Here comes the bride

This is the first of a few blogs that will be posted over the next few days, I am not going to post them all at once, because I want the readers to be able to see each of them and enjoy them, so keep checking back this week for a couple more.

As the title of this blog may suggest, this one covers the wedding of my sister Stefanie that was held on August 15th. We actually spent a week in Colorado for wedding events, and a little free time. I'll talk about the non wedding stuff in the next blog.

So, Stef has been planning her wedding for the better part of 20 years, so everyone in our family tried our best to do our part to make sure her special day was completely awesome. The week started a little rough because our home church was unable to get a temporary occupancy permit. The building has been undergoing an expansion and remolding, and although all plans were to have everything done and the wedding there, the city was unable to grant a permit to hold the service there, so it was moved downtown to a beautiful church near the reception site. This required notifying 250 people about the change and as I like to say, put some people "in the weeds" trying to get all the other things done.

Of course everything wound up getting done on time, Stef and Mike were married in a wonderful ceremony and now Princess Stef becomes Princess DeMonbrun and they will live happily ever after. Pastor Hinchey had gave a message on always having a plan B basically because of the location switch, however in an oversight, Mike's ring did not make it to the ceremony, so just minutes after the message of always having a plan B, we went to it. Perfect.

As some of the pictures will show, I stood on my sister's side, however I was not a bridesmaid. :) The program showed that I was "THE MAN", which I will accept. I'm not sure how I ended up on her side, maybe she really wanted me there, maybe Mike had too many to choose for his side, who knows, but I was honored to stand on her side. Why not break down the gender barriers of weddings? Who says it has to be all females or males, plus I was the lucky one, I got to stand with all the pretty ladies as opposed to the sweaty guys? Who do you think got the best of that deal?

Enjoy the pics and look for more blogs soon.

There I am, on Stef's side. Say something. :)

Stef and I at the rehersal luau.

Me and the rest of the bridal party.

Erin took this picture of our family. I bet the one the photographer took will probably be the Christmas card picture this year. Any bets?

The bridesmaids and THE MAN outside the reception

Stef and I outside the hotel.

The photographer wanted to get one of Erin and I as well, so here it is.

YLM staff and mom and dad.

Cutting the cake. You can't really tell from this picture, but the dark circles are edible pictures of Mike and Stef.

Father and Daughter dance. I danced with Cinderella. Such a fitting song.

Brother and Sister. Congrats again Stef.

Mom, a couple of her sisters, cousins, niece, sister in law all dancing together.

Stef and Mike at the rather elaborate ice carving.

2 weeks in 1 blog

Once again I find myself a little behind on the blog writing. The summer season is winding down, tomorrow I am heading to Colorado for my sister's wedding and a little telecommuting. (I think that is what they call it, when you work, but not at the office.) This past week was spent with some youth and adults from Fondulac (I don't know if that is one word or three), doing repairs on a severely worn down and damged trailer in Sparks.

Last week, was kind of a family theme. Erin's parents and sister traveled from Missouri to spend a week at the mission. They were originally going to be part of a group from their church, but that fell through, so they came and spent time drywalling and painting in Horizon City. My mom and dad also came down for the board meeting, but they were here a few days early, so they spent a couple days working with us in Horizon. Overall, it was a good week.

Enjoy the pics and pray for the safe travels of all attending Stef's wedding.

Old ceiling in Sparks, the hole is from someone stepping where they shouldn't.

New ceiling, no hole anymore. :)

Old roof shingles, almost can't even tell they were ever there.

New roof shingles being layed.

Shadow of Erin working in Horizon City.

Erin and I preparing drywall to be hung.

Focused ont the drywall.

Trying to nail some wood from outside the house, and almost lost the ladder right when kara was taking this picture. (I was only like 2 feet up though)

Ok, so the two videos below you have to watch. I got a new screw gun for drywall, and Erin loves it. She always struggled a little sinking the screw, and this one works like everytime, so she did some happy dances. Sorry the videos are sideways, but I couldn't figure out how to rotate them.

This one should have the sound of the drill with the happy dance too.

Chihuas

So I bet you might be wondering about the title of this blog. A while back, my mom told me that when she was a teacher, her ESL (English as a Second Language) students that were from Chihuahua Mexico called it Chihuas. Instead of 2 hua hua, they just made it plural. I tried to explain it to Erin when I said it earlier in the week, and I think she got it, so hopefully you will too.

Chihuahua City was were I spent the last week. Erin and I went there to interpret for a eyeglass clinic. I have been several places in Mexico, but never Chihuas City. We, along with a group of 12 from Illinois, Michigan, and Virgina stayed at Hotel Tovar. Actually it was in the parsonage and the house of Pastor and Blanca Tovar, but it was so nice, I kept calling it Hotel Tovar all week.

There was a small mix up with travel schedules of the group, so Erin and I actually got there with a full day on Saturday open. That worked out really good because we spent the better part of the day walking around the city. I would guess we had to have walked at least 5 miles, and I enjoyed every minute of it. What a great city it is. I would totally stay there forever if I could. Lots of parks, museums, old buildings and memorials to see, and we saw the better part of them, at least what was in walking distance.

Of course Blanca prepared amazing food all week, so it was probably good that we did a lot of walking on Saturday, and some other times during the week as well. Half of the MOST team arrived on Saturday, but due to weather, the other half missed the connection and didn't get in until Sunday night.

Monday through Thursday were spent at a local adult communtity center holding an eyeglass clinic. I was situated at the dispensing station where we would attempt to help the attendees find glasses for both distance and reading. We had 3 stations there, as well as a nurse station to check for eye problems, a reading test, distance test, fitting, and evangelism. After the 4 days, 804 people were blessed with improved eyesight. Today was spent on the bus coming back and getting caught back up in the office. Enjoy the pics and have a wonderful week.

Pay bathrooms in the Juarez bus station. I got in trouble for taking this picture.

Fountain inside Pancho Villa's house. There was a big museum there. It was cool.

From outside the museum. This was the house that he lived in. It is really big.

This is the car he was assassinated in, on July 20th 1923. We were actually their on the anniversary of his death.

See the bullet holes?

More bullet holes in the back.

The plaque by this machine said it is for removing corn from the cob. Pretty big machine.

This is a tunnel, that went underground downtown Chihuahua, to the Cathedral I think, which is about 20 blocks away.

Cool murals in one hallway.

More of the murals

At least one of them are presidents, but I think more are.

A cool fountain that we walked by.

Some gazebos in a little square by the big cathedral.

Fountain by the cathedral.

Big cathedral in downtown Chihuahua City.

More of Pancho.

I thought this was cool, there is something similar to it in Juarez. I think each big stake represents someone who was murdered, and they are asking for "ni una mas". Not one more.

Another memorial, next to the one above. I think it may be one for each killer?

Pancho mausoleum. His body was actually moved to Mexico City to a cemetery or something for heroes of the revolution.

There was a cooking school in Chihuahua City.

Another statue of Pancho. This has flowers on it because it was the anniversary of his assassination.

Our great nurses, Kim and Shirley.

Me talking to one of the attendees. This is actually the best picture of me working.

Our group. Most eyeglass team #929

Me helping Erin onto this half staircase. Our original plan didn't work.

Since the original plan didn't work, she just decided to hang out for a while.

Me wearing some hot pink shades. There are actually a bunch of pictures of me in goofy glasses, but this will be the only one you get to see.

Erin got interviewed for the local news, we watched it, she did great.

A couple times, some older gentleman also put on goofy glasses. This is my favorite.