Alden and Rebekah's wedding

The reason we were going to East Texas was to attend the wedding of some friends.  They had their wedding in Longview, so Saturday morning we left Dallas right after breakfast.  On the way to Longview we stopped in Martin's Mill, where the Daniels live, to drop off some stuff that Juli had sent with us.  She is spending at least this semester with the Daniels, where she will be teaching AP classes to some of the Daniels and various student friends of theirs.  She would be driving up later in our small car, so she needed to send some of her stuff in advance -- when we had the Monstermobile (i.e., the van).

We arrived in Longview with plenty of time to stop for some lunch and still get to the church early.  That allowed us some time to visit with the Daniels, whom we had not seen for a long time.

Something you would only see at a wedding where small children were involved: Mr. Potato Head enjoying company with the flower girl's basket of rose petals.  :-)

It was a very beautiful wedding, made all the more beautiful by the fact that Alden and Rebekah were so happy.

They didn't follow all the typical traditions, but they did cut the cake together at the reception.

The "thing" now for sending off the happy couple to their honeymoon car is blowing bubbles -- it doesn't hurt the birds, like rice, and doesn't leave a mess like birdseed.

There was a slight delay in their car pulling up to the front, because it had been filled with... balloons!  It took them several minutes to get out enough of them to be able to fit inside. 

At first no one was helping Alden to clear an opening for his bride to sit down -- they were too busy laughing at the joke!  Finally some people took pity on them and helped get the balloons out of the way.

We stayed around a little longer after they left, but we eventually changed our clothes and set our faces towards home.  It was a long drive... we didn't get home until 11 o'clock....  But it was worth it!