Sun 3 Jun 2007
Mr & Mrs Nicholas Rollins
Stay tuned. More to come in upcoming days but first a few hours of sleep. Things couldn’t have gone better!!
Mon 4 Jun 2007
I have a lot to say about our whole trip, the rehearsal and the wedding. My heart is overflowing with much. But before all of that I am going to take a minute to be transparent. It is easier to blog about past trials and tribulations than present ones and maybe it is the better part of discretion also.
This has been a rough year for our family. Tim hasn’t worked as much and even now he is out of work. With all of the evidence I didn’t see how we were going to get to Nicholas’s wedding and put on the rehearsal dinner and then get home again. But here we are and all our bills are paid and our oil vats have not given out. I am going to have a whole separate post just to thank all of our friends who held us up.
This morning Valerie sent me a picture that captured almost all the emotion I felt at the wedding. I am not a teary person. After Valerie sent the picture I read one of my Psalms for the day. The picture and the Psalm captured the emotion I felt this week.
In the picture you see Tim and I sitting in the front row looking at our boys. Across the front of the picture are Nicholas, Timothy, James, Nathaniel, Christopher, (Chris Alexion), Benjamin. The little boys are seated with us. Emily is off stage. But when the boys first walked in and stood there my heart welled up with pride and joy. So many years passed before my eyes, pregnant years and nursing years, hard years of fatique and work and nausea, morning time after morning time. And now there they all were. What hath God wrought? I never knew.
And this morning God said in Psalm 4:7
“You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound.”
Tue 5 Jun 2007
After writing about agrarian weddings I really didn’t think this wedding would qualify (remember?) but after evaluating the whole thing I think I can hold up my head proudly among my agrarian readers and say what could be more agrarian than the backdrop of corn behind the groomsmen in the picture below? (In the last post)
We even had little Amish fellows running around. 
I am sure that most of the wedding guests were beginning to wonder if they were on their way to a still.
AND we had the Ridgewood Boys in all their glory at the rehearsal dinner !! I can’t begin to tell you how much their music enhanced the dinner. Truly that was a great blessing from the Lord.
But even without the corn, the bluegrass music, the little boys in white, the barn, the river, and most especially the wonderful homemade food, this wedding qualified as agrarian because of the vast members of our community of friends and family who helped put it together. Towards the end many Aarons and Miriams appeared from nowhere to hold up the weary. I was amazed watching that unfold.
Joe, Karen, Emma and Hannah put on a wedding where everyone was comfortable and relaxed and I think that qualifies as an agrarian ideal.
It was a wonderful day of fellowship with old friends and old, old friends and new friends and family coming together to celebrate.
It was meaningful to me to visit with famous (former?) bloggers and lovely all-grown-up homeschooled ladies.
I got to visit with my roommate from college and people I only knew through the Internet.
Valerie, in her kindness took millions of pictures for me. We were given lodging and meals by our friends the Larsons until it became an embarrassment of riches. My mom and my sister took charge and did a wonderful job at the rehearsal dinner, which was good because I was the last person to arrive there.
Y’all don’t have to keep commenting as I begin to put up pictures. I don’t want to wear you out 
I have quite a few pictures now and I am waiting on more. I will post the best here and maybe link to a photo album for the die hards.
Wed 6 Jun 2007
Emily & Alex
Ringbearer at work
June 23rd Couple
Future grooms prepare
Dancing with Dad. One of the highlights of the wedding was Hannah’s dance with Joe. It started out slow and then they both really took off. It was just lovely.
Thu 7 Jun 2007
Here is one of my favorite pictures. One of the neatest things is that both sets of families had 2 little boys. The little boys escorted their mothers down the aisle to be seated. Instead of doing this in a formal way, we just held hands. Here are the little boys waiting for their cue.
Andrew, Joe, Sam, and Alex. Alex always looks like he is straight out of the 1940’s.
Sat 9 Jun 2007
Whoa, I can’t believe how tired I have been. I didn’t mention it but I had a fever and cold the whole time we were at the wedding. The good news is that God sustained me and I was able to keep on going. I tried not to hug too many people. At the wedding I began to lose my voice but don’t worry that didn’t stop me. I kept right on talking anyway.
Today Nathaniel is on his way to the Dominican Republic. He will be playing baseball and sharing his testimony. His passport finally arrived last Wednesday after a phone call to a senator. We are praying that Nathaniel will not only be a light for Christ in the Dominican but also among his own teammates.
Timothy and Natalia are in VA for another wedding. 2 weeks to go for them.
Today, I may get to meet a humble blogger. She is staying 13 miles from us and we are hoping to fit in some pizza and Rook with their family this evening.
I spent the last two days reading. I finished The Founding by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles. It is the first book in the Morland Dynasty series. It took place during the end of the War of the Roses. I was happy that Richard III was not a villian in the book. We just read Shakespeare’s Richard III this year so it was interesting to compare notes. The Founding
Sat 9 Jun 2007
The Three Jovial Huntsmen
Timothy singing, maybe. James wondering.
Cutting the cake
Mon 11 Jun 2007
I have been waiting on a friend to send me a couple of pics of the rehearsal dinner to write about it but I think she lost the pics and time is marching on so here is my report.
When we left for MD we had most of the elements in place for the dinner but I just could not picture in my mind how it would actually turn out.
God used many of our friends to make having it even possible. The Larson family provided us with a hall to use and Rick and Chris provided music. My mom and my sister provided kitchen help along with the Larsons and an old friend, Leslie Weber. I was surrounded by amazing people and workhorses.
We felt like we would try the bbq at this dinner and if it fell flat we would try something else at Timothy’s wedding. Alabama bbq is vinegar-based pulled pork. You eat it with coleslaw on the bun and many people resist trying it that way; so before the meal I gave a little lecture on how to make and eat the sandwiches. My dad said I sounded like the scene in Sandlot (a baseball movie ) where they give a demonstration on how to make s’mores.
The bbq was a hit as it deserved to be and we even ran out of coleslaw. Several people told me they would have never eaten with the slaw if I hadn’t explained and they loved it. So in 2 weeks we will be doing it again with more slaw on hand. I had to zealously guard the slaw when it looked like the faithful musicians were going to get left out.
Toasting Nicholas
But I can honestly say the highlight of the rehearsal was the music. Rick and Chris just sound wonderful together. They never once sounded like amateurs, although in I know they play and sing for the love of it. The music added an element of depth to the dinner that is hard to describe. They came a LONG way to play for us; Maryland is insanely far away, but they literally made the whole dinner.
Many people complimented me on the choice of music. My favorite part was when the Ridgewood Boys stuck around and played during clean-up, that was a huge boost to the kitchen crew.
I am not that comfortable as a cook or hostess but the Lord surrounded me with gifted women who are talented and I literally felt I was being borne up by other people especially as the night of the dinner I was running a high fever and dreadfully afraid I would pass it along to others. I spent the evening trying not to hug people. When I got back to our room I dried out several wet cloths placed on my forehead. Apparently I did pass it on to my mother but so far she is the only one I have heard of that is sick.
I am a little nervous, once again about the next rehearsal dinner. I can hardly imagine it going as well as the first one but it will be quite a bit different. We won’t be in a hall but rather our backyard and we will have a whole different turn-around of people.
(PS speaking of famous bloggers, we did meet The Humble One and her husband and enjoyed it very much even though I am still not sure what she looks like. We were outside in a driveway in the woods in the dark. )
Banana Pudding
Wed 13 Jun 2007
Yesterday, Marie asked me if our boys participated in some form of courtship. ‘Some form of courtship’ were her words and I think they were very well chosen. Courtship is an interesting concept and one that I have studied from almost every angle over the last 25 years, most especially the last 15. It is not an easy topic to discuss because people have violent opinions and the younger the children the more violent the opinions get. The subject has become so hopelessly muddled that I hardly know what the word means anymore. Therefore, this post is just a few of my scrambled thoughts on the subject.
Did our boys participate in “Courtship”? I am not sure. They both married (will marry) girls who were homeschooled by purposeful parents. They both went through the father of the girl. They both are purposeful about the way they plan to lead their own families. But I am just not sure ‘courtship’ is the right word for the whole process nor do I think some families would attribute the word to my boys.
For parents of boys, courtship basically means whatever the father of the girl decides it means. This can range from mild interest to the boy almost having to fall in love with dear old dad.
Modern courtship is designed to avoid the problems of dating, some say to avoid divorce. As a model, courtship does not have the power to avoid the pitfalls of broken hearts. Broken hearts happen. I don’t believe girls should be raised to think that a broken heart is the end of the world and preparation for divorce.
On the internet and in books there are many fairytale courtship stories but we still don’t have all the evidence in and in fact, we are beginning to hear of divorce among the courtly, sad stories of betrayal and pain, made even sadder by the total lack of preparation couples bring to these situations.
The sin we need to shelter our children from is not just outside our homes. Sin is right now lurking in our own homes. Courtship can’t help with that. Preparing your daughter or son to marry a sinner is much better than training them to marry their perfect knight. Applying the gospel to romance is the only real antidote and I don’t believe you can create an institution out of that. You must walk beside your children teaching them when you rise up and when you lie down. Plugging them into a model that you heard some speaker touting is not applying the gospel.
Now I do think my boys have been raised to be gentleman. My own husband is almost the definition of gentleman. Being knightly doesn’t keep one from sinfulness though. Girls should not be raised to expect their husbands to be perfect. Marriage is a sanctification process along with being a romance. That is why I love the good old Presbyterian wedding sermon overflowing with dire warnings.
Almost every family I know with older children has modified their views on courtship. That is not to say that they have rushed towards dating but just that they have stopped believing in courtship as a panacea. Courtship carries within itself just as many pitfalls as dating, some of the same pitfalls and a few more besides.