Moving right along through October festivities brings us to a highlight of my year, well, heck, a highlight of my entire life............. the wedding.  Lorie, Justin and Kiah became an official family on October 24th and it was the sweetest thing you could imagine.  The weather was about 20 degrees higher than the average in Boone in October making it a gorgeous fall day.

But wait, I am getting ahead of myself.  We have to start with Friday and the bridal shower. Moma and Daddy rented a phat (Amie's words) house in Blowing Rock so we could all stay together for the weekend and we invited the girls over for a party.  Lorie loves accessories and we all got her something of the sort as a present. 

 

She busted her toe earlier in the week so she had to trade her cute boots in for some slippers while she opened gifts. 

Leslie and Paul flew in from California on Thursday and Aunt Teresa drove over from the NC coast on Friday. It was awesome to have them here!

We have always loved the movie Steel Magnolias so I read lines from the movie we played a "Name that Character" game.  It was hilarious and I got to cuss in front of my mother which is always funny.  Later in the evening we watched the movie together and laughed and wept just like old times. 

Amie organised this whole party and made the sweets for us to enjoy! 

Lorie and Amie and Amy Cole her new sister inlaw

Cathy, Justin's mom and Sara, Justin's sister. 

The Cole sisters with  Holly (Justin's brother's girlfriend)

The main activity for the evening was flower arrangements and bouquets.  Mom and Lorie went with a friend to a whole sale florist that morning and bought tons of beautiful flowers.  We laid them all out on the table and mom guided us as we made our own bouquets.  It was pretty fun and they turned out to be perfect and exactly what Lorie had envisioned. 

Lorie' bouquet.  Impressive, huh?  My mom is the most talented lady to ever live. 

Everyone working hard

We made 5 of these for the church and reception.  

The next noteworthy happening in October was our Cheshire Music Gig.  After class one day, a lady told me how much she enjoyed the last time we played there and then asked when we were doing it again.  I really start thinking and figuring on how we could make it happen this fall before the weather turned too cold.  The biggest obstacle was the sound system.  We borrowed a system from a church last time but had some difficulties with feedback and not being loud enough and what-not so I was reluctant to go that route again. I had been hinting around to my dad for the past few months that what I really needed was a crowd-around mic (you know, one of those old timey looking ones) and an amp to better my musical ventures.  One night he called me up and said he wanted me to go look at a microphone that he was watching on Craigslist.  We loaded up the kids and on the way there he told me that actually we were going to look at a whole sound system and that he had always wanted to own one.  To make a long story short, we bought the system, stopped Krispy Kreme Doughnuts at 10:30 to get the kids all loaded down with a sugar treat and then headed to the house.  And suddenly we had the means to do our little outside concert again. ....A lot more means than I had ever even imagined we would have. 

 

Saturday, October 16th, from 4:00 to 6:00pm, we played some music and I got to pretend that I was a folk star for a bit.  It was awesome. The weather was glorious.  More people came than we had expected and the sound was great.  I woke up at 5am that morning too excited to sleep anymore and my cheeks were sore that evening from grinning the entire day.  Did I mention it was awesome?

pre show group shots.  The top picture is the one where I look most normal.  In the other pictures Lauren and Amie  someone told us that we should all look in different directions and so I am looking off while everyone else is smiling and looking at the camera...which explains the bottom one...oh yeah, and Nate listened to them too.

The kids hanging out while the folks gathered before the show. 

Nate: Dobro.....me: vocals and guitar.....Seth:bass.......
Chip: lead guitar and vocals......Adam: mandolin

 The only problem now is that I am OBSESSED with doing something like that again.   The Cheshire folks said that they would love to have us once a month, but that can't work in the winter so we'll just have to plan for next spring at this point.  We may be playing a benefit at a local concert hall in December.  

Oh don't worry, I will tell you all about it!

You know how it goes....the more you have to blog about, the less time you have to blog.  So October has come and gone and I have yet to record all of the happenings for the Harrisons.  Then the question is "where do I start?".  They used to say in the scrapbookers world to start with RIGHT NOW as to not get to overwhelmed, but I don't guess I am that far behind so I will start at the beginning of the month:  

Annabelle's birthday

 

Miss Annabelle is now four years old and we celebrated with a little tea party at Mimi's house.  Annalee, Abby, Lucie and their Moms all came over and they dressed up, ate cupcakes, drank lemonade and made special birthday hats.  It was perfect......short, sweet and not at all overwhelming.  The girls were so happy and excited.   She got some make-up and jewelry as presents which is as good as it gets in her mind. 

 

Granddaddy and Mimi treated us to a long weekend trip in Tennessee.  Granny and Pawpaw came along and we all went to Dollywood (of course).  The kids all stepped it up a notch and tried new rides....Annabelle rode the Veggie Tales roller coaster and even got on an actual horse (not the bench) on the Merri-go-Round,  the boys rode the Dizzy Disk (which made Adam cry) and Lanie actually rode the biggest roller coaster in the park.  It was awesome.  I got to see a show with Granny and Papaw that I had never seen before and it completely blew me away with singing and dancing.  It was wonderful!  However, one of the best treats of the weekend was a shopping trip to the outlets one day while the guys took the older kids to the Arcade.  Seth came out on Friday night and the next day the guys took the kids to a very cool swimming hole.