Zoo Lights

Gotta love the lights...

And the animals...

New Year's

As always it seems hard to believe that another year has passed.  Well... it has.

It was a good year, and a good party.  As usual we had a few ideas to spice it up... so Brent sabered a bottle...

And Ryan fired off a rocket...

Or two...

But yeah... Happy New Year!

Skating

Its been a long time since I last went skating... like... 15 years....

We bought skates last year, so it was about time that we tried them.  This is how it went...

But the lake was pretty...

And I got the hang of it again... eventually... sorta...

Yep, that lake sure was pretty...

Ontario

So, in many martial arts there are tests to check your progress as you develop your skills.  Iaido and Jodo are some of those arts.  Every few years it comes time to test, and this year was one of those years.  Given that we have to test in Ontario to be able to test both arts it was an excellent opportunity to make a trip out of it.

We headed to Guelph where we stayed with Taylor Sensei.  We were able to train twice daily, which was an amazing opportunity for us, and we were able to squeeze in a bit of site seeing.  It was an amazing trip all around.  We met some great people, did some excellent training and were able to challenge our exams.  I was testing in Iaido and Jodo and managed to pass my Jodo exam.  My Iaido exam, well, there's always next time...

I'm behind on my life so I'll let the photos do the talking...

We went to Elora...

Then we went for an awesome hike...

And then we went to Niagra!

The Battery That Wasn't

So, as usual we have no shortage of bad ideas... this one turned out to be a bit underwhelming, especially since the smoke doesn't seem to show up on video that much... but still... here it is...

From Getting Married to Attacking a Battery

First Shot...

Hammer is easier than arrows...

The Wedding

Most of you probably read the post where I got engaged, well, reading a post like that leaves you with some expectations, such as that a post like that would be followed by a post like this...  well, here it is.

In general we're shy type people.  We keep to ourselves, have few friends, and aren't really fond of public appearances.  For this reason we chose to keep the wedding small and intimate, inviting only our immediate families.  It was a small wedding, and a short engagement.

It may have been small, but I found the planning still to be exhausting (I'm not sure how all you people with large weddings do it!).  Chloe had started up work again, and I started up my new job.  We were busy enough with that, not to mention all of the chores of newish home ownership, so throwing on a wedding, even a small one, was a bit... insane.

Given that we elected to have a wedding, quelling Chloe's instincts to elope, we wanted to make sure that it was exactly as we wanted it, and that it would reflect us as a couple.  Our families were invaluable in their support and help, and in adopting our vision, though I am fairly certain that it was a bit... different... from their own visions of our wedding.

We wanted to have it somewhere close to home, and somewhere meaningful to us.  We decided to have the pre-wedding/reception party at Chloe's family's home in Windermere, and then the wedding itself to be at the Cook residence in Wilmer - Bella Vista.  It was a fall wedding with a fall theme, and we were praying for the weather to cooperate.  The typical falls in the Columbia Valley are beautiful, however, they occasionally come with a side of "freeze your ass off."  We were hoping for the prior without the latter...

The chaos of planning consumed us as the wedding approached, and none of it really seemed real until the weeks immediately prior to the event when venue decorating began.  It had been so stressful, planning the meal, the caterers, the venue, the ceremony, the rings, the dress, the everything!  But then, when we got there with our boxes of decorations, and with everything planned, the stress began to ebb, and fun began to flow.

It was a fall theme, and leaves and candles fell everywhere.  We transformed Bella Vista from the typical Cook residence, and into the kind of venue you would see in one of those old school animated Disney movies.  It was starting to feel real, and as the chaos faded we could see the first little sparks of excitement.

We all work for a living, so when the time came we wouldn't have much time to prepare.  For this reason it was all ready before hand, and when work ended on Friday we all hopped into our respective cars and headed out to the Valley.

Considering that people were all coming from different places most of us amazingly arrived at about the same time.  Chloe's family had prepared a magnificent wienie roast/barbecue and when we rolled up you could smell the smoke from the fire.  It was very us.  There was no fancy restaurant, there was no fancy food.  There was a bunch of family sitting around a fire pit with long sticks suspending tubes of processed CL&A (ask Grandma what this one means) roasting over the open flames, and with dogs and kids running around like crazy, hopefully, not into the fire.  It was chaos, but it was our chaos.

We ate, some people drank, enjoyed a little smoke inhalation, not to mention the heat of the fire and cool of the fall.

At some point we had a chat with the minister, Granddad, about what to expect from the following day.  It was about as we would expect with the walking down the aisle, the vows, the walking up the aisle, etc.  He did have one less traditional idea about where he would be placed and where would be facing, and the idea was excellent.

The guests tapered off, I bade my bride farewell, and headed back to Bella Vista for my final night as a bachelor.

I was up early, actually, I think we all were.  We had a hearty breakfast and set to work.  For having as much as possible prepared ahead of time there still was a lot of work to be done!  We did the outside decorations, with a few reinforcements from Chloe's family, finished up things inside, deliberated about whether the weather would hold, met the food truck guy, the server, and the photographer, deliberated some more, and finally... got dressed.

It was a bit nuts, but then again, they say it always is.  We had the guests, all 11 adults, 2 nannies, 3 kids, and 3 dogs all "sitting" out by the fire and it was time to go.  I had the two Moms with me bringing the guest count to 13, and it was about time to do my walk down the aisle.  Turns out that in the chaos and confusion I had misplaced my suit jacket, and as my musical cue played on I was sprinting around the house trying to find it.  Having just enough time left in the song to make it down the aisle we headed in.  It was a bit bizarre, but there weren't that many people there, and the people there were mostly tending to the dogs and the kids, etc., so I was able to deliver the Moms to their seats and sort of slide up to the altar unnoticed.

Yeah, for me it was a bit unnoticed, but for the bride they cared.  The next song played and the crowd eventually silenced, stood, and turned as first Remi shot down the stairs, followed by Chloe and her Dad.  I think this is when things got real.  I hadn't seen her in the dress before, actually, I hadn't seen the dress at all.  She was beautiful, and I think we all knew it as our eyes were glued to her as she made her way down to the alter.

I'll not bore you with all the details, but we stood with the fire burning behind us and with our families in front.  Granddad walked us through the ceremony as we made what is likely to be the most important commitment of our lives.  We said the words, we exchanged the rings, we kissed, and on that glorious fall day with the colours of autumn around us, and sun breaking through above... we were wed.

Throughout the whole thing the dogs were barking and chasing each other around, and the children were talking and crying, and being children... and it was perfect.

My Grandparents were our witnesses, providing an uncommon opportunity where all three of our surviving Grandparents were able to contribute to the wedding ceremony.

It was a blur.  We headed inside, took a minute to breathe, and then tried to herd the members of our family, like cats, down to the field for photos.  It was surprisingly hard, but it happened, and photos were taken.  The family returned to the house as my bride and I took off with the photographer for a photo shoot at some of our favourite places.  It was there that we started to relax, and though we were already exhausted we pumped ourselves full of strawberry candies and explored the world as husband and wife.  There were quite a few stops, and quite a few photos, and then we were on our way back to the house.

It was already a party when we got there, and we blended right in.  It was close to supper, but we managed to sneak in a few supper snacks.

Supper.  Now this is a different story.  Our favourite restaurant is in Kimberley.  It is a German restaurant that happens to be in a building that is something like 400 years old.  Well, Kimberley isn't that old so there has to be a story there.  The building was a historical building in Germany, but when the owner made a small change to the windows it lost its historical status and was no longer protected.  Soon after it found itself disassembled, shipped, relocated, and reassembled in Kimberley.  The restaurant is called the Old Bauernhaus (barn-house) and it is spectacular.  One of the signature dishes is called "The Feast" and it can only be made if at least two people order it.  Well, the feast gives you a taste of a little bit of everything.  Its amazing.  The whole thing is amazing... the only problem, is that the restaurant is in Kimberley (about an hour's drive away).

That was too far, but when we called to see if this was a possibility they had another idea.  FoodEx Kimberly is a new company started by an ex-restaurant owner and chef.  He started the business and purchased a food truck so that he could bring his food, and the food of other restaurants, anywhere.  This was perfect.

Rene (the heart and soul of FoodEx) and Nils and Michelle Fuhge (the owners and chefs of the Bauernhaus) agreed to work together, to bridge the distance between Wilmer and Kimberley for one epic meal.

A local server agreed to join the team, and with her front end expertise, and with the three chefs behind her everything was pulled off without a hitch.  Nils and Michelle prepared as much of the food as possible in Kimberley, handed it off to Rene to drive it to Bella Vista (where he parked his mobile kitchen out front to finish the preparations), and Alison (our local server), delivered it to our plates.

The table was set as one loooong table with Chloe and I at the centre.  The silver and china came from our grandparents, and the decorations brought everything together.  We sat, we drank, and we feasted!

It was just as good as eating in Kimberley, but this way we could share our favourite meal with the whole family.

After the meal it was of course time for dessert.  My sister has always been the baker in the family, and she graciously accepted the task of baking the cake.  She makes lots of cakes, but this one was a bit different, and needed to represent us... so, instead of baking a typical white wedding cake this one was to be themed with the Legend of Zelda, and was to be topped not by some boring dude in a tux with his bride drowning in a white dress, but instead, to be topped by Link and Zelda themselves.  Ruppees adorned the sides of the cake though the true allusion was lost on most everyone... but not us.

We ate, we laughed, and as the evening wore on the crowd began to thin.  That was our cue, and with a box full of goodies we bade our goodbyes, gave thanks, and then headed to our hotel.

It was there that it hit me.  The whirlwind stopped, let me out, and at once the day flashed before me.  Our wedding was over, but there was one part that was just beginning... our new life.  Together.