Sunday, August 22, 2010

Miss Ashley visits Washington and a wedding up north.

On August 21st my friend Ashley flew in from Dallas, Texas to visit me in Seattle. It was a trip that had been planned for a couple of months and I was SO excited to see her. I had planned on attending a wedding that day up north in Arlington, Washington (more on that later) so after spending the previous night at the rehearsal dinner, driving home to Seattle to pick her up from the airport and frantically throwing everything into a rather small mini cooper that we needed for the wedding night, (you know, like tents because it's common to sleep in a field the night of a wedding) we were on our way.

Once up there, we broke out the camera since we were all fancy.

Two boys that I adore: Bailey and Oliver...

Annnnnd...(drumroll) to make his grand appearance on this humble blog of mine: That Boy, as he has affectionately been called by several of my friends. Or that boy who trained me for over a year (yes, the same trainer that played a role in the superman stunt). Or that boy who was one of my very good friends for over a year. Or we can just call him Justin. Oh wait. But he's kissing me. Weird. Baaaaack up.

Most people that read this blog know what's been going on in my personal life over the past year. If you don't, then you probably aren't one of my close friends and you don't need to know the intimate details. I've excluded all of that crap from this blog for personal reasons, and mostly because it's not really anyone's damn business. I kept up appearances on this blog mostly because the things that I was dealing with and going through were a) no one's damn business and b) I didn't want to hear about it until I was ready to talk about it. Some advice I once got: "No matter what horrible thing you're going through, when it's all over, it only takes three seconds to sum it up. Remember that."
So, to sum it up: some things happened that I care to never discuss here, and probably never anywhere else for that matter, Tim and I are divorced, and after some time that boy, er, Justin and I eventually realized that, hey, we might have something here, let's just try it out, despite both of our failed attempts at relationships and our hesitancy that said relationships could actually work for once. So far so good. I expect you'll see much more of this boy on the blog going forward.
And one more word on this before I close the subject: I am in absolute awe of the facts of my life right now. Things have happened that I did not expect to happen. They hurt. They sucked. I cried. But now, I am only looking forward. And this boy, That Boy, Justin- came into my life in an unexpected moment, in an unexpected way- at least in the capacity that he is in my life now. As I said, we've been friends for a long time. But something shifted for both of us and came together, something was on our side working for the bigger picture to give us this- the ability to see through all of the muck in our respective pasts, to define love, to laugh, to see into the future, to feel true happiness, to find fulfillment, and to understand another person in such an innate way, that regardless of time together, as of this moment we know that our paths were destined to join together to experience this- something that we both deserve.
The wedding in Arlington was Justin's brother's wedding. It was on a gorgeous piece of land and the weather couldn't have been better. Justin was best man. Here he is walking down the isle with little Oliver (the ring bearer and his brother's step son).

Several generations of men in J's family... dad, brother, Justin, and baby Oliver. I'm sad to say I didn't get any pictures of the bride which is a shame because she was absolutely STUNNING.

After the ceremony, we all got ready to celebrate with the beautiful couple and dance the night away. Above: me, our new friend Lindsay, Justin's mom, and Ashley.


Happiness....

Times two.
Maybe times three. I was so happy Ashley was able to come visit. We had such a fun time at the wedding.

Later in the night...taking a break from dancing and dancing... and possibly taking a small break from the bourbon too?

Oliver, Justin and me.

Oliver, Bailey, Justin, and me. We were dancing fools. Along with Ashley and Lindsay, of course. Later that night we packed it in to tents to sleep for the night in the fields. Wouldn't you know it, it POURED. Luckily I think most of us stayed dry. We'll stop the stories there. Some of the stories from that night stayed in Arlington...along with a nearly empty bottle of bourbon...

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