Mountain Musings

All Things Wedding!

Blogging...as well as housekeeping...ahem...has definitely taken a backseat around here with all of Sarah's wedding to-dos these past weeks. Here's a behind-the-scenes look at what all of us have been doing lately:

The girls went white pumpkin picking recently for fall table decorations for the wedding: Hannah has been working on her maid of honor dress and finished it today...yay! That's done!We girls took a day to make all 16 of the lasagnas for the wedding and put them in the freezer. It was really smelling delicious in our kitchen! Sarah practiced a couple of different recipes to use for her wedding cake:Another day she made 16 Key Lime Pies for a second wedding dessert--the groom's favorite: Making raspberry fudge for wedding favors: Sarah's friend, Sarah, came over one day to help wrap the fudge: I'm getting into the act by stuffing the fudge into gift bags: And punching holes in favor labels:The girls also worked on cutting burlap for the tables...this was a messy job!
Granny enjoyed watching all the activities going on: A trip to Georgia was planned last month to move all of Sarah's "stuff!" It took a 20-foot U-Haul to hold all her accumulated hope chest items, but we finally loaded all the boxes and furniture in anticipation of stocking her future home:It was fun helping Sarah unpack and set up most of the rooms. Here's Hannah organizing the kitchen: While we were in Georgia, Sarah's future sisters-in-law gave her a bridal shower. Here are Hannah and Sarah with Eric's sisters Abby and Emma, the shower hostesses: Sarah and Eric pose with some of the festive decorations:It was a festive occasion with lots of friends, a fun game, many nice gifts, and delicious food: Sarah enjoyed herself and was very thankful for everyone's generosity! Practicing a song for the wedding while we were in Georgia with Eric's siblings: Once we were back home in Virginia, the girls made their shopping list and purchased the dinnerware and other supplies at Costco. It's a good thing Sarah made a wedding spreadsheet with each day's activities planned:Just practicing.....a friend came over and worked on the girls' hair. Here's our dear friend, Kim, experimenting with a hair style for Hannah for the wedding: And sandwiched in between all of Sarah's wedding to-dos, Tom is using any extra time working on kitchen cabinets for Jonathan's future home, which is coming along slowly but surely!

This photo doesn't show the cabinets which are already built and awaiting painting. I guess when those are moved...into my living room!...they'll make an appearance on the blog! Ha! Hope that catches you up on some of the happenings around the ol' Mountain Musings homestead.

I hope you all are enjoying fall and this delightful busy month of November! Hopefully, it won't be long before we post again!

~Deb

Blog Catch-up ~ October ~ NCFIC Conference

A week after the Hammond family visited, it was time to pack up and head off to Asheville, NC, for the annual NCFIC Conference, The Highway of Holiness.

Here we are on the road headed to the Ridgecrest Conference Center, a familiar trek every fall:We've arrived at the conference center! It's time to check in and see who else is here! Here's part of the family on the beautiful fall campus after we've checked in: These Southwest Virginia friends are always a delight to see. We enjoyed catching up with each other: We look forward to seeing this lovely group of ladies from Virginia each year: Meal times provided extra fellowship and conversation with families. Future son-in-law Eric and his family are eating with us at this meal. The conference took place just two weeks before the wedding, so there was much for us all to talk about: So....between sessions we found a quiet sitting area in the lobby and discussed final wedding details--lots of input from both families on order of service and who would say what and when: Okay...back to the conference instead of the wedding! Here's Hannah with some Tennessee friends: Most of our group are together here in the vendor hall talking with Marcus and Cheryl Serven. Marcus is one of our favorite workshop speakers: Although I didn't get any photos of the keynote speakers in action, here's a view of the speakers' panel discussion taking place at the end of the conference, moderated by Scott Brown: We enjoyed the conference and the messages and the breakout sessions. Everything was well-planned and very interesting--it was hard to choose which session to attend. Mostly, we enjoyed connecting with people; the fellowship we have with folks who attend the conference each year is rich and rewarding.

Soon it was Sunday morning, and the conference was over. Here's my sister, Aunt Bet, meeting Eric for the first time. She arrived to deliver Granny back to us after they spent a quick weekend together while we were at the conference: It's time to say our good-byes to friends. You can see Granny peeking out from the van ready for the long ride home.

"We'll see you folks at the wedding in just two weeks!" I'm sure Eric and Sarah will be counting the hours!

~Deb

Wedding To-Dos

The days are quickly flying by with lots of wedding activities in the works.

Additional wedding dress fittings, florist visits, bridesmaid dress sewing, song practicing, and getting a head start packing up belongings have filled our days this week.

The rains have come to our area, so today is a "let's-stay-inside-the-cozy-warmth-of-the-house" type of day. The weekend is shaping up to be more of the same from hurricane Joaquin!

Hannah is busy today sewing a practice version of a dress pattern before she makes her celery-green bridesmaid's dress for real:  Here's Sarah at the florist this week discussing types of flowers to use for the wedding and reception: Sarah has been filling boxes of her belongings that will eventually get shipped to Georgia. Busy times! Lastly, for those of you who like to keep up with Granny, please pray for her on Wednesday, October 7th, as she prepares for another ERCP surgery at the University of Virginia hospital. Please pray for her strength and endurance and for the doctor's skill in performing the surgery. Thank you so much!

~Deb

The Simple Woman's Daybook ~ September

 

  For Today...Tuesday, September 22

 

Outside my window...It's been a rainy week so far, and clouds and fog were over the mountains again today. A cool day in the low 60s kept us inside listening to Christmas music (yes, we start early!) while we worked on various wedding planning for Sarah and Eric.

 

I am thinking...of the good time of renewed friendship we had last week with our friends, Kim and Annie, missionaries on furlough from Papua New Guinea.They stopped by for an overnight visit and showed us the printed gospel of John they've recently finished for the Tami people.

 

Here's Kim showing Tom some scriptures:

We are so very encouraged whenever we hear of the ministry they are doing among people in a faraway village whom we will never have the chance to see or talk with. Thank you, Kim and Annie, for your faithful diligence these many years in Papua New Guinea:

I am thankful...for the couples who came to our neighborhood ice cream social on Sunday evening. A new ice cream flag announced the event on our back deck as we waited for folks to arrive:

We've wanted to bring the neighbors together for quite a while, and five families took us up on our offer of homemade ice cream with all the toppings:

The light began to fade, but everyone was having such good conversations they stayed on to get better acquainted. And a good time was had by all....

I was delighted...when my cousin and her husband came last week to visit Granny. Granny always loves company and had looked forward to Carolyn and Bud's visit for a long time:

I am wearing...a red skirt, white top, and hand-me-down leopard bedroom slippers.

 

I am creating...a blog post--finally! Life has been quite busy with regular life and...all things wedding related!! Checking out a wedding venue, house-hunting in Georgia with Sarah and Eric's family, furniture buying, bridesmaids' dress fabric purchasing, wedding dress fittings, considering possible flowers for the reception, and deciding on food for the guests have filled our days.

 

Fun Times...here are Sarah and Eric picking out fabric for free pillows to match their sofa:

Eric, his sister Abby, and Sarah also picked out some favorite colors to repaint some of the rooms in the home they purchased:

Here's Sarah standing in front of her future home:

I am going...to be one happy Mama and one sad Mama...what bittersweet days. (Send tissues, please!) For those of you who've already gone through giving your baby daughter away, please share with me how I'll ever manage to cope...especially in the kitchen! 

 

In the kitchen...lots of pies filled the kitchen table this past weekend! A bride hired Sarah to bake 15 pies for her wedding on Saturday...apple, blueberry, chocolate pecan, and lemon meringue are pies the customer picked. Whew! I was glad when Sarah delivered all the pies intact!

 

I am re-living...our 35th anniversary trip one month ago. I never posted on our travels to Alexandria, Virginia, but here we are enjoying ourselves in Old Town:

We visited historic Christ Church, took a walking tour of Old Town, toured Mount Vernon, and cruised on the Potomac River:

In the Mount Vernon garden...while on our tour of Mount Vernon, I especially enjoyed the gardens and all the flowers on the property, even though our tour guide told us the gardens were past peak and overgrown. Here's one of the more formal gardens:

A peek into one of my days...Granny wanted me to drive her back to her hometown of South Boston recently. One of my dear friends invited us to spend the night with her. Here we are enjoying a very encouraging time with Carolyn and Garnett:

And Carolyn happened to overhear Granny say she loved buttered biscuits, so she made sure she fixed some biscuits especially for Granny the next morning. Don't they look delicious? (Thank you, Carolyn!):

Another friend and faithful blog reader in South Boston--Carolyn's sister, Doris--came over to visit while we were there (Hi, Doris!):

One of my favorite things...visiting Toots Creek whenever I'm in South Boston. I've written about Toots Creek before, and I always enjoy the treasures I find there:

 

A favorite quote for today... 

 

"hello. pumpkins. warm sweatshirts. apple cider. hayrides. falling leaves. cinnamon. hello, fall."

 

 

 

 

You can check out more September Daybook entries over at The Simple Woman's Daybook blog.

 

~Deb

Favor from the Lord

Please rejoice in the Lord with us as we announce…
 
Sarah and Eric H., a godly young man from the Atlanta, GA area, are now engaged to be married!

In God’s providence, our families got to know each other over the last few years with some conference visits, home visits, and some email correspondence. In May, Eric and Sarah started seeking the Lord’s wisdom in a courtship to determine whether it would please Him for them to marry. After gaining the prayerful blessing of both sets of parents, Eric proposed to Sarah this past Labor Day weekend – and she said Yes!

“I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness:

and thou shalt know the Lord.”

Hosea 2:20

We do praise our gracious God for the work He has done in the hearts and lives of Eric and Sarah and our families. He is very good!

Please pray for them as they continue to seek to honor the Lord in their wedding and their married life together.

“The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works.”
Psalm 145:9

~ Tom & Deb

35 years!

~Tom and Deb on their wedding day, August 1980~

 

A very happy special anniversary to our dear dad and mom! 35 years ago today, they were united in marriage together before God. Praise the Lord for His faithfulness in their lives over the past 35 years and what He has done in our family. Their example and instruction has been an encouragement to us as their children.

Aren't they cute?

Happy woman and happy man! If Heaven be found on earth, they have it! At last, the two are so blended, so engrafted on one stem, that their old age presents a lovely attachment, a common sympathy, by which its infirmities are greatly alleviated, and its burdens are transformed into fresh bonds of love. So happy a union of will, sentiment, thought, and heart exists between them, that the two streams of their life have washed away the dividing band, and run on as one broad current of united existence till their common joy falls into the ocean of eternal felicity. ~Charles Spurgeon

This weekend they are enjoying a trip away to celebrate, so let's try to reach 35 comments wishing them a happy anniversary, to read when they return. :)

~Hannah

Sunday Thoughts ~ A Wife's Influence

The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. Proverbs 31:11

"Home is the true wife's kingdom. There, first of all places, she must be strong and Christ-like. She may touch life outside in many ways if she can do it without slighting the duties that are hers within her own doors. But if any calls for her service are declined, they should not be the duties of her home. These are hers alone and not another's. 

Very largely does the wife hold in her hands, as a sacred trust, the happiness and the highest good of the hearts that nestle in the home. The best husband--the truest, the noblest, the gentlest, the richest-hearted--cannot make his home happy, if his wife is not, in every reasonable sense, a helpmate to him.

In the last analysis, home happiness depends on the wife. 

Her spirit gives the home its atmosphere. 

Her hands fashion its beauty. 

Her heart makes its love. 

And the end is so worthy, so noble, so divine--that no wife should consider any price too great to pay to be the light, the joy, the blessing, and the inspiration of her home!

The woman who makes a sweet, beautiful home, filling it with love and prayer and purity, is doing something better than anything else her hands could find to do beneath the skies!"

- J. R. Miller

(Taken from Johnny Farese's Daily Thoughts)

~Deb

After All These Years...

Still Sweethearts ~ Tom & Deb

Happy 32nd Anniversary to us!

Deep in the Heart of Texas ~ Friends & Fellowship

Continuing our Deep in the Heart of Texas series, some of our best memories of Texas are the old friends we reconnected with during the conference and also the new friends we made while there.

On the first day as we were waiting for the conference doors to open, we looked around at the folks gathering and spotted a family Jonathan recognized from having visited their website. So we introduced ourselves to the energetic and sociable Wahlquist family:

And the girls and I met Beth, one of the three daughters in the Wahlquist family. Little did we know at the time that Beth would figure prominently in the weekend:

We also reconnected with the friendly Petersen family from California whom we met last year at the Gospel Centered Marriages Conference in North Carolina. Here I am with Mary:

And here's a picture of the whole Petersen family taken after we ate lunch together one day:

Tom contributes:  Also during the conference we met up with Joel and Theresa Salatin, our friends and local neighbors from Polyface Farms here in the Valley. We got to know them 10 years ago in a church fellowship when we first moved to the Valley, but we have not seen them much in recent years. It took traveling 1400 miles to south Texas to meet up with them again!

Joel was one of the keynote speakers at the conference, and Jonathan attended every one of his workshops:

Tom contributes: Then there’s the cheerful M. family (below), hailing from Tennessee. We were first privileged to meet some of them at the Gospel Centered Marriages Conference in NC last October. This time we got to meet the whole family – very nice folks who love the Lord. Here are some of us having a chat with Arthur and the boys:

And here are some of the M. ladies sitting on the lower level of the conference center below where the guys were talking:

Here's Hannah talking with a couple of the young ladies: Elizabeth, Amanda, and little Mary Ann.

And last, but certainly not least...in fact, it was a big part of the conference! Our friend, Erich--who lived here in Virginia for a few years, was part of our church, and worked with Jonathan at the airport--came strolling up to us between sessions and announced, "Girottis, I have news."

Between dinner break and the next keynote address at the conference on Friday evening, Erich and Beth were betrothed to be married! We were very excited for them both...because we liked Beth when we first met her! The wedding will take place possibly in October. Congratulations, Erich and Beth!!

"And I will betroth thee unto me forever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies. I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness; and thou shalt know the Lord." ~ Hosea 2:19-20

Well, I've certainly enjoyed writing about all the folks we were with during the conference. I hope you've enjoyed tagging along with me to Texas!

~Deb

Next up: Deep in the Heart of Texas ~ Flavors of Texas

NCFIC Gospel-Centered Marriages Conference ~ Part 4

This is the last post in this series, and again it focuses on meeting friends--but this time after the conference was over and as we were on our way back home to Virginia (so I guess officially it's not really about the conference, but in my mind it will always be Part 4 and the last adventure of our trip).

We stopped for the evening in Statesville to have a meal with the Toms family and to tour their farm. Here we are just arriving and getting re-acquainted: Earlier this year our friends stopped by our place to eat with us and told us about their property and small farm beginnings. This was our chance to see their gardens, pigs, chickens, and cows...we are so not cut out to be farmers!Here are the girls posing together outside one of the barns:

Unfortunately, Sarah and I were called in from the farm tour to rush Granny to ER and didn't get to sit down to the meal with them (we hear that it was delicious!):

Thank you to everyone who prayed for Granny and asked about her. Her blood pressure had risen dangerously high, so they admitted her overnight in a strange hospital in a strange city. (After a couple of weeks she's recovered now and was well enough to travel to the craft show this weekend!)

While Sarah and I were racing to the hospital, the rest of the family stayed at the Toms and enjoyed dinner and a musical evening together. Jonathan checked out their dulcimer while Rachel played guitar:

Here's Mrs. Toms recording Jonathan playing some fiddle tunes called Salt Creek and Gold Rush:

Thank you Toms family for being so understanding of the situation and for your great hospitality. We'll have to plan a re-do of the evening with all of us in attendance...except let's not invite ER to the party!

~Deb