Remember October 3rd? Remember how great it was? Remember the smiles on the faces? No? Well, thats ok, because thanks to modern technology, you can relive it as if you were there all over again. Act now, and for a limited time only you too can watch it in HD!
Part 1 (Click here for HD version)
Part 2 (Click here for HD version)
If in the off chance you read this before sending your reply cards, Becca and I have been receiving them from folk and are definitely getting more excited over it. However, in a couple cases, people are sending them back without writing who they are. It has only been people who will not be able to make it, but unfortunately we don’t have any other way to track it.
So, the favor is that we ask that if you could write your name in the card whether you are attending or not, it would be great for us.
Thanks!
Late last week Becca and I sent out most of the invitations to our wedding, and the reply cards are starting to come back in. First thing you may have noted upon recieving yours is that they are not quite the typical traditional wedding invitation. What you may not have noted is that the one that you recieved is the only one of its kind, with only its reply card (included) to match it.
We’re getting closer to the date, and with the cards coming back to us, its very exciting and we are starting to finalize things officially (which is a strange sentence to say). Come back soon for more updates.
Becca and I were checking out flights today, and have found that Flights to Indy via Southwest are now available for the time around our wedding (example – flights from Manchester NH to Indianapolis IN for $69 one way). the airport code is IND
If you will be flying in, and you would prefer not to rent a car, possibly because you are planning on staying in a cabin at Bradford Woods for example, please let us know as we may be able to arrange for a shuttle/pick up from the airport to Bradford Woods, and back again afterwards. But in order to do this, you need to let us know.
Additionally, if you are even remotely thinking about staying at the Woods instead of one of the greater Martinsville areas finest hotels, let us know now so we can make sure that there are cabins available for you to stay in.
In any case, whether you book flights now or later, or are driving, or hoofing it, please let us know how you plan to arrive just because we are interested.
Here it is, just over 5 months to the big day and we are still planning away. We are plugging away at getting the important things taken care of, including having a date, a location, a person to marry us, and a photographer (more on that one later). We are still working on getting a registry put together, as well as floral “arrangements” and alcohol (which is surprisingly proving to be one of the hardest bits of it all even though we know exactly what we want for this one). Lodging for the event is to be had in part at the Woods (contact us if you are interested – seriously, if you don’t then you will not be able to stay there) as well as several hotels in the area, varying in distance from BW. Stay tuned as we do really intend on keeping this space up to date on it.
In more recent days, as in sometime last week, we created a Facebook group for folks to interact with since many people we know who in turn we intend to invite are also on Facebook. If you are on Facebook, and/or are now interested in joining after reading this amazingly in-depth posting, you can join our wedding group at http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=555877945&v=feed&story_fbid=83366347652#/group.php?gid=81762888296 (maybe…it may be a secret group so the direct link may or may not work for you if you were not invited originally. if thats the case, please let us know).
Thats what we got right now. In other news, after 6 months of unemployment, I have a new job at the Concord Family YMCA as the After School and Camping Programs Director, which is a good thing, cause we have a wedding to pay for!
Well, maybe not fully, but the ball is starting to roll. we massively changed the layout of things as the way it was before made it difficult to quickly find information that you may actually have an interest in. Don’t be fool by the new layout and titles to sections at the top, as there is still just as much info to be shared with the new layout as there was before, meaning there is still plenty of blanks for us to fill in. But, as we find things out, then we can share it with you more easily. Enjoy.
Beccas parents are in town visiting right now, currently watching the “edited so far” edition of the engagement video (currently at around longer than it needs to be) entailing everything before, during, and after the “race”, including her reaction to finding out that both Jaime and Jeremy are in town specifically for her. It’s fun stuff, and I really enjoy the video, but I’ve seen it a few times, so I am ok for the moment, but it did remind me of when we would do adventure races back at Bradford Woods.
During the Fall 2002 season, Jeremy, Nate and I found a couple of BMX bikes that we decided to try to ride on all the trails really fast. After trying to take the bikes on a particularly hilly and full of trees trail, we elected to not continue because we liked our bodies in tact (for the day), but we started thinking of how cool it’d be to race around the property on BMX bikes and doing other stuff too. then we remembered that we almost died, and thought that perhaps mountain bikes may be a better choice. And what if we incorporated climbing into the mix? and what about boating? Archery? why not? And over the course of the next two weeks, Jeremy and I started to piece it all together, and put together what we thought would be the ultimately awesomest home brewed adventure race ever.
If you are familiar with Bradford Woods, or have access to a property map, The race started at the gatehouse near the entrance to the Woods off 67 with a biking leg that went from the entrance along the road up Memorial trail, onto ACA trail, down Sasafrass trail, back along Tipple Trail, and then following the road into Observatory field ending at the climbing tower. the second leg was to race up and back down the climbing tower. Once off the tower, the third leg began, which was running. The runners would run from the climbing tower up the road/trail to Agape Lodge, across the bridge and back along village trail to the archery range, where the racer needed to then shoot and hit four different targets each at different distances. Once the archer actually hit each target, they could then begin the next leg, which was another running portion, following village trail past the amphitheater and down switchback trail to the beach. Once at the beach, they needed to follow an orienteering course to find their paddles, which they would need for the next leg which was canoing. With paddle in hand, the teams needed to race from the beach to towaki beach and back, making sure to pick up their teams bandanna.
When all was said and done, it was a blast of a time. we had 5 different teams competing, including “Team Petr” which was a one person team (all other teams were 4-5 people each). Teams were randomly drawn out of a hat, and somehow my team randomly consisted of myself, Jeremy, Kari, and Rose who became “Team Apple Pie”, and then proceeded to win the race. Needless to say, everyone thought it to be a fix. But we won, and thats more important than fair play, even though we did.
We tried to run another adventure race the following spring, using the same formula, just rearranging the course, so it started with a sprint across the dam followed by climbing then biking, but the race ended early, first because of hail, then eminent threat of tornadoes, though there wasn’t any. We called the race right around the fire building portion (a new element) and headed back to Griffith house to drink and wait out the storm.
Late this September Becca and I will be meeting up with Jeremy in Portland, Oregon to compete in an adventure race with him against the rest of his family. It will require all of my strength and might to overcome the challenges that lay ahead, as well as the need for an iron stomach. The only thing at this point keeping us back is that we still need a team name. It will be amazing.
Ok, so with camp in session, I have been a bit busy, and neither of us have really had a chance to really make any concrete decisions. I’ve had a lot of amazing ideas of things that can be done, but most of them go against the grain of traditional ideas, so they will most likely be thrown out.
That being said, camp is coming to a close, and Becca and I will actually have time to talk and figure some things out. Additionally, Becca has been editing our engagement video, and we will have that posted here in time.
In the meantime, heres an awesome picture of me:
Camp is around the corner, as in 2 weeks, so for the last 2 and a half weeks, I’ve been pretty much focusing on nothing but that. In the middle of it all, I did manage to make a call to the Woods to see if I could get a hold of the retreats coordinator who I’d been emailing. It ends up that she quit, and her last day was a couple days after my last contact with her, and she never passed the info along that we were looking.
In the interim at least, our friend Shane has taken responsibility for retreats. This is very good, as it not only means that we are actually talking to someone who cares, its someone we know in the first place, so we feel much better about it. We are just waiting to hear back from him regarding a few dates, and then next thing you know, we may have some dates set!
Also, over the weekend, you probably heard that the Midwest took on some heavy flooding in some areas, Bradford Woods and Martinsville included. below are some photos Jaime Head sent us who in turn got them from someone else. The funny thing is, all these photos are of spots that we were talking about having the ceremony or the reception of both. So, here is a sneak peak of whats (maybe) to come for our gala event:
Back where the cars are…thats one spot
Here you can see the dam, which overlooks the lake, a very pretty spot
And heres the pavilion by the beach, which is also a wonderful spot. the dam would be about in the upper left corner of the photo.
So, so far so good, right?
So, obviously, if you have been paying attention to this site, you will notice the significant lack of updates in the last two months. Unfortunately to say, there has not been much to update on regarding our impending wedding of the century(!). One of our catchups is that we do not know where we would like to have the wedding, since I’m from Illinois, Becca is from Connecticut, we live in New Hampshire, and we met in Indiana, which pretty much sums up our 4 most realistic choices (the 5th being Pennsylvania, but I think I have been outvoted for that one)
Of those four, Indiana is our first choice, as it is where we met, we’ve had a lot of great experiences there, and it would bring things back full circle. The biggest concern for us is that we were not sure if we would be able to get married in Indiana, because if we were to, we would want it to be at Bradford Woods (www.bradwoods.org), and when we used to live and work there, there was a semi-strictly enforced “we don’t do weddings” policy that varied depending on who asked to be married there. So we thought that the best course to take was to get in touch with my old boss who still works there, hoping he could pull some strings if need be. Well, if you know Jim, its no surprise, but he is a very difficult person to get a hold of. I first started calling him around mid February, and finally got a hold of him about late April.
It was great to speak with him, and find out more about whats been happening since we’ve been gone, and he was very excited to hear that we were engaged and very excited for us to want to get married at the Woods, and that yes, it was a possibility for us to do, we’ll just have to speak with Karen in retreats. Which leads me to this thought; no one in Indiana knows how to use a phone because I started calling and leaving messages for her, only to have to email her to get a hold of her.
So, long story shortened, we are now in talks with BW over the possibility of having our wedding there. I’m thinking it’ll be a “Journeys to the Watershed” thematic event.
Stay tuned for details.
Adventures of Becca 