The Wedding Ceremony

On Sunday, July 15th at 4:00 p.m. my daughter Jolie married Jake Goodson. Family members, as seen in this photo, were happy to attend their ceremony. In this photo are my brother Lonnie, his son Cody, my brother Randy, Lonnie's wife Terry, Lonnie's son Ryan, my father Dean, my mom Carol, me, Jolie, Jake, Jake's mother Ronalie, his sister Lily, his sister Eva, his aunt, his brother Ben and his cousin Joaquin. The wedding took place at Kruger Farm on Sauvie Island outside of Portland, Oregon.





I walked Jolie up the aisle to Jake.

He and the attendants waited under an oak tree. Friends and family came from as far as Florida and New York and as near as Salem and Portland. Jake and Jolie have made friends in many places and have stayed close with them over the years. This is only one of the ways in which they are well matched.

After sharing their own vows, which had us all laughing and teary-eyed, and then the formal vows, Jolie and Jake Goodson beamed as they faced the loved ones who witnessed their happy day.

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On arriving home from the wedding, I found an e-mail from Laurie Mackenzie who lives in China. I taught summer school for him in 2006 in a small village named DuTau. His email informed me the DuTau school has received permission for me to teach there this next school year. So...I'm returning to China! DuTau is in the Yangshuo area which is near Guilin in Guangxi province. The school has found an apartment in FuLi. Each day I will take a ferry across the Li River to the school in DuTau.

Here I are standing with another summer school teacher at the gates of the DuTau school. We taught there for two weeks that summer. The school staff and students were wonderful to work with. At that time I promised some of the staff that if they could arrange things, I would return to work there for the 2007-2008 school year.

These students attended our summer school and may be in my classes this next year. Due to Laurie's efforts, the classrooms had freshly painted walls and blackboards that summer. Now I get to put those blackboards to use again!