Pre Wedding Pictures

The week before the wedding was very busy. My brother and his family arrived on Monday night and Brian's family arrived on Wednesday. Because we were a group where the kids nearly outnumbered the adults I planned to fun events for us to all do together. On Thursday we went to Multnomah Falls and Bonneville Dam. It was a perfect day for a trip to the gorge. Surprisingly there was very little wind. For those unfamiliar with the Columbia Gorge, it tends to be a large wind funnel with winds so strong it makes driving and standing difficult.


Most of the group decided to make the short hike up to the bridge. I choose to stay behind since my foot had been bothering me and I didn't want to risk injuring it.


Then after hiking to that bridge, everyone except my mom decided to make the hike up to the top of the falls. I don't have any pictures from that, but from what I am told they had the time of their lives. They ended up breaking up into 2 groups since the girls had to take frequent breaks to tie shoes and take pictures.

While they were climbing the falls the rest of us stayed behind and explored the gift shop and cool shade outside the lodge.

There is a rather sweet story about the picture below. These two darling girls are our two youngest nieces - Katie, Brian's Niece is on the left and Janessa, my niece is on the right. Katie is very outgoing while Janessa is quiet and more reserved. This was the first time they had meet each other and were both scheduled to be flower girls in the wedding. A first Janessa was a little shy about interacting with Katie, but then Katie went into the gift shop and both both of them a special purple rock. When she presented it to Janessa outside the gift shop, the two were inseparable from that point on. It was like they had known each other all their lives.


Enjoying the fun company outside the Multnomah Falls Lodge.


Two new best friends.


Once we finished at the falls we made a quick trip to the dam for a picnic and to let the kids see the sturgeon. Unfortunately because the hike to the top of falls to longer then planned this part of the trip got cut very short. But from what I heard everyone still had fun.

I love this picture of my sister.

After our fun day outside we headed inside for the wedding rehearsal. It was a good thing the wedding wasn't that evening, because during the day the construction crew had decided to do some work on the ceiling above the stage. There was a big ugly hole and brown paper all over the stage. And Kerry our wedding coordinator had spent 4 hours the day before mopping the whole area. Sadly it all had to be done again on Friday. But I didn't care because as I have stated over and over again - all that really mattered was the Brian and I were getting married.


After the rehearsal we went back to my mom's for dinner. I had arranged to have a scrumptious dinner catered by Goldies Texas Style BBQ - http://www.goldiesbbq.com/. If you are in the Portland/Vancouver area be sure to pay these people a visit. We have known Charles and Goldie for over 20 years and I can't begin to tell you how great their food is. YUM YUM YUM!!!!



This is my brother, Andy (on the left) and Brian's brother in law, Todd (on the right).


This is a picture of Tori, my maid of honor and good friend since before high school (on the left) and my sister Cathy, on the right.



This is a picture of Paul & Debbie MacLurg. I first met them back in 1987 at a college retreat right after they had gotten married and right before they moved to Vancouver. They eventually came on staff at New Heights and led our college group for several years before Paul became an Executive Pastor at New Heights. There wasn't any one else that I wanted to marry us. And luckily all though they have gone on to pursue other career interests this year, they were available for our wedding. Paul helped make it a fun day.

This is a picture of Brian (right) and Jamie (left), his best man and former roommate from College. For those of you who remember I also worked with David another roommate of theirs from college. Sadly David was not able to be at the wedding because of a preplanned family vacation. But we will plan another college roommate reunion at a later date. Apparently the three have not seen each other since David's wedding 20 years ago.
This is Brian's dad, John, his sister, Julia and of course the adorable Katie. If I remember right she was trying to tell a very interesting story.

Janessa, Katie and Katiana (far right), another one of my nieces. They were playing horsey with the jump rope and their were quiet elaborate instructions that went along with whole process.