June 6, 2007
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Welcome to Waldport, Oregon – Part 2:
Saturday – Wedding starts at 5pm: Even after my desire to best Rip Van Winkle at sleeping I woke up I think around 9 or 10am. By that time everyone else was up, had eaten breakfast and started to get ready for the last minute push to finish all the stuff left to do at the house. I had quickly, as quickly as an exhausted person could do so, gotten cleaned up and headed for breakfast. I was
offered various things that required time to cook. Time was something we lacked so I opted for a large piece of caramel, apple pie (from Costco 
), a bottle of my beloved Frappuccino and a cup of coffee. I believe my father-in-law was in a state of horror as I told him my game plan – but hey at this stage of the game one’s gotta live on caffeine and sugar. We spent a few hours at the reception house either putting up more lanterns, setting decorations for the tables, setting up sound equipment and for me wasting two hours stripping audio cable to make a converter for non-powered speakers to work through the entertainment systems audio receiver. I sorta knew what I was doing but apparently not really. We ended up scrapping the idea and connected one speaker via a phones jack and using the other as part of the outside sound system. This was a much better idea. After stupid me, wasting all that time I had to setup a looping slide show of pictures to run off a laptop but through a TV. Thankfully, we had all the hardware and I just had to get the software. For those that don’t know of InfranView, it’s a nice piece of freeware for viewing, editing and of course viewing pictures. If you’re wondering why there’s a picture of port a potty it’s because everyone in this area is on a septic system and with all the guest at the house the bride’s family didn’t want to really overflow theirs. Images of Meet the Parents kept on coming to mind. The funny part is the sign on the potty: “Pee Pee No Poo Poo”
That’s just funny and yet very serious.I can’t totally remember the times but it was 1:45pm when we left the house to get back to our house to get ready for the wedding. I believe we were supposed to be back at the reception house at 2pm for pictures. (I could be off by an hour or so as time didn’t seemed to matter at this point)
Either way we got back to the rental and back to the reception house by 3-ish. At this point we started to take pictures of the families and all that wedding stuff. The groom saw the bride for the first time in her lovely dress and all that was captured on 0′s and 1′s. After pictures, we walked to the church and the wedding started just after 5pm. A tad late but for the type of day and really the type of week that was a good thing. Part of the ceremony was about the rings. The rings were placed in a birds nest and the couple wanted the rings to be passed in the nest to every guest so they could say a blessing on the ring. Definitely different and interesting nonetheless. The rings were tied down and myself and another usher were keeping a careful eye on it. So why a birds nest you ask? As the pastor mentions during the ceremony the bride says the nest represents the start of a family and the coming together to two people (I’m making up the later part because it’s been over a week now). The grooms’ response was the nest is a good way to carry the rings. Post wedding ceremony everyone walks back to the house and the reception begins.Tons of food from beef brisket with blackberry sauce, Ling Ling dumplings, egg rolls, salmon to macaroni and cheese. We mingled with relatives and friends til the wee hours. At some point the couple, us and some other young professionals ended up in the gazebo. Just chillin and talking as most of the other guest had gone home. It was interesting to meet these other people only because they all seemed to know each other except it was the first time meeting most of them. One was having a public text messaging session with a guy who was interested in her but not vice versa. Definitely an interesting night. We headed home around 1-something in the morning.
Sunday – Day 1 of recovering from the wedding: I really don’t remember waking up or anything other than anticipating going back to the reception house for the pancake breakfast for all the wedding guests. I guess pancakes were too hard to make, all those individual pseudo-circles, so the catering company made french toast. Still good, especially with real maple syrup but I really was hoping for pancakes.
More mingling and socializing and playing the Ring Toss game because I think we were tired of mingling and socializing. As the guest were leaving we started to do some simple clean up. The time went by fast because before we knew it it was the late afternoon and some family friends were going to come by the rental house for dinner of leftover BBQ and wedding reception food. Finally, HOT and STEAMING crab! This actually made the crabs taste better especially with the Old Bay. At some point we went to bed.
Monday – Day 2 of recovering from the wedding: Our only day to see the sights and do tourist stuff. After breakfast we headed south on 101. First stop was Devil’s Churn State Park.
This was a nice paved park to walk through and see the waves crash against the rocks. Plus there is a Spouting Horn just like the one in Hawaii. Though the one in Hawaii was nicer. Then we drove about 15 miles south to Heceta Head Lighthouse. Below the lighthouse is a beach where we saw several beach goers, some kite fliers and then there was us eating our lunch of chicken and bread. A short hike were we upon the lighthouse where we had a short, but free tour of it. Not as impressive as the lighthouse in Kauai, but still interesting. The tour guide was telling us how there is this one eagle who nests close by and the day before the eagle came out to hunt, flew near some seagulls, inverted and snatched a gull out of the air. That would have been cool to see. After the tour and a bag of Skittles we drove a few miles south to the Sea Lion Caves. Oooooh. Aaaaaah. “The world’s largest sea cave.” I don’t remember how much admission was but last nights dinner guest remarked how they had pulled off at one of those vantage points, looked down and saw sea lions. Yep. Sea Lion Caves, good as a rest stop. 
We went looking for the vantage point, which we found and saw the sea lions for free! On our way back to the rental house we stopped by a few local art galleries looking for this years potential Christmas ornament but came up empty. At the house we rested and awaited the couple and her family for dinner. More leftovers and basically our farewell to them as we leave the next day.
Dinner was nice as well as the company but a long vacation week was coming to an end.
Tuesday – Day 3 of recovering from the wedding: Luckily our flight was at 2pm. We left the house just after 9am with a three hour drive back to Portland. Between traffic and really bad Portland (or maybe it’s Oregon) drivers we make it to the airport at 12:30pm. Drop off the rental car and run to get checked in. During all of this we stopped off at Bamboo Grove Hawaiian Grille for a Hawaiian plate lunch. I luv me some Hawaiian plate lunch. Since we were pressed for time we got the fastest meal we could which was the Auntie’s Shoyu chicken with macaroni and two scoops of rice. That was some good eating.
We ate, caught our plane to Denver and we were half way home. 
As we were boarding the plane to Denver Chewy and I both heard this “cheer” going on. There was this asian girl, maybe 4 years old, shouting out “We got SPIRIT” and doing various cheerleader kicks and arm extension things (I have no idea what it’s called). Her mother was just sitting there trying to hide her embarrassment and laughter. It was so funny and cute at the same time especially since the little girl was pretty good.
We left Portland on a good note. Though our stay in Denver wasn’t that great. The weather was bad and planes were getting delayed left and right. On the plane we were told one thing as to where our connector flight would be at. By the time we got off the plane that information changed. We grabbed some dinner, which was an excellent idea because instead of an hour layover it became well over a three hour delay. United airlines kept on switching gates and changing departure times. We eventually boarded the plane but sat there while the plane received a new flight route. As the pilot said, with the new flight route we need to determine if we have enough fuel to fly it. That took an extra 30 minutes or so. We landed at BWI around 3:30am. Got our luggage, waited for a shuttle to the parking lot and eventually got home at about 5:30am. Just thirty minutes before I would wake up and go into work. Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen.
Oh well, we’re all safe and sound. People we care for and love got married and they were generous enough to have us join in all the fun. Yes, it was laboring and exhausting but to see these two extremely happy as everything came together was enough for us.
Comments (1)
oooh lighthouses! me love lighthouses!