Some of  our wedding pictures are here!!! I’m so excited!!!

When Barry and I were living in Newcastle, Australia we fell in love with the area. As we weren’t working (what was that work visa even for, right?) we had a lot of time to discover the area. For the first few months we did not have a car and spent the majority of our time walking.

All over Australia there are salt water baths right on the ocean’s edge. They are public swimming pools and the locals use them with regularity. We were lucky enough that we lived blocks from both the beach and some public salt water baths. The Newcastle Baths were incredible. We would go there often and attempt to lap swim or even flounce in the sun. The Newie Baths not only got used by the locals to swim, but many, many wedding parties would come to the baths to get their pictures taken.

We soon discovered a local photographer named Heath Wade. Heath took pictures all over the Newcastle area. One picture that we loved was of our precious Newcastle Baths! Of course we were poor and could not afford a fancy picture. On my 25th birthday Barry gave me a card with this print on it. (This card is currently framed in our office…).

You know how the story goes….we bought our car and spent the remainder of our time in OZ bumming around and working a few glorious days. When we got back to the ‘States we talked about ordering the picture from Heath Wade, but again, were just starting our ‘real’ jobs and didn’t feel we could afford it. Not to mention the fact that our postage stamp sized house really warranted beautiful pictures.

Jump to this summer. I decided that I was going to get Barry this print as a wedding gift and so I began my e-mail exchange with Heath Wade. The only hitch was that I had to call Australia to pay Heath the big bucks and the only time this could work with the time difference was when Barry was home!!! Being wrapped up in the whole wedding process I chalked my need for privacy and loud talking in a closed room to food/picture stress, which there really was none of.

An interesting thing happened after I ordered the print. Barry started mumbling about maybe getting it for our new house!!! I had to e-mail Heath and tell him that if Barry Miller from the USA contacts him, tell him he can not help. I had to play down the whole picture….was it really that cool? Maybe Heath Wade wasn’t in business anymore? I’m not very good at being sneaky or keeping secrets that I know will make someone happy. (Reference Barry’s birthday the past two years when he has guessed where we were going because I drop such huge hints out of my own excitement)

Needless to say, the print arrived the week of the wedding and I was able to give it to Barry directly after the ceremony. He was both shocked and excited. We took it to a local shop to get it framed and were shocked at how much it costs to frame something. Since this whole print is something we’ve thought about and lusted after for years, we paid a pretty penny and now have it hanging above our fireplace. (Excuse the photo I took of it, apparently the frame shop wasn’t joking when they said that the glass has a glare problem.) Another post, another day to write about Barry’s gift to me….

I finally broke down and scrubbed the paint proclaiming us “Just Married” off of the car.  I kept hoping the rain would do the work for me, but it just didn’t seem like it was going to happen.  Two weeks of some pretty good rain and we were still left with “Ju   Mar  d”.  It was starting to get a little wierd when I showed up to the commuter parking lot by myself or when I gave other people rides.  Sure it was entertaining to volunteer to drive and then wait for my passengers to find out they were cruising in the Bride on Board mobile, but you can only use the same material for so long right?  Anyway, about an hour of scrubbing later, we are now back to a normal Element paint job.

If you were at our wedding this past weekend I have no doubt you noticed our fabulous flower girl, Guinevere LIttlejohn. She rocked it! Gigi and I have a special relationship. She once referred to me as her favorite girl, which made my day. Since then we’ve been buddies. Her mom, Tamara, teaches 4th grade and our classes do many different activities together.

I love seeing the Littlejohn family come and go outside my classroom window, waving or stopping by depending on their schedule. Bradley (Mr. Littlejohn) is so kind and caring, often holding Jude, conversing with Gigi, and minding Martha, their dog, in the same breath.

When Guinevere found out that Barry and I were getting married she brought up the idea of being a flower girl and wearing her pink Easter dress.  Of course, we couldn’t pass up such a perfect idea. Before the ceremony Gigi was one of the few people that I could converse with that didn’t seem to be worried about details (was the food going to be ready, drinks made, cake cut, aisle ready, grandparents in shade, etc.).

We had conversations about stickers, flower petal tossing, and why I chose to wear flip flops and not high heals. She was shocked that I would choose flippies to high heals, as she was wearing pink sparkle shoes. (I’m telling you, she rocked!) Shortly before Barry and I hit the rose petaled aisle Guinevere serenaded us with a beautiful song from the movie Enchanted. At that point we weren’t really worried that our flower girl was going to drop out for fear of people staring at her.

Of course I didn’t get to see Gigi walk down the asile. I do know that my favorite girl tossed, tossed, and tossed from her basket until there was nothing left to toss. She was beautiful, brave and full of energy. After the ceremony I hardly saw the Littlejohn family, as they had another Anacortes event to go to.

On Sunday morning I woke up and noticed a tiny pink flower on my calf muscle. It made me laugh because I had given Guinevere a sticker book as a thank you gift and she stuck me with a sticker….oh, that girl!

*Thanks Megan for the pictures.

Best idea ever….getting married! We are back home after staying at Mt. Rainier for the past few days (Thanks Pat & Janet!!!). After buzzing around Anacortes for the past 10+ days it was a wonderful way to relax.  My mom and her crew threw in a few snacks (notice the extra large cooler?) and I even brought my bouquet so we were well fed and had gorgeous flowers to gaze at. (when we weren’t gazing at each other or the great outdoors!)

The last time we went to Mount Rainier it rained the entire time and the park closed down due to damage done by flooding. This time was much, much better.  We ran into snow, talked about our dog, and even checked to see if the i phone could phone home. We hiked up, down and all around until our poor little legs couldn’t hike anymore…then we hit the hot tub. Our very own, mind you. Fantastic first four days of being married.

More posts to come about the wedding. If you have any pictures please send them our way!

I’ve talked to several people about their wedding day and there seems to be a pretty common answer: it went by in a blur. I thought I would take this advice and try and step back and take the scene in as often as I could, which I did. To be honest, it really didn’t slow things down too much. I realized things went by pretty fast when i went to bed that night without eating a single cookie. Typically, if there are cookies out on a table I’ll make sure I’ve sampled 4 or 5. Okay, usually it’s more like 9 or 10, but the point is that I enjoy a good cookie and was distracted enough not to have a single one. Blur indeed.
I know I didn’t get to talk to everyone who was there and I apologize for that, and thank you all for coming to show your support.

Nope, it’s not a war demonstration. It’s just the grill for tomorrow’s celebration.

The rehersal dinner was a success. I say this with a heavy emphasis on food and people. Both of which were quite good. I think this is the first time that everyone from both immediate families was able to get together at the same time, so it was it was fun from that perspective alone. As for the food, I ate too much as usual. That’s actually my empty plate in the photo.

I got the distinct impression that Hannah was starting to doubt me. She’s been in Anacortes since last Friday figuring out any last minute details for the wedding, and my only job for the early part of this week was to make sure there would be a keg on site for Saturday’s festivities. Easy enough, I figured. One quick phone call and I’m done. However, Hannah wasn’t too impressed that the order hadn’t been placed when she talked to me on the phone last night. Neverfear, my dialing fingers sprung into action this morning and the Rockfish Brewery’s Pale Ale bevies have been secured for Saturday.

As a little something extra, I have gotten Kurt to be the official keg tapper.

It seems that our wedding day is quickly approaching. As we work to iron out some of the last minute details, we wanted to put up a quick post to remind people that they are welcome to bring their tents and camp at the Elvrum house. That being said, Hannah would prefer that you wait to set up your canvas castle until after the ceremony (no hiding the tent under your seat either Adam).