After celebrating Christmas and dealing with a sick baby, I jumped into to seeing how I could help Emily prepare for her wedding. Emily had everything prepared for her wedding in great detail, but she lacked one thing: a wedding coordinator and reception coordinator. I put on my teacher personality and took on the job. (Haha…my mom got some “great” pictures of me telling people what to do!)

Friday morning we went over and set up the reception hall for the wedding. Thankfully, we were able to get everything set up and decorated by lunchtime. We had some good help and I kept things going with my unsocial-able let’s-get-it-done personality. I sent the happy couple off to get their wedding licence.

In the afternoon there was time for lunch, naps, and other miscellaneous preparations. My older brother, Sam, and I rehearsed for singing at Emily’s wedding. Others went over and decorated the church.

Friday evening I ran the wedding rehearsal with my older brother Sam, who officiated the wedding. Thankfully I’d just been in a wedding, so I had a refresher course two weeks before.

A big part of the rehearsal was having the nieces and nephews practice coming down the aisle.

After the rehearsal we went out for dinner at a nice diner. Our kids were exhausted. Then I left the kids with Josh and went with Emily to her bachelorette party. Wow – zow! I’ll just write for the record, Friday and Saturday were crazy days for me with wedding prep and being in the wedding (and nursing a baby every 3 hours and helping some cranky kids who hadn’t had their mommy around as much as usual). I’m so thankful we were able to jump in and help Emily, especially since I wasn’t able to help with anything before that week, being in Cambodia.

(A big thanks to Uncle Joey who took most of these pictures. I don’t think I took a single picture on my camera for this post.)

Christmas Eve morning we flew out of Atlanta to go to PA to prepare for Emily’s wedding. (A big thanks to Mom J for driving us there early in the morning from Grandma M’s house.) We spent Christmas Day with my parents, Aunt Emily, and Uncle Joey. We had a simple celebration Sunday afternoon.

Our kids were delighted to be at my parents house. A highlight for Isaiah was sharing a room with Uncle Joey. Isaiah got to sleep on the top bunkbed, while Uncle Joey slept on the bottom. On Tuesday my mom’s mom arrived (Great Grandma Buecher) and she was Becca’s roommate for the rest of our time in PA. Becca slept on the top bunk and Grandma slept on the bottom.

Thursday afternoon the rest of the Sutter sibling families arrived and we had Christmas again. There were 10 cousins together. The big event was a gift exchange among the cousins. Each cousin had been assigned one cousin to buy a gift for. It was really fun to watch.

It was also fun to watch my brother all interact with their children and their nephews and nieces. A lot has changed since it was just the six of us!

The big event was the big family picture. We all survived. At my suggestion, Grammy bribed all the kids with ice cream afterwards if they looked at the camera.

The last gift-giving was Uncle Joey’s traditional Christmas pajamas.

But wait, the party wasn’t over. Then my dad’s family showed up for a little fun. Our kids really enjoyed playing with my aunts and uncles. It was fun to watch them have as much fun with Uncle Johnny as I remember having.

There’s a very brief glimpse of our Christmas in PA. Coming up in the next few weeks…Emily’s wedding. 🙂

Sometimes God surprises me with unexpected friends. Three years ago this month we traveled to Macon, GA to present our ministry at Central Baptist Church. Shane and Abbey Gottwals hosted our family that weekend. Little did we know we’d become good friends. (Shane was amazed to find out he had a twin.)

Somehow in the short time we were together we clicked and Abbey became a close friend as our family moved to Cambodia. The texts she sends me halfway across the world have been a great encouragement as she takes time to share her life with me. Looking back over our soon to be three years in Cambodia, Abbey is one of the people who has kept me going with her encouragement and friendship. So thankful for her!

A highlight for us was being able to spend a few hours with the Gottwals the day before Christmas Eve. We left SC at 5am so we could spend some time with their family before we went on to visit Josh’s grandma in Altanta. So glad we could make them a part of our short time in the States.

After our time in Macon, we traveled to Altanta to visit with Josh’s mom’s side of the family. Unfortunately the traffic (due to a bad car accident) kept us from getting there as early as we planned, but we were still able to visit with everyone there. We spent the night with Grandma Martin. So glad we could see family!