Love & Marriage

We're back from Arizona, slightly burnt, a bit jet-lagged, but very happy and very sad to leave the amazing weather down there. But the resort we were at was amazing and a lot of great memories traveled back with us to the Midwest, but none moreso than the stark realization that my sister is now Katy Baily.

It's still weird to see, let alone type.

Anyhoot, I'll start at the beginning with the welcome party my parents hosted at their place. We were one of the last groups to arrive as our flight out of Dallas took its precious time getting there, but we were beseiged upon arrival by many a drunk relative, family friends, and soon-to-be-relatives. It was also the first time I got to see my idol growing up (also my neighbor and sometime babysitter), Barry. In every picture we have together, he's taller than I am so, as you can see at right, it's been awhile since we were in a photo together. He's in Denver and a huge Colorado Avalanche fan (like yours truly) and invited me out to a game sometime - which I am definately planning on taking him up on.

Barry was also close to my father (who, if you didn't know, passed away when I was ten) and shared many a great story about a man I unfortunately never really got to know.

All of my parents friends were so happy to see everyone again and Steph fit in like she had been there a million times.

The next day, Steph and I went to Sabino Canyon (see photo at the top of this post) and took a tram the 3.7 miles up to midway point and did some sightseeing. Now we are a somewhat adventuresome couple and decided to go hiking up through some of the trails on the canyon and seemed lured by the siren call of the Phoneline Trail.

We started our trek amongst the rocks and the scenery was absolutely breathtaking. It's one thing to see a sheer rock cliff from a tram and another thing entirely to be standing at it's base and looking straight up it. So we wandered on taking in amazing view after amazing view and came upon the longest cactus I have ever seen (and would make many a lady cactus a happy foliage). The photo really doesn't do the size of this monstrousity justice.

We continued on past the cactus and realized that had missed our opportuinty to rejoin the tram and were now going to have to hike the entire trail (5.7 miles)....and it had just broke 92 degrees.

So we knuckled up and traversed on and Steph even got up close with a prairie dog/gopher thing that ran not a foot in front of her down the boulder-riddled cliff. Eventually we had made it to the base of this amazing cliff (and the base itself was already halfway up the canyon).


We had a rehearsal dinner that night, but Steph got a case of heat exhaustion and I was pretty much blown from the hike myself so we called it an early night (and the only bad thing from the trip occured that night - the Avalanche lost to Anaheim in Game 1 of their semi-final series).

The next day was the wedding and we did family pictures and what-not beforehand eschewing the age old tradition of the bride not seeing the groom before the wedding. My sister looked amazing and never really 'bridezillad' out like I had feared she may. The service itself was beautiful and, aside from a strange story told by the pastor, went off without a hitch.

Stephanie looked absolutely stunning as well and, although I had seen her in her dress when she purchased it, nothing prepared me for how amazing it looked on her in that setting. She was such a trooper the whole weekend - meeting more relatives than she ever could remember, putting up with some mild bickering between my family, and even surviving the doing YMCA with my jubilant parents at the reception.

We all then traversed down to the reception patio where my new brother-in-law, Q (see below), gave one of the greatest toasts I think any of us had ever heard honoring my father - a man he had never met. He had my family in tears and all of us knew that my sister couldn't have married a more perfect man...

...or dude, as the case may be.

Q uses the term "dude" more than anyone on the planet. Everyone is dude to him. And his dudeness labeling is genderless as many a female that crosses his path also is christened "dude" at some point or another. He's got a great sense of humor, is genuinely caring, and I couldn't be more happy to call someone like him family.

My step-dad followed a bit later with a toast thanking everyone for coming and I got to toast the happy couple, but knew nothing I could say would have the same impact that Q's amazing toast did, so I turned to what I know best - humor. I shared a little story about how my sister was so good at Monopoly that she would be beating the pants off of me in less than an hour of us setting up the pieces (she being the dog, I the racecar for those of you scoring at home). I would get down to about a $1 to my name and she would go to the closet, open the board game Pay Day, give me all the money, then continue our game so that she could keep getting money. I think it went over well and I ribbed Q a bit too, but knew if anyone could take a joke, it was him.

So finally my sister, who unfortunately was feeling a bit under the weather on her big day, and I got to dance to Etta James' "Someone To Watch Over Me" and were placing bets on how many times our mother had cried so far (I still think I won the bet). We got together for a quick photo and my camera subsequently ran out of battery power. I was glad that at least I got that one photo in there though.

I am so proud of her. She's got an amzing job, incredible friends, and now the perfect guy to share the rest of her life with. I hope someday to acheive something similar and she's set a pretty good example to follow.

And my parents went above and beyond in getting this whole shindig together. I remember back to my mother being nervous about whether they would enjoy the Loews Resort as the setting (which, by the way, has a top-notch staff and is well deserved of their 5 star rating) and how many nights I would get a panicked phone call about some little detail being correct. I was very proud of them as well for pulling this together and their obvious enjoyment and just finally being able to "let go" and get a little crazy at the reception afterwards (witness the aforementioned YMCA dance) was well deserved.

Speaking of the reception, following dinner we all moved to an indoor restaurant (at the resort) and the party lasted into the morning. The next day, my immediate family met for a quick breakfast before Steph and I had to head to the airport. We flew out of Tucson to Chicago where we waited.

And waited.

And waited as our flight got delayed because our plane broke. (How does a plane break?) So waited at the gate from 6 p.m. until 10:15 p.m. when a new plane finally made its way to our gate and took us the 45 minute flight home. 4.25 hours to go 45 minutes - and I thought the Chicago car traffic was bad. So by the time we got our car and stopped to pick up various sundries we needed, we eventually made it back to the condo and our heads hit the pillows at about 1 a.m.

That's a full weekend. I hope yours was fun too.

And now, me teaching the Sabino Canyon who's boss...


(Not picutred: me with a sunburn, blistered feet, dehydrated, and praying for air conditioning about 3 hours later)