Pete's Wedding

Beautiful memorial candle for Mom

During the last weekend of February, Nate and I were on our way to Mexico for Pete's wedding!  We flew out early Friday morning to San Diego and met up with Mike/Colleen. We rented a car and drove about 2 hours south into Mexico.  The wedding was located near Ensenada, Mexico in a wine valley.  The wedding was small, about 20 people were invited.  We all stayed at a charming hotel with beautiful surroundings.  On Friday evening there was a cocktail hour and we enjoyed getting to know the other wedding guests.  On Saturday morning we relaxed.  The DeMaster family has never gotten together without children (at least in the 15 years I've been around.) It was so nice to chat with the family and realize again, "hey, we're fun when there aren't children around!" We ate breakfast at the hotel restaurant and they also served cookies for breakfast! They were speaking my language.  In the afternoon, a group of people took Pete off the hotel grounds for awhile.  Jess and Pete didn't want to see each other and Jess was getting a little stir crazy in her hotel room.  The group went to a place that advertised hummer adventures.  There was a hummer, but it wasn't much of an adventure.  The hummer pulled a hay wagon type trailer behind it.  The hummer adventure is really meant to transport people along a winery trail, so I guess it would seem fun with some wine on board. 

That afternoon, Colleen and I gave Jess a couple gifts.  Colleen had painted a picture based on the flowers on their wedding invitations.  It was beautiful. We also gave Jess a family scrapbook. We had the DeMaster and VanStelle aunts/uncles write a welcome/congratulations note and include a family picture.  That way Jess could "meet" the extended family.  

And Jess wore Antoinette DeMaster's wedding gown!  Antoinette is Nate's deceased Grandma. The dress is from the 1930's and Jess looked amazing in it.

The wedding ceremony took place on the hotel grounds in the late afternoon. I'm just going to share what I wrote on facebook about the wedding. 

The whole weekend was a wonderful celebration of them. The ceremony was achingly beautiful. I was aware of the rootedness of generations of family who love Jesus. God is so faithful to us imperfect people. There was much evidence of Mom's beauty and legacy of faith surrounding us this weekend. We cried and we celebrated. And we had lots of A-mazing wine. 

 After the ceremony we hopped on a bus and went to a local restaurant.  Pete had told us to expect the best food of our lives.  We were not disappointed.  This was a top notch restaurant.  There is no menu, the chef makes new things everyday.  I lost track, but I think we had a 10 course meal.  (They were small portions.)  And with every course there was a new glass of wine!  I couldn't drink the wine fast enough and at one point I had 3 glasses in front of me.  Dad helped me out and finished one.  I have not had that much wine, well probably ever.  We were all feeling gooood.  It was a great day celebrating Pete and Jess.

Sunday morning we left around 8 am.  We took a different route back to the border because someone said it would be a faster border crossing.  Well, it wasn't.  We sat in line at the border for about 2 hours.  We got into San Diego just in time to drop off the rental car and catch our flight.  We arrived at Grand Rapids around midnight and the Shoemakers brought us home.  

While we were gone, our family was busy watching the kids.  My Mom watched the kids on Friday and my Dad came out that evening.  Steph flew in late Friday evening.  My parents and Steph spent the rest of the weekend caring for these hooligans.  The kids were very excited to have Aunt Steph here.  Steph and I got to spend Monday morning together before she flew home Monday afternoon.  It was too short, but it's always good.  In about a month we'll be celebrating Steph and Ben's wedding!   

February

When it's winter we visit the indoor playground

100 crayons for 100th day. Pin that

She walks in heels better than me

I clean one room, they empty bins in another room.

Happy Lunar New Year!

Child labor

Pedicures with Grandma

65th Anniversary

Snow fort with the neighbors

Fun with Grandpa

No snow on the ground, Nate set his new hammock up. And then it snowed again

Waiting for summer

Lexi spied this toy of hers from China and was very excited to play with it 

In early February, Julia and Isaac had their 100th day of school.  Julia was supposed to attach 100 items to a shirt.  What? Teachers should not be allowed on pinterest. So she decided on 100 crayons.  We taped them on and she left a trail of crayons behind her at school.  And some ended up in her coat pocket, which I did not know, and the coat was put in the dryer. Which left red crayon on everything.  Grr- all because of the 100th day of school.

Rebecca and I attended a local IF:Gathering.  The IF conference is held in Texas, but is simulcasted around the world.  The conference has biblical teaching and encouragement for women.  It was good.

On the 6th we attended the local Korean Lunar New Year party.  Julia wore her hanbok and Lexi wore her Chinese qipao (key-peh.) We also brought along some Asian students from Hope College.  One of the students is Julia's Korean tutor.  Her name is Hyeji and she is a freshman at Hope.  She grew up around Detroit and taught at a Korean language school while in high school.  Hyeji comes twice a week.  Julia's feelings about learning Korean vacillate between enjoying it and thinking we are torturing her.  Typical response for her age. The actual Lunar New Year was on February 8.  We invited Jim and Sue Shoemaker over for dinner.  I cooked bibimbop and mandu, Korean dishes.  We had the Shoemakers participate in a Chinese new year tradition. The elders of a family give each child a red envelope with money in it.  Each child comes forward and bows to the elder before receiving the envelope.  Our kids really got into it and the Shoemakers had fun too.

We have had some snow days scattered throughout this month along with weeks of sickness.  The stomach flu and colds have made their rounds.  I won the Mom of the Year award.  Lexi had a cold and then was kind of ornery and not sleeping well for a couple weeks.  I finally took her in, convinced the Dr would say nothing was wrong.  Turns out she had a raging ear infection and couldn't hear in that ear!  Our other kids scream at night, pull their ears, etc when they have an ear infection. I wonder if living in the orphanage taught her to be stoic- crying at night doesn't really get your needs met.  Anyway, it made me sad that she had been in pain for a couple weeks, but I think I know her "sick signs" better.  Lexi has become my shadow in the past months.  She plays with Stephen, but prefers to be under my feet.  I am glad she is attaching to me, but there are struggles.  When she wakes up too early from naps or bedtime she will go back to sleep for anyone but me.  As soon as she sees me she wails because she associates me with comfort.  Which is good- most of the time.

The highlight of the month was having Grandpa DeMaster visit us for a week.  We were all happy to have him around.  He spent one on one time with each of the kids and helped Nate with projects around the house.  We did fondue while he was here which our family hasn't done in a long time!

At the end of the month, Nate and I went to Pete's wedding.  I'll write about that in my next post.