Wedding Weekend

Kurt and Alesha's wedding was one of the best ever. It fit them perfectly by being totally chill and relaxed. The Agur estate is a dreamland for both children and adults, so all three of us enjoyed spending the day there all day Friday and Saturday, and waking up to leisurely morning with coffee on the dock on Sunday before the 5 hour drive home.

Since Dave has been in, played the piano for, or officiated so many weddings, he knows exactly what needs to happen, so he ended up being put on wedding coordinator duty. With Hannah strapped to his chest, he ran the rehearsal and then gave everyone their cues for ceremony.

Some scenes from Friday:

Trampoline with a view

Hannah and her matching dinner companion, Alesha's sister Andrea

Here's a little video of the polypropylene oven mitts-turned-dancing boots. These things kept her busy for ages to the delight of the entire dinner party.

An after dinner swim in the lake

Fun with the bridesmaids during pictures:



Being a flower girl is SO MUCH FUN!!!

Sneakpeak

Cora was only the cutest flower girl ever! She did a fantastic job walking down the aisle, dropping petals, and charmingly smiling at all the guests.

Here's one photo, but I have many more cute ones from the whole weekend to show soon (after I come up for air from this busy week).

Check out a few more awesome wedding photos at the photographers blog: http://www.jenifersander.blogspot.com/.

Blazing Summer

The long silence is explainable. Really. We are having a wild ride of a summer, just trying to keep up with God who seems to be moving a hundred miles an hour in our lives. Here is a list of some of the events of our summer so far, and some still to come:

• A series of 7 baby and wedding showers, 4 of which I hosted, within a single month.
• Meals and visits for all the above friends and their new babies.
  
• Saying goodbye to best friends moving home to England.
• Visits from parents.
  
• A bizarre and unfortunate series of events involving a car-eating squirrel and a totally incompetent mechanic which led to the totaling of our beloved Mazda Tribute and the purchase of a cute little blue VW Golf, 2002, manual, which barely seats our family, but is really fun to drive around town.
• An intensive Old Testament course for me (a semester's worth in less than a month.)
  
• An extremely intensive course schedule for Dave: Reading Film Theologically, Spiritual Discernment, and the mother of all beasts, two semesters of Hebrew crammed into 7 weeks. He memorizes about 30-50 Hebrew words a day and spends 9 hours a day in classes and studying. Fortunately, he's amazing at languages, so he's not as stressed as most of his classmates. He just finished the first semester's worth with an A+, despite all the distractions, particularly two little ones, that his single friends don't have.
  
• A whirlwind 4-day trip to London and Nottingham for me, attending a conference with my thesis supervisor on economics, ethics, and theology, as well as a quick visit to the above said friends. David and his mom kept the household running and the girls fed (which was quite a feat with Hannah, who detests bottles.)
  
• A 12-week Wednesday night Bible study meeting in our home going through the book Sacred Marriage.
• All interspersed with all your typical kid stuff: playing at the beach and pool and free water park, picking huckleberries and salmon berries in the cool woods, gardening and biking; and the not so typical: an MRI and lots of doctors appointments (all of which confirm God's abundant grace in Cora's life!!)
  

And still to come within the next two weeks:

• A weekend trip to the Okanagan for a wedding, in which Cora and I get to be a flower girl and bridesmaid.
• A move. Only a quarter mile away, but considering everything must still be packed and unpacked, it might as well be miles. We're moving from an apartment to a townhouse that backs up onto a large green space shared by Cora's two best friends, Charlotte and Clay. We're continuing our trend: this will be our 8th move in our 8 years of marriage.
  
• A two-week trip home to Atlanta for the girls and me while Dave finishes the last two weeks of Hebrew--and makes the actual move on Aug. 4th. I'm hoping to have things mostly packed and cleaned before leaving, and then Dave and his friends will move us on a Tuesday afternoon, between his 4-hour classes on Tuesday and Wednesday.
  

So, I am excused for the absence, yes?