One Chaotic Night!

Our weekend that was supposed to be all about good, fun things, ended on quite a sour note late last night (Sunday).

To begin, Mugi and I went to Altoona for the weekend for our friends Jonathan and Tanya's beautiful Fall wedding, which unfortunately was lacking the chilly Fall weather! It was a terrific evening though and they make the cutest lil' couple! We are so happy for them, and very fortunate to have them both as such good friends. Here's their photo...






















and here is their wedding cake, which was quite clever I think. It consisted of several layers of individual cupcakes!

Cute, huh?! I think October is just the perfect month to get married... that's when I did!

Ok, then on Sunday our church had a "Homecoming" celebration and a special catered lunch. We attended all that with my parents and then relaxed pretty much the rest of day. We had gotten tickets for the "MercyMe" concert at the Bryce Jorden Center in State College for the evening. We left mom and dad's at around 4:30 to grab a bite quick at McDonalds and then headed to the 6:00 concert. The concert was fabulous! MercyMe has always been a favorite group of ours and we've wanted to see them live for awhile now. They also had these guys, "Monk & Neagle" open for them. Neither of us heard of any of their songs before last night, and we were pleasantly surprised...they gave a wonderful accoustic performance that we enjoyed so much that we had to pick up their new cd, "The Twenty-First Time". Such an amazingly spiritually uplifting couple of hours, and it was definitely much needed quality time for both Mugi and I.

The concert ended at around 9:30 and we didn't get home til about 10:30. Then at around 11:00, the phone rang and I got one of those calls that you NEVER want to get! My grandmother called to tell me that my sister-in-law Wendy had just notified her that my 17 year old niece, Lera was just in a bad car accident and was being life-flighted to Geisinger Medical Center. My heart jumped out of my body. Mugi and I quick threw on some comfortable clothes and before heading out the door to get to the hospital I gave my parents a call to let them know. We didn't know any of the details of the accident...didn't know if she was alone or had others with her...didn't know if other cars were involved...didn't know her condition...nothing! All I know is that having to be "life-flighted" didn't sound like the best of scenarios, and all that my mind was preparing for was the worst. But I prayed hard from the moment I hung the phone up! I prayed like I never prayed before. I could not lose my only precious niece!

God graciously answered our prayers last night! Our Lera is banged up and bruised, but she is alive! She sustained no life-threatening injuries...and miraculously no broken bones! The reason why she was life-flighted was in case she had internal injuries or bleeding, for which there were none! Her car was the only one involved in the accident and she was driving alone, thankfully, because there was much damage to the back righthand side (doesn't look as though anyone could've survived if they had been in that back seat). It happened because she admits to driving too fast on a back road that she wasn't real familiar with. She took a turn quickly, lost control and hit a tree. She's a very lucky girl, and we are so blessed that she's still with us!
Please keep my niece in your continued thoughts and prayers. She's going to be stiff and sore for some time yet, and she will need all of our families support to bring her through this event as she emotionally heals! Thanks... and Glory to Our God!