Yes, it was a reception!

A wedding reception, to be sure, in a little town in North Dakota.

I love little towns in North Dakota.

Where else would you find an American Legion Hall that looks like the top half of a barn?

Where else would you find so many cars & trucks & tractors with North Dakota plates? (Yep, that was a great big clue I gave you. And do tractors even have license plates? I’d make you wait here while I called my brother-in-law but I’m too lazy.)

And finally, where else would you find scores and scores of this Midwestern gal’s family? We’re talking nieces & nephews & aunts & uncles & sisters & former classmates. (Okay, so that last group is not technically family…but at a wedding reception, who cares?!)

Only here can you find those things.

In North Dakota.

My former home.

Home is what leads you to make a four-hour drive on Saturday and another four-hour drive on Sunday. We went for the wedding of my nephew, Adam, and his sunshiny new bride, Emily.

Adam is the son of my oldest sister, Yvonne, whom I have blogged about before and who is perfect. That is Yvonne in the opening photo. Isn’t she cute? Aren’t her teeth perfect? Won’t she kill me when she sees I’ve posted this photo?

I love to go home to see my big sister Bun, who goes by Bun (I think) because someone (maybe me) couldn’t pronounce Yvonne when she was little. My sister Bun is the type of gal who can clean the house while watching her grandchildren while making homemade bread for supper. She makes wedding cakes for her children and hosts the groom’s dinner to boot. (At Adam’s, she went with a seasonal theme and served sugar cookies done up like sunflowers and Black-eyed Susans. Too cute!)

So yes. Even though it was the second North Dakota wedding for us this summer, we were there. Why? Because it’s family.

And because you get cute photos after the wedding.

At this point, though, Angela had had enough wedding:

So had Felicity:

Felicity cheered up considerably at the reception,
where she was able to restore her blood sugar and even
raise it to an impressively high level.

Yes, family is why we make the drive. Family is why we leave the house period despite our raging seasonal allergies. (I should have stayed home, really, blowing my nose and popping Allegra. My word, do you get hit as hard as I do?)

We go home for our family; we go home because it’s home.

I read once that a man travels the world over in search of what he needs, and returns home to find it.

There is nothing so sweet as the comforting touch of a kind uncle,
especially when you’ve just found out that you can’t stay for the dance.
This is my niece’s [new] husband Chris, whose wedding I documented here.

You know what? I agree.

All for the Greater Glory of God,