A weekend marked by love… we went to a wedding, but the love I am speaking of is my cascading overwhelming love for my family… and the love God shows me over and over again…

of course, there is lots of back-story to this wedding and our attending it, which most of you know about, and if you don’t, well, trust me the details would bore you… but there were some nerves and lots of faith involved…

Bethany, I told her at the wedding that I did nothing to deserve her in my life… she sat next to me at the wedding and she was a huge support, she and I discussed the many weddings our family had in the future, and that someone should be in charge of informing Joel’s future bride that there were lots and lots of sisters to work into her bridesmaids plans… Bethany fanned me with the wedding programme as it was very hot in the church.. she made jokes… she shared thoughts and insights

Sarah, took Katherine’s arm walking in the church and basically didn’t let go until we went home around midnight… she was a  big help on Sunday morning when we were getting ready to host a DVD premiere/ Tammy and Morley celebration breakfast (more on that later)…and there are more moments that I will not go into here because she is a private person and I don’t want to embarrass her, but she is a princess…

Mary, the DVD, among other things… but the DVD exists because of her….

Emily and Katherine, who did about 700 things this weekend that they didn’t want to do, and they did them only because I asked them to, not because I bribed them… simply because I asked…

Tammy, who “baby-sat” me… was enormously great company, is so honest and transparent…

Laurel, who also helped with last minute requests for the DVD, and kept me in her thoughts and prayers this weekend…

Amanda and Hannah, who have a natural enthusiasm for the stuff of life, that makes you grateful….

My Mom, who helped me put the breakfast together, she made that breakfast important because she is the one (along with my dad) who taught me celebrations validating people and family are worthy uses of time and energy…

Jenni, she did so much work getting ready for Sunday morning, but she was force to be reckoned with on that dance floor… and she brought great joy to many people.

Tony, who is loyal and steady.. he loves these kids powerfully, and the times when I feel like strangling them, (mine or his), he stands by them (I did not feel like strangling any of them this weekend, it was that they were all so perfect.. I saw what he sees all the time)… he danced with me because he knows how much I love dancing…

and then there is Joel ….

at one in the morning (Saturday/ Sunday), he helped with the DVD, but the shining moment was  Tony and I asked him what was the best part of the wedding, and he answered, not skipping a beat, instantly… “dancing with Jenni.”

Joel does not naturally appreciate opportunities to dance, to dress up, to sit quietly in dress-up clothes listening to people make speeches, eat vegetables (dressed-up or not), however, he did all these things at the wedding without grumbling… but he particularly resisted the dancing… although Bethany (perhaps inspired by our discussion of all the future family weddings) felt responsible for his training. He did get up at her prodding and danced with her and Max. He has a soft spot (although he is reluctant to admit it) for Hannah and she insisted he dance with her and we have a sweet photo of that dance…

he danced with his great Aunt Verna…

Jenni had been rather the life of the dance floor, dancing with many people, but she and Joel really “cut the rug.” Now the thing to understand about Joel here is.. he is mostly always obedient, I cannot think of time that he has been purposefully mean, but as much as there are times when I would like him to say “the right thing,” (the words that will please) he doesn’t do it, if he hasn’t thought it. Not because of some need to be truthful (although he generally is)…no, Joel does not ask himself the question, ”what would this person like to hear?” before he speaks… so when he answered that the best part of the wedding had been dancing with Jenni… we know that that really was the best part for him.

struggled every which way to get the You-Tube player here on the blog, but couldn’t… so here is a link to watch them dance 

the next day, we had a premiere of Tammy and Morley’s 25th wedding anniversary DVD… Bethany couldn’t join us, but Nicole and Tyler and Nikolas joined us with Tammy (Morley had to work)  to watch the DVD. We had a spiral cut ham, thin  egg omelettes, cinnamon rolls, french bread, cheese platter, fresh fruit platter, chocolate milk, coffee and orange juice. For dessert we had strawberry fool.

After all that, I still managed to produce two layouts for the Amazing Digi-scrapping Race….

but today, the after effects of the heat on Saturday are still with me, and I am about to park myself on the couch… and rest… Katherine has expressed a desire for grilled vegetables so to fully get into this August Long Weekend, we will add steak to this menu, I think. Tomorrow back to writing and other stuffs…

This entry was posted on Monday, August 6th, 2007 at 2:40 pm and is filed under Canada, Family Life, Food, Kids, Our glorious God, Scrapbooking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.