More Omaha Photos

We went yesterday to Omaha, Nebraska to celebrate with our friends, John and Mary Marquez. John is the author of The Christ-Life Solution discipleship program that we've been involved with for many years now. He and his wife were married 40 years ago in Mexico in a civil union; however, since then so much has happened in their lives and they now wanted to have an actual wedding where Jesus was worshipped as the Lord of their Lives and to show the world what He's done in their lives and to proclaim His love and faithfulness! It was so neat to see a couple be married that long and renew their vows. It's 'easy' to say your vows before you're married, but to have walked through all the difficult things they have and to renew their vows, at their ages, it was just really neat to see! We were blessed to witness it! It was held in a Messianic Jewish Congregation and it was so neat to see certain 'bibilical roots' symbolisms be brought into the service. We'd never experienced that before and it was so interesting and so neat! And, it was an extra special treat to see several of our Des Moines area friends, again!

Bride Mary walking down the aisle. She was 'glowing' and full of smiles! :-)

The Bride and Groom!

Aren't they so cute together?

This is Nate and I with my really good friend, Kathie. It was such a delight to get to see her and her husband, Jim, and spend time with them again! We've missed them! She's coming to visit me in a couple weeks and I'm so excited and looking forward to it! :-)

This is Brennan's desire to take even MORE pictures! LOL He's growing into quite the young man and I treasure quick 'snapshots' like these!

After the wedding, our friends, Jim and Kathie, invited us to grab something to drink with them. It was a special treat to get to spend a few more hours with them and get to talk and catch up! :-)

Then.........the trip got interesting! LOL I had this 'brilliant' idea to try a different route home. It seemed that the MapQuest way there was such a 'round-a-bout' way and took us 3 hours. I was SURE we could get home faster going the 'backroads'! Hmmmmmm........

Well.....let's just say, I HAD A VERY BAD IDEA! I admit -- I MADE A HUGE MISTAKE! We ended up driving and driving and finally stopped at this gas station in a totally rural area, only to find out we were still in Nebraska! We were headed toward Topeka and the people in the town had NO CLUE how far Topeka was -- we knew we were in trouble then! So, we got a map (that was terrible, by the way) and FINALLY figured out where in the world we were. We got on track and decided going to Topeka on that road, wasn't a good idea. LOL Eventually, after driving 2 1/2 hours, we saw an Omaha sign (from where we'd come) and it said 86 miles! Thankfully, Steve and the boys were soooooooooooooooooooooooo patient and kind and we all got a good laugh out of the fact that it had taken us 2 1/2 hours to go 86 miles!!!! We were in the middle of nowhere! Let me just say -- SE Nebraska and NE Kansas have NOTHING in them! We couldn't even get cellphone reception! LOL So we decided to head back to the interstate and arrived home at 9:30pm! So......it took us 4 hours and 45 minutes going Debi's way! Needless to say...........we're thinking we should stay with the MapQuest directions from now on! LOL