Christmas 2014

Merry Christmas, family and friends!

2014 has been the year of weddings. I don’t know if it was something in the water or if it was because of peer pressure, but almost every single person I know decided to get married this year. Including Korben and myself. 

Last December, Korben decided to surprise me and told me to stay late at school working so that he had time to make a nice dinner. I didn’t know he was planning on asking me to marry him that day, I was just happy to get food that I didn’t have to cook myself. Little did I know that Korben (in the midst of having the flu, which he never gets), was running around Houston getting things ready. He had even called my dad that day to ask him permission (and if you know my dad it’s surprising that Korben is still among the living!). My dad then sent me a text while I was at school grading papers that said, “It’s about time.” I just assumed he was talking about Christmas Break.

The engagement bike

I don’t wear much jewelry. I didn’t want both an engagement ring AND a wedding ring and I had said so numerous times. Korben decided he was going to get me a nice road bike as an engagement gift since he knew how much I enjoyed cycling. Nevertheless, he was still quite worried about my reaction of getting a bike instead of a ring. I didn’t know I was getting a bike, only that I wasn’t going to get a ring. I told him that as long as it wasn’t a video game, I was sure I’d be happy with whatever it was. The night of the proposal he had the bike hiding out on the back porch with a bright, red bow on it. I spotted the beautiful bike before he meant me to see it and I was ecstatic! Not just because it was a really nice bike, but because I knew the question that was coming with it.

Since we had friends who had also become recently engaged, the summer was rapidly losing good wedding weekends available. But the 4th of July weekend was still open and we set our wedding date for Sunday, July 6. I love outdoor weddings, but that idea didn’t even cross my mind. Korben and I are both well accustomed to the Texas summers and knew that would not be fun for anybody. (Korben has been in Texas for 8 years now and he talks about his Texas summers as if he's doing time.) It had to be an indoor wedding. Our church in Conroe meets in the school’s gymnasium, so that wasn’t ideal for a nice wedding. But my parents had recently moved to San Antonio and we opted to have our wedding in the beautiful Scenic Hills Seventh-day Adventist church.

We had an awesome wedding party!

For those of you who were able to attend our wedding and help out with all of the things involved in wedding prep, thank you! It was so good to see friends and family there and our wedding day was stress-free. We are a little biased, but we thought our wedding was awesome!

We stayed one night in San Antonio before flying out to go on our honeymoon. Korben was fairly certain we wouldn’t see anyone we knew at the airport, but five minutes after getting through security a familiar voice rang across the airport, “So, how was last night?” Korben’s mom was waving and smiling, along with Korben’s step-dad and Joan (Korben’s elementary teacher and our wedding coordinator). They were all coming in through security not far behind us. We decided it was best to ignore the question and we all had breakfast in the airport together.

For our honeymoon we headed to Paris, France! (Ooh, la la!) Neither of us had been to France before and it was really cool to see the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, the Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre and other infamous places up close. We bought a lock, wrote our names on it, locked it onto a bridge, and threw the key into the Seine. We ate crepes and a lot of pizza (but avoided the escargot). We walked all over Paris until our feet couldn’t walk anymore. But the real reason we went to France was actually so that I could see the Tour de France.

Click to see more about Stage 7. So awesome!!!

I’ve become quite attached to watching the Tour recently. I think I like it because it works with my schedule. I don’t have time to keep up with sports during the school year, but during the summer I have plenty of time. And the Tour conveniently happens during the summer. We took a few days and went to Nancy, about an hour’s ride on train out of Paris. Stage 7 of the tour ended in Nancy and the next day we went to watch the beginning of the 8th stage. It was so exciting to be there! There was a parade before the cyclists got in and they passed out all kinds of free “treasures” to get the crowd excited. I don’t know a word of French (although I did learn how to say, “I don’t understand French,” before we left) but it became apparent that the louder you yelled, the more free stuff they gave you. We got key chains, scarves, jerseys, hair ribbons (Korben couldn't really wear those), sunglasses, rain ponchos (which came in handy), hats, and baguettes that were passed out by a guy in a baguette costume (But of course!). The stage end that we saw in Nancy was so close that it was a photo finish and there were several crashes, which only makes it more exciting.

We came back to Paris just in time for Bastille Day. Bastille Day for France is sort of like Independence Day for America. The place to be during Bastille Day is at the Eiffel Tower where they have a fantastic fireworks display and actually shoot the fireworks off of the Eiffel Tower. There was a symphony and a light show projected onto the tower and they even had a couple of people dangling from ropes on the tower. It was the most amazing fireworks we’ve ever seen. There were thousands of people there watching the fireworks. Despite several signs that said it was a family-friendly event and that alcohol was not allowed, every person around us brought their own bottles of wine and wine glasses. I am not sure they even consider wine to be alcohol. 

The only annoying thing about France was the amount of cigarette smoke. Smoke-free hotel rooms were lies. We even asked for a room change once, but our other room smelled just as bad. Opening the windows was also a bad idea because more cigarette smoke wafted in. However it was summer and hot and there was no air conditioning so we had to learn to live with it.

As I said, this was the year of weddings. The summer started off with Shirley-Anne and Kevin’s wedding in June. Shirley-Anne was my roommate and Kevin was Korben’s roommate. It was a rather convenient arrangement because  we could carpool over to College Station to see the boyfriends and they could carpool over to Conroe to see us. Shirley-Anne stated, once we were all married, that “the roommate swap was complete.” 

Korben and I were married next. The Sunday after our wedding was Jen and Dane’s wedding. Jen is my cousin and Dane is Shirley-Anne’s brother. Because it was over our honeymoon, Korben and I weren't able to attend.

There have been a few times that Jen has subbed at my school for me. This confuses the children greatly because she introduces herself as Mrs. Classen. However, Shirley-Anne, who had taught Kindergarten at our school last year, was Miss Classen before she got married. So then Jen explains that she married Miss Classen’s brother  which is how she became Mrs. Classen and that Miss Classen is actually Mrs. Christman now because she married Mr. Rusek’s roommate. And just to add to the confusion, before she was married she was Miss Dickerson (which was also, of course, my name before I was married). I’m pretty sure the only thing that the children are learning is that intermarriage has become an acceptable practice in our church.

Jen’s sister, Laura, who has been my best friend for as long as I can remember, got married the day after Thanksgiving (the end of a long line of weddings this year, but not the end of all the weddings forever. I’m anticipating my sister to call me with some news soon, but don’t tell her I said that). It gave me a good excuse to visit the Northwest and remember what mountains look like.

I’m still teaching at Adventist Christian Academy of Texas. I teach 3rd and 4th grade which is fun, especially since my mom teaches the same grade combination and our kids are able to do pen pals. I have a great class this year! I've also been working on my Master's degree and I'm hopeful that I'll be done by the end of December. Korben has been working on his apps and enjoying his work. Since he works from home, our babies (the cats) are very spoiled. They may distract him from his programming from time to time, but I don’t think he minds.

God has certainly blessed our lives and we are enjoying figuring out married life. Rabies and Grapefruit (Korben’s cats, who I did not name) haven’t quite warmed up to Brewster (my precious Siamese), but they at least tolerate each other’s presence. That’s probably as good as it gets for cats anyway. 

Whether you are near or far from us, we hope you have a wonderful Christmas and New Year!

Love,

Korben, Lori, Rabies, Grapefruit, & Brewster