Wedding Day, 20 Dec: the Bride is ready!

...And she is beautiful!



Instead of a veil, Rachel wore this headband and flower-hair piece - Theo's creation, which turned out so lovely and perfect with Rachel's short hair.

Okay, okay, this isn't a bride photo - it's me and Ellie. But it's such a nice photo of our dresses and the flowers (and the crazy earrings from Rachel!) that I couldn't resist.

Wedding Day, 20 Dec: preparations

Early afternoon on Saturday we gathered together in the Blacknall church parlor (and women's bathroom) to dress and get ready for the wedding ceremony. Though there were 4 bridesmaids and 1 bride, there were also about 8-10 other women (and 2 children: Lillian and Phillip) in the parlour helping to get ready! It was a bit of a madhouse at times. "Where's Mom?" and "I'm hungry...is there any food around?" and "Oh man this ribbon is hard to put on." and "Rachel, you look beautiful!" were frequent comments. From my side, it was a strange feeling to see my sister preparing for her wedding day in the same room of the same church as I and Katie had both done 7 1/2 years before.

Below is Mindy, Rachel's friend from Appalachian State U days, who was an amazing lifesaver on the "day of" - among other things, she did Rachel's make-up.



Rachel with Theo Roddy, who made the bouquets and Rachel's headpiece. SO lovely.

Ellie (and Monica reaching in from behind) helped Katie fix her hair.

Okay, Rachel, are you almost ready?!

Rehearsal Dinner, 19 Dec

Rachel and Craig held the rehearsal dinner at the Blacknall Church fellowship hall, and a big crowd of family and friends (100+) joined for a Hog Heaven dinner, the Newlywed game (the soon-to-be against their parents), remarks by bridal party and lots of talking and hugging.

The 19th was also Dad and Mom's 38th anniversary!


Hannah noted that Phillip very eagerly ate the hush puppies and seemed to demonstrate his southern roots in doing so. Not sure how he felt about the North Carolina barbeque (pulled pork) with cole slaw.

Hannah and Miner cousin Ruth with her 1st son John Thomas. Second son William is in the car seat in the background.

Jul with Ellie and Karen Friesen nee Mulle. We've grown up together (though at different phases of life) and it was like being with 2 more sisters again. Ellie is a sophomore at Wake Forest and Karen, now married to John, lives in Winnipeg.

Kate and I both shared a few memories about Rachel. Hey Craig, watch out, you're the youngest in the family now!

Hawkins Christmas Morning

A few photos from Christmas morning - at the Lake Gaston lakehouse we rented. We ate cinnamon rolls, sausage and coffee for breakfast, then opened stockings and a few presents, plus of course the new tradition of Rita's Gift Basket, which we do "raffle style" or "white elephant style" by picking numbers then selecting the gift out of the basket in turn.

Hannah carefully put up all the stockings on the railing and Rita took our photo (Katie, Kyle and Lillian were absent from the photo, and I'm holding Jack). Nice one, Matt. Is that a peace sign?

Cinnamon Rolls for Christmas

Since the Hawkins family is all together this week (in celebration of Rachel and Craig's wedding on Saturday) we decided to have Christmas Day together on Monday. In proper tradition, we had cinnamon rolls for breakfast, followed by stockings and some presents.

Jim and I were assigned to "potato dough cinnamon roll" duty - the famous Edna Ruth Byler recipe from More with Less that we do every year. (Okay so we begged Mom to let us do the honors and make them.) We made a batch of 100 and shared it with Mom; we did 36 cinnamon rolls and she did about 75 dinner rolls. For 13 adults and 3 children under age 3, we had plenty!






*More family reunion and wedding photos to come soon!