After nearly five years of dating, Joy and Collin finally tied the knot!  Their wedding was held on Saturday, March 30 at Dawn Ranch Lodge in Guerneville, CA. The locations was beautiful and the onsite lodging was cute and rustic.  Although chilly, the rains held off for the most part and everything was perfect.  Friday night was low-key as people arrived and hung out at the fire and visited.  Saturday morning Joy-fans battled Collin-fans on the wiffle ball field.  Blue verses Pink.  I'm not sure who won (if anyone) but it was a lot of fun.  The ceremony was held under the redwoods in the meadow and was beautiful.  Joy and Collin really brought their personalities to it and it was wonderful.  Collin's dad married then and did a very nice job.  Words were spoken by both my mom and one of Collin's uncles (who, as an aside is in our ward at church - small, small, world) and the insights they shared were perfect.

After pictures, drinks and appetizers we moved into the beautiful tent for dinner. Kookie welcomed everyone and Ayrowyn gave one of the best wedding speeches I've ever heard.   Dinner was tasty and being able to hang out with friends and family was a lot of fun.  The celebrating continued onto the dance floor (which was moved inside to the restaurant due to rain) and the consumption of chocolate chip cookies and Mitchell's ice cream.   Joy and Collin were so unbelievably thorough in the details and applying their "logo" to everything.  Even the aprons and hats for the "uncles" who served the ice cream were decorated with the logo.  The ice cream servers were a highlight of the night.  Three uncles, all about the same age, all with matching mustaches.  It was unplanned, but really cute.

Although the night was a lot of fun, it was damped a bit by Abbie's unexpected trip to the ER in Santa Rosa for abdominal pain.  The pain was so severe she spent from 9:30pm on in an ambulance and the labor and delivery section of the hospital.  Fortunately the pain subsided, but they didn't release her to go until 2:30am (which made for a very late night for me and my dad to go pick her up) and there was no explanation for the pain.  Thankfully all was/is well; just a bummer that she, my mom and Patrick missed much of the festivities.

Sunday was a slow morning with lots of goodbyes - ultimately leaving around 1pm to return home and take Abbie and Patrick to the airport.  My parents stayed until the following Tuesday.  And that Sunday night we had the unexpected treat of having Garrick stay with us.  I hadn't had much of an opportunity to visit with him up until then, so it was really great to catch up and have him at our house.

The weekend was fabulous and just flew by.