd fear of failure and a fear of success, anxiety and just lack of feeling that their was no real purpose for my life.  What was the point??? I couldn’t see that I would live many, many years into the future and that I would need college for my family’s well being. I take no medicine but I read a lot and apply what I’ve learned, do my own stress relief when needed, and try to eat well and talk things out.  🙂

I continued college though I tacked a different path and studied sports medicine for three years enjoying the program very much.  Eventually though, fear of not being able to help student athletes on the field was a factor in my not finishing  the program, plus then I married a man whom I fell in-love with.  He was loving, stable and a good grounding force in my life ~ my Charles, now 30-plus years strong.  I was tired of school and needed a break, so I did.  I never really went back though I have taken two accounting and a beginning Int. Design course at UC San Diego.

Our fall garden here in 2017.

The Interior Design certificate program was disbanding at UCSD right then in California in 1994-1995, due to the beginning of the home improvement era with home owners becoming their own designers, so looking into getting a certificate wasn’t an option going forward there.  No other schools taught Interior Design that were even close to our home, the closest was the school in Pasadena.  My second child, our son, was 5 months old when I took that course…  I got an A-.



Sparks to a different life

I had twin loves in college: and 1) studying Physical Education and the idea of teaching PE to children and being an Athletic Trainer was a great goal; women were new in the field in 1985.  I was excited to be involved with athletes and loved helping people.  

2) Part of me also loved my sewing and Home Economics, so I studied a little bit of this, too, before Charlie’s accident ~ a Creative Clothing and Textiles class taught by a woman who sewed every gorgeous bucleé, silk or linen suit she ever wore to our class, plus a sewing class I had in high school.  I took another Home Ec class at that junior college that taught me about organizing the kitchen, but I don’t remember its name.  Sparks to a different life…

When I’m not writing

When I’m not getting much writing done, it’s that I’m not good enough part of me kicking in, it’s not that I don’t have things to write about.  Putting myself out here to write, share sewing ideas and the like is really tough for me, but I love it!  

An English teacher in high school told us once that we would have seven different careers over the course of our lifetime and I’m right on track with that.  I also feel that everything you do culminates in a job or jobs that you’ll love best.  Those hard times are what shape you, moulding you into the best person that you can be.  God uses these hard times for good, though we can never see it as we are going through it… wish we could!


Here’s how it all came around for me:  If I hadn’t left UC Santa Cruz to come home to go to a junior college, I wouldn’t have been there when Charlie died.  If Charlie hadn’t died, I wouldn’t have married Charles and had two wonderful children who are amazing and are doing amazing things in their lives.  If I hadn’t switched to the Physical Education program at CSU Sacramento {my third college, if you are keeping count}, I wouldn’t have known how to help the students in Mrs. Jones’ Special Ed class when we went out to Adaptive PE everyday.  If I hadn’t been blessed with a deaf brother, my mother wouldn’t have taught Special Ed and been on the forefront of creating the programs we have today, nor would I have become involved with so many wonderful people with mental and physical challenges.  If a friend hadn’t taken a chance and switched from being a Special Ed aide (like myself) and become an airline flight attendant, she wouldn’t have given myself and several others the courage to pursue our own dreams.  If my husband hadn’t been out of work this last time for two years, we wouldn’t have moved to Texas and have been blessed with his great job and more new friends where there is a real hometown feeling… and there are open prairies and farms to help me dream and think, to rebuild our lives, to persevere… {hence the opening photograph last fall}

One of the beautiful showrooms I was blessed to visit during High Point Market recently.

Be the Sparkle…


I don’t know where all this is going but I know I’m going to go with it, keep moving forward, keep working towards a dream… When I was 21 and wondering What’s the point?? What I didn’t know then is that Living Life is the Point.  I no longer hurt for my old friend but I still think of him around his birthday each year.  I’m grateful for the lessons learned and since turning 50 five years ago, I’m grateful to be doing something I love.

Caring about people, doing something you love for work, and giving of yourself and knowing God are important to one’s happiness…  This is something I thought of a couple of weeks ago,  something I thought I’d share with you; my own quote:

“Life is the love we people our lives with.”

~ Barbara Chapman ~
2017
🙂

A little of what I’ve learned in living a half-century and remembering those we’ve loved.


Linking with
Fantastic Fifty ~ The Boondocks Blog
Friday at the Firehouse ~ A Fireman’s Wife
Here are my blogging friends’
Fantastic Fifty posts, Enjoy!
🙂

https://static.inlinkz.com/cs2.js

Uncategorized

Sunday Sentiments, Easter 2017 ~ I’ll Make You Fishers of Men…

A favorite garden statue I had in my Big House front garden bed.
Easter Sunday ~ He is Risen!
Risen indeed.
🙂


Since this is the Lord’s special day
I was thinking of how we are to be
fishers of men…


I’m not a good fisherman
in fact
I’ve hardly fished for real fish at all
though I love to eat fish!
And I’m a regular fraidy~cat when it comes
to talking to people about Jesus
which really makes no sense at all because
Jesus Himself is not scary.
😉

Beautiful lily pads down at my parents’ 1/2 acre pond at their final home in Connecticut ~ roughly 2010.


But a lot of people are afraid of Jesus
and mostly because of us
Christians who say something wrong
or do something 
that shows our weaknesses and 
shows us as hypocritical.
I’m sorry for that, for my wrong actions
and sayings.


But Jesus isn’t hypocritical ~ He did what He
set out to do:
to save a world from themselves.
To save us from our sins by taking our place
dying on a cross.
The ultimate sacrifice for an imperfect world ~
Grace and Peace.



All we have to do is believe on Him
ask for forgiveness for what we’ve done
and follow His lead
and
read God’s Word 
so we know how to live:
  Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth
B.I.B.L.E

It is that simple.
Plain truths on a Sunday celebrating the great
Love
He has for us.

16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.  

 John 3:16 New King James Version (NKJV)



An Easter lily for you! ~ from the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens.




Sharing with
Dishing It Digging It ~ Rustic and Refined
Inspire Me Monday ~ Create with Joy
Create Link Inspire ~ 
Monday Social

Happy Easter!

Uncategorized

Good Friday Sentiments ~ A Supper of Love

I’m excited as I love this time of year
remembering the good things that were done for us 
on a cross a little over 2000 years ago…

In the early evening, before it was night 

and just before 
Jesus was taken into custody
{and betrayed by Judas Iscariot}
the Lord had a final supper 
with the apostles…

“I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. 16For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God.” 
17After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, “Take this and divide it among you.18For I tell you I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” Luke 22:15-18 NIV
He broke the bread, gave thanks to God,
then said:

“This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” Luke 22:19

“Little Robin Red Breast”… a story told that the robin got its red breast because it went up to Jesus on the cross to look upon Him and pierced itself on the crown of thorns upon His head.  From a book I received as a child from the Catholic church we attended on base in Massachusetts, 1967-1970.
Later on, Roman soldiers arrested
Jesus and took him to see
Pilot and Herod.
Jesus was not found guilty of anything
but Pilot put it before the people to decide
whom to let free.
They chose another…
The Rose ~ representing the crown of thorns.  See?  The rose weeps and bows its head because it knows…

So why Jesus?

Yeshua* in the Hebrew and translated
in English as Joshua {Jesus is the transliteration
of the Greek Iesous} was led away
to the cross.

God sent his son 
to be the propitiation
or substitute
taking our place and dying our final death
for us as we are separated from God 
because
of our sin.

Jesus is the bridge
the go between.
Our bodies are to 
die once but not 
second time in Hell ~ because we are Believers.
As followers of Christ Jesus.
“The Way” ~ the original name
which came to be
“Christian.”
Meaning… 
“Christ-like.”

*https://www.gotquestions.org/Yeshua-Jesus.html
The child who grew to be the Son of Man ~ three years of travel and teaching.
33 years lived.

I am the Alpha and the Omegathe Beginning and the End,” says the Lord, “who iand who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” Revelation 1:8

Friend Kathy’s lovely table set for a Christmas tea.  She too loves Jesus!
He did it because He loves us.

Enjoy your Good Friday,
Uncategorized

Jouyeaux Anniversaire ~ A Love Story

~ September 19th ~
is a wonderful day for me as
I remember my parents ~
This would have been my parents
57th wedding anniversary…
  


My parents spent 38 wonderful years
together
Both passed in their 66th years seven years apart.
Both from cancer of differing types ~ Dad due to 
melanoma
Mom from lung cancer.
I miss them both ever so much…

A photo collage at our Big Home ~ Mom and Dad’s wedding portrait along with a smaller round snapshot
centered in the middle.  On this hallway wall,  I’ve displayed our wedding portrait {upper left} along with a card I gave
Charles long ago {lower left} as well as my father’s parents’ wedding portrait.


But, I didn’t come here to cry
or
to make you cry,
I came to share a love story…
🙂


Gene and Ginny met while working 
at a small coffee shop
in Boston, Massachusetts
while both were attending college.


Dad was in between services
with the 
United States Army {enlisted, 1950’s}
and the 
United States Air Force {as an officer}.
He was going to the University of Massachusetts studying 
a double major in Business and I want to say Law,
but I’m not really sure about the second.
Gene had spent three years with the Army 
down in Panama 
traveling and performing with the 
Army band there ~ 
playing the piano and french horn.

He moonlighted playing in a jazz band on 
Saturday nights at a club there ~ eventually 
being offered
a job with Lester Lanin
and his band and orchestra.
Gene didn’t take the position, though,
instead signing up with the Air Force, 
becoming a JAG ~
short for Judge Advocate General ~
in other words: a solicitor, a lawyer.


Gene and Ginny married in September of 1959.
They married during the golden era of Hollywood
around the time when Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier of Monaco
and
 Jacqueline Bouvier married the future President John F. Kennedy
when they were the toast of the nation.

My mother was tall and lithe ~ she looked beautiful in 
high school photos in her yearbooks 
wearing the proverbial 1950’s skirts and 
Peter Pan~collared button~up shirts with a 
cashmere sweater over top.

When she and my father went out
she was stunningly beautiful in 
the evening gowns she wore, and 
her hair was stylishly short like Jackie Kennedy’s.
She was studying English
at Boston College
and
played on BC’s basketball team
{something I found out years later}.
Later on she switched majors to 
Special Education
after my deaf brother was born.


Their first posting with the United States Air Force
was to Ohio, my home state.
My deaf brother Frank and I were born 
there in Ohio.
On a side note
the rubella vaccine was brand new back then
and I was vaccinated and so was Mom
however
babies in-vitro couldn’t be
so
that is how Frank became deaf
as a result of rubella floating around
from neighbors who unfortunately 
had the disease.
And happily we love Frank
just as he is!
🙂


I used the Canon to photograph this Polaroid I took when I was about 11 ~ our second house on Oahu, Hawaii.
My three brothers ~ Frank, Gene and Tom ~ about 1972.  I shared in my last post about these
Koala Bears.


Many other wonderful places came thereafter:
Colorado {where my brother Gene was born},
Massachusetts {where my youngest brother Tom was born}, 
then four fantastic beach~filled years in Hawaii
and finally 
moving to sunny California
where my father retired after 20 years
of military service.

My parents were best friends
who loved opera and listening to
Boston Pops performances
on t.v. specials in the late 1970s and through the 80’s.
The Mikado, Gilbert and Sullivan records, and many other
operas and musicals
were the stuff my brothers and I grew up
listening to every weekend.
My father and mother performed in a number of plays together
when we lived in Hawaii and Dad was always a
lead character in one play or another
all the way up until his passing.

They had a shared love of watching football
basketball and hockey on t.v.
The San Francisco 49ers were their favorite football team
though they were happy to watch any football game.

Sometimes, Dad would play his rendition of the
Happy Birthday song for Mom and us kids
whenever it was our birthdays.
His arthritis was bad so he rarely played piano anymore
as he got older so it was a treat when he would play.
I was always in awe of his ability 
to read so many notes
on a page of sheet music at one time!

Frank standing out front of Mom and Dad’s home as it was in 2008 or so.

Connecticut was their final home place
and they found a home with 12 acres and a pond.
Every February they held a skating party
inviting friends and family
serving
New England clam chowder
or Daddy’s famous
spaghetti and meatballs made with
cooked chicken and Scottish banger sausages
to the hungry crowd.

A view through the kitchen window screen down to the half~acre pond.  

Their plan on Dad’s retirement
was to sell this home
buy a motorhome coach and travel down to
Tennessee and the Carolinas
looking for a retirement home
and
visiting my aunt and uncle on Hilton Head
as well as traveling the country.
This was not to be…
{Funny, as now we are living that life… more or less.}
😉


All good Love stories must come to an end
but Love never really ends
does it?


I’d love it if you’d share 
your parents’ love story
or your own 
or a family member’s love story
with me and 
with the others who read 
this little ole blog!
Please leave a comment and 
tell us your story.

Blessings to you on this lovely
warm Sunday morning,
🙂



Sharing with
Create Link Inspire ~ The Crafty Blogstalker
Wow Us Wednesdays ~ Savvy Southern Style
Feathered Nest Fridays ~ French Country Cottage


*Also, as always, if you’d like to receive more blogposts from French Ethereal
please sign up through any or all of these sites: Instagram, Twitter and Facebook
as well as on Blogger in the sidebar.  Thank you!!! 
Uncategorized

A Special Day, A Beautiful Wedding!

July 16, 2016 
Our son Peter and his bride Justine’s
special day…

And even though this shot was out of focus
It’s my favorite!!!

The bride with her new sister~in~law, our daughter Amy
Rain held off until after the wedding had begun with
only a few sprinkles while the final professional wedding shots
were being taken.
All of the flowers were custom~made by the
mother of the bride, and the bridesmaids and family
helped create and set up the table decorations.
Everything was specially planned 
with much meaning
behind all of the decor.
Love this picture of Justine, my new daughter!



Flower girl’s headpiece was also crafted 

by the mother of the bride.
She is the bride’s youngest cousin and a spitting~image 
of the bride at that age!

The bridesmaids’ bouquets
 Every wedding is such a personal expression
of the love between the newly married couple
and between each of the family members…
Small remembrances mean so much
and add so much to the occasion.

The bride and groom had a
Memory Glass
made sharing favorite photographs of
grandparents who have passed ~ just lovely
and very touching…
My parents can just be seen to the right in the candlelit memory glass, above right. Guest signatures are written on small
wooden hearts, along with happy wishes for the new couple, then slipped down between the frame’s two sheets of glass.

In place of a Guest Book the couple found 
an idea online to create a picture frame where guests who 
attended the wedding and reception sign hearts instead! 
Brilliant!!!
The bridal bouquet with her recently~passed grandfather’s photo tucked inside.





Table decor is always fun to create for a wedding and of course the couple’s lavender and green colors

featured throughout 
the day…
Elegance and simplicity 
made the day a happy one
for the bride and groom.

The four~tiered wedding cake
draped in rosemary and lavender branches
tied together and topped with a
“branding iron~style initials and heart”
wrapped up the day in style!

Who could ask for a lovelier day?

He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the LORD.  ~ Proverbs 18:22

Blessings to
our happy couple,
Love Mom


Sharing with
Feathered Nest Friday ~ French Country Cottage