Abby's Wedding August 8, 2009

Greetings! We have been on the road to various locations the past two weeks.

Although our daily schedule was altered, somethings have remained the same.

Our first jaunt of the past fortnight was to Battle Lake, Minnesota for the wedding of our niece, Abby and new nephew-in-law, Ryan. Abby is the daughter of Marlys and Paul, my sister and brother-in-law.

Abby and Ryan live in Arizona, where they are both college students. Abby's sister, Lisa, has covered their wedding beautifully on her blog. I won't even try to compete with her coverage! Good work, Lisa.

Our family was asked to contribute musically to their ceremony.

Paul, Nick and I worked together to perform the liturgical music. Suzanne played Handel while the parents were ushered into the church. It was great to see her at the keyboard again as she is an accomplished pianist. Paul works the camera, so I don't have any pictures of Nick and Paul playing guitar. If I find one from the family, I will edit this post!!!

My sister-in-law, Rose, played the processional (an original composition) and recessional. Just thinking about her music makes me emotional. What an artist!

She was watched quite closely by her beautiful granddaughter, Meredith.

These life-stage ceremonies become more and more important to me. It is too seldom we get Suzanne and Nick together with us for more than a few hours at a time. Family is important to them and they looked forward to seeing the McDougall clan.

And, all eight of us McDougall's were together. That is the highlight of my summer, right there. I hugged every one of my siblings all in the same day.

Thanks, Abby and Ryan, for providing us this happy occasion to be together.

I'll be posting more soon as we have covered some new ground with the North Trail!