our wedding pics...for real

I am so excited to share these pictures with you.  We were so incredibly blessed to have our infinitely talented friend Mark McCall photograph our wedding.  Out of the nearly 900 pictures he took, I have chosen my 100 or so (okay...150 or so) favorite.  And that was an absolute chore because there were so many good ones.

Our friend Emilie wrote a blog post (which you can read here) about our wedding that is so touching to me as well as fun to experience our wedding from a different perspective.  It is honor to be loved by her and her family and call her family.  (Emilie also got married this summer, just 5 weeks after we did!  Her wedding was gorgeous and perfect in the most quintessentially Maine spot on Mount Desert Island.  It was definitely the summer of love!)

There are so many things I still recall about the wedding that I had forgotten.  Like how Sandi and I did rock, paper, scissors to see who would walk down first.   Like how when the owners of the house made a second, very unwanted and very long visit inside the house and I said I was going to go give them a piece of my mind,  two of our family members said, "Oh no you are not!" and made me go sit down.  (Is that not love?)  Like sitting on the rocks with Sandi and having Reed come down with his guitar to serenade us.  (I think it was a jazzy version of "Twinkle Twinkle".)

Regarding the pictures, at first I was like wow, that is too many pictures to post and then I was like they are too incredible not to post.  So here is our wedding album.

We hired Mark to come for an extra few hours to make sure each family got to have a family portrait taken.  It isn't too often that people get all gussied up and we wanted to capture everyone for their own living room walls.  Are these not beautiful people?

Matt, Ange, Beckett, Anna and Brady

Emilie, Tim, Skyler and Reed

Brian, Kathryn, Braeden and Michaela

Kristi, Michael, Makenna and Brevan

Trish and Brock

I swear we didn't set out for a cry fest.  It just sort of happened.

Oh this kid...  And Ella yawning in the background...

Sure they are exchanging rings, but have you SMELLED THIS THING?!

Ella was cold so Dwight very lovingly gave her his vest.   I think he just wanted to tie some charcoal into our ivory/black theme. 

There you have it: our entire guest list. 

Thank god for sisters.  I cringe to think of where we would be without these three amazing women.

Maya gave Mark no small amount of material to work with.

Mark told us to change it up a little. I was posing and asking him if this is what he meant and Sandi was holding her hand out to him saying, "Now, careful what you ask her to do..."

We kind of have a thing for beautiful food.   I love that Mark seems to as well.  A thousand thank you's to our friends and family for making this food so stunning and delicious.

Caprese sticks

For the kiddos: crudités with spinach dip in bread cups.

Apple, beet, cheddar tarts

lobster salad

Just the right number of cooks in this kitchen. 

Reed really, really, REALLY wanted us to cut the cake.  He kept coming and asking, "Is it time to cut the cake?"

Yes, Reedo!  It finally is!!!

First Reed...

Then each other...

There is never a family gathering where a child doesn't get swung around.  Our wedding was no exception.

One of my personal highlights of the evening was singing "Wagon Wheel" with Matt.  I was especially psyched when Trish, Maya and Robbi came and joined us for some harmony.  I never hear that song now that my whole heart isn't filled with happiness. 

I was reflecting right before the wedding how wonderfully unusual (although perhaps not so much in this day and age) it was to have our children be such an integral part of our wedding.  Different than second marriages and blended families, this was their wedding too, with their parents marrying each other as opposed to a step parent.  Their presence and excitement, their ownership over this event and their own hard work and contribution to the campaign that allowed marriage to be a possibility added a depth that is hard to catalogue.  In the weeks, and now months, that have followed, they say things like: "That was the best day of my life" along with a soft, contented sigh. 

These are my two favorite pictures of Sandi.  I think she is simply stunning and captivating in every way. 

And there you have it.  We are blessed, this we know.

Thank you Mark.  Seriously... thank you.

some firsts

I am happy to report that we have all mostly survived the return to school.  We kind of know who has to wear sneakers on what day for PE, what the expected daily homework routine looks like, who will be taking gymnastics when, we have filled out forms, paid for 4th grade recorders, we know what my work schedule looks like and how to make the machine of family life run as bit more smoothly.  

As of the end of the first day of school we also completed our summer manifesto of sorts.  The last thing on there was "take Mommy to the water slides at Playland Adventures" and we did that in the 90 degree heat after the first day of school.  We also sprung for ice cream AND pizza for dinner because it is hard to go back to school when it is still summer outside. 

But make no mistake, the beginning of school is a bumpy transition.  Luckily their minds aren't too rusty since they kept up with work over the summer but their summer life is incredibly carefree.  School is not really in that same vein.  Secondly, the kids don't exactly want to go to school.  They would very much prefer to be home fighting with each other.  I do, however, think that they are reasonably content there.  I feel like we hit the teacher jackpot for each of the girls this year and that sets much of my heart at ease.  Fingers crossed for a good year for both of them. 

They decided to go matchy matchy on the first day:

Ella is over the whole "take a picture of me in front of my school" thing.  But Maya isn't!

This came home with Maya her first day.  I asked her if she changed it or if her teacher did.  She said, "I looked at it and said, 'Mom and Dad? I don't have a Dad!' So I changed it!"  I love this kid.

Another first:  I have not signed myself up for every volunteer opportunity known to man (or woman, or stay-at-home mom).  I am very interested in getting some stuff of my own done this year and don't want to commit myself all over the place.  I want to write and continue what I started last fall in The Great House Purge.  Sandi is on the band wagon with me now and stuff is getting DONE. We have already thoroughly deeply cleaned and cleaned out 3 rooms and the basement.  I'm talking behind the washing machine, the top of the refrigerator and the depths of each closet. We are taking no prisoners and have a direct donation line to our local Good Will. 

Along the line of firsts, Maya picked the first cantaloupe out of her cantaloupe patch and was very impressed with the results.  It tasted just like a cantaloupe!! (I confess I was as shocked as she was.)

And this also happened.  I don't really know what to say about it.  

A few days after I took this picture, she decided to put it on her giant stuffed dolphin, Dixie. But Dixie is enormous and in order keep the sleep mask over her dolphin eyes Maya had to reach the strap over her far away dorsal fin.  The elastic band couldn't withstand the stretch and it snapped.  Now Maya is using is as a toy horse bridle or as a Barbie blanket depending on the day. 

The start of school has been an interesting one for me.  I have piles of stuff to catch up on, the outside  and the inside of the house both demanding my attention from my summertime abandonment.  I have also been overjoyed to get back on my bike.  I have also enjoyed some level of physical breakdown with a horrible migraine the first day of school, a few days of feeling like I was fighting a GI thing and then getting slammed by an intense head cold that came with a lovely fever.  All in a week's time.

I guess I sort of suck at transition.