More Wedding Pictures

I only posted a few pictures from my sister's wedding so today I'm gonna post some more if my crazy internet will allow :)

Getting ready for the big day


Us girls. Oh, how I love them!


Katy and her flower girl


My siblings and I in front of our church. What a wonderful place to grow up in!


The happy couple. Can't you just feel the love glow? :)


The wedding party. What a great group of people!


The guys. No, Jason isn't torturing the ring bearer. Just being a crazy uncle :)


The wonderful chauffer :)


Grandma pinning a flower on my mom


The wedding was on skype for some missionary friends in Africa who couldn't make it. So I guess you could say it truly was an international wedding :)


Here comes the bride on her daddy's arm. She was SO gorgeous!!!


My dad did the ceremony. It was focused on the Lord. Very neat.


You may now kiss the bride! (Blech!!!)


Greeting everyone after the wedding took forever! There were about 350 guests.


The beautiful cake


The bridal table.


Bride and groom with my parents


Two couples that have been amazing examples in my life. I pray that someday my marriage turns out like theirs'...


My brother and besty breaking it down on the floor. I don't think the Virginia Reel has ever had their twist put on it before :)



Well folks, that is the wedding of my dear sister in a nutshell. It was such a blessed day. What a reminder that my life is filled with people who love me and love the Lord with all their hearts. Thank You, Jesus!

Ps. In about 7 months, you will be seeing pictures posted of a new member joining the family... That's right, I'm going to be an AUNT!!!!! :) I'll keep you all updated on how things are going. Don't forget to pray for her and junior please.

Los Baños

Have you ever taken something for granted until it was gone? I'm sure all of us do this at one time or another. It's amazing how little things in life, amenities I should say that we have here in America, are taken for granted. The one I think no one really thinks about is indoor plumbing, including running water and flushing toilets.

This year, my team went to a village that is very remote. All the villages our team visited last year had relatively good plumbing and sometimes even running water. This village did not. They had a community well that the ladies and young girls visit daily to carry water to their house.

The "bathroom" our team used was an outhouse. A legit outhouse. I never really thought that we'd not have access to at least a toilet seat. This outhouse was easy to find becuase even though it is located a ways from our host's house, the smell is unfortunately very easy to follow. Us girls always took at least one other person with us to guard the outhouse because the door was very easy to see through. I am not meaning to be graphic, I'm just telling you what life really is like for some people. There really was no toilet seat at all. Just a big raised up hole in the ground. I must say, one good thing about using the out house is that my lung capacity improved greatly during the 5 days we were in the village :) We stopped at a Walmart on our way home, and my friends and I were freaking out about the fact that there were actually flushing toilets INSIDE!!!

My bathroom buddy Brittney and me in front of our lovely outhouse. We are grinning sweetly but were actually holding our breaths for the picture :)


Just a thought: next time you visit the bathroom or turn on your faucet to get a cold drink of water, think of all those people who aren't able to do that and pray for them. We need to be thankful for all the little things that we take for granted. God has so richly blessed us with indoor plumbing but something I learned in Chiapas is that it isn't a necessity to have that. It's just an amenity. Believe me, I'd much rather have indoor plumbing but it's not something that I can't live without. But at any rate, praise the Lord for my flushable toilet and kitchen faucet!!!!

Mexico, Florida, and Home Again

I'm convinced that with each passing month, time seems to go faster and faster. Yes, I've been back in the States for almost a month, and am just now getting around to posting on here. Life has been crazy!

July in Mexico passed with language sessions, trips downtown to the market, helping the missionaries, and visiting old friends. Before I knew it, the time had come for me to return to the States.

I left on July 14th to meet up with my siblings and some friends in FL where my newlywed sister Katy and her husband Jason are now living. We spent about 10 days there helping them fix up the house they are staying in, going to the beach, and just hanging out and having fun. What a blessing! Here are some of the pictures:

After about 7 hours of traveling, I was warmly welcomed in Orlando by my sister, brother, best friend, brother in law, and 3 friends!!! It was such a wonderful thing after being gone for 6 weeks to come back to people who know me inside and out. I love them! This is me and Jenny.


On the escalator on the way to baggage claim



Katy and Jason's house before we got it cleaned up. The guys installed flooring, painted and primed, and fixed up the living room and dining room.


Danny and Jim hanging out the laundry. I thought it was funny so had to snap a picture of these two :)


Jenny, me, and Ryan at Sonny's BBQ which by the way is one of my favoritest restaraunts!



Me and my happily married sister, Katy on our way to the beach


We went to an ocean side restaraunt one night for dinner in time to watch a gorgeous sunset. God is so amazing to paint those colors in the sky!



The guys got a little bit too much sun on the beach :)


Jacquie, Jen, and I on the plane ride home trying to look angry which wasn't too hard since we got less than one hour of sleep the night before! :)


Now that I've been home for awhile, people have been asking me the inevitable question "When are you going back to Mexico?" The answer is, right now I don't know that the Lord will take me back there. Every year after a mission trip, it seems I go through the same old thing where I don't know what step to take next. It can be frustrating. I'm sending out applications to a few different schools so we'll see what the Lord does. For this year, I am taking classes at the community college and working about 35-40 hours a week which is SUCH a blessing. My bank account was in need of some help :)

Thanks for all your prayers and support. I still haven't gotten the team pictures yet from Mexico but when I do, I'll definitely post them. Dios les bendiga!