Grandma’s Auction

After some fun at the airport, I made it home again from Grandma’s auction. This trip the farm just wasn’t the same. When I visited last Novemeber, for Wayne’s funeral, the farm felt like the spirit had already left it, but the farmhouse felt oddly the same. I suppose that’s because the farmhouse had always been Grandma’s domain. This trip, however, the farmhouse had begun to lose it’s spirit, too. All of Grandma’s things had either been packed up for moving or layed out in auction boxes for the auction.

During the auction, I tried not to dwell on the fact that bits and pieces of Grandma and Wayne’s life were being scattered to the winds. I just concentrated on the few little items that I wanted to win, and bid my heart out when I needed to.

For anyone who has not been to a farm auction, I bet it’s different than you could imagine. This is nothing like the Sotheby’s auctions or a silent auction. This is fast paced, and it takes a keen ear to keep up with the auctioneer. It took me several items before I had a grasp for what the auctioneer was saying. The good news is that they keep track of who is bidding, and if they know you’re interestested, they look directly at you when it’s your bid, and usually make sure that you’ve refused before selling the item.

The first items they auctioned was a wagonful of Wayne’s old tools. Dad had heard some guys talking beforehand and pointing out a couple of Model T jacks. If we’d known they were in his garage, we probably would not have had them on the auction, but they would have gone with the Model T over to Vern’s farm for temporary storage. But there they were, so I would have to bid on them. I think I was the only girl bidding on the tools (another girl bid on a milk-testing kit against me, which was on the same wagon, but I won it, and I suspect that she, like me, was going to turn it into some crafty thing). When they did the jacks, they had us bid on a choice of one of the 6 or so jacks that were there. When I won, I went up and picked out the two Model T jacks, and the auctioneer commented that I seemed a bit young to be in the Model T business, but that he was glad to see it.

Next they started on the household items. Dad mentioned that they never seem to go for much, but I was surprised at how little some of them went for. I bid on a box of tea cups, and won. I also bid on a box of serving bowls, and later two other boxes of tea cups. I’d won all of my bids so far, but then none of them had gone above $20 (and several were less).

I went down for pie after I won my tea cups, since they were moving on to the other household items. Things like the couch and easy chairs went for next to nothing, but an antique wash stand and a pair of arch-way bookshelves (without the archway, of course) sold for quite a bit.

As the auction moved down the hill, I needed to pay attention because there was an old croquette set that I wanted to bid on. It had been found in Wayne’s old house in the 50s, and had the initials of the previous owners etched in the wood, so it likely dated from the 20s or 30s. I was expecting it to go for $100-$150. I bid up to $200, and decided to stop. The guy bidding against me was the person who we thought might buy the house, and we were pretty sure he had money enough to keep bidding for a while.

From there they started on some of the other tools and items out of the garage and sheds. I ran into the house for some leftover pizza, and walked around the grounds, chatting with my brothers and parents along the way.

When they started on the equipment, Dad ran over to the old Ford tractor, Wayne’s pride and joy, where he was ready to bid until he won. (He did.) We followed the crowd up the hill, where Dave and Jen bid on a couple of the tractors, and Dad finally won the John Deere “pop-Johnny” for them. Dave would have prefered the Allis Chalmers with the hand brakes, which he used to use all the time when helping Wayne with the farming, but the bidding went above his limit. But I think he was happy in the end; plus the Ford will be going to his place, since Dad doesn’t really have any place for it or any use for it, either.

Finally they auctioned the house and farm land. We were all a bit nervous about this, considering this is where the money for Grandma’s new place in Red Wing was coming from, along with money for investments to live off of. All in all, though, it went very well. She not only covered her new house, but got more for the house and farm than she was expecting. Even better, the couple who bought it were people that Gram knows, at least she knows their son who will be farming the land, so she’s happy.

It all still seems unreal, though, and it hasn’t yet sunk in that I’ve seen the farm for the last time….

Table Camera Pictures

I’ve put the pictures from the table cameras up on my photo album. There are a lot of great pictures there, here are a couple to whet your appetite:

Running off to Minnesota tonight — Grandma is auctioning off the rest of Grandpa’s farm equipment, the farm land and the farm house. It’s going to be a hard weekend, but I’m glad that I’ll have the opportunity to be there.

Those weren’t clean, were they?

First Wedding Pic…

I heard from the photographer today — I’d wanted to make sure that we had paid him for all of his hours. He’s been working on the pictures, and is hoping to have proofs ready for us in the next week or so. Yay!

In the meantime, he sent us this one to enjoy:

[Credit: Tom Madden, MPI]

Andrew looks a little embarassed to be with the rest of us…

Honeymoon

We’re back from the honeymoon…it did not last long enough, but at least we were able to get some down-time. We stayed at Creek Crossing Farm, a bed & breakfast in Lincoln, Virginia, just a couple miles from where the W&OD trail ends/begins. We took our bikes and went out a couple times, and we took our books and read a lot.

Tuesday

We started the day with a wonderful breakfast of fresh scrambled eggs, toast and fried apples. Then we hopped in the car with our bikes and went out for our first bike ride in a long time. Unfortunately we had forgotten that one of my migraine triggers is the sudden cessation of stress. Yup. About 3.5 miles out my vision started to fuzz out. We turned around, and biked back to the car as my vision fuzzed in and out. By the time we reached the car, the headache had started, though I did pop some Tylenol on the trail (I’m never far from a source of aspirin or acetaminaphen).

I was feeling stubborn, though, and only slept for an hour when we got back to the B&B. Then we went off to town to get lunch and check out the shops. In Purcellville, we stopped in a couple shops. One was a toy store with way cool toys, including some mint in-the-package toy sets from Raiders of the Lost Ark. There was also a full-sized Lego Darth Vader there (not for sale).

Then we went down the street to Final Draft, a used book store. I found a couple more books for Banned Books Week and Andrew even picked up a Bookcrossing book. When I mentioned Banned Books Week to the clerk, she looked up the website and list of 100 most challenged books of 1990-2000, and commented on how many of the summer reading books for the local school were on the list.

After the bookstore, we drove the ~10 miles to Leesburg to check out the shops and restaurants there. (We had almost exhausted the restaurants in Purcellville.) We went into a few of the shops on King Street, and then stopped for dinner at an Italian place, also on King.

In the evening we went back to the farm and vegged in front of the TV with the dogs and cats of the house.

Wednesday

Another great breakfast started the day — this time waffles and fried apples. Yum! The we packed up the bikes for our second attempt at the W&OD trail. This ride went better. We went 15.4 miles round-trip! Our longest ride so far. On our return trip we stopped at a picnic table in Purcellville for a picnic. I took lots of pictures of the ride, which can be seen in my photo album.

We went back to the farm after our ride, showered and napped for a little while. Then we walked up to the Goose Creek Burial Grounds, which were about half a mile up the road from the farm. There was a wide range of gravesites there, ranging from as recent as 2003 to as old as the 1700s.

In the evening we popped up to Purcellville for dinner, then back to the farm to veg out with the animals in front of the TV again.

Thursday

If we had many more breakfasts like we did at the farm, we’d be 500 pounds in a year! This morning we had buckwheat pancakes and more fried apples. Then we packed up the car, and started back home stopping in Middleburg on the way. Middleburg had a wonderful Main Street filled with shops. We shopped for a couple hours, had lunch at a deli just off the main street, shopped for a bit longer, and then hopped in the car and drove home.

Wonderful, relaxing few days.

Wedding Day Reception

What a wonderful reception! I had the greatest time, though we left a bit earlier than planned because I started getting really tired.

The reception was at the Stardust Restaruant in Alexandria. We were greeted by a chalk message on the sidewalk.

We checked out the cake right away

And on my way back to the bar for appetizers, I ran into Kirsten, a friend from New Mexico, now living in Idaho, and I hardly recognized her! She looks too grown-up now!

(Mushi, Sweetie, and Kirsten)

I had put together gift bags for all the kids, and I think they went over fairly well. Here’s Kira playing with her Dad and the pinwheel, and another picture of Brock showing me the Star Destroyer Legos he’d put together:
  

I had also given Brock a Dover “stained glass” coloring book of rocket ships. He colored one for me, but I don’t have a picture just yet — the photographer did get a picture of him giving it to me, so I will have one later.

The Stardust usually serves their soft drinks with little plastic animals, which I love (in fact, I still have all of the animals from previous trips there). I found these fascinating, and started poking them in the cleavage of my dress. The waiter saw how much I loved the animals and brought me a glass full of them!

I tried taking a picture of the animals on myself, just to remember my view of them, but it didn’t turn out. Then Sweetie tried taking a picture, which was just silly, but she didn’t have any more luck. I think the photographer got a shot of her photographing my cleavage…

This picture gets the award for most bizarre — it almost needs a caption contest. Note that Andrew and my grandma both look like they’re shouting. Trouble with the in-laws already??

Wedding Day Dressing and Waiting

After we arrived back from the salon, the girls got dressed first. Here’s a great shot of Mushi’s hair as she’s zipping Mom into her dress.

The first thing I put on was my wedding tennis shoes:

Then the girls cinched me into my dress:

Once I was dressed, we realized that there would be wedding guests milling about in the lobby of the hotel, since there was a van waiting to take them to the wedding. Sweetie pointed out that this is considered bad luck to have the guests see the bride before the wedding, so we had Dad move his minivan to around the side of the hotel, and Mushi and I escaped out of an Emergency Exit (which was okayed by the front desk).

We arrived at the planetarium 20 minutes later, and I was wisked away into the back room to wait. Andrew was not going to see me before the wedding, so he and Greg were waiting in the planetarium director’s office. The girls and I were in the back storage room, which had cool tools and globes and things.

I have no idea what each of us was doing in this picture, but it looks like a study into the various stages of insanity:

Here’s a nice one of us girls, just about to go line up:

Wedding Day Hair and Make-up

We arrived at PR and Partners a bit early for our 10:30 AM appointment, so decided to take a before picture:

(Mom didn’t seem to want to be in the picture…I wonder why not!)

They started with me and Mom. My hair needed a bit of body, so Gina put my hair in rollers with gel and then stuck me under the dryer.

Karina took care of Mom’s hair and make-up while I was still under the dryer (for ever and ever and ever).

When Karina started on Sweetie, I asked for my camera, since Sweetie had been taking many of the pictures (that and Mom and Suzanne disappeared to seek out new shoes for mom, so it was just me, Sweetie and Mushi, and they were both busy having their hair done). Anyway, Karina had a very fine glitter on her hands, and it got onto my lens.

I worked at getting the glitter out, and finally was mostly sucessful.

Here’s Sweetie getting finished up:

I’m finally out from the dryer, and everyone but me is having lunch. I have no idea what Mushi is doing behind me…

Through all of this Suzanne is an absolute goddess. She ran out to grab pop for all of us, and she called in our lunch order. She ran out to get a new silver chain for Mushi, since the one I had bought was a bit too short. She helped Mom get new shoes after Mom’s hair was done. She grabbed our lunch with Mom’s help (I think). She ran around making sure we all had what we needed. I don’t think today would have gone as smoothly as it did without her. Thanks, Suzanne!

We finally left the salon at about 1:30 PM, and headed back to Mom’s room to get dressed.

Wedding Day Morning

I did not sleep last night. I tried and tried and tried, and despite the large amount of Bailey’s that the girls gave me, I just couldn’t. I wasn’t actually nervous about the wedding, but excited. I kept thinking about how cool the ceremony was going to be, how great Andrew looked in his tux, how beautiful I would be in my dress with my hair and make-up all done, and on and on and on. I think I did dose for a bit between 5 AM and 7 AM, but I remember every other hour of the night. Sigh. That’s a zombie bride, not a blushing bride!

After a quick shower, Sweetie, Suzanne and I went on our way to my parents’ hotel, with a quick stop for wedding-day Starbuck’s on the way.

When we got back out to the car, there was a grasshopper on the roof of the car. I had to have a picture of the wedding-day grasshopper

We also had to stop in Alexandria at the historic cobblestone road for a quick picture.

(Those dogs were with the nice lady who stopped to take our picture.)

Oddly enough, the grasshopper was still on the car after pictures at the cobblestone road. This is even weirder considering it had to stay on the car during a 10-mile ride on the beltway at about 70 mph!

We actually arrived at my parents’ hotel room just on time — a switch for me, since all week I’ve been running about 15-20 minutes late. We waited around for a while, and Mushi joined us, before heading off to get our hair done.

Rehearsal & Rehearsal Dinner

The rehearsal and rehearsal dinner were this evening. We arrived at the planetarium a bit before the wedding coordinators, but the girls and I started setting up right away.

The rehearsal went fairly quickly, since we had scripted the lighting with Jonathan on Tuesday. The photographer took a few test shots, and let everyone know that we should stop by the star projector for a second on our way down the aisle — that way he would have a better chance at a good picture. They also tested the flash a couple times, which was blinding, but necessary.

After the rehearsal, Jonathan offered to do a mini-star show for us, which we happily accepted. It’s obvious that he enjoys his job, and we had a fun time as he took us through the night sky.

Next we herded everyone to Anita’s New Mexican Restaurant in Vienna, one of Andrew and my favorite restaurants. This was a bit of a task, since not everyone rented cars and one of the rental cars we were expecting to have wasn’t present (see yesterday’s entry for more on that), but we triumphed.

Dinner was fun — I got to hold my new neice, Sofia, for the first time, and got to catch up with my other neice and nephew, Kira and Brock. Brock wanted to sit across from me, which was great, since I don’t get to see or talk with him much. Our families seemed to get along quite well again, though there was some segregation of the families (not on purpose).

Andrew and his parents	Brock, Kira and Me all being silly
Andrew and Me	I think Suzanne liked her gift!

Afterwards, Sweetie and Suzanne took me home — they’re staying with me tonight.