illinois wedding trip !

Danielle and her sisters, Mandy (L) and Tera (R)

(L-R) Micah, Elijah, Mark, Ben, Obi, Matt & Caleb

Obi & Mark

Daniel Hingle

awwwwww......so good to be home!!!! I love Oklahoma, I love our farm, I love our house, I love MY bed!!!! BUT what a great trip, great people we met, a beautiful bride and wedding and a safe trip!! Since this rental van had a/c, there was a constant plea of "turn it down, its cold!" A nice change!

Here goes: we got there Friday 2am, and the host family/groom's family, the Schuler's escorted us to our bus in the White Pines State park about 5 minutes from their house. It worked out fine. All we did was sleep there. Friday after we slept a bit we headed over to the Schuler's and for the 3 days we hung out at their house til late in the evenings, we then went over to where Danielle was decorating for the wedding reception and spent the day there helping. In the afternoon, back to Schueler's and the little people swam. Then the volley ball began and did not end for 3 days!!! There was 3 families that we met, the Schuler's, the Hingle's and the Meyers (the Meyer children) We had much in common, the Schuler's have had to toddler deaths, about 18 years ago, one child with birth defects, lived for 18 months and then with the Lord, and they had another 2 year old that was accidentally ran over as someone was backing up in a van. The Hingle family, Ellen is the mother, they have 12 children, one son two years ago at age 23 I think drowned and in Jan. 09, her husband died of cancer. He had it for many years, and battled. We shared, we laughed, we had some tears together too! Now the other thing we had in common with these families is volley-ball!!! The Hingle guys play tons and in competitions and for them to say they found some folks that play it, won't quit, play hard........it was the Morris team!!! On Saturday, volley ball ALL day long, we carried sandwiches out, they would not stop!! There was many little children so they swam alot, played in the creek, outside and had a great time! I was able to help Lonna, (Mrs. Schuler) work in the kitchen as the rehearsal dinner was planned for their house. rehersel went well. They got married outside at a place called Wedding Canyon about 7 minutes from their house. About 70 people had dinner, then more volley ball, they had HUGE fireworks, we sat outside around a campfire, and visited way late! Sunday, the BIG day, many had to be at the wedding place at 11 am for pictures Anna took a lot of side line pictures, she was not the photographer, but had fun taking them for our family. Of course Danielle was a beautiful bride and the wedding went great! It was very hot, but we made it. The nights in Illinois we so cool, in the mid 40's! After millions of pictures the wedding party finally got to the reception, and served a full meal, Danielle and Aaron had a "first dance," and while all that was happening a load of guys were preparing the get away vehicle for departure!! Do you remember the movie Flywheel?? How every time they hit the brakes the horn honked????They did that to Aaron's truck!!!! Hilarious!!!!! They were off to Costa Rica for their honey moon! We gave all our new friends farewwell, hugs and hope to see them again soon and loaded up about 8:30 pm and headed to KC to stay for a day with Terry's sister as it was right on the way back to OKC! Monday, yesteraday was Micah's BD!! He is 16 now!! Tami, Terry's sisters daughter, Hannah made Micah a cake and we got pizza, and had our favorite Blue Bell ice cream! In the afternoon on Monday we headed back to OKC and got home around 10 pm last night.

It was so neat meeting so many new people! The children met many new friends as well and had much in common, music, construction, volley ball and Jesus! Its a blessing to fellowship with other faith filled families!

Now for the BIG surprise when I got home!!! Billy stayed here and managed all the farm and it went great for him! Upon arrival, we got a blessed surprise......Billy had finished the wood ceiling in our new space area!!!!!! He also cleared and worked the cemetery over!!!!! I was sooooo thrilled! I had no idea he was up to this! WOW!!!! Gilmore family........I am blessed with your sons hard work, his thoughtfulness and using his spiritual gift of "giving!!" Thank you Billy for being a huge blessing to our family!

Lots of pictures below!
I gotta go......... get things back in order, grocery and get ready for some friends to visit us tomorrow from west Oklahoma and spend the night!

Enjoy the pictures!!