A year in review

A year of married life has come and gone, and year two started off with a bang.  Excuse me for postdating this, but I would like to rewind and reflect on our one year mark, even if for no one other than myself.

Mount Shasta Bed and Breakfast

We made it on a wonderful little trip to Mt. Shasta to celebrate our anniversary, which I kept mistakenly calling "our second honeymoon".  I guess that works though-- anniversary trips should be like honeymoons, right?   We decided to be adventuresome and try staying at a B&B.  After scouring Yelp and TripAdvisor, we settled on Mount Shasta Bed and Breakfast, which was simply a delightful experience.

It was lovely having time to spend with each other without many of the distractions of everyday life and musing over what occurred in the last year and what might occur in the coming year(s).  I even discovered the delights of large, fluffy bathrobes for the first time.  I wonder why I hated the thought of them so much as a child... they seem so soft, cozy, and comforting to curl up in after a long day.


One thing we were not entirely prepared for was the amount of snow in the area.  Apparently, the west coast mountain ranges received much more snow than usual this last winter (spoiler alert-- another post to come, Plans vs. Snow).  But David, the host of the B&B, was most hospitable and lent us coats and gloves,  and then even snowshoes the day after we mentioned that there was too much snow to hike in some locations.  We were so incredibly blessed!

A few highlights from the trip in pictures...

Castle Crags
  our new favorite hike.  We hiked up into the crags.

Castle Lake
it's covered in snow, so you can't really see it, but it's below me.  If it were a clear day, we could have seen Mt. Shasta from here. We both fell in love with snowshoeing, and hope to do it again someday!

Sundial Bridge
we spent a day in Redding and Checked out the Turtle Bay Exploration Park and Sundial Bridge, which was neat, but not quite as impressive as I had imagined it.

Lorikeets!
at Turtle Bay.  I think this was one of Quinn's favorite parts about our day in Redding :)

Squawk!

Married!
Well, hello friends and family. During the long silence, much has happened, but the most important is that May 29th came and went, we said "I do", and we have now been happily married for four whole weeks! We've certainly kept busy, and the time really has flown by with with our honeymoon in Maui, a weekend trip to St. Louis for some friends' wedding, finding a new apartment and moving into it yesterday, and shopping for and buying expensive items like a bed. Oh yes, and also lots of adjusting.

But the wedding! I know I must be biased, but overall it really was my favorite wedding, and most everything went exactly as I imagined it. :) Thank you so much to all of you who helped make that a reality! We are so blessed with wonderful friends who made the day so memorable. There are more pictures up on Facebook, e-mail me if you don't have an account but would like to see them.

Some of the day in pictures...

Somehow we've developed an affinity for ducks, and there were a few appearances at our rehearsal!

Singing and playing before the ceremony...I just couldn't wait for the wedding to actually START :)

We sure have some great, encouraging friends!


For the recessional we used an African music video that's played a role in our developing relationship... it has a catchy tune, and it was great watching everyone get into it.

Picture time!


And what would a wedding be without the get-away car? ...
(I'm told many of the items are courtesy of the Black Hole)

Until next time, we remain the very happily married Quacky and Quirky :)

(Pictures by Emmy Gaines, http://www.searchingforthelight.com/)