Whew!

Wow, what a two and half weeks we've had!  Tal and Anita spent some of their honeymoon at Bear Lake and part in Jackson Hole and then came back to Baliwood for a really fun Open House!  We have been getting the house ready with beautiful mums for a long time and we're finally ready!

 

So that people could feel the joy of what we experienced in New York a bit, I got some frames from Costco and Eva and Shawni sent pictures of that happy event which we lined the Great Room windows with:

The morning before, we had a visit from our baby moose, who is not so baby anymore. There are two babies who have grown like weeds since last year!  That baby took a nibble of our baby Quaken Aspen tree that we've been "babying" all summer on our burm outside out house.

 

We went to the Jordon River Temple the night before the Open House and this is what we saw on our way:

The shaft of light (actually dark) coming down from above was simply amazing!

Since Anita's friends had got to Upstate New York to gather wild flowers and reeds to decorate the restaurant in Brooklyn for the ring ceremony and dinner, we took that idea and used it for the flowers and reeds for the Open House. I must admit that I did buy 90 big sunflowers from Costco, but everything else was growing along the access road. 

Dad, Anita, Tal and I took the truck and had so much fun chopping down cattails in the nearest swamp and finding beautiful weeds along the roadway. Tal was pretty worried about "getting caught" (JK) and Tal and Anita were pretty muddy after our escapade but it was so fun! 

We filled up the back of the truck and hauled it all home on the morning of the Open House.

At 2 p.m. The Carver Clan came to the rescue yet AGAIN!  Lindsay showed us how to put things together and Lenna and Jess and I arranged everything in pots and vases and it was spectacular. Mo Mo, our "almost daughter" came to take pictures since all of our photographers were absent. She really captured the festivites beautifully but the pics are in my other computer and will be coming soon!

Since all of the siblings had "shot their wad" in New York, we only had our oldest and youngest with us for that fun night of festivities, but it was a delight to have Saren and Jared and the kids and Charity and her roommates with us! 

Saren kept an eye on the caterers.

Jared, after seeing friends got to go to the BYU game with his brother. Although being with the Brian and Mark his son was fun, the outcome of the game was not!

It was a wonderful couple of weeks full of events that we'll never forget!