Wedding Photos!

Yes, we survived our Moroccan wedding :) It was an adventure, the likes of which we'll probably never experience again. Here are a few photos... more to come...

This is me at the henna party which happened Friday night. Green is the traditional color (symbolizing life) and it's a time for the women to get together before the wedding and for the bride and guest to have temporary henna tattoos applied. There were about 30 guests, 5 types of cookies, several hours of fun...

Here we are watching some of the women dance.


And here's Sabah having her henna done by Zenib.


This is where I got to sit for most of the party while the henna dried.

Then on Saturday night came the wedding. Guests started arriving at about 7:30, but the party didn't really get started until 9:30 or 10 when the guests with small children had their dinner, followed by the men, and then the women. Dinner was a tagine of whole fried chickens and then one of beef with dried apricots and prunes. Dessert was fruit platters. I wasn't allowed downstairs until after 11 after going through a hair and makeup ordeal (please don't think I normally look like I do in these pictures!)

This is our first set of clothing (if you were at our wedding in the US you might recognize the dress). We were still pretty awake at this point and Matthew was happy to not be sitting alone anymore.

Here we are in our last change of clothing with our friends Rob and Rabha. By this point a lot of the guests were leaving and we had enjoyed the 5 types of cookies along with tea and juice.


We'll get some in between photos up soon as well as some video...

Keeping on keeping on...

Things are going well for us here in Morocco. We made it through our first month of dieting and are pleased with the results so we'll keep it up... 'Some friends gave us money for a pasta machine so we've been learning how to make our own whole wheat pasta which is quite fun - and yummy! We don't miss sugar nearly as much as we did at first although Matthew's choice for a "reward" after we made it though the month was a Magnum ice cream bar.

Matthew's also started biking to work 4 days a week (that's one-way each day) and has shortened his time to about an hour and a half. Today he was able to ride the whole way (instead of walking some of the hills) so that's pretty exciting. It's about 28 kilometers or 16 miles...

We still haven't found a suitable apartment but we're continuing the search...

Today we have an appointment at the place that is hosting our Moroccan wedding celebration. We need to finalize numbers etc. It looks like it will be over 100 people! The 28th is coming up quickly and it should be fun. :)

Since we've returned from England we helped out our friend Vicki for almost a week with her children. On the same day her normal "helper" left for vacation her brother got kidney stones. I filled in with the kids while Matthew drove back and forth to hospitals and clinics in different cities. We're thankful for this season in our lives when we can easily change our plans to help a friend.

That's about all for now... We'll try to get pictures (and maybe some video) from the wedding up soon after it happens.