The daughter person is officially now hitched. I didn’t take most of the wedding photos, though I did take several snaps while we were in Sedona and vicinity. I’m still posting pictures because I can, nyah.
My body paid dearly for that trip. The grands decided nobody but Grandma would do. I’m sure it had NOTHING to do with Grandma’s wheels:
Most of the time they were in my lap, with my butt planted in that chair. We zoomed all over those grounds. I love my grands and everyone had a good time, but hoo boy, did I pay for it later.
The above little girl is a doll, and an active one. I think this picture might be the only one where she was sitting still.
The strawberry blond here and above – who just turned 3 – was one of two flower girls at the wedding. The little dark-haired girl with her is my youngest son’s child, and they’re only about a month apart in age. As this picture illustrates, their personalities couldn’t be further apart.
By the way, when she ran out of flower petals to throw, blondie threw dirt confetti. She’s not so easily defeated.
This batch of pictures is mostly taken by my spousal unit because my camera was used for videos, but a few of them are mine. Capturing Addy with both feet off the ground was awesome. Couldn’t have better shown her character. I wish I could claim that one but the husband person is responsible for it.
Some of the grandsons were there, too. This is my older daughter’s (the bride’s) middle and youngest son. I split child-care duties for my youngest grandson shown below, in addition to the toddler girl above:
The boys were only slightly less exuberant than their cousin. Don’t be fooled by that innocent smile on the itty bitty one, nor the big brother’s apparent calm. The little one was held in by a seat belt (hidden under the tie-dyed blanket) and he was trying to figure out how to escape. And Big Brother was earlier turning somersaults and cartwheels on the grass.
Our oldest grandson walked his mom down the aisle… er, dirt path:
He managed a few days’ leave from the Air Force to give her away. His mom was one very excited young lady to have him there. We all were.
As you’ve probably gathered, this was an informal wedding. It was intended that way because there were more kids in attendance than adults. The reception was catered – at a campground – by a local BBQ company. (And the food was surprisingly excellent.) The bride and groom decided to forego a cake. Hey, they had prime rib and other goodies, so nobody was complaining.
We took the scenic route to get there, and took a couple of detours the day of. It was a long, hard drive, but worth every bit of it.
That dress will never be close to white again. She was crawling belly-down in the sand. 
Sedona is known as “Red Rock Country” for good reason 
This horse is a metal sculpture. Who paints a metal horse? 
I thought this lamp post, at the gate of a ranch, was cool 
This telegraph office was on the grounds of the museum where the wedding was held 
We captured this snap of the San Francisco Peaks, near Flagstaff, while we were on the drive to Sedona. 
It was a holiday weekend so you couldn’t pull over and park anywhere in Jerome, pictured here. Too bad, What this DOESN’T show is a whole lot of crazy building options. 
This was the Big Brother of the earlier photo. He decided to go full-on fashion model here.
All these are mine, for good or bad.
We really hoped to get some good pictures from Jerome, which is an old mining town that’s being gradually refurbished. But it was Easter weekend and packed. There were no parking places within a mile. The streets are narrow and one-way. (To be fair, they were originally built for horses and burros, not cars and trucks.) We hope to go back again, but not on a holiday weekend. What a traffic jam!
That panoramic picture above doesn’t show the extremes of Jerome’s architecture. What you can’t see is that a lot of the houses are built on stilts because the mountainsides are so steep. For some homes, the walkway to the front door is a bridge – between the sidewalk and the door is a 30′ cliff. The door and first floor are sidewalk height and only sit maybe 10 feet back from the road. I have no clue where the homeowners would park, for those places. And yes, they are occupied.
Some of the kids couldn’t be there. Our other 8-year-old grandson was sick. He’s the one with CF so everything he gets, it’s a protracted and miserable time for him. He’s feeling much better, finally – enough so that this past weekend we took him to a kid-centric pizza emporium for his birthday. And bought him a violin (which he’s been begging someone to do for the past two years.) He ended up with close to 100 game tokens at the pizza place, which kept him busy for two straight hours.
He was so excited by the violin he was beside himself. We bought it from an individual and when we went in to see it, he didn’t know why we were there. The instrument was set out on their coffee table and he said wistfully, “Oh, you play violin… I always wanted to play the violin.” Then we had her open the case and take it out, and he STILL didn’t realize. I had him hold it – we weren’t sure of the size. It’s frankly still too big for him but we bought it anyway. He didn’t get that it was his until we said, “Happy birthday.”
He can learn in school starting in 4th grade. That’s a little more than a year from now. I’d love to get him started, but I haven’t played in… way too many years. And I can’t play now, since I’m short a couple of fingers on my left hand. I can show him how to hold the bow, tune the instrument, and help him with a few things, but I’m not a substitute for real lessons.
Hubby’s picture of Airborne Abby is perfect! That shot would win any number of photography competitions, I’m sure. Bravo! What a catch.
I loved your shots too. Lol – who cares if that dress will never be white again? This time next year she’ll have outgrown it by two sizes anyway. What a precious filthy little girl 🙂
What a great time it sounds like y’all had. BBQ and prime rib, how could it miss?
I gotta ask, though: how in the world does an 8 year old boy become infatuated with the violin?
Look up Lindsey Sterling on YouTube.com. THAT’s how. (His teacher knows Ms. Sterling personally and he’s written a letter to her.) However, I kind of think his infatuation with the violin might precede his infatuation with Ms. Sterling. Not sure how it came into play, but he was overjoyed to learn he would have an actual violin of his own.
Oh! Yeah, I’ve seen her on YT already. I can see why the kid is enamored of the…er…violin 🙂
thank you for sharing the wedding photos. All the children looked great, especially the “frisky” one! I love that you took the violin loving grandson seriously. I bet he will become very skilled playing that instrument.
Thanks. All the kids were dolls, but the one thing about holding everything outside: there was no way to tamp down their enthusiasm, nor did anyone want to. It was gorgeous and the kids wanted to run and play.