At last! I have a few hours to kill, I have wedding pics, I have no excuses but to update! So, for those of you who weren't able to be there...

The Wedding

It was great! Not too many people, the weather was perfect, the church looked awesome, everybody looked real good... Not as good as Kelly, mind you, but pretty good nonetheless. After the seating of the grandparents and parents, Kelly's sister and sis-in-law lit the candles. What nobody told me was that the mothers and Kelly had decided at the last minute to have the candles for the Unity Candle ceremony lit at that time, instead of by the mothers. I almost went and blew them out!

Then came the processional. Our small army of attendants came on stage, but I hardly remember that because I was so nervous and waiting to see Kelly. Our flower girls were adorable! One looked at her feet the whole way, one got a petal stuck in her dress and veered off into one of the aisles as she tried to get it out, and the third had to come down with her mom at the end because she was so nervous! Oh, and our dapper little ring bearer is a heart breaker already!

Then came the moment I'd been anticipating for 32 years. My bride came down the aisle.

It really is a blur after that. I can only write what happened here because I have one of the programs...

My youth pastor from high school prayed an opening prayer, our pastor spoke a little, then I washed her feet, which is something I've done a few times in our relationship. After which, she washed my feet. We tried to light the unity candle, but there was no wick!!! We tried melting a hole in the top for a few seconds, to see if it was just hiding under a little of the wax, but we found nothing. So, I had the great idea of sticking my candle in the small puddle of wax, and just blowing her candle out! (When we got back from the honeymoon, we found out that the candle had simply been upside down!)

Then we exchanged rings, with no pranks or tomfoolery, and finally we took communion. Our pastor announced us, my youth pastor prayed for us, and we took off!

We hopped in my Mom's convertible, and drove off to take some pics along the gorge. Then we ended up at the Corbet Grange Hall. We had a fantastic time, just hanging out and mingling with friends and family. It was great! We were toasted by the friends we love most, we tossed her bouquet and garter belt, we ate much cake. Mmm, cake...

Then it was off to the honeymoon!

We started with a short hike to Larch Mountain, where we had a great view of God's creation. Then dinner at Multnomah Falls Lodge, then our house. We opened our presents the next morning, the hit the road for Lake Chelan, WA. Sunday night we spent at a cute little Bed & Breakfast, then we rode the ferry 50 miles up the lake to Stehekin. It was gorgeous! On the way up, we tried to find a nice trail and campsite in their little brochure. There was one called Rainbow Basin, which has a great view of 5 waterfalls surrounding it. The brochure said the trail was 3.5 miles long, but we got there and it turns out it's 3.5 miles from the trail head, which is like 17 miles from Stehekin. Luckily, there's a shuttle bus that runs 11 miles of it, but we settled for a shorter 5 mile hike to Bridge Creek. That's when we had our first little adventure!

The trail suddenly split, with no signs and no indication on the map as to why. On a whim, we decided to split up, since it we thought the trail should come back together after a little bit. After about 25 minutes following a trail that looked like cut down to join her trail every 20 feet, but never did, I decided I needed to find my wife! I started blazing a trail in the direction of her trail, which included walking along a fallen log 10 feet above the ground (with my 70 pound pack). Oh, and I'm shouting her name at the top of my lungs every minute or so. Finally I double back, meet my trail, and doubled back further to where we split up. I follow her trail, watching for her footprints. Finally I come to where our trails would have come together, and 40 feet past that is Kelly, pack off and feet soaking in the creek.

Anyway, we went back down to Chelan the next day. Wednesday we rented a jet ski and played on the lake. I got thrown off like 4 times when Kelly was driving, and I lost my sunglasses. I decided to tread water for a while and let Kelly ride on her own, which was a totally different experience than when I was on it.

The next day we went to Slidewaters, a water slide park in Chelan. We did some slides, but we also spend like 2 hours just reading and soaking in the sun. It was fantastic. Except for loosing my cel phone... Oh, and I got a sweet tattoo! I had it for a few days, but then it went away... After Slidewaters, we did some wine tasting and had dinner at a vineyard.

Our last night we spent in Leavenworth. We watched Harry Potter 5, and ordered pizza in the nicest hotel room we'd ever stayed in. It was cool. The next morning, we met her parents for breakfast, then drove to Yakima where my family threw us a BBQ.

Well, that's about it! We're here now, at home in our cute little house. We're pretty much all set up, except for our office, of course. We have internet all set up, I'm using an old cel phone, life is hitting its stride.

Well, that's all for now. We'll update as things progress around here. Feel free to call us if you want to come hang out! I'm work Tuesday and Thursday nights, and we have Home Fellowship on Wednesdays, but we should be open all other nights. We'd love to hang out with you!