Ark. Craft Time

We’ve been back from Ark. on our annual trip to the craft festivals for a couple of weeks now, so I’d better bring my blog up-to-date with all the happenings. I took my SIL this year. It was the first time she’s had a chance to go and she loved it! We had a great three days of looking and buying!

The first day was traveling to get there. It took about two hours. We went directly to the first place, the Wishing Spring Gallery. They sell crafts made exclusively by local crafters. What a fun place to visit! Three floors of crafts! Definitely one of my favorite places to go! I bought a beautiful flower arrangement in a hugh brightly-painted vase.

Then we went on down the road to Spanker Creek. This is the craft festival that took over most of the vendors from Applegate for the second year in a row when Applegate decided to go south and up into the mountains! The vendors didn’t want to go that far and I don’t blame them. With gas prices what they are, not too many people want to have to drive for miles just to see a few crafts. Anyway, they had more vendors this year at Spanker Creek and even though it rained on us off and on, we had a great time and spent the rest of the day there. SIL bought me a shirt as a “thank you” for bringing her with me this year. (That was nice of her, even though I wasn’t expecting her to do that!)

 

 We “modeled” our shirts later that evening after we got to our motel room.

The next day, we got up early, early and headed down into the valley to War Eagle. This is my most favorite place of all. So many crafts, so little time!! Here’s SIL just as we got there:

It was a little chilly, but at least it wasn’t raining like the day before. In fact, it was a beautiful sunny day! We were there all day and visited every craft booth which is a LOT of crafts. We crossed the bridge,

and saw kids playing in the water! It was a little cold for that!

Up on the hill, across the bridge was the rest of the craft tents. Here I am as we were heading up to craft shop some more!

We left around 5:30, got back to Rogers, and stopped at the Frisco Station Mall where there was another craft show going on. We met the nicest lady selling her paintings. We visited with her for quite a while and learned that she was 90 years old and still teaching painting. She told us some wonderful stories. What a marvelous lady!

We stopped for supper and headed back to the motel and fell into bed. What a day!

The last day of our trip, we slept a little later and it felt good. We got ready and headed for Bella Vista for their craft show up in the hills. Again, a beautiful day!

Their vendors are growing too. In fact, they had another huge tent full of more crafters. (I’m guessing maybe more of the vendors that used to be at Applegate.) Here’s one of the craftspeople working on his craft. He sculpted animals from logs of wood with a chain saw! Wonderful work!

 

We had a great time, once again, tasting all the samples of food, shopping all the crafts, and visiting with the crafts people. We made a couple of trips back to the car to unload crafts, and the first time back, we couldn’t find the car! I have an alarm on my keychain, but I guess we were too far away. I was beginning to doubt if we would ever find it! I bet we searched for a good fifteen minutes! But, of course, we found it and paid special attention to where it was for the next time!!

We left a little later than I was wanting to, but there was sooooo much to see! It was ok, though. I was going to go right to bed so I’d be able to get up at 3am to go back to work; but hubby wanted to know all about our trip, so needless to say, I was up later than I should have been.

A couple of days later, I spread all my “goodies” out on the couch. Quite a haul, don’t you agree?

Of course some of the items I bought are going to be gifts. But, yeah, most of the stuff I bought was for ME. It was definietly an “all about me” time!

Hope you enjoyed the trip with me.

Wedding Pictures

Daughter #1 sent me the pics of our wedding day. Thanks, Sweetie! Here they are:

This is right after the Preacher announced us as husband and wife. Note my tear-stained face.

This is the wedding party. My sister to my right, and my brother to hubby’s left.

Left to right behind us, Hubby’s mother, his dad, and my mother.

We went to my mother’s house for our little reception. Here we’re cutting the wedding cake that my mom made for us.

44 years!

Today is our anniversary! Forty-four years ago, at 7 pm, hubby and I got married in the living room of his folk’s house. I was 18, he was 20.  We were sooooo  young, but at the same time, we both seem to know that this was it and this is what we wanted.  I don’t think any of our kids would have been ready to get married at this tender age. Is it just me, or do kids now-a-days seem so much more immature than we were then?

Well, I digress. Anyway, we didn’t have any money and neither did my mother, so we just got away with the cheapest wedding we could. I bought my own dress and shoes from my tip money. (I worked at A & W back then.) I had no desire to have a big fancy church wedding. I just wanted to get married and get on with our lives. His mom and dad, (my future in-laws) suggested that we get married in their living room. They had a small living room with a big upright piano against one wall. She bought an expandible white paper bell and hung it from the ceiling in front of that big piano. That’s where we would stand in front of the preacher who would marry us.

Hubby was in the Army and had been sending me some of his money so I could deposit it into my bank account where I put my measly checks from A & W. We’d been able to save several hundred dollars just in the few short months after we decided to get married. My future FIL took me shopping shortly before Hubby got his leave to come home for our wedding and “we” bought our first car. It was a 1957 Ford Fairlane. I think it was about $500. My FIL paid half of it as a wedding gift to us. That helped us out a lot!

The day of our wedding was a beautiful fall day - sunny, cool and crisp. Not a cloud in the sky!  My very favorite kind of day. Earlier in the day, Hubby came by to pick me up and we went to the bank to take out our money and close our account. He was going to take me back to West Virginia with him for the last nine months of his commentment the Army. My mother had a fit that he would “see” me on the day we were going to get married! She just knew it would be bad luck for us! But I just laughed and thought it was silly.

I didn’t think the day would ever be over. I rolled my hair so I would be “pretty” and tried to keep busy to make the day go faster. I had all my clothes and all my other worldly goods packed since several days before so I just had to pack the last few things. I was so excited! What an adventure I was getting ready to began!

Finally the time came for my mother, three sisters, my brother, and me to go to my future in-laws house. His mom and dad, two sisters and brother were there. The preacher, Mr. Transbarger, was already there and straight up 7:00 pm, we started the ceremony. My sister stood up with me and my brother stood up with Hubby. (They were good friends — that’s how I met my Hubby.) I was so nervous, I don’t remember very much about what was said. I remember saying “I will” and about 20 minutes later, the preacher announced us “man and wife”. We kissed, then I started crying. (I’m very emotional.) The preacher took lots of pics, but we found out later that he didn’t have any film in his camera. So I only have a few pics that my mom took. I would have included some here, but #1 daughter has my photo albums, so no pics, sorry.

We all traveled back to my mom’s house where she had the table set with plates, cups, napkins, and the little cake that she baked herself. She had piled several layers together to make it look like a real wedding cake. I was so proud of my mom’s little cake! They took a pic of hubby and I cutting the first piece. We all had a nice time visiting and eating cake.

Then it came time for us to leave. We got a room (number 8) at a local motel, “The Satellite Motel” and we started our lives together that night. We were both nervous but everything turned out just fine. The next morning, we just had time to run by both parents’ houses to say our good-byes and we were off to the East Coast for the beginning of a wonderful life together. I can’t say that it’s all been rosy, (nothing’s perfect) but for the most part, we’ve had a wonderful marriage. I have no regrets and wouldn’t do anything differently.

Birthdays

My birthday was Sept. 20 and I have a dear friend who has a birthday Oct. 4. We’re the same age, except I’m two weeks older than she. We’ve been friends for a long time. Even before most of our children were born. She moved away from where we met as neighbors, but we’ve stayed in touch all these years. We have a LOT in common, even our first names! We both have an interest in crafts, mostly handwork like crochet, etc. but we also have a lot of the same basic likes and dislikes, philosophies of life, children all about the same ages, etc. So we can talk for hours given the opportunity! This is my friend:

She’s a really sweet person and I feel very fortunate to have her for a friend and that we’ve been able to stay in touch all these years!

She called me last week and wanted to get together for lunch to celebrate our birthdays since they’re so close together. She lives quite a ways from here so we decided to meet half way. I actually found the place of our rendezous without doing any backtracking! That’s quite an accomplishment for me, since my middle name is usually “backtrack”!

We had a wonderful time talking and exchanging gifts and talking and getting caught up with our families and did I mention talking?  We almost forgot to go eat lunch! But we found a nice little place that had great food! Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I ate so much! Here’s where we ate:

We had a gal that was working there take our pic together:

After we stuffed got all we wanted to eat, we rode around and found a neat little thrift shop and went shopping! Oh, I LOVE finding bargains, as well as my friend. (Another thing we have in common!) The place is called Genesis:

It was just chocked full of neat things. I got a sack full of goodies and my friend got two sacks of goodies. I love looking around in places like that. You never know what you’re going to find, and usually what you do find is quite a bargain! Have I mentioned that we both LOVE bargains!?

Well, our day was quickly getting away from us and we still had to drive home, so we said our good-byes until next time. (Hopefully it won’t be as long between as last time.) It was a beautiful day, weather-wise, and a beautiful day being together! I hope she enjoyed the day as much as I did, but I suspect that she did!