The wedding!

Hi all! We got home from Hays yesterday evening. The wedding was beautiful!
I will start from the beginning. After I posted last time, my parents, the kids and I headed to Kansas City Airport to pick up Tim and Heidi, my brother and his wife from Oregon. After picking them up, we went to Platte City to fill up for gas and grab some breakfast before heading on. We ate at Sonic and then split into the two cars. Tim, Heidi and my mom in one so that those guys could get a couple hours rest. Dad, the kids and I were in my car. The kids watched a movie on the DVD player we had and Dad and I visited.
When we stopped in Topeka to pick up the van that was full of wedding supplies, we switched riders. Nathan, Tim and my mom were in one car, my dad was in the van and Hannah, Heidi and I were in my car. Our next stop was Salina to pick up reception food from the Sams Club there. After grabbing that, we switched riders again and Tim and I were in my car, Heidi, mom and the kids were in one car and we were headed to meet Dad at the rest stop near Russell.
We stopped there to eat a bite and then finish the trip on to Hays. All this time, I kept calling Mary to give her updates on how our trip was going. We met her at her apartment around 5pm.
We helped her load the last of her stuff into the truck and then Mom, Heidi, the kids and I headed to the hotel to check into our rooms while everyone else headed to Victoria to unload stuff. By the time we had checked into the hotel and mom and the kids and I ran to get supper, the victoria crew was done so we all met in my hotel room for supper. Then Tim, Heidi,Dad and Nathan went swimming. Mom, Hannah, and I went to bed and Mary and Jon headed back to Victoria to finish getting some things together before the weekend got even crazier.
Friday we woke up to a goal of only 3 things to finish. Bake the groom's cake, Fix lasagna and print programs. So Heidi, the kids and I went swimming for like an hour and a half while Mary, Jon, and Tim did some remixing of the wedding music CD. Mom was finishing her dress and to be quite honest, I don't know for sure what my dad was doing, but helping with the wedding somehow. Well, after Mary and Jon got done with Tim, they headed to Walmart to get an ink cartridge and some left over supplies for the grooms cake. We were all supposed to meet at their house in Victoria. So Heidi, the kids and I headed that way, while Mom, Dad and Tim headed to Walmart for some more stuff. Well, the ink cartridge that Jon and Mary bought didnt' work, so they called Mom to pick up something. So the programs couldn't be printed. Heidi, Mary and I started working on frosting and cake batter. We got the grooms cakes in the oven and waited. We couldn't put the lasagna together because Mom had the supplies with her, so we were stalled. By this time it is 2pm. We are supposed to be at the church to decorate at 4pm and none of the 3 things have been accomplished. To add to that, Mom and the crew with her were still at Walmart. Then Mary and Jon got a call from the lady from the church that they needed to be there right now to open it up and that the Honeas were waiting there because they had no place to stay. So they headed that direction a little flustered that nothing was coming together. They drove to the church and back with Moms crew arriving shortly before all that. The cakes were taking longer than needed to bake, the programs were being printed by Tim and half were done before the ink needed a refill. While all this was going on, my dad had headed to Russell to pick up the flowers. When Mary and Jon arrived again with the Honeas, it was after 4pm, pushing 5. Change in plans had us at the church to decorate at 5:45. The cakes finished about then, so they were laid out to cool. We had started to assemble the lasagna and sent Mary, Tim and Heidi back to the hotel to freshen up before rehearsal. Dad arrived shortly before that with flowers, so we loaded up the lasagna and cakes and headed back to the hotel to pick up the flower basket, ring pillow, and found the engagement ring on the sink, so we grabbed it too.
Mom and Dad stayed at the hotel while the kids and I headed to the church. We got there right at 6pm. We helped do a little decorating but most of it was already done. Karen, Mary, Jon, Tim, Heidi, Leah, Grandma, Uncle Dave, Uncle Irvil, the Minister and the wedding coordinator were there. Mom and Dad showed up shortly after we did and rehearsal started at 6:30 with everyone present except Mom. The minister was really fun. He kept the rehearsal really light hearted. He started off by praying and then said that since Jon and Mary liked to play games, we would make rehearsal a game. He said at the word go, be where you thought you would be when he said" You may now kiss the bride". We all headed to that spot and he offered Jon and Mary a practice kiss. The declined so he made them promise to not kiss again until they were married. We walked out and then started again from the beginning. It was a really nice rehearsal and then we went down to their hall/cafeteria. Heidi, Claudia and Leah had all the food ready to go and it looked so nice. Lasagna, breadsticks, salad and strawberries with ice cream. We headed back to the hotel and everyone went to bed except Mary, who was headed to her apartment to finish the grooms cake. Mom went with her to do some last altering to the dress. Karen and I stayed up until midnight and when Mary and Mom werent back, she hunted them down to bring them back for rest. Next morning we learned that Mary hadn't gotten anywhere with the grooms cake so her plan was to spend the morning alone at her apartment finishing it. Jon had set up tables the night before, so everyone decorated them and finished the wedding cake corner. AS it moved on noon, Jon kicked everyone out so they could eat lunch and be at the church by 1pm to dress and be ready for pictures. I headed with Hannah to Marys apartment to fill her in on what was going on. She had just finished the cake, so we headed to the reception hall and put her cake in the frig. She and Jon left to eat lunch as we all headed back to the hotel to eat and get our stuff. Everyone met at the church around 1 and we had Heidi do our hair and makeup. Pictures started at 2:45-3pm. Jon had his family pictures done by 2:45, when Mary wanted to meet him in the cafe for a few moments before the wedding started. Joint pictures were after that and everyone was in a place by 4pm, for guests to arrive.
The ceremony itself was really simple, yet really nice. The whole theme was about a fresh start and how Jesus can give you that. It was a really awesome evangelistic service. After they were pronounced husband and wife, everyone met outside to throw seed at them and head to the reception hall. Jon and Mary were there first so they could greet everyone coming in and thanking them for coming to the wedding. Sub sandwiches, potato salad, and pop was the simple supper and then cake and punch. They were on their way out and onto Estes park, Colorado by 7:30.
We stayed until 8:30 doing some clean up and then headed back to the hotel to swim. Everyone was hot and ready for just some down time. We played in the pool until 10pm when the hotel person kicked everyone out. Aaron and Stephen Honea were there and so there was a jumping contest into the pool to see who could create the biggest splash.
I woke up early Sunday morning to pack the car so that we could head to church. Ended up visiting with the Honeas as they were on their way out for about 30 minutes. By the time I got back inside, everyone else was up. We ate breakfast and it was about then that Tim received a text message from Jon and Mary saying the service times for church had changes due to school being out. That meant we were already 15 minutes late when we thought we still had 45 left. So we loaded up and headed to the reception hall to finish up cleaning and then taking wedding stuff to Victoria to drop it off at their house. We ended up finishing all that and on our way to Moms house about 3:30. We headed to Salina and met at the mall for supper and time to play. After some delays, we were on our way to Emporia to hit my dad's side of the family at the cemetaries. We arrived in town there around 8:30-9. We saw the gravestones barely and were eaten up by mosquitos. We made it to Mom and Dads around 10:30.
We were up a little late(sleeping in) and got our stuff together to head towards Osage City to see my mom's side of the family in the cemetaries. On our way to KCI, Tim and Heidi called to see if their flight was on time and came to find out that it had been rescheduled and it had left around noon. This was around 2:30pm. AFter some run around at the airport, they got on a flight that headed to Dallas at 5:25, that would put them in Portland around 1:30am.
The kids and I headed home, to eat supper and head to bed. Today is recovery. Which means laundry, dishes, and picking up the dumping ground we made when we unloaded the car. We are headed to Branson Sunday. Chris won a free stay there at the sports and collectable show he went to. He planned for us to be there over our anniversary and to make it a mini vacation for the family. Since we have been travelling since last November, we really dont have a whole lot of money to spend there, so we decided since we aren't paying school tuition this summer, we could use our emergency credit card to have a good time and then dump our budgeted amount for school tuition on the card to pay it off.
So, there you go. I now have another brother in the family and my youngest sister is now Mary Walker. I am so excited for her and Jon and their lives together. It has been amazing to see God bring them together and I am anxious to see what God will do in them as they begin a life together.
I hope everyone's memorial day weekend was a safe one. I think of you all often and am going to sign off and get to work. I think I need a couple cups of coffee to get started, though. :-)
Until next time, God bless!!