Special Moments

The CEO of the school that I work for writes a daily devotional that he sends out to the parents and staff. He always writes about things going on in the lives of his family and friends and relates them to a lesson or scripture. Here is what he wrote the day after our wedding and I wanted to include it here because it meant so much.
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Daily Devotion

Ephesians 5:25 "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her"

We went to a staff member's wedding today in Tahoe. It was glorious in so many ways. We realized on the way up that the boys had never been to a wedding! While they didn't know what to expect, we did hear Nicholas whisper to Connor, "I'm not sure exactly what happens, but I do know they have cake." They were in for so much more.

A setting like Tahoe, with snow in the mountains and a glorious lake as a backdrop, is hard to surpass. In this case, however, the ceremony and reception did top even the beauty of the surroundings. The marriage ceremony was subtle, moving and superbly spiritual. The bride and groom took their first communion together as husband and wife and they looked wonderfully in love at all times. As beautiful as it all was, when the parents of the bride and groom came up to form a prayer circle with them, I was in awe. The Holy Spirit was truly at work in every heart in attendance. When I spoke to the DJ, he told me that although he wasn't a practicing Christian, he was touched by the time of communion, the time of prayer, and the music chosen for the ceremony. He said that something had opened up inside of him. I said, "Welcome to the feeling of the Holy Spirit."

There were so many wonderful moments today, but one that certainly touched us was when the groom's brother, and best man, gave his toast. He is three years younger than his brother, just as Connor is to Nicholas. When he spoke, it was what we would certainly love to hear from Connor about Nicholas some day. He remarked that he had always followed his older brother's footsteps and had yet to find the path in error. He also told of how lucky he was that he was guided and cared for as he grew up and what a great man his brother had become. In so many ways we heard the relationship of our boys being defined.

Today was such a glorious day in so many ways, but it was also a reminder of how important it is to pray for our children. I have been to many weddings but never have I felt the presence of God like I did at this wedding. There was no doubt how much these two love each other and yet, as evident as that was, their love for God was even more obvious. This wasn't a day all about them like so many weddings... this was a day about their love for God and their gratitude to Him for bringing them together. After today, I am going to make it a real priority to pray for the future spouses of my children. I want for each of them the joy and love I witnessed today.

There is so much more that I could write about, but suffice it to say that we participated in a first for our boys, a wedding that will be indelibly etched into our minds. A wedding performed in his beautiful land and guided by the Holy Spirit...

Congratulations Amanda and Stephen, and thank you for including us in your blessed day!

Blessings....Paul & Krista

Married Life

Photo by Charlotte of Charlotte Geary Photography

According to my Facebook, we've been married now for 3 weeks, 3 days. And let me tell you, married life is awesome!! I know they say that this is the "honeymoon phase" and that we'll grow out of it, but I sure hope not! I just love being Stephen's wife. I love being able to call him my husband and take care of him and be with him every night. I love having things that we can call "ours."

Like our last name, for instance :) I went to Social Security today and my new SS card should arrive within ten days! I'm legally a Rabon now!! I still need to change it on my driver license, but the soonest appointment they had was May 25... that's quite some time from now. I might drop in after work one day and see if I can get in sooner. I even looked up Davis and Fairfield DMV, but it was just as long. They should give preference to newly married people since we're an excited bunch.

I was asked if I had come across any things about Stephen that surprised me since we've been married and now live together. I can honestly say that I have not been surprised. He doesn't leave the toilet seat up and neither of us like to make the bed. We both leave clothes around a bit. And none of those are problems. When I cook, he volunteers to do the dishes. I have cooked...yes, I can sense your shock. I truly fall in love with him more every day. Mushy, I know, but we can be sitting on the couch watching Bones and all I can think is how crazy about him I am and how much I love being with him. I get all aflutter.

I love our little apartment. Photos can be found here: My Flickr Page

Pictures from our honeymoon in Kauai can be found here:
Also Flickr

We had a wonderful time. The weather was great, the food was also good (I highly recommend the kalua pig burrito at Olympic Cafe in Kapa'a if you're ever there) and it was super relaxing. We spent a lot of time just enjoying the time together instead of going on excursions to kayak, zip line, movie tour, etc. It was just what we wanted. Stephen made me Dirty Shirleys throughout the week (a spiked Shirley Temple- we used Cherry Vodka) that were delicious and we watched a lot of ESPN. We also rented 3 movies (State of Play, Sherlock Holmes and Valkyrie) and sipped champagne on our balcony. It was lovely.



As I said in the previous post, the wedding went amazingly. The weekend was beautiful weather wise and also beautiful to be surrounded by family and friends on the biggest day of our lives. Every time I look at pictures I fall back in love with that day. And I can remember all of these incredible moments thanks to the photojournalistic style Charlotte and Mike used as well as lots of pictures from family and friends. I get giddy thinking about our wedding. It was just so perfect. I was so happy to see all of the hard work we put into it come to fruition, we couldn't have picked a better wedding party (this group is truly our closest friends and family and are amazing together) and we could feel God's hand on the day as well as the entire planning process.



Stephen and I are reading the New Testament in a year together to be sure to keep God/Jesus as an integral part of our marriage. It's something that we both look forward to every week night and we're looking forward to getting a weekly newlywed devotional book to supplement on weekends. Marcie (my mother-in-law, how fun is that to say!!) gave me a book called "Created to Be His Help Meet" to read. It's about the role God gave to women in marriage. I'm probably 2/3 of the way though and have been able to glean some useful knowledge from it. It will be helpful to make me a better servant and better wife for Stephen.

We are living a truly blessed life.