THE WEDDING!!! (part 2)

The wedding was held at Covenant Presbyterian Church where Abby and Neil are members.  It is a gorgeous church, formerly a Polish Catholic Church. It was the perfect setting for their wonderful marriage ceremony.

                                                 Neil and his Mom.....

...and his soon to be Mother-in-law.

Lighting the candles

Rachel, the Matron of Honor

Jeremiah, the ringbearer, who took his job very seriously!

Delivering the rings to the Best Man

Josie, one of the flower girls

I love this picture!

"Who gives this woman....?"  

"Her Mother and I."

A hug from Dad

He's given her away....I think I see some emotion there.

The vows

Lighting the Unity Candle

Sorry, no pictures of the recessional.  Abby and Neil greeted their guests as they ushered them out of the pews.  And everyone waited on the steps of the church for the new Mr. and Mrs. Okuley to come out. Instead of rice, or birdseed, or bubbles we showered them with paper airplanes!

There they are!

Love those blue shoes!

The kids were in charge of picking up the paper airplanes.

One shot I took during the photo shoot after the ceremony.

Then it was on to the reception at La Lucé.  I mentioned one "glitch" in the previous post.  I guess there was one more slight "glitch"--the downpour of  rain that pretty much drenched some of us on our way in to the reception. But it didn't dampen  our spirits!

Rachel's toast

First Dance

Father-daughter dance

All in all, it was a wonderful day!  The ceremony was beautiful, completely Christ-centered.  The music was amazing--especially the solo by Neil's sister and the trumpet solo. It was so nice to have so many of our family members there to share in our celebration.

We are so happy to welcome Neil into our family and we wish them God's richest blessings in their marriage. 

[Credit goes to Mark Diekema, who took almost all of these pictures and was kind enough to share them with me, since I took hardly any. The picture of Bob and Abby coming down the aisle was taken by Kathy Zago.]

THE WEDDING!!! (part 1)

It's time to get to the real reason for being in Chicago in June---Abby and Neil's wedding!  Up until Friday, it was mostly just having fun in Chicago and having some  quality family time.  When Friday came it was time to focus on the wedding. We had rehearsal and then rehearsal dinner at Pequod's Pizza.  Yummy!  I did not take any pictures at the rehearsal (bummer) and I only got a few at Pequod's.

Jeremiah liked his present from Abby and Neil!

Saturday, June 21, was the BIG DAY!  The kids couldn't wait to start celebrating! They were outside in their jammies, blowing bubbles with Evan's new bubble machine that he got from Abby and Neil. 

This picture shows how close we were to the El tracks--yes, very close.

The bride and the matron of honor went off to get their hair done in the morning.

The rest of us did things like---last-minute shirt-shopping,  getting lunch ready and delivered to the ladies of the bridal party, going to Walgreens, etc. etc. Oh yes, and also repairing a certain little bow-tie. I've heard that every wedding has some type of a little "glitch" and I guess this was ours.

Josie's cute hairdo was done by her Mommy!

Then it was off to church for the final preparations.  Josie could hardly wait to see Abby in her "fancy" dress.

Very interested in the make-up!

Josie and Abby having a "heart-to-heart."

                                                  The "fancy" dress!

 

 

My beautiful girls!

Two cute flower girls

Cousins!

And we can't forget about the men!  I'm not sure what they were doing while we were all downstairs with Abby.  But, thanks to Mark Diekema, I have some pictures of them. 

 The Ushers, Ben and Matt

Father of the Bride

And.....the Groom!

This post has gotten longer than I expected, so I am going to stop here and we'll get to the actual wedding in the next post!

Visitors from California

(A note here---my original post about this somehow got deleted, so I sort of re-did it.  May not be quite the same, but pretty similar.  But that means this post and the next one are out of order.  I am a very frustrated computer user right now.  Sometimes I think I ought to never touch the thing again!!)

 All my regular readers (all 3 of them) are probably wondering if I am EVER going to post anything about our eventful summer.  And yes, I am.  It's going to take several installments, but here goes with the first one.

On June 4, Matt, Cheryl, Josie and Evan arrived in Milwaukee.  Their plane was a wee bit late, so we were waiting impatiently for them to come down that L-O-N-G hallway. One benefit of having such a tall son is that we can usually spot him pretty quickly.  And once we've spotted the adults, of course, our eyes are trained a bit lower to look for the 2 little people.  There is nothing quite like the sight of those two as they come running to meet us!  Priceless!!  They were all hungry for dinner, so the Culver's near the airport was our first stop.

This was Wednesday evening and they were going to be at our house until Saturday.  On Thursday we headed downtown and went to the Betty Brinn Children's Museum.  This was my first time there, and we all thought it was a great place.

Started off with a Harley ride.

(Sweatshirts in June? That's what our summer has been like.)

I don't really know how to explain these next few pictures, but I'll try. In one area of the museum a large part of the floor is like a big screen.  And it looks like a pond, with all kinds of things swimming around, etc.  As the kids step on it or crawl around things move and change.  At one point the "pond" was covered with leaves.  Josie was fascinated!

Trying to catch a fish......

...or maybe a frog.

Just sitting there looking cute

Next we went to the Bug area on the balcony. 

Evan scaling a beehive

Josie moving a bug through a huge maze

The view from the balcony--Milwaukee looking its best

We had packed a lunch so we enjoyed a picnic outside in front of the museum.

Back inside Josie showed off some dance moves.

Our last stop was at the Sendik's Market, which was a big hit!  And fortunately it was not too busy, so the kids could really have fun.

Evan did some serious grocery shopping!

The newest check-out girl at Sendik's

Isn't she cute??

After s slow trip home due to some traffic issues, we headed over to Brassers for dinner.

Drumsticks with Uncle Lew

It was a good thing that we had our fun outing on Thursday, because on Friday we had a sick little girl.  We did spend some time at Wirth Park, but Josie just wasn't herself.  After we got home we found out why---she had the stomach flu.  So that was the end of the fun for her for the day.  

The plan was for all of us to go to MI on Saturday---us to help Rachel and Adam with their move, and Matt's family to join the Vanderkamps at a cottage.  We set off in the morning, and Matt and Cheryl waited a bit to see how Josie was feeling.  And when she seemed to be feeling better they set off, too.  We got to Holland after all the big stuff had been moved in, but we were able to help a bit with unpacking. Matt and Cheryl also stopped by there, to see the Wissinks and their new place. 

These three were very happy to see each other!

After the kids had a little time to play, Matt's family headed to the cottage.  The rest of us went to Grand Haven where we met John and Judy for dinner.  Then we helped Adam and Rachel unload their extra stuff into John's storage unit.  So thankful for that storage unit---they really filled it up!

Next up---Chicago!!!   Wedding!!!

(Scroll down for the next installment of our summer adventures--Fun in Chicago!)