John and Gennie's Wedding

Jess's younger brother John got married to Genevieve Kyle in July. We don't know Gennie very well yet but they're planning on living in Edmonton while John finishes law school so we're looking forward to lots of time together. Plus I already know Gennie's family from Ottawa - I was friends with her older sister Heather when we were teenagers.

John and Gennie are both younger siblings from large families so they have a lot of nieces and nephews. Here they are with 38 (!!!) of them.

Here's my old high school friend, Heather, Gennie's older sister.

Here's Heather at Girls Camp one summer back in Ottawa when we were about 16:

And here she is in the bottom right corner at a good-bye party for me before I moved to Alberta when I was 17:

Anyway, back to the wedding:

Heather gathered all the nieces and nephews and had them sing "Kiss the Girl" from Little Mermaid to John and Gennie:

Here they are watching the slideshow of all their childhood photos:

And playing the "shoe game" to test how well they know each other:

They had a really fun dance at the end of their reception.

With so many nieces and nephews (and brothers and sisters), their car was bound to get "decorated":

And finally, here are some videos from the reception.

John sang an awesome Hamilton-esque song to Gennie at the dinner:

From the dance:

Canada Day in Raymond 2016

We always go to Raymond for Canada Day but this time, there was even more family there than usual because John and Gennie's wedding was the next day. We started the day with the usual parade festivities.

The parade was followed by the annual Walker dinner in Jess's parents backyard and then once that was done, later in the evening, Jess's parents hosted a family dinner for Gennie's family and ours in the backyard (talk about a long day!)

Once the guests went home, the cousins had fun getting into the dressups while waiting for the Canada Day fireworks to start.