Just Sharing

If I'd planned better before leaving town last week, I could have scheduled a post to magically appear yesterday for my usual Monday Musings, but I didn't - plan well or schedule. So I decided to just share a few pictures from the amazing wedding I attended last Saturday.

My grandson, Bryan married Marion Kennedy at the Duke Chapel, which is so beautiful inside and outside. I did not know beforehand, but this is the second most popular wedding venue in the nation, and I can see why. While it has no specific affiliation to one denomination, it is Christian-based, and it has a very full calendar of services, weddings, recitals, and other events.

Bryan was the Assistant Soccer Coach at Duke and Marion is the daughter of the Deputy Athletic Director, so holding the wedding at the Chapel was a perfect choice. However, their connections to the University did not guarantee that they could get their preferred date for the wedding.  A year ago, they had to stand in line when the 2014 calendar was getting ready to be set, and they actually set up a tent like folks do for Black Friday sales events.

The Happy Couple

A Sparkler Send-Off

Anj, mother of the groom. Bryan's sister Ally and Me at the Rehearsal Dinner

All of the wedding-related events were so much fun and so memorable. I had never been to such a formal wedding before, and those are memories I will treasure for a long time. Bryan and Marion have a wonderful circle of friends and I enjoyed every moment of the weekend. I stayed at the Washington Duke Inn & Golf Club and had my hair done at the Posh Salon - quite an experience for this farmer-girl who lives in jeans and wears a hat on bad-hair days.

This following video has nothing to do with the wedding, but I was so impressed when I saw it this morning, I had to share. Even though I did dance at the reception, my moves were nothing like this amazing couple. I do love to dance and could cut a pretty good rug when I was younger, but I'm not sure I was ever as smooth as this couple.

Friday's Odds and Ends

The Dallas ISD spent $57 milllion over a four year period on pricey mieals, costly consulting contracts and hotels. Meanwhile, teachers were paying out of pocket for students to eat during travel to UIL competitions because travel expenses for students was cut.

Do I even have to ask what is wrong with that picture?

Columnist, Lyn Woolley wrote in The Dallas Morning News that the removal of all references to God in schools has "left the schools without a moral compass."

Actually, our whole society has lost its moral compass and that has more to do with what we deem as acceptable in entertainment and general behavior that whether we can say "God" in public.

Speaking of uttering the g-word in public, Texas Governor Rick Perry plans to do that in a big way. He is inviting national leaders to a day of prayer and fasting on August 6, and expecting such a large turnout he is renting Houston's Reliant Stadium.

Hmmm. I thought one of the basic tenets of the separation of church and state meant that no government or government official could impose his or her religious beliefs on others. Since Perry is a Christian, I'm guessing there is going to be a whole lot of Christ-centered praying going on. Where does that leave national leaders who are atheists, or Jewish, or Muslim? And how come Perry can do all that in public and high school graduating classes cannot offer a prayer of any kind?

To end on a more upbeat note, my husband and I are going to Dallas today to attend the wedding of our son, David. We thought he was destined to be a bachelor forever, but several months ago he met a wonderful young woman, Rebecca. She is from Taiwan and has only been in the States for about 18 months.  He popped the question early in May, and they were originally going to have the wedding in September. However, she is going to school and classes start about the time they were thinking, Since neither one of them are teenagers, or even twenty-somethings, they decided there was really no reason to wait.

We are delighted to welcome Rebecca into our family. Now we have one daughter-in-law who can make us authentic Mexican dishes and another who can make authentic Chinese dishes.  We're trying to decide what ethnicity we want our third son to go for.