25th anniversary celebration week

We had a wonderful time last week when we went to Joplin, MO to see our kids for our 25th anniversary. On Thursday morning, we were given this Pontiac Solstice to drive until Saturday morning! Our kids were all in the green van in the picture and we followed them, "not knowing whithersoever we were going."

Here we are in traffic. I was reading our love letters aloud to Rowen full-time! We still haven't finished them. We had a long distance relationship before we were married and had spent a lot of time writing those letters and getting acquainted through them.

Around lunchtime, we arrived in Springfield, MO at the Lambert's Cafe: The Only Home of Throwed Rolls. We got plenty to eat there and enjoyed ourselves. One of the waitresses took this picture of our family.

We continued down the road and ended up in Branson. After driving 'round and 'round Branson, we ate some yogurt ice cream at TCBY.

Randy, Joy, and Quil

We ended up at Sights and Sounds Theater, a new and wonderful attraction in Branson.

Everybody was taking pictures by this lion and lamb, so we did also. The sun glare was fierce! I am glad for my dark glasses, so you can't tell my eyes are shut! A passerby offered to take this picture. It was funny, as he was getting ready to take the picture, another passerby offered to take the picture so the photographer could get in the picture with us!!

Here we are inside the theater. We saw the "Noah: the Musical." It was amazing and fantastic!
There was a powerful gospel message at the end.

After the musical, our kids presented us with a gift, as if they hadn't done enough already!

In the box was the paperwork for a cabin we were to stay in Thursday night through Saturday morning! It was a wonderful cabin with everything we needed. (Beth had packed everything personal we needed and brought it along in the van without our knowing.) We enjoyed our stay there so much!

It had a fully equipped kitchen.

Here I am standing on the porch before taking off on our fun Friday Branson adventure. We listened to a sales pitch in the morning in order to get free tickets to go up Inspiration Tower at Shepherd of the Hills and to see "The Promise" at the Mansion, a musical about the life of Christ. It was very well done. We also roamed a mall, saw lots of quilts, and some other things.

Meanwhile, our wonderful children and daughters-in-law were slaving away making food for the Saturday party. Tim loved using the Pampered Chef Crinkle Cutter on the ham!

Randy grilled some chicken and seasoned it in a very yummy way.

Jeffrey cooked up a lot of hamburger meat for taco salad.

Quil enjoyed the well-toy-stocked nursery at my sister, Sherry's church. Emily played with him and kept him safe.

I guess someone was wandering around terrorizing people with the camera.

This is the chef salad bar on Saturday. It had about everything you could want on a chef salad, except for peas, which Tim said would have ruined everything! :)

My sister, Marlene is helping in the background.

The next few pictures are of the decorations on Saturday. This is our unity candle saved from our wedding. There are two original napkins from our wedding, also.

The bulletin board was decorated with ribbons left over from our wedding and pictures of our family through the years. Beautifully done by Brenda, our daughter-in-law.

This picture shows the unity candle table and the bulletin board. My bridal bouquet, our wedding book and albums were also displayed on this table.

This quilt was an anniversary gift from my sister, Marlene. She used the leftover bridesmaid and mothers' dresses fabric for the hearts. It is a beautiful quilt. Also there is a modified bridesmaid dress on the table. I wore it early on in our marriage, and Beth wore it on our anniversary the last 2 years, but she outgrew it this year.

This is the wedding dress I wore 25 years ago. I had borrowed it from my sister-in-law, Sharen Scoles, and she graciously allowed Marlene to bring it to our party! I was surprised and blessed to see it again, and amazed at the thought I used to fit in a dress that small!! It was really special to me to have it there for the party. Thanks, Sharen and Marlene!

After a wonderful meal of taco salad and/or chef salad, the guests and our family went to the sanctuary for a vow renewal ceremony. My dad, Rex Scoles, officiated for us, as he did with Rev. Omar Lee so many years ago. We had all of our children stand up with us.

After our vows, Rowen and I sang "Each for the Other and Both for the Lord" with revised words to reflect the years that we have been married.

After the ceremony the children all said nice things about us and thanked the Lord publicly for our marriage. Here Rowen is thanking them for all they did for us and thanking the friends and family who came to share the day with us.

My niece, Leah Owens, made the beautiful cake for the occasion.

The heart on the wall, the cake topper, and the goblets were from our wedding.
My "going away" corsage and Rowen's boutonniere were also from our wedding.

Cutting the cake.

We've gotten wiser in our aging and used forks to feed each other!

Here is our family picture made after nearly everybody had gone, except for some of the hard working cleanup crew - my dear sisters and their husbands.

We were truly blessed by the Lord and our children, family, and friends to celebrate our 25th anniversary together. God has been so good to us!

Thanks for persevering to the end of this long blog post!