Wedding Weekend

Last weekend we had the privilege of celebrating the marriage of our friend D.J. Van Eps and his beautiful bride, Mariah! Mark was an usher for the wedding and also sang in the ceremony. So that meant we had to attend the rehearsal and dinner on Friday evening and the wedding on Saturday....SCORE for us...2 date nights back to back! Oma & Opa watched the boys on Friday night and we hired a babysitter for Saturday! The boys had so much fun both nights and we knew they were in such good hands, so we were free to relax and PARTY!!!!

The rehearsal dinner was downtown at The Old Spaghetti Factory! All of our husbands were in the wedding and Lindsay, Mandy, and I are all pregnant! So we enjoyed a few Shirley Temples together over the weekend! Oh, how a glass of wine would have been so nice, but hey, it's just another couple of months right?!

The day of the wedding it SNOWED!!! It was so cold and dreary, but despite the weather outside, the wedding was absolutely beautiful! D.J. and Mariah have a whirlwind love story and our entire group of friends is just so thrilled that he has met the love of his life! It was a blast celebrating with them!

(And P.S.- Mark sounded awesome singing at the wedding- He sang "Glorious Day" by Casting Crowns and played the guitar! I love hearing him sing and the boys had so much fun watching and listening to him practice for weeks. Heath is his biggest fan and will just sit and watch him sing and clap and clap for him when he's done! And the other day I heard Nolan singing the song to himself while relaxing in the bathtub! LOVE hearing him sing praises to God!)

Since our boys were busy with their wedding duties, our date for the evening was our friend Phil who was in town from Austin, Texas for the wedding. His girlfriend couldn't make it so it worked out perfectly! He supplied us with Kiddie Cocktails and great conversation!

When the wedding party arrived at the reception they hopped off the Party Bus in rare form! Needless to say they had a great time celebrating...and Mark sure kept the party going!

He and Kim shared some cake together!

And he danced up a storm! By the way, this is the ONLY photo I took with D.J. and Mariah in it! What was I thinking? I hardly took any pictures and I didn't even take one of the bride and groom! They both had a rockin' good time on the dance floor! And we even got to bust out D.J.'s signature move with him once or twice!

This photo starts Mark's turn with the camera...Dancin' the night away! (Yes, that's Mark's mom in the background...she was quite the Dancing Queen too!)

"Every day I'm Shufflin'" (Also a favorite song of Nolan's...what can I say, he's got eclectic tastes!)

Dr. Leensvaart...he's got the moves like Jagger, he's got the moves like Jagger, he's got the mooooooooves like Jagger!

As you can tell it was so fun to have some kid free nights with our friends! Ernie and Kim took some great pictures of the weekend too: check them out on their blog- HERE!

Congratulations to the newlyweds, Mr. and Mrs. D.J. Van Eps!

We pray that God blesses you richly with love, health, and happiness over the years!