The Wedding

So I've been rather busy lately so I've slacked quite a bit on the ol' blog. I made a decision though, and that is to get a post up about the wedding and then everything else will fall into place after that (big posts get me anxious because they're a lot more work and take a lot more time). I made a decision about this post though, as there were a lot of different ways I could take it. My decision is this: picture blog! I'm just introducing up here, but I think the pictures themselves tell the story of the wedding fairly well. Below is a quick snippet of what stood out from the wedding:

• Lil' Sobo gets the wedding MVP for his awesome best man speech
• Eating dinner with your best friends parents while watching pictures being projected of you at your ridiculous best is strange and very fun
• Sarah was an incredibly beautiful bride
• I'm so proud of Sobo! Go Sobo!
• Amy is definitely losing the 12/12/12 bet (she caught the bouquet)
• Weddings are pretty much the best time ever
• Dance floors that are at an incline and on grass while you are wearing slick shoes = bad idea
• Music playlist > DJ every time
• The guys and I did the Safety Dance...that's right...the Safety Dance
• The bridesmaids were awesome
• The groomsmen were even awesomer

Without further ado, see below for a bevy of photographic treats. We had a great time, and I can't wait to do it all over again for Erik and Katie's wedding in September.

The groomsmen/groom before the wedding

Our posse before the wedding

Kellie and I taking our walk

Sarah and her Dad during the ceremony

The wedding party toasting

Best. Picture. Ever.

Run wedding party! Run!

I am the Captain

Bringing back the hand clasp!

The first dance

Katie double fisting

Amy and her lil' buddy

Kim holding court with the Charbonneau's and Naylor's

The first bite of cake!

Colver, Lorna, Kim, Katie, and myself

Kim, Lorna, and Katie

The bouquet toss!

The cuban shuffle

The bride and her maids

Todd and Brian having a gay old time

"Dragon Bears!!!"

Amy and David: Breaking it down part 1

Amy and David: Breaking it down part 2

Amy and David: Breaking it down part 3

Amy and David: Breaking it down part 4

Erik and Sobo

"Greased lightning!"

I don't know what's going on there - the fearsome foursome

Amy apparently being entertaining

Marcuzio and myself

Sobo and Sarah making the run!

Have a good honeymoon!

Day 5 - the Trip and the Rehearsal

It occurred to me while thinking of what I would write about Wednesday and Thursday that there is very little chance that anyone else would be that interested in what happened, so I'll gloss over it with a fun little cliffs notes of what did indeed happen.

• Huge breakfast/lunch with the guys at Harley's Old Thyme Cafe (Come on now, Chicken Fried Steak with mashed potatoes and gravy, mac and cheese, and cornbread pudding - how exactly can it get better?)
• Planet Earth synced up with Panda Bear's Person Pitch with Amy, Erik, and Brian
• Super Troopers with the same crew
• Katie's arrival!
• Snow City and Hancock with Marc and Todd
• Death by shrubbery at the new Kincaid Frisbee Golf course (hardest course ever!)
• Best out of five pool match - Colver and I vs. Todd and Marc (we lost)
• Partying hardy with the Crew, Marc, Todd, Colver, and Lorna in downtown Anchorage (much ridiculousness)

Very good couple days, but no important details (besides possibly my ridiculously awesome simul-tackle of Marc and Amy - suck on that!) to really delve into, not to mention an extreme lack of pictures. So we'll get straight in to day 5 - the trip and the rehearsal!

We all got up between massively (Amy) and somewhat but not really (myself) hungover, and totally ready to go. And by totally ready to go I mean pretty much not at all ready, but we managed to show up only 20 minutes late with my travelling posse to the wedding intact - Todd, Amy, and myself. We met up with everyone, grabbed lunch, snagged some snacks for the hotel, piled in to my mom's wonderfully efficient diesel powered VW bug and made great (if not strangely uncertain) time.

We arrive to meet up with everyone at the hotel where we had two rooms for the 12 of us waiting. That's right...two rooms. We figured we could make due, and make due we did - even if these were the smallest rooms ever made. Thankfully later on we were upgraded to a third room, so we managed to have a decently distributed 4 people per room setup. No less, we get everything set and all of the groomsmen (and the groom) have to rush off to meet up with the bride and her bridesmaids.

Eric (Lil' Sobo) and Thane setting up the tent

We get to the Inn at Tern Lake (which is where the wedding is taking place) and it is absolutely majestic. The setting is glorious and it's a nice day, so the guys and I take over the deck as we marvel at how much better the bridesmaids digs are. They're in this glorious lodge (suck that Inn!!!) and we're in a place that may or may not charge per hour. Don't worry, I wasn't bitter, I was amused. After chatting for about thirty minutes, we all go out to set up some things for the wedding (like the tent you see Eric and Thane setting up above).

The bridesmaids surely thinking we're ridiculous

After we finish our day jobs as manual laborers, we all gather in the area where the wedding is going to take place and get paired up with a bridesmaid for the ceremony. I'm crossing my fingers as I only know one of them (the impossibly cool Kellie) and totally luck out as she gets chosen as my partner. Of course, she also managed to get the guy who was starting to feel really ill (for your information, for the rest of this day I felt like crap but I persevered), but I never revealed that much to her.

Myself, Brian, and Colver as we await more instructions from the bride and groom

After the pairing completed, we all gather for a few quick runthroughs. The first couple pretty much suck, but we pick it up pretty fast and feel fully satisfied that we've accomplished our goal. We all split up and head back to the "lodge" (just to let you know Moose Pass Lodge, you are an inn at best) to gather everyone up and head off for the post rehearsal BBQ way over in Cooper Landing, aka the first annual David Harper potato salad feed. I swear, I must have eaten two pounds of potato salad.

Everyone with their animal hat of choice on

We all had a ton to eat and a bunch of delicious drinks, and by the time we were done with our carousing pretty much everyone had left and we had the supremely awesome fire pit left to ourselves. Even better? The strange benefactor of the establishment where we were eating claimed that no one is celebrating the fourth of July unless they're wearing one of her hats (of course at this point, I honestly had no clue that it was even the fourth). These hats were animal shaped and entirely ridiculous, but mostly just awesome. Everyone put them on and it took the whole thing to another level.

Brian - the winner of the animal costume contest

Quick note: we had about one billion pictures taken of us over this period, and this was the beginning of it. We must have had 30 pictures of us taken wearing these hats. Of course, while stylin' with some serious animal gear, you had best be getting your pictures taken.

Before we headed back to the lodge for a late night of doing stupid things (you know...partying and staying up too late...aka awesome things), we had to stop by and pick up Sobo at the wedding site. He was meeting with the priest and Sarah (his fiance) so we had some time to waste. What did we do? We took pictures! See below for our incredible production, including the aforementioned 10 second human pyramid.

Amy, myself, Brian, and Todd (not sure what's going on here)

Erik, Todd, Amy, me, Brian, and Lil' Sobo - we're all doing the cross armed junk move

This is supposed to be a serious picture - Lil' Sobo and I get A's, everyone else fails

HUMAN PYRAMID!

So there that was! It was pretty ridiculous, but as you may be able to tell, Sobo had returned as of the last picture and we were ready to go. What happened through the rest of the night is thoroughly ridiculous and not for the faint of heart, so I will also cliffs notes that. Don't let that downgrade the evening though, as it was glorious.

• The Stranger being the coolest hangout ever
• Us nearly getting trooped, but instead trooping the crap out of Moose Pass
• Rocking the deck like crazy
• Being Fearless
• Horror Porn (don't ask)
• Chase scene between us (the chased) and a posse of older people (the chasers)
• Having a blast in the nearby playground (I laughed as hard as I ever have for ten consecutive minutes)
• Nearly tossing Todd in the water (my bad)
• The Fire Alarm
• The locals (including weird man with dog, crazy seward partiers, and most importantly, the Patriot)

Essentially, the rest of the night was sheer ridiculousness. Can't say I would have ended it any other way.

The Patriot!

Amy on the dock

Lil' Sobo, Brian, Katie, me, and Erik rocking the playground

Katie, Erik, and Todd on the weird playground equipment

Day 2: Bachelor Party

Everyone at the campsite in Eklutna

To preface, in case you are in the dark here, the reason why my friends and I all gathered was to celebrate our friend Sobo's wedding. The second day of the week was spent camping up at our old favorite campsite up at Eklutna for Sobo's bachelor party. It's this awesome little spot below the face of a mountain that is about 2 miles away from the normal campsites, and it is super secluded and really cool.

From the starting point

From the mountain behind our campsite

The spot is also in the midst one of the most beautiful areas that is fairly close to Anchorage, and as you can tell from pictures we lucked out and had a really nice day to work with. The weather was stellar with barely any clouds in the sky, warm but not too warm temperatures, and most importantly no rain. With all that said, we had quite the group going out, with Erik, Sobo, Brian, Lil' Sobo (aka his brother Eric), Colver, Todd, Marc, Matt, and Chris making the venture with me.

Sobo, me, Erik, Brian, and Todd

So what exactly happened on this bachelor party? Well, generally you aren't supposed to go into details about them as they are normally fairly racy, so I won't go into too much. I'll leave it at this - it was ridiculous, it was drunken, and it was filled with a lot of fun. We all had an absolute blast and really, you can't ask for much more of a night. Well, short of girls being there, but that might have been against the rules. No less, instead of more words, observe the pictures that tell the story as much as anything.

Marc, Brian, and me

Matt and I - ridiculously awesome

Todd before the fall (Brian and my hands on his face)

Todd with his new best friend - the rock

"See...it's God's water!"

Kill me!

Marc, myself, and Colver in the morning

Peace out players!

Best Week Ever

Bottom row (l to r): Sobo, Todd, Brian, Me, Middle: Erik and Eric, Top: Amy

This past week has been one of the most fun ones of my entire life. I'll get into details later, but suffice it to say there will be a number of posts, probably one for each day as there is just so much to get in to. I mean, come on - my friends and I formed a ten second human pyramid. Can you get much better than that?

Look for more posts today, with the rest coming throughout the rest of the week.