My Cousin's Wedding

I'm considering changing my blog from Diaries of a Farm Wife to Diaries of a Wedding Guest.

The year of the weddings continued this past weekend when my cousin, Brandon, married his beautiful bride, Jodi.

He is from a die-hard cattle-raising beef family.

And she works for the Kansas Pork Association.

There were lots of jokes about beef vs. pork all weekend.

Kind of made me feel sorry for chicken.

Okay, not really. A comment like that will get me kicked out of the family.

Speaking of ... Jodi's blog is called My Cousin is Vegan. Now I don't know who this cousin is, but that sounds like grounds for family expulsion to me.

The wedding was gorgeous.

And Pastor Ethan kept to his word and made the ceremony brief so we could all go party at the reception.

Don't let the whole pastor thing fool you, he likes a good party himself.

The reception was just down the road at C&W Ranch.

Recognize this barn from the top of my blog?

It got a major facelift:

The ranch has totally renovated the barn since my wedding there three years ago and Jodi and Brandon were the first to host a their reception there.

The inside is gorgeous. And Jodi's rustic decorations made everything come together perfectly.

Not gonna lie, I'm kinda jealous.

The hayloft was converted into a huge dance floor.

The newlyweds had the time of their lives dancing the night away.

And so did everyone else. The dance floor was full all night long.

And it all started out so innocently, with my cousins' kids showing the adults how it's done.

Miss Hallie is a big spender. She offered up a five spot to dance with the groom during the dollar dance.

And then she got a little bashful once she was up there.

This guy tried to swipe his card, but I don't think the bride was accepting debit.

And that's when I wheeled Grandma Kathy out on the dance floor.

Hang on granny, we're going for a ride.

She sure knows how to bust a move on four wheels.

Within minutes, she was the most popular person out on the dance floor.

Next thing you know, I bring out my own ridiculous moves...

And then pull out my best triple step. Whatever the heck that is.

And then I turn around to find my uncle doing his version of what I think is smack that ahh... nevermind.

See my sister-in-law behind him in the background?

Girlfriend is just happy to be alive.

Sista is livin' it up in the background of just about every dance floor picture I took.

It's kind of like a fun version of Where's Waldo. Except it's Where's That Blond Chick in the Purple Sweater Vest?

Nice jump move.

I think she got a little air on that one.

Yep, and now she's officially going to kill me.

She still hasn't forgiven me for posting the pics from her one-woman photo shoot in the bathroom.

But my brother seems to be impressed.

Heck, we all were.

And from then on the pictures start looking like this.

I'm really not sure why.

Congratulations Brandon and Jodi!

You two throw one heck of a party.

Lazy Day

This is why farm offices shouldn't have comfortable couches.

Or snuggly dogs.

Am I the only one trying to get work done around here?

County Fair

The county fair has officially come and gone.

Which hopefully means I won't have to witness people wearing faded black tapered Wranglers with metal tipped boots, topped off with Garth Brooks-style lightening bolt pearl snaps for another year. And we can only hope that the Toby Keith style straw hats will now be restricted to NASCAR infield parties only.

I always wondered what it was about the county fair that brings the drugstore cowboys out of the woodwork.

But then I remembered... fried oreos are enough to bring just about anyone out of hiding.

Even if it means committing fashion suicide in the process.

I packed on my yearly ten pounds during the fair this year.

With the fairgrounds just around the corner for the farm, I can't not eat lunch and dinner there everyday.

For one straight week, I cheated on my fast food addiction.

Oh yeah, and I also entered some stuff and got some ribbons. Blah, blah, blah. Didn't take many pictures this year. I was too consumed with the food.

And our friends' adorable kids...

Loud tractor pull anyone?

It is becoming a yearly tradition for our friends Misty and Eli to bring their kids up for our county fair.

I can't get enough of little Elijah. He is just too darn cute.

He's good. He somehow managed to not only steal my husband's ice cream, but he got him to spoon feed it to him.

I should be taking notes.

But I doubt I'll be taking fashion advice from him.

By the end of the night he had ditched his Wranglers for Thomas the Train long johns.

When big sister Mulledy Jane caught on to the fact Elijah was getting more face-time in front of the camera than she was, she offered up her own little photoshoot.

And then gave me her best gansta 'what up' pose. 

Two nights later, Misty's sister Elece and her family came to the fair.

We watched some intense goat milk drinking and cherry pie eating contests.

That's when Elece's husband and little boy decided they just couldn't watch from the sidelines any longer.

They entered in the hay bale throwing contest.

And for the record I did too, but didn't place this year.

I'm a wimp now.

I think it's all that fried food.

Little Jakob is a diehard cowboy who wants to be just like Jason Aldean.

Including the pierced ears.

And he's a little rodeo cowboy in the making.

He even practices getting bucked off fences.

Meanwhile, his big sister, Emma Grace, is a city girl. At just 7 years old, she could probably teach these fair goers a thing or two about fashion.

Miss Thang has got it going on.

Now that the fair is over and the fairgrounds are empty, it's kind of sad.

I've already made grand plans of working all year on tons of fabulous projects to enter next year. But who am I kidding? I won't follow through on any of them. As always, it will be a last-minute mad dash next August to whip up a bunch of crap and hope for the best.

That's life for an unorganized farm wife.