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Here comes the bride...
2007-01-15 at 12:07 p.m.
Well, my baby sister is married! Can you believe it? B and I left Thursday for Santa Barbara airport and drove up to Buellton (just past Solvang, about 45 minutes from SB). We took a short drive through UCSB and Isla Vista, and it was fun to see some old haunts after 11 years. The campus sure has changed, I hardly recognized anything due to all the new construction. IV pretty much looked the same, except Cafe Roma was replaced by a starbucks...how rude!
Anyhow, we took a nice drive up to Buellton, stopping along the way at Mission La Purisima. Apparently it's the only complete mission in California. It was fun to stop at, if for no other reason than the long horn cattle, burros, sheep, goats, and horses. We had dinner at the groom's parent's house, in the middle of wine country, where the wedding would be held. It was a challenging drive up winding roads in the dark, but we were rewarded with good wine at the end.
We stayed at the Pea Soup Anderson's Best Western in Buellton...don't ever stay there! What a miserable place. At least it was close to good pea soup, but that was about all it had going for it. I spent Friday morning at the hairdressers with the sister doing a trial run on her hair, poor B was stuck in the hotel by himself. I told him he could come to the hairdressers, but for some reason, he didn't want to! ;) He and I did some wine tasting later in the day in Solvang which seemed to perk his spirits up. The rehearsal was at the groom's parents house, a much easier drive in daylight. We then went downhill to a pizza place for the rehearsal dinner. Good pizza, salad, beer, pinball, and air hockey...my kind of rehearsal dinner!
Saturday - aka Wedding Day - dawned freezing cold, literally! I went with the sister to get her hair done for real, along with mom, our sister-in-law, and me (my mom convinced me at the last minute). We all looked ravishing if I may say so myself! We then jetted to the hotel to gather stuff, the sisters went on ahead while B and I got ready in our room. We headed up to the house again in time for me to get lots of (hopefully) good pictures of my baby sister getting ready for her wedding. She looked sooooooooo pretty. I will post pictures soon, I promise.
The wedding went very smoothly. The groom cried when he saw my sister, and she looked very happy, so I figured maybe it was ok if they got married after all ;) The groom's brother-in-law was the minister (the internet kind). He did a very nice job, incorporating many things he learned from his father, who was a minister.
After photos in the icy cold wind outside, we went down to the Firestone Brewery (yes, of The Batcelor and tire fame), for a very simple, but fun reception. The 20-odd guests had plenty of room to enjoy dancing, steak or salmon (guess what I had), wine, and a delicious cake prepared by the groom's sister, just so my sister could eat it! What a great gal :) I had fun taking many pictures, dancing with a friend of the family, who at 92 is a better dancer than most anyone I've dance with, getting a few dances in with B, and catching up on old times with the few family that were there. Overall, it all went great!
Sunday dawned colder than cold, and by brother and his wife, mom and dad, cousin and her son, the famous dancer, B and I went for Breakfast at the Pea Soup Anderson's (no, not for soup). B and I had to then take our leave to catch our plane back in SB. Everyone else went back up to the house to watch the happy couple open presents before they left on their honeymoon to Fiji (wow!), where they are now hopefully walking on sandy beaches whispering sweet nothings in each other's ears.
The drive back to SB was nice, we stopped at several beaches along the way to touch the water and get sand in our shoes. We stopped at UCSB too to try and get me a new sweatshirt, but the bookstore was closed due to the holiday I'd forgotten about. It was a nice walk down memory lane though, as most of the center of campus had remained the same over the years, and I found I actually knew where I was going after we got past the perimeter of new construction.
Flying out of SB regional airport was an experience as it remains as tiny as it was 11 years ago (although this was the first time I'd flown in or out of it, ironically). B and I killed some time in the lovely coastal sunshine reading local free papers until it was time to have our drinks taken away from us by security (and here there was no way to get any before boarding!!), and board our tiny plane back to the big city of LV...where it was also freezing cold...gotta love those artic masses!
All-in-all a nice trip, a good time with family, and a lovely wedding. I wish my sister and my new brother-in-law a romantic honeymoon and a glorious life together!
My Hero of the Day:Quoted:
Listening to:
it's been a while... - 2007-04-01
Here comes the bride... - 2007-01-15
it's been a looooong time! - 2006-11-05
"I Am" - 2006-09-17
the first week of school - 2006-09-02
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:I
READ: I'm reading now... "A Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens (gave up on the Les Mis...for now anyway) I just finished... "Bird by Bird" a (very good) book on writing by Anne Lamont (for my class)
Yes, I do.