A Beautiful Wedding

My big brother is married. I love it!! We are so excited that Christopher found the love of his life, that God brought such a perfect girl for him, and that God brought them together in such a perfect way.

It has been so wonderful to watch their relationship grow and to see how well they compliment each other. We are excited to welcome Jen into the family! She is such a sweetie and we love her already.

Everything seemed to go extremely well with no absolute craziness on the day of the wedding. Jen did wake up with a broken blood vessel in the corner of her eye on Friday, but she was still able to wear her contacts for the wedding (a huge praise) and you really can't see it in the pictures.

They both love music, so we thought this picture was so pretty, especially with the reflection. Jen teaches piano and Chris plays several instruments, thus the following sign that was made for one of their showers and then used at the rehearsal dinner and reception.

Like I said in my last post, one really neat part about the wedding was seeing so much of my family. Here is a picture of all of my immediate family (siblings and grandparents). 

This is everyone except my sister-in-law Abbie (We missed you Abbie!!). I am one of six children - (1) Christopher - the groom (2) Kyle - far right, his wife was the unable to come (3) Me and my handsome husband (4) Kirk - far left, with his wife Kelly (5) Carlton - far right on the top (6) Carolyn - the cute girl on the front right. My mom's parents are on the front row and my dad's parents are right behind them. Such a cute family, huh? I love them so much.

The next picture has our whole family and Jen's whole family too. 

 The Ceremony

The vows were conducted by Jen's dad who is a pastor. It was very sweet.

The Kiss! Finally husband and wife!

A few more pictures

Beautiful bouquets 

The floating unity candle. So pretty.

The guest book table. The Guest Book was a scrapbook that Jen made full of engagement pictures. It was so nice for family and friends to write notes of advice in.

The strawberries for the reception. Yum!

Chris and Jen, we couldn't be more happy for you! We are excited to see how God will use you! Thank you for your God-honoring wedding. We love you!

Kathryne

A Trip, A Tick, Some Treasures, and Terrible Temperatures!

This weekend was another full one!! Whew, what a weekend!

First, my oldest brother Christopher got married!! We are so excited for Chris and Jen! (More on this later.) So, on Thursday evening, we packed up our car - along with my dad, sister, and brother - and headed to Wisconsin. Chris and Jen live in northern Wisconsin near the Upper Peninsula. It wasn't too bad of a drive, but we were way more packed than we had originally though. It was good to catch up with my brother who has been at college and just spend time with some family. We didn't get into the place that we were staying until around midnight, but we made it safely.

Here is a sneak peak of the wedding. Like I said, more pictures to come!

On Friday while a bunch of the girls were decorating for the wedding, Saul, my dad, and some of the other guys worked on some stuff at my brother's house. Saul and my dad installed a closet door and then worked with some brush outside.

On Saturday morning Saul woke up and told me that he felt like something was eating at his leg. I took a look, and sure enough, a tick was buried in his leg - ICK!!! I was going to put a picture on here, but I think I'll spare you! = ) I got some peroxide to pour on it before taking it out and while that didn't kill it, I was able to get the entire thing out of him. Nasty!!

The next "T" on the list is treasures. It was such a treasure to be able to spend time with family. Other than my parents and my brother and sister (when they aren't at college), all of my family lives out of state. It was wonderful to see all of my siblings there (minus one sister-in-law), all four of my grandparents, some cousins and aunts and uncles!!! It was so great to see and spend time with some of them that I hadn't seen in awhile.  Here are a few pictures - again, I'll put more up later this week.

Three generations on my mom's side. (Can you tell it was so bright outside?)

Two more cousins from my mom's side.

With some of the guys in the family -

Kyle (my brother), Carlton (brother), Saul (handsome husband), Josh (cousin's husband), Joanna (cousin), and me

Our camera broke a few days before the wedding, so I am waiting for people to put pictures on facebook so that I can get a copy. I'll have to post more pictures of my dad's side of the family once I get my hands on them. = )

The final T's are for Terrible Temperatures! It has been pretty cool here in Chicago and we haven't needed to use our air conditioner yet because it has been cool. Because we had been out of town, we didn't realize that the forecast for Sunday included upper 80 temps. We had a busy, but great, day at church on Sunday and knew that we would turn the air on when we got home since it was so hot outside. Plus, my parents, grandparents, and sister were all coming over for dinner on their way back from Wisconsin and we wanted it comfortable in the house for our company. We ended up getting home from church about thirty minutes before everyone arrived and immediately turned the air on - only to find that our air conditioner wasn't working!!! Ugh!!

We purchased our home in December and there was no way to test the air conditioner at that point. Thankfully we were able to work out a deal to include the air conditioner on a home warranty paid for by the seller. Needless to say, that home warranty is going to be put to good use (for a second time) because although the fans were blowing, nothing cold was coming out of the vents.

So, here we were in a second level townhome with upper 80 temperatures and the oven on to make homemade pizza plus a house full of guests! I felt awful that it was so hot in there, but other than leaving, there was nothing we could do. We pulled out our one fan and had it going to at least circulate the air. Our townhome also has a "whole house fan" that helps circulate the air as well, but our thermostat still said 91 degrees while everyone was there! Everyone was so gracious about it and said it wasn't too bad. As a hostess though, I felt terrible. I was going to make some cookies, but decided against it so that we could just turn the oven off. Needless to say, it was an interesting experience.

Again, once I can get pictures from my parents from everyone's visit, I'll post them.

So, that was our weekend. It was a great one full of many memories. I love my family so much and was so thankful to spend time with them.

Kathryne

A Whirlwind Weekend!!

Whew!! What a fun, but crazy weekend! We hit the ground running on Thursday night and are now enjoying an evening of doing nothing after a whirlwind weekend!

Thursday night started with Prayer Gathering - which is always a great night of prayer, fellowship, and encouragement. We stayed so late and enjoyed the fellowship with all of our friends from church. I don't think we left until around 11:30!!

On Friday morning we got up bright and early (actually it wasn't even bright out when we got up!!). We met my parents and rode with them up to MBBC for my "little" brother's college graduation! We are so proud of you, Kirk!!

Thankfully the graduation was inside - because it was freezing cold and raining. Kirk graduated with a degree in physical education. He finished his student teaching in January and is happy to have school behind him.

My sister-in-law Kelly and brother Kirk

Kirk and Kelly with my parents

While we were taking pictures, I met up with this blogging friend!! We were actually best friends when we were in elementary school, but hadn't seen each other in ages. She actually found my blog through the Ultimate Blog Party!!! Crazy, huh? Anyway, it was great to see her again!! Wish I would have thought to take a picture!! (As you'll see, I didn't think of pulling out my camera very many times this weekend at all. Oops!)

After pictures we headed over to Kirk and Kelly's place and had a great "cook in" there. Thankfully they had enough room for everyone to eat inside since it was still raining - and freezing cold!! Kelly made a delicious fruit salad and we had tons of wonderful food! It was fun to spend time celebrating with a group of family and friends. We got home around 9:00 and I was exhausted. We tried watching a movie, but I lasted about ten minutes before crashing!


It was nice to be able to sleep in for a little bit on Saturday morning. I woke up early but stayed in bed and read while Saul slept for a little while longer. My grandparents gave me this book and this book  (from the Acts of Faith series by Davis Bunn and Janette Oke) awhile ago and I never had time to read them. I picked the first one up the other week to read while waiting for my aunt at the airport and now I'm on the second one. I am thoroughly enjoying them! I hadn't read a book in ages, but after finishing the first one, I immediately wanted to start the second!

Because we took our time in the morning, we ended up rushing to arrive on time for a friend's wedding in Indiana (about an hour and fifteen minute drive). The wedding was beautiful and the bride and groom were beaming! It was wonderful to celebrate with our friends. Again, I totally forgot to take pictures. Ughh. The reception was at the groom's parents home - a beautiful, Victorian home. There were planning on an outdoor reception, but it was again rainy and cold, so everyone squeezed inside - and it was a squeeze. Even though the house is large, it was wall-to-wall people! The groom's mom thinks that around 500 people came throughout the afternoon! Again it was delicious food and fun fellowship.

On our way back, we caravaned with our friends Phillip and Lydia from church. We ended up stopping at Starbucks when we were almost home just to chat. It was great to get to know them better and also see their sweet baby girl Elizabeth who is six weeks old! Unfortunately, about halfway through our time at Starbucks baby Elizabeth decided that she'd had enough partying and was ready to go home. = ) We had a great time with them and are looking forward to going out again! It was 9:45 by the time we got home, so we got things ready for Sunday and headed to bed.

Today was a great day at church with a special dedication to mothers and a message on resisting temptation. I'll try to write more on that later.

Right after church, we headed over to my parent's for lunch. My dad made lunch since we weren't there to help prepare. I felt terrible that I couldn't do more since it was Mother's Day! We had a yummy lunch with my parents and sister Carolyn who came home from college on Friday. It was fun to catch up with my mom and sit and chat while Dad and Saul played ping pong. It was a fun day.

So, we are home now, relaxing after a weekend full of travel, family, friends, and fellowship. The whirlwind of a weekend was well worth the memories and fun times.

How was your weekend?

Kathryne

This is Hard!

I've only had this blog one week and I'm already doing poorly at updating it. So far, I haven't taken more pictures and I haven't been good at making time to write. Obviously, this whole blog thing is going to take a little getting used to.

We have had a really busy week, and weekend, which made it much more difficult to write on here. I don't think anyone (other than you, my dear husband) reads this blog anyway, so I guess it doesn't make too much difference right now. Maybe one of these days I will be privileged enough to have people go back and read my archives. = )

We were able to go up to Wisconsin and see my brother Kirk and his wife Kelly along with my sister Carolyn this weekend. It was so great to see where they all live and just hang out. Wish it could have been longer, though. We were only able to see them on Friday night because we stopped at their place on our way up to a wedding. It was a fun weekend of seeing old friends. Fun, but completely exhausting. We were pretty wiped out after getting back.

We are now playing catch up and spent tonight trying to get caught up on things and a little more organized. Laundry, cleaning, and my bed are waiting, so I will sign off for now. Goodnight, my faithful reader (aka, my loving, endearing husband!).

Kathryne