Beautiful bride, handsome groom, stinky Greeley..?

Last week I had the great honor of heading out to Colorado to be the matron of honor for my dear friend Nikki. It was a crazy, fast, exciting, fun, -smelly??? time!! Now when I say smelly I should explain - Nikki's wedding did not smell bad at all!!! But the town of Greeley, well, it has a tendency to smell -something about thousands of cows - Nikki has grown up there so we laugh b/c she says she can't smell it....... but I know she can! :) Anyways, it was a beautiful wedding, I had a blast - and I got to do something I never, ever thought I would do..... I walked down the isle with my first FOCUS teammate Josh. That's right, Nikki married into (kinda) the FOCUS family (Nikki herself was a missionary). Her husbands brother, was on my team my very first year, so I knew she was in good hands!

It's always so different to be right in the mix of things for a wedding, you get to see all the excitement, nerves, and hide things from the bride that truly she just doesn't need to know about! :) Then you get to sit back and relax....when you get home that is! :)

But on Sunday as I sat in Mass, looked around, I got sad. I noticed the same readers, the same, servers, choir, and of course Fr. Rocco. This was my parish for two years, this was my last parish of my single times, I would go there everyday, sit, pray, discern God's will, and then eventually I dreamed about my future life back home with Alan. But this weekend I remembered how much Colorado and Greeley meant to me while I was a missionary, and I realized, unless Alan and I made an effort to actually drive back through (maybe for a coffee at our favorite spot) then I most likely would never go back to Greeley. Greeley was a great place for me when I needed it - now I have my family; but I will always remember how God changed my life there!

God Bless, and please pray for Nikki and Ryan!!