After a long break....

I am back!!!!

Apparently having T back in North America was even more of a distraction than she was when she was in PNG, as I kept finding my time disappearing and the blog was sadly neglected. Of course there was 3 weeks in Arkansas at Christmas, so that took me well out of my routine, and then another 10 days in Arkansas in February preparing for our wedding, then there was the wedding itself closely followed by the honeymoon. So really, I just simply have not had time to update all y'all with the goings on in my life and in my kitchen. Now that we are back in Vancouver and getting back in to a regular routine maybe the frequency will pick up.

So, I was discussing with T all the requests I have been getting to update my blog, and she made it quite clear that there would be trouble if my next entry was about what I have been cooking. Apparently it is important to her that I write something about the wedding and our honeymoon. So to keep the peace I will break from tradition and not write about my culinary adventures this time. All that said I will now start this entry again.

The Wedding, the blog post.

In case any of you have not heard the news yet, on 28 Feb I was married to the lovely Tiffany (more commonly known simply as T). The wedding took place in Hot Springs, Arkansas, the 8th most dangerous city in the US [edit: later research has shown it is the 13th most dangerous metropolitan area] , but thankfully through meticulous planning of security we managed to dodge all the bullets.

I flew down 9 days before the big day on American Airlines, and amazingly my luggage arrived with me this time (my bag was lost twice on my last trip to Arkansas, once on the way and then again on the way back to Vancouver). By that stage most of the wedding had been planned already, and there were just small details to sort out and organise. I was very supportive of T in this. I don't think I got in the way too much and just let her do what she needed to do. I'm sure I helped her laugh at the odd things stress was making her do. In between the organising we did manage to make a trip to Little Rock to watch the NZ Maori women's rugby 7's team play against the US women's 7's team. It was great to finally get to see a game of rugby again. But I digress, that is not really wedding related so much.

On the Sunday my family started arriving, starting with my parents who had just been on a cruise in the Caribbean. Then my brothers arrived with their wives on the Monday (sadly Craig's bag didn't get there for a few more days). The next few days involved showing the family around Hot Springs, including several trips to "the Walmart". I think we were averaging at least 2 Walmart trips a day. My family seemed to take great delight in mocking my navigational skills. I would like to point out that some of the directions I was given were not entirely accurate. The 1 hour drive from T's sister's place to the house were staying at managed to become a 2 1/2 hour drive, but at least I found the way eventually. By the end I thought I knew my way around pretty well. As it turned out I didn't, and we got a little lost trying to make our way to the church, oops.

The wedding itself went very well indeed. I made it there, so did T. We got married. A smashing time was had by all. T would really like me to tell you all about how I felt on the day. How seeing her walking down the isle took my breath away etc. but I think I know my readers well enough to know that they wouldn't want to read that kind of sappy stuff. If by any chance I am wrong, then feel free to visit T's blog, I'm sure she will update it soon or she will be in big trouble :)

I would like to point out a few very memorable things about the day though. First off, the wedding cake. This was an area I was did get involved in during the planning of the wedding. I didn't want a typical white wedding cake, and I knew T well enough to know she probably wouldn't want one either. So I had done a bit of a search on the internet for cakes and found that I really liked the topsy turvy style of cake, where each level of the cake is at an angle. One such cake I saw had a cute car on top with a road leading down the cake. We both loved this idea and totally stole it, but our one is way better (ok maybe I am a little biased). We even had little signposts down the road for the 4 countries that have been such big parts of our lives, USA, Canada, PNG and New Zealand.


The next memorable part of the day I would like to mention was the weather, and especially the weather during our photo session outside the bathhouses in downtown Hot Springs. It was freezing, so much in fact that it was snowing, making it rather cold. Fortunately I had a nice warm suit jacket on so I was ok. T on the other hand was a bit cold, but I'm sure she has learned a valuable lesson, when going out in the snow wear long sleeves.

Throughout the time my family were in Hot Springs a favourite passtime was looking for a good cup of coffee, a task that proved difficult. The store that looked most promising was unfortunately closed Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, leading us to wonder how they managed to stay in business at all. As it so happened they were open on the wedding day while we were getting our photos done, so we stopped in at the end of the photo session. I now know where to go if I am ever in Hot Springs and feel the urge to have a decent cup of coffee. It was really very nice.

There are copyright issues stopping me from posting our official photos on the blog, but I can give a link to the photographers website where there is a highlight gallery. We are both very happy with the photos and are looking forward to getting our album printed. But in case you are not feeling inclined to follow that link, I will post a few other photos that friends took at the wedding.