Good-byes and other such things

Today we said good-bye to Jon's parents and youngest brother - they caught a flight early this afternoon to head back to the land of the Sound of Music.  Parting is sad, but we most certainly enjoyed the time we got to spend with them!  This was the first Christmas in about 14 years that they've been in the States, and we were honored and blessed to be able to spend it with them.

We leave tomorrow to go to the bed and breakfast where we will be spending the honeymoon portion of our trip - we look forward to a bit of time in rural Central New York, though we won't be entirely alone - we'll be going up to spend an evening of food and fun with an old family friend.  We're looking forward to that time as well, and we rejoice that we have been so richly blessed!

We'll return to Texas (DFW area) next Thursday, and will drive back to East Texas on Friday - then it's to normal life as newlyweds.  People have asked, "So, how's married life?"  We aren't quite sure how to answer that question yet, seeing as how we've been traveling for most of our married life.  We look forward to settling down to routine and daily living, and are excited to see what adventures the Lord will lead us on.

With that said, this will probably be our last post before heading back down to good ol' Texas.  Merry New Year to all of you!

New York Reception

We greatly enjoyed the reception up in New York this afternoon.  Because so much of Jon's family was not able to come to the wedding, we wanted a second reception that they could enjoy.

Yesterday Summer went with Jon's parents to a bookstore in Oswego (called "The King's Business") where she met the owners (the Kings - friends of the Richards).  After hearing about the upcoming reception, Mrs. King mentioned that she had 3 wedding dresses and offered one of them for Summer to wear at the reception.  So this morning before the reception, we went to their house and Summer tried on the dresses...and one of them fit almost perfectly!  Mrs. King and her daughter quickly added a bustle (there was a train), and off we went to the reception!

It was so much fun!  We enjoyed spending time with people (some of whom Summer had never met before!) and we played games, Austrian-style.  We look forward to continuing to build relationships with these friends and family, and look around to find ourselves richly blessed.

Christmas Eve!!!

We are currently in upstate New York spending time with Jon's family for Christmas!!!  When we arrived earlier this week, it was looking to be a green Christmas, but we got snow last night!!!  Jon loves the cold, and Summer is getting used to it (for some reason, growing up in Texas makes the cold that much colder!) - nothing like taking a walk in the snow to "get your feet wet"!

God is so good!

A Warm Welcome and A Merry Christmas!

We're excited to begin our married life together, and (since so many of our family and friends are all over the place!) we thought this would be one of the best ways to keep everyone up-to-date on what's going on with us.  So here we go!