We went to the wedding of Jim's cousin, Greg. Now, let me tell you when I first met him, Greg was "little Greg". I remember him dancing at our wedding like it was yesterday -- crazy man on the dance floor. He had a GREAT time!
Well, "little Greg" has grown up and created a great little life for himself out in Colorado. I remember teasing him when he was in high school that he should go to a "good school" (meaning OSU) -- but he chose University of Dayton instead. Don't tell him, but I think maybe it was a good choice for him! He found some really great friends there, and got a great education that has led him to be (from what I hear) a pretty awesome management consultant.
Let me back up for a minute. I want to explain a few family dynamics to you. Jim's dad only has one brother (Ed) -- and Ed and his wife, Jean, have three children. They live 5 miles from us, which means their children grew up 5 miles from us. So, what do you think the odds are that two of their three children would get engaged really close together? I don't know what they are, but it happened. I was still excited from the first engagement (Greg & Cat) when I heard the news that the second engagement (Lisa and Jehu) happened! How exciting!
We quickly found out that neither of the weddings would be held close to home. Lisa and Jehu wanted to be married in Seattle, where they have made their life, and Greg and Cat chose to get married in Colorado, where they live. A few discussion between Jim and his siblings and we decided to "divide and conquer" -- splitting up going to the weddings so that our family would be represented at both.
Jim and I decided pretty quickly to go to Colorado. We hadn't been there before, and the wedding weekend was a little more flexible for us to get away. We toyed with the idea of taking the kids, but decided this would be an adults only weekend. His brother, Jeff, and sister-in-law, Margaret, would be going to Colorado with us, as would Jim's mom, Linda. (His other brother Jerry and his wife Kerstin chose to go to Seattle).
While I know we would have LOVED Seattle, we LOVED going to Colorado! We felt like kids again -- we dropped the kids off at school in the morning, and our flight wasn't out until 4 pm. So, we took our time and went to breakfast, and packed the car, and left notes around the house before leaving to pick up the others to go to the airport.
We had a direct flight to Denver, which was nice.....we flew Southwest, which is quickly becoming my very favorite airline to fly. When our steward came around to take drink orders, I joked with him and told him it was my 21st birthday and asked if I got a free drink. "Of course, he said!" I questioned him several times to be sure I wouldn't end up paying an arm and a leg for my drink but it was free -- and so was Jim's. So, our trip was off to a good start!
We chuckled when we got to Denver, because it is so flat there. "Where's the mountains?" LOL We soon drove into them. Silverthorne, the town where the wedding was, is beautifully nestled in the foothills of the mountains. I wasn't prepared for the quick sunset or the quick change in temperature though! We checked in and said we would go back out afterwards and take some sunset pictures. Well, that didn't happen that evening -- til we got up to our room and back down -- the sun was gone! :( We drove a bit to find something to eat and get our bearings, but returned to our hotel to get some rest for the rest of the weekend.
Friday we spent a good part of the day just driving around and seeing the sights. We found a great little restaurant for lunch, called the Arapahoe Cafe -- it just looked fun to go into and see what they had. We asked their specialty and they said "BBQ". We all tried different things, but everything was so good!
We drove around a bit in the afternoon to find the church and the reception hall, and also where we needed to go later in the evening for the rehearsal dinner. We saw tons of bicycles, and runners, and boaters....Jeff was looking for elk (we didn't see any on Friday) -- but I did find something kind of fun. I was taking pictures of a lake and heard this noise behind me in a tree. I thought it was a bird who was yelling at me to protect her young. I quickly figured out that I was wrong. I would hear a noise and then hear something fall from the tree. I finally figured out that it was a chipmunk in a tree -- and it was throwing nuts at me to chase me away! :)
Can you see the chipmunk in the tree?
I quickly left her (or him) alone -- I wasn't sure what might happen next! When I turned around, this is what I saw:
I'm such a sucker for nature shots anyways, but man, I was in heaven!!! And the beauty just kept coming!
This was at sunset on Friday night -- by the rehearsal dinner.
Here's the beautiful bride and handsome groom (and his brother Mike, too!) I have lots more to say about their wedding, but will talk about it in my next post -- which happens to be about the vocation of marriage! :)
Some honeymooners we found along the way
More honeymooners! (Jeff & Margaret)
Jeff finally found an elk!!!
No, I take that back. He found about 23 elk! I couldn't get them all in one frame -- they were too spread out. I can tell you that I absolutely did not know there were elk in FRONT of that fence as you see here -- I may not have captured as many pictures if I would have known that! LOL
