Happy Halloween!!!

Well tonight was our first Halloween at the Ranchero. Harry and Homer were down at the Park facilitating the Halloween festival while I passed out candy at home. I ran the festival last year but with everything going on this fall, I had to say NO. That might seem insignificant, but for me, it's a pretty big deal - to say no.

I ran out of candy pretty early on, as in like 7ish or so. I saw some great costumes, one girl was an autumn fairy and she just looked too cute. Apparently, our street is where EVERYONE comes for candy. Seriously, everyone, as in buses come from out of state and the impetus for the festival at the park was to quelch the residents who were fed up with too many trick-or-treaters. Happy Holidays!

So, since I had no candy and would have been forced to give out used pens and pencils, I blew out the candles, turned the lights off, shut the doors and sequestered myself in the back of the house. This was alright, as I used the time to put the final (almost) coat of paint on the built-in bookshelves in the yellow room. I have to give one cubby another coat (when Harry painted them initially, he could not reach the top and since all need two coats...) I would like to see this room done by Thanksgiving. I still have to paint that cubby again, refinish the floors, reattach all cabinet doors and hardware as well as change the light fixture and outlets and their covers. I think this is a reasonable goal.

In addition, I need to start work on the bathroom. I am hoping that we can get an electrician in next week to do some needed things and then onto drywall and tiling.

Our neighbors invited us to an "after Halloween" party so that was pretty cool. Lots of yummy dips - I just can't get enough dip recently. I thought I would stay forever at the shops in Biltmore just running around and sampling dips and don't get me started on Sam's and Costco...Anyway, the party was a good time - I ran into my friend Susan and her daughter Erin who were both in the wedding and that was a pleasant surprise.

Homer and I are sitting here in bed, each with our laptops out and messing on the computer....hmmm....something seems wrong with this picture....

Back Into The Swing

So today was the day that we had to try to begin getting back in the swing of things, so to speak. It has been a busy day, as I returned to the office to find my mailbox overflowing, and papers stuffed under my door needing my attention. On top of that, it was Halloween, which meant an office birthday party, costumes, and the Town's Halloween celebration in the local park, part of which I was responsible for organizing.

Everyone was glad to see me back, and commented that they had enjoyed the wedding. Of course, everyone wanted to see the new wedding ring, and asked about the honeymoon as well. So, with all that going on, I guess it wasn't truly a return to normalcy, but it was a start.

The event in the park went well tonight! Harry helped me run the scavenger hunt and pass out candy, and all in all, I am guessing we had between 600 and 700 kids come through. Definitely a fun time! Afterward we went across the street to our neighbors for a Halloween party, and had a great time. I am now blogging, getting ready for bed, and getting ready to head to camp tomorrow for a training weekend for Indian Activities for the Scouts. We will come back Sunday, and then get ready for the week ahead.

So, just what is normalcy? I still haven't completely moved in, and my stuff is in a huge pile in the living room of the house. I am looking forward to getting it sorted out and put away, but when is that going to happen? I have a meeting on Monday and Wednesday night of next week, and will probably be glued to the computer/tv on Tuesday with the election going on, so it is looking like at least Thursday evening before I get some time to start settling in more. It is so easy to get caught up in the busy-ness of everything, I don't see how people can find time to make a home! That is priority for me though--moving in and working with Kris to continue making a home for both of us! I am excited!

I am looking forward to the weekend--it is the 2nd Annual Josh Davis Memorial Featherfest at Raven Knob--a weekend for working with kids who are interested in Native American Singing and dancing. Some of the South Carolina crowd is coming up, and there should be a lot of singers there this weekend. I am looking forward to using the new drum!

I am tired now. It has been a long day of reintroduction to life as a married man, both at home and at work. Maybe the weekend will be a good time to wind down, relax and get in the mindset of coming back home and getting busy getting settled in. Have a great weekend; if I get the chance, I may update from CRK.

Home Again!

We spent the last couple of days of our honeymoon enjoying shopping, a train ride through the Nantahala Gorge, and a fun day at the Biltmore Estate.

Biltmore was one of my favorite things. Kris is a flower nerd, and I have told her that one of my favorite parts of the day was walking around the Biltmore Gardens with her pointing out what was what, with its' scientific name, common name, legal description, social security number and credit history. We talked about ideas for our own yard and garden as well, and I'm a little bit excited about the possibilities!

We enjoyed a our of the Biltmore Mansion, and wine tasting at the winery. We drove back to Rural Hall where we crashed for the night, and got up yesterday to open wedding gifts. We did some preliminary cleanup, and loaded the car to come back home together for the first time as husband and wife.

We are glad to be home, but I think we both enjoyed the mystic allure of the mountains in the fall. I hope we can go back soon as a family, as we found several things that the three of us can enjoy together.

That's all for now; I've got to get back to the office and try to get caught up and back in the swing of things!

Snow!

Kris is getting ready for our day trip through the Nantahala Gorge. I dropped her off back here at the B&B after our trip to Walmart, which is quite possibly the coolest Walmart ever, as it is surrounded by mountains!

The snow outside is awesome! There is at least 2" on the ground, and the mountains are all snow capped. We probably took 50 pictures this morning before and after breakfast of the B&B, the yard, trees, and flowers all covered with snow!

After breakfast and the Walmart run, I dropped Kris back here to shower while I made another visit to the Mast General Store to pick up a pair of shoes that she picked out yesterday and some socks.

Once she gets done showering and getting ready, we will head to Bryson City for our train ride departure through the Natahala Gorge. I remember rafting the Nantahala and waving at the train as it passed; it will be fun to be on the other side of that equation!

Not sure what our plan is after that. We are enjoying the leaves, the snow, and the freedom that comes with just a little bit of planning and organization interspersed with a lot of spontaneity and whimsical diversions. We still have Biltmore tickets to use, and there are a couple of other places we have seen along the way where we would like to stop.

Katina posted her pictures from the wedding last night on our shutterfly page. It was awesome to look back through them and think about how perfect our wedding day was! If anyone out there has pictures, please post them--we'd love to see!

What A Cool Gift For Our Honeymoon

We woke up this morning to find a healthy dusting of snow on the ground! It's very pretty, and as soon as I can, I'll post some pictures!

The Drum

Monday evening finds us relaxing after a fun day in downtown Waynesville, NC. We drove through there on Sunday evening, and decided to come back today to window-shop and enjoy the unique atmosphere that Waynesville seemed to offer. We weren't disappointed!

We had lunch at Headlights Restaurant, a nice bar/grill type place that reminded me a whole lot of Macados, one of my favorite restaurants in Boone. We stopped in at Town Hall in Waynesville and chatted for a few minutes with Town Manager Lee Galloway and his assistant, Alison Melnikova. I met Lee as an undergraduate at ASU, and have always looked up to him as I have begun my own career in the Public Management profession. We enjoyed our talk, including talking about how my job has affected/will affect Kris, and also where the best places to see and eat are in the area! Alison also gave us a bag of goodies promoting businesses in the downtown area--that was much appreciated!

We did some shopping for the afternoon, and re-booked our train trip for later in the week. We finished our day in downtown at the Mast General Store, one of our favorite places. We have been to the ones in Valle Crusis (the store and the annex), Boone, Asheville, and now Waynesville. Such a fun place with so much to offer!

We came back to the B&B where the hosts had prepared a snack basket that we ordered, and enjoyed cheeses, sausage, crackers, grapes, sodas, and cookies. We decided we would stay in for the night, as it is cold outside, and forecasters are even calling for snow! Wouldn't it be nice to wake up tomorrow to some snow on the mountaintops?!?!?!?

Kris is napping now, so I thought I'd blog about the day. Other fun notes are to come, especially when Kris gets on here and writes some!

I wanted to take a few minutes to Blog about the wedding gift that Kris suprised me with on Saturday. Kris took the time to secretly commission Bo Limbaugh, a friend of mine who lives near Tulsa, Oklahoma to make a powwow drum for me to have for a wedding gift. Wow...just wow! I could not have imagined such an incredible, personal, thoughtful, powerful, amazing gift. Kris understands how important powwow singing is to me better than I ever thought she did, as she knew that something like that drum would mean so much to me. The gift brought me to tears for yet another time that afternoon, unashamedly, yet weak in the knees to see that outward sign or symbol of how much I am loved by the woman I married.

It was especially cool that she had Bo make it, as Bo, along with others, lit a fire under me to begin learning how to sing back in 1996. Bo and his wife, Kim are great people, and I look at their marriage as the example of how a marriage should be--fun, uncensored, a partnership with your best friend. Bo is a telented singer and drum maker, and I could tell that he put a lot of thought into making a drum especially for me as a wedding gift from Kris. Thanks so much Bo--it really means a lot!

After Kris suprised me with it at our wedding, I had the opportunity to break it in with my best friends in the world outside the tent and near the fire where everyone was gathered. This was especially unique, as there were many friends and family there who had never heard Southern Plains Indian Singing before, who probably never even knew that this was what I spent the majority of my free weekends doing--travelling across the country singing at Powwows.

Ridgie, Daniel, Michael, Chip, Matt, Travis, Justin, Harry, and I (with Rene Tucker in the background) sang 6 or seven songs Saturday night with several folks watching and listening, and GOOD GOD did that drum sound incredible! It had a pitch that made the singing that much better, and the power of those songs grows stronger with their age, I am truly convinced. We sang a couple of straight intertribal songs, some Veterans Songs, and a Ponca Prayer Song--one of Yellow Bear's (an old Ponca man, who was described as not a singer, but a religious man, best as I can recall) songs that is a pretty song, and very appropriate to the occasion. No matter how long between times that group of guys gets together, we enjoy singing together and enjoy singing well! What a cool aspect of our wedding--the groom and three groomsmen and the grooms best friends singing together and enjoying ourselves on a new drum--signifying a new beginning for me and Kris together, but acknowledging that our uniqueness, our friends, hobbies, interests, and passions are still important as we begin our life as a family together. Maybe some folks there thought it was strange, but most seemed to enjoy it, and thought it was pretty cool.

It also made me think of people that I have learned a lot from over the years, people who live all over the country, people who I count as my closest friends, especially those of them who couldn't be there for the wedding. It was an opportunity to reflect, and think about those people and relationships that I hope I never take for granted. I hope that I have the opportunity one day to sing with them around my new drum, and that it will give us the opportunity to share many more songs, stories, laughs, and the power of song for many, many years.

Honeymoon Picture

Monday Morning

Monday morning is apparently about as hard to wake up to on our honeymoon as it is during a regular workweek!

I got up at about 4:30, unable to sleep anymore and did some reading while Kris slept. I made it back to bed at about 6, and just woke Kris up a few minutes ago for our 8:30 breakfast here at the B&B where we are staying, so as soon as she gets ready, we are off to the dining room to enjoy breakfast.

Back to yesterday--the ride on the Blue Ridge Parkway was amazing! We stopped a couple of times along the way to take pictures; while most of the time we were taking the standard "hold the camera two feet away from our faces" photo, someone would inevitably offer to take our picture and strike up conversation, enthralled to learn that we were newlyweds! That was a lot of fun! I drove while Kris dozed between conversations and scenic stops, and it was just a good relaxing drive. At some point, I think we would both like to drive the Parkway from terminus to terminus!

We stopped at a KFC near Marion for a quick snack to tide us over until dinner. That stop resulted in some hilarity that I'll let Kris fill in on later (she has pictures)! At that point, I think we both realized how tired we were!

Today, we are planning to do some shopping, lunch, and then a train ride through the Natahala Gorge. More updates later, cause we're off to breakfast!

WE ARE MARRIED!

As of Saturday, October 25, 2008, I am a married man, though my heart has belonged to Kris for quite some time preceding that day! It was a beautiful ceremony, and we were so blessed to have our families and friends there for our wedding. The rain early on was followed by a beautiful sunny afternoon, and the delay in the ceremony allowed for an awesome sunset to highlight the fall colors in the trees across the ridge.

Kopper Kanyon preformed some great bluegrass music, the food was excellent, and Kris'' decorations were amazing, but nothing was more important that Kris and I and Harry becoming a family before God and in the presence of all our friends and family. In talking about the delay in our wedding, I told Kris that our wedding happened when it was supposed to happen, and that it was absolutely perfect. I think God has a way of letting things happen on his time, and not necesarily when we want them to. Kris was absolutely beautiful, the ceremony was beautiful, the reception was wonderful, and I couldn't have imagined a better day! I cried alot, but they were tears of joy, and I'll blog more about that as time permits later.

The recieving line was one of my favorite aspects of the wedding, though I had my doubts about it at first, because it allowed us to talk momentarily with almost everyone who was there. It meant a great deal to both of us for everyone to be there and share in what took place.

We left for our honeymoon at around 1 am on Sunday morning after spending some great time with friends and family at the reception. We spent the first night in Wilkesboro, and got up this morning with bagels on our brains! We arrived at the Boone Bagelry, a favorite restaurant for both of us, and enjoyed a great breakfast of sweet and savory bagels. While there, we bumped into Daniel Baird, a friend of mine from college at ASU and currently an executive with the Boy Scouts. We left Boone, and went to the Elk Mountain Overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway, where I first asked Kris to be my wife over a year ago. We took lots of pictures, and enjoyed the amazing views as we took our time driving and talking.

We rode the Parkway across the Linn Cove Viaduct and down to Marion, where we picked up I-40 and headed to our honeymoon destination. I'll write more about that later as well. For now, we are happily enjoying our honeymoon and our time with each other. We will be blogging throughout the trip so that we can write our memories down and have them to read over for years to come, as well as keep our friends and family updated on what is going on with us!

Thanks to everyone who was there and to all who have passed on well-wishes and congratulations! We'll both write more as time permits, and will share a lot more about the details of the wedding and honeymoon. Until then, please send us pictures from the wedding if you happened to take some! We would love to enjoy your photos from the wedding, as well as your perspectives on the celebration! Visit homerandkris.com and click on the link that says view/share pics for more details on how to share your photos with us!