Video!

Ann took some short video clips of the ceremony and the wedding, now posted here for your enjoyment! Here's the start of the ceremony, right up to the part where dad tripped and almost fell over my train...


Here's the first dance, "Love you Madly" by Cake, rocked by Howlinwood:


And here's more dancin' and general revelry. It's fun to see everyone having such a good time!


Update: Arrrggghhh! After being completely unable to upload the video at all, today blogger seemed to be working correctly. I can see the videos in my preview window, but when I publish the post to the site I just get the blank boxes with and x in the corner... So frustrating! I'm going to just leave it for now, and hope that maybe it just takes time to populate the links, or something like that.

Later Update: OK, now I'm trying it with YouTube. So far so good on the uploading and embedding... I hope you guys can actually watch them this time!

More Pictures!

Tombi's pictures are now online, and there are some real gems. You can check them out here.

I picked up the Official Pictures from my Uncle Fred today, and they are awesome. It'll take me some time to upload and organize them, but I will get on it soon. I also got 3 discs from Dave and Anita with pictures they and a couple of their friends took. I'll get all of those up on the web soon too, and eventually have a single, combined album with all the best shots for your viewing pleasure. :)

Spectacular Gifts

We received so many thoughtful, wonderfully generous gifts from our friends and family! We are truly blessed. We have gift certificates galore to Hardware Sales, REI, Bakerview Nursery, the Garden Spot, and Cloud Mountain Farms that we can't wait to use. We got so many beautiful, fun and useful things... thank you, everyone.

Two gifts in particular stand out above the rest for sheer spectacular coolness however, so I want to show them off here. First, is the Chevy Luv (yes, that's really what it's called) which Bo, Charlotte, Abe & Ross repaired & painted and gave to us, complete with a big bow on top:We really needed a truck! It'll save so much wear and tear on the back seat of my Honda Civic, which is where we used to haul firewood and rocks and large bags of potting soil. :) This truck has a long history of belonging to various of our friends. The last time a title was registered it belonged to Greg, so I guess one of these weeks we'll need to meet him down at the licencing place and fill out some Lost Title and Title Transfer paperwork, at least if we want to get it legal to drive out on the roads. But for now it's great to have something to, say, fill with dirt, fruit trees and tools to haul around to where we're going to plant our orchard.

The second truly spectacular gift I want to highlight is an absolutely gorgeous quilt handmade by Mary Hone, an old friend of the Mapes who has known Cary since he was a tiny baby. Not only is the craftsmanship of this quilt top-notch, the colors and patterns make it a true work of art: I've hung it on the wall in the front bedroom, which is the only wall really large enough to accomodate it. I know Mary probably intended for us to put it on our bed, but I just can't bear to think of muddy little kitty feet tracking across it. At least not yet! It really is stunning, the picture above doesn't do it justice.

A Good Time was had by all...

Photos courtesy of Aimee & Henrietta. Thanks! I'll post more up as I get them, and as I have the energy. Getting married is exhausting. I hadn't realized how tired I would be after a week of working on getting ready and then the emotional high of the wedding itself, so I'm really enjoying taking it easy right now. Sunny day, new graphic novel, lots of leftover lemonade.... Ahhhh.

Dahlias & Cupcake Prototypes

I spent two lovely hours this morning picking dahlia's from a local gentleman's garden. He has over 400 plants, and they are all staked and beautifully cared for. I could have picked for hours, but instead I filled my 8 buckets as full as they could go and brought them home. I'll go back on friday for more, most likely...
This afternoon Aimee came over and we decorated some muffins with various possible designs using frosting, berries, and carrot & cucumber cut-outs (we'll use peaches or melons for the wedding day) until we found two designs we really liked. Don't they just look darling?
A lot of other stuff got done today too: Cary picked up the tuxes, he also went to Costco for the final shopping trip, and Dave finished the railing on the observation tower just for starters. I'm too exhausted now to remember everything, but I feel good about what we have done and what is still left to do... and I'm really looking forward to a facial & a massage tomorrow!

Liquor & Ground Beef

Today we went to the liquor store and bought all the alcohol for the bar. We got some wine as well, and most of the mixers we'll need. Tomorrow Cary is planning to go to Costco again with his brother and they'll pick up the rest of what we need, and then we'll be all set to par-tay. We did pretty well, budget wise, too - which means I can buy more flowers tomorrow. Yay!

In the evening my Grandma Joy, Dale, Shani and Janet came out and made all the hamburger patties out of the ground beef I'd thawed. It was great; they did all the work. Seriously, I didn't touch a single patty exept to put on the grill for dinner tonight! These ladies just busted out and in no time flat the job was done, and all that was left for me to do was to put the tupperwares containing the finished pattied back into the freezer. Now that's a sucessful work party - thanks guys! :)

Cupcake Tower Decorated

I just finished decorating the cupcake tower this morning. I've been just working on it a little at a time, in my spare moments, for several weeks now. It feels good to have it done, and I think it turned out really nice.

It started a few weeks ago when Charlotte helped me put a coat of Gesso on it, because white cardboard just looks a bit too much like white cardboard.
(Wow - check out all those wedding dishes in the china cabinet!) After the paint dried, I applied clear vynil contact paper on the top side of all the circles, so they will be resistant to moisture - I'd hate to have a toppled cupcake lead to structural collapse! It also made the surface look much smoother and more uniform.

I started hot-glue-gunning the daisy trim to the edges of the circles after that. It was going pretty well until about a week ago when a bad case of operator error burnt quite a bit of skin off of my index finger. I took a break from the hot glue for a few days after that, which gave me time to glue the green & white striped paper to the supports.
This morning I decided I was sufficiently healed to finish the daisy trim, and now as you can see the whole thing is decorated & assembled. All that's left is to stack it with books to help the circles flatten out and the tabs settle in before the big day.

Here's a close up so you can see the striped paper and the daisies better:
It looks a little home-tech if you look at it closely - it's just cardboard covered with paper & glued on daisies, after all - but once it's covered with fabulously tasty organic cupcakes I think it'll be quite the stunning center peice!