Rose and Tommy's Wedding--First Look!

My time is full here in South Dakota, but I will try to post as much as I can of the wedding now at the day's end, since I am wakeful.

Since we were parents of the bride, we got in on the early morning photo session, including just before and after the "first look." The wedding morning was just beautiful! It seemed God was smiling by sending sunshine and bluebirds! 

Rose and Tom chose to have a “first look,” followed by photography with the wedding party before the ceremony so that part could be done early. I am usually a traditionalist, but as the mom this time, I really, really liked the “first look” idea and early photographs, especially since the couple wanted to leave for their honeymoon about three in the afternoon. 

The “bridal suite” upstairs in the guest quarters was quite abuzz with girlish chatter as the bride and her maids dressed and did each others’ hair. Jonathan (since our guest room was just outside the maids’ rooms) overheard interesting conversations about the dads and whether they were going to cry or not. Our girls were saying their dad was probably going to cry. (After all, he already had when we got in on the special song being practiced.) “We better not look at Dad,” Crystal said, “because we all lose it when we see Dad crying.” Another girl said, “My dad probably won’t cry. The only time we’ve seen him cry is when his dog died.”

At that, Jonathan lost it and came down to tell me about his eavesdropping, and we could keel over with laughter and have a little more reason to try to hold it together later. 

After her dress was buttoned and her veil attached, Rose was all a-jitter waiting for Tom to come for the “first look,” and to bring her the bride’s bouquet. (He is to the far left in the photo above with the bouquet.) 

 

The first look was just for her and Tom, no photographer or anyone else allowed. This was a special moment between them, not a photo op for show.  I loved Rose's good choices.

Here they come now!

 

 Photos were taken at various rustic and unique spots, 

 

with Jonathan and me (and several dogs) trailing behind enjoying everything to the fullest and getting our own sneak photos. 

I could hardly have been happier. It was all just so fun and so lovely. 

Our boys looked so handsome in their new jeans, western shirts and vests, and cowboy hats and boots–and full beards on all three! And how pretty all our girls looked, as well as the Hagerty girls.

Jonathan and I had some time to sit down and relax a bit after the photos while people began arriving. Rose and Tom hid out in the guest quarters where both bride and groom decided they were hungry. 

So someone went and brought them a plate of leftover breakfast food and watermelon! Then we went for my rose I was to carry down the aisle with me, and found a stem of aspen leaves from one of the tables, since Rose remembered she wanted aspen leaves with the rose.

Wedding coordinator, Rose's cousin Susanna [Bradford] Hunter helped pin my corsage.

Soon everyone was either walking or being shuttled up to the wedding site in the field in full sight of Saddleback Mountain.

Wedding Family Photos

Of course, Ezra the photographer took the professional photos, but by the time I get hold of those, I will be involved in other aspects of life, so I'm posting the less-than-perfect versions we took ourselves.

Here is our family of nine, now ten! 

Welcome, Tom!

I told him at the wedding as I took his arm to go down the aisle with him, "Today I gain a son!" So now I have four sons and four daughters!

Rose's side of the clan--at least as many as were available to take pictures with. Some on Jonathan's side of the family were in attendance (Jon and Esther, Vanessa, Rebekah, Dave and Ruth, and Barbara) but were not present for the wedding photos. 

Rose made sure to invite to her wedding every last relative on all sides of hers and Tommy's extended families.

The Hagerty extended family 

Bride and her mother 

I wasn't able to get one of both Jonathan and me together with the couple as we were in the picture!

Tom's parents 

His mother, Mary

His father Joe

The grandparents

Jonathan's dad and wife Ruth  

It was the first time Ruth got to be part of a family in such a special way! She had never married until Jonathan's mother died, and his father was desperately lonely. 

Ruth had just lost not only her last immediate family member but also the lady she had cared for many years and was so  lonely that she would go sit at a big grocery store and just watch people going in and out!

Now she is part of a family and could go down the aisle on Tom's arm as one of the grandparents.

It has been a blessing to get to welcome Ruth into the family and help provide for her the loving family she never had!

Rose's wedding was just another chance to not only welcome a new son-in-law but also extend love and belonging to an elderly lady who had spent 78 years single!

Back to Arizona--Not Feeling Very Brave

With a daughter's wedding just a week away, I wasn't feeling very brave Saturday when Jonathan dropped me at the Rapid City Airport.

It had been four weeks since I last flew to Arizona, and I had to get my port accessed (something I have to have done every month regardless of whether I get an IV of anything or not) and get the usual herceptin dose, besides a couple extra IVs that I had requested. I wasn't sure how my body would respond to those, and I was a little apprehensive of being down here by myself, driving through Phoenix traffic in hundred degree heat after hefty IV treatment.   

I'd been scrolling through Facebook on Jonathan's phone on the way while he ate popcorn beside me to stay awake driving. Much as I adore popcorn, I dutifully managed to not sneak even one kernel, as carbs feed cancer. And I want to live longer.

I want to see what God is doing with our children.

New things are happening, and not just a cooler full of bass fish Danny brought home the other day from the pond of a neighbor who invited him to come fish.

 But I am not allowed to tell quite yet.

We had fried fish that night, and I had steamed lambs quarters I'd picked along the driveway where the soil was disturbed. No one else seemed to be very jealous, since it resembles spinach, but I was practically licking my lips, because when you've drunk essiac tea, dregs and all, three times a day for nearly a year and a half, steamed lambs quarter with butter, salt, pepper, and a few sprinkles of soy sauce is delicious!

 "God always makes it up to me when I go down there to Arizona," I told the family when I was thinking about being down in the terrible heat by myself, leaving behind the spring flowers like the wild roses up at the gate by the road--freshly blooming without even us planting them! 

Our goats stuck their noses inside the flower garden fence and ate all the new growths and leaves and stems of the two rose bushes Hannah planted. The scamps!  

As if there isn't enough green grass and even blooming alfalfa, they aren't content but must stand up on their hind legs and go for the lowest leaves on the trees in the draw and the closest plants to the garden fence. 

But getting back to my airport story, I almost cried when Jonathan and I had to say goodbye again at Rapid City Airport. I was struggling to get my big suitcase (heavy with a few extra things because of wanting wedding clothes with me for the wedding so they wouldn't be forgotten, and groceries to tide me over Sunday in AZ) around the maze of walkway. Jonathan noticed me fumbling, and came around the other end to set the suitcase on the scales for me. Then he took it off and hauled it over to the check-in spot, and I didn't have to do that part. 

We were both looking over our shoulder just before he went out the door--the two still-sweethearts who said goodbye one time thirty years ago in Ukraine, after six unforgettable weeks of beautiful courtship, when he had to fly home again to work hard to provide for our home. How hard that parting was!

It's one reason it's still hard to say goodbye. We just don't do very well with partings and goodbyes. So I was feeling a little teary as I got through security and wandered down the hall toward my gate. At Rapid City, there are only a few gates, and a gift shop is on the way. Most of the gifty items in the shop are lovely, without so many inappropriate things that pop disgracefully in your face in so many bigger city shops. I had time to kill, so books caught my eye--especially these ones, and not just because my name was on the front!

These books are true stories unearthed by the South Dakota grandson of a Norwegian immigrant named Anna who ran away from the cruelty of her father's second marriage and made her way to America at age 17.

A young man named Iver had left Norway a few years earlier, on the same ship, in the same awful steerage compartment, at the age of 15. The two met in South Dakota, the land they had both heard of. 

The stories are tear-jerking, heart-breaking, and delightful all at the same time. I read half the book on the airplane that evening, and the other half on Sunday afternoon and evening after visiting my friend at Life Care Center. 

She experienced two seizures while I was there. I am no nurse, but I could support the sister and niece who were there crying. I could read Psalm 103 when my friend was able to listen again, and pray with her. I could spend an hour and forty-five minutes there and then go home and read my book again--just for some down time.

Because sometimes a not-so-brave little lady by herself in Arizona needs to read about a really, really brave lady in South Dakota to inspire her to be of good courage, because God is looking after all of us!

Pentecost--from a Sparrow's Point of View

      A Sparrow's Pentecost

by Anna

A sparrow on Mount Olivet
   Watched twelve men or more
As Christ told them of the promise
   The Father had in store. 

It watched them on that mountain
   Away from the city streets,
Where lilies bobbed and sparrows chirped
   And wind and cloud did meet.

The “promise of the Father”
   He told the men that day,
Like a papa bird leaving the nest behind
    To bring food from far away.

“It won’t be long,” Christ Jesus said.
   “Just wait for the promised day.”
Then like a bird that takes his wing,
    He ascended in clouds away.

He had said so clear in the Upper Room
   The Holy Spirit would come.
“But wait for Him,” He had told the men,
   “In your Jerusalem.”

You came with wind and fire
   To those in the Upper Room.
The huddled flowers opened up
   Into fullest bloom.

Like baby sparrows in their nest
   They watched the Spirit come
With fattest bug and worm in beak
   To their Jerusalem.

He filled their hunger, quenched their thirst,
   Filled their mouth with praise,
Cleansed their hearts and healed their soul,
   Oh, what happy days!

Now strong enough, the birds take wing.
    They have enough to share.
The gospel is their message clear;
    It is the news they bear.

Now others in Jerusalem
   Want what those sparrows have–
The spirit of Christ that gives them hope
   And strength and power to save.  

We in current times and place
   Take our cue from them.
We wait for Your promise, Father,
   In our Jerusalem.

It may be in a place of prayer
   Or driving on the road,
Or at a church’s sacred bench,
   Or under a workman’s load.

It may be on a mountain,
   Or on a city street.
It may be in an upper room,
   But You we want to meet.

We seek Your Spirit and Your power.
   We trust and pray like them,
Waiting like sparrow and like flower
   In our Jerusalem.

   

Stand-off--or Surrender

  A couple weeks ago, Jonathan got this picture of a standoff between our horned goat and a neighbor's cow that had gotten through the fence and found her way nearly into our back yard.

I'm not sure which one won!

But I can't help thinking about the standoffs that happen sometimes in our minds between us and others, between us and our better judgments, and between us and God.

As I baked hundreds of meatballs for Rose's wedding and browned several pounds of sausage for chip dip for the evening snack after the wedding reception at Ranch Haven, I was thankful that my daughter who is getting married is in God's perfectly capable hands and I don't have to control everything. It sure makes life simpler and happier--handing people and situations and joys and problems over to the Lord instead of hanging onto them, trying to manipulate or control, or worrying myself to death about things.

I don't need unnecessary stand-offs with creatures or situations that are much too big for me to handle, no matter the size of my horns! 

Maybe it's good that I'm so busy putting carrots, cucumbers, parsley, kale, and celery through the juicer that I don't have time to do things that are less healthy--like worry myself to death over wedding details or fears about the future. 

When Jonathan comes home with a gorgeous bouquet of wild phlox and something like purple foxgloves, I can just remember how God brought him and me together, and I can trust Him to make all the arrangements for my children in His own best time and way. It's fabulous watching Him doing this.

Well, I had no idea where this post was going to go, but it went. I leave you with this quote I saw on a Facebook post on Jonathan's phone recently.

"God can do way more with your surrender

than you can with your control." 

And here's a link to a blogpost by an author I follow, a short but very touching post.

https://christyfitzwater.com/receive-the-salvation-you-need-for-today/

 

All Because of Rose's Wedding Meatballs!

Today was such a happy day for me because God dropped an outreach opportunity right into my lap--all because of Rose's and Tommy's wedding meatballs!

 I was getting ready to mix up two huge bowls of meatballs for the last of the wedding/Father's Day meatballs, (events coming up next weekend) and I realized how overwhelmed I felt. It was such a big job. Last week I had invited two Lakota friends to help me form meatballs, and we'd had such a good time working together and then having lunch together. But who could help me this time? I totally forgot that Crystal was around, because she was gone to work.

And that is when the phone rang. I saw the name, "Mathel Ambrose." Our pastor's wife.

Oh, dear, I thought. We usually end up chatting a while, and I had so much to do.  I almost let the call go, but I picked up the phone.

Mathel had talked to me Sunday about trying to reach out to two young girls who attend our church with their grandfather, who is not expected to live much longer. He "is their stability," Mathel said. She had told me she was going to pick up the girls from 45 minutes away Tuesday and bring them to help her work in the church and parsonage flowerbeds. 

"But it's too windy," Mathel said. I understood. I had been out in that wind some in the morning. "So I'm going to have them help me vacuum and dust the church." She sounded disappointed.

Just like that, it dawned on me that this is who could help me form meatballs! "Oh, you could bring them down here!" I exclaimed. "I was just getting ready to make meatballs and didn't know how I was going to form them all. Bring them down here! I have leftover lasagna and salad from last night, and you can all stay for lunch. Your husband can come, too!"

Mathel sounded tickled. They finished cleaning the basement and then she called that they were on their way. I served lunch first since it was already nearly one o'clock. Both Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose exclaimed about how good something smelled as soon as they entered the house door. That leftover lasagna warming in the oven smelled delightful! We had leftover salad, too, with buttered carrots, leftover berry pie or pumpkin cake.

Then we got busy. While Crystal did dishes, the girls and Mathel formed meatballs and I mixed the final batch of meat.  Mathel is such a grandma in the community, and I appreciate her caring about everyone around. Because of her and Harold, we are able to start forming friendships.

 Sunday the girls' grandpa, who was struggling to breathe but still came to church, wanted to give Danny one of his best Bowie hunting knives after the meal! 

 The blade was so shiny that you could see your reflection in it! That was an incredible moment!  

While the meatballs were baking, we all went outside to admire the garden and introduce the girls to our goats.

 The girls had never gathered eggs before, so I had them help gather the eggs.

 

Once back inside, I had them put the eggs in cartons. 

They seemed to enjoy that. 

God willing, this won't be the last time we have these precious girls over.

 

 It was such a happy day for me because of that!