John and Amber's wedding!

The whole reason for our whirlwind Southwestern vacation was to attend the wedding of John Pearson and Amber Diaz.  John got his PhD from Princeton in 2004, and was really involved in PEF during his time here.  He's been a very dear friend of ours for years -- he was an usher at our wedding, and then because he went on to a post-doc position at Duke, pretty much every time we've gone down to NC to visit my family, we've managed to squeeze in a quick visit with him as well.  And though we hadn't met Amber until the day of their wedding, we knew that the woman who captured Pearson's heart had to be very special!  So even though Phoenix was very far to travel, we really didn't want to miss this wedding!

The ceremony was a beautiful celebration of their love, strongly rooted in community -- both in terms of their families (the wedding party consisted of Amber's sister and John's brother) and in terms of their church home (the service was officiated by the pastor of their church in Durham, where they met and where they both serve).














And the reception was so much fun!  We were especially impressed by how much thought had been put into every single little detail, particularly where it came to providing for their guests' comfort -- for instance, they provided these adorable little plush lovies for their littlest guests.  Joshua was very taken by his little orange puppy, which has now taken up permanent residence in his crib.  :)  And the toasts were among the best wedding toasts we had ever heard -- truly moving tributes to the happy couple from their fathers and siblings.












It was also so wonderful to catch up with old friends, many of whom we hadn't seen in years.  We were seated with Chris and Kelly, Curt and Christina, and the Pearsons' pastor Brad and his wife Jena-Marie, and we had wonderful times of conversation with all of them.  And we also got to catch up with Mark and Jeannette, Peter (whose wife Kim was too pregnant to travel!), and John -- so many of the old crowd were there to celebrate!








Sadly, I have no photos of Joshua from the wedding, even though he was in a super-cute blazer and tie outfit.  All the traveling and routine disruption finally caught up with us minutes before the wedding started, in the form of the biggest meltdown we'd seen from him in a long time.  David ended up spending the entire ceremony with Joshua in one of the Sunday School rooms calming him down with a barrage of toys, and then Joshua rallied enough to consent to hang out with the babysitters provided for the reception.  But here's a cell phone shot of our little trooper at the end of our long week of travels:


Thankfully, we had a few days at home to totally veg out and get back to our normal routines before I had to go back to work.  But all told, this trip was definitely worth it -- John and Amber, we had such a wonderful time celebrating your marriage with you!  Many blessings on you both as you continue into your married life together!