Mawage

You know, "marriage" like in the Princess Bride?

Unfortunately, we have very few photos of the wedding! I guess we never really thought of that...with a professional it takes time to get you the product. SO, you have to wait (like Sarah and I) until we get those in. I can tell you from the samples he put up on Facebook...they are going to be incredible. Everyone I've talked to agrees with me...Sarah needs to consider a modeling career.

But, back to the wedding! This is going to be short as I don't remember much of it. Nono, not partying....but all I can see are flashes. The morning of the 12th was pretty stressful. I was running errands and generally trying to stay busy. Nervous as hell, but after a great phone call to a buddy of mine, I felt ten times better. I was sitting by the bay when I called him, and before signing off, he was able to ease my mind with a prayer. All of a sudden (and this is what I told him), "I've got someone sitting in the passenger seat with me now. I'm good."

It was a pretty darn cool feeling. I had no nerves after that!

So I rushed back home and Zach and I met the other guys up at Elk Point for our pre-wedding photos. Three hours flew by in a heartbeat and all of a sudden, people were showing up! We had to try and hustle Sarah into the back room so too many people wouldn't see her, but it was tough as the photographer kept wanting "one more" photo! That all got accomplished, and somehow everyone ended up near the ceremony area and I was standing down there in front. I still cannot remember walking down there. I don't remember anyone but my angel walking down the aisle...I THINK her Dad was with her. (Just kidding Jim.) I can't even remember Lucca the ringbearer coming down the aisle with Mayana holding the leash. But, the ceremony started and I heard Sarah whisper to Craig, our officiant, "Can everyone sit down now?" HA! I'm not sure how long everyone had been standing, because I couldn't see them. Seriously, it was only after Sarah said something that I noticed!

Everything was going well, but at one point (during some critical reading) I felt myself start to mist up a bit. NOT wanting to stutter and babble like I did at the proposal and when I was baptized, I quickly searched my brain for something else to think about. That's when my passenger from earlier in the day came over and I am NOT shitting you on this one. All of a sudden, Sarah, Craig and I were in what felt like a tepee. A large cloak if you will. All my concerns were gone, all my nervous emotions were gone, I couldn't see anything but Sarah. I was comfortable and serene. It was blissful and indescribable.

Now, I have had an encounter like this before in Stevensville. There was a gal that couldn't buy groceries because of some issue with food stamps. She left in tears mumbling something about taking care of her Grandmother....after a moment of deliberation, I left my aisle and ran outside after her. It was raining at the time and I caught up to her and told her to come back inside with me. Same kind of feeling...as neither one of us got wet. I bought her groceries and wished her well. But I digress...

Alright, so there I am kissing Sarah and I think people applauded. Then we're in the reception line...shaking hands and hugging a lot of people. Then I can see a plate of food in front of me. Then we're standing for toasts. Pretty quick, I'm dancing with Sarah...then my Mom (and I was right, that was basically the only time I got to talk to her) and I don't even remember what we talked about. I remember being very nervous getting the garter off Sarah while everyone stared at me. I managed to peel away from the activities and visit with my South Dakota friends who traveled all that way for such a short wedding! (Thank you guys.) I then got to visit with Rod and Jonaca...and that was it! All of a sudden, they turn the music off due to a noise ordinance, and we're headed out! (After trying to clean a little bit of the crap off Sarah's car...thanks a lot Thayne.)

We made it to the Hampton after stealing a bottle of our wine from the reception and sat on the balcony and caught up on all the activities.

The next day we slept long enough that we missed our wedding party's brunch. We floated around the rest of Saturday feeling drunk. It's amazing what a down feeling you get after riding an eight month stress-high. I've slept a lot lately, and keep feeling like I could continue sleeping.

That done, I went on a quick camping trip with Butch later in the week. Following that, Sarah and I headed to the Clearwater! Unfortunately, it was very crowded down there...but we ended up at a dandy camp up the Selway about 16 miles. Within an hour, poor Lu-dog twisted her leg and had to hobble around for the next two days. Turns out she basically tore her ACL. Pretty major surgery coming up next week. :(


We picked blackberries. A little early yet, but we got 3.5 gallons in two hours!


Our private little patch


We had a phenomenal swimming hole at camp!



Yea, the rock looks like it's two feet under. Sarah's standing on it! Gin-clean water!



Po Lu-dog




Our early morning view upriver!


And Sarah made blackberry crepes Monday morning!


It was hard to leave

So, we made it home and got things straightened out. I went to get rid of trash at Blue Creek and saw something out of place in the lake!


See that spot in the middle?


Twas a moose! Just hanging out chewing his cud.

I know this is a very choppy post. I just wanted to catch up and fill in some gaps. I plan to write a better story about the wedding in the future. Perhaps it'll go better when I have some photos to refresh my memory!

But real quick. So there I was, on the Tuesday after the wedding...thinking, "I want to get some exercise and some sun...I'll go check the trail cam!" Well, I got to the trailhead pretty quick and headed down to the camera...changed the card and boogied out of there. I was about halfway to the truck when I looked down at my ring finger...ooooohhhhh sssshhhhiiiiiitttt!! I didn't have my ring anymore! I lost it on a two mile walk in the woods! Okay, deep breaths. That's exactly when my phone rang...my Dad, just checking in to see what was going on. I was pretty short with him and started gridding my way back to the truck. I was staring at the ground and about 150 yards from the truck when I heard, "Hi!" I damn near had a heart attack when I finally looked up and noticed some guy about 5 yards from me! He asked, "Do you get cell reception up here?" Yea, I was just talking to my Dad...have you seen a ring? "Oh, you must have verizon huh?" Uhmmm, yea. Have you seen a ring? Then he said something else and I came back with, "I AM GOING TO ASK YOU ONE MORE TIME. HAVE....YOU....SEEN....A.....RING?!" All he could say was, "Oh, no man. I'll look for it on the way back to the car though." Whatever, I left him and headed to the truck, thinking, "Who do I know with a metal detector?" No ring.

First things first, check the truck. I searched the cab and then realized the first thing I did was to get stuff out of my pack before heading out. So I pulled everything out of my pack and searched. NADA. So I'm reaching in the bottom of the pack and I feel something small, metal, and round!! Getting it into the light...."DAMMIT. Bottlecap." I did this one more time with the same result. Pack empty, no ring. Panic attack. Heart attack. Light head. Check the pack ONE MORE TIME. Feel something small, round, metal...with a hole in it!! I felt like Frodo when I pulled the ring out of the pack and held it up to the light!

Disaster averted, I went back to the fella up the road, "I REALLY have to apologize for my behavior man. I just got married four days ago and I had already lost the ring." He came back with, "No problem. I thought you were just keeping to yourself." We talked for quite awhile after that. I left and got to the bottom of the hill and called my Dad to explain what happened.

Since then, I now have a bright red lanyard for it that I can wear around my neck...when I'm in the woods of course.

Well, gotta sign off. More to come later!