Maine Wedding Celebration

Just after Thanksgiving, we held our third (and thankfully final) wedding celebration. This one was very casual. No dress, no cake, no DIY decorations. We held it in my parents' house. My mom did a great job decorating with red and gold. Our colors worked very well for a Christmas time celebration.
We invited guests that I knew mostly from my growing up in Maine and had a great turn out especially because it is a difficult time of year. Some of my favorite guests were these kids.

Two couples win the award for traveling the furthest. I am so pleased to have some of my Boston friends there. Joe and Joanne made a weekend of it. It was great to catch up especially because Joanne and I had both married since we had seen each other.

Laura and Tim also visited from the Boston area. I was delighted to meet Squiggles. Until then I had only been adoring photos of her from Laura's blog.

I was also so excited to have some of my friends from the high school days.

Apparently we all enjoyed seeing each other.

A lot of the other guests were friends from church and growing up. It was so wonderful to see all of them. It was a joy to catch up with all the people who have had a profound effect on my life.

Ice, Ice Baby

Edmonton holds an annual ice sculpture festival. Ice sculptures are displayed and extreme artists gather to create winning sculptures. Here is a bit of what we saw.

I think the Canadian Goose was my favorite piece. It seemed so dignified.

You are not looking at a giant, lightly toasted marshmallow standing next to the panda sculpture. That is actually me.

Jerry licked ... I mean ... liked the penguin sculpture a lot.

Everything was pretty aMAZing.

Most of the sculptures were just there for show, but the competitors were busy chiseling away at their artworks. If I were a judge, this would have gotten the blue ribbon.