In the parking lot of a New Age Coffee shop in the strangely oppressed town of Coos Bay the question is thrown out…. Are you going to Alaska for Cami’s wedding? I look at Steve and Tracey and say no, we can’t afford it. That was Labor Day.

I get a call and it is a 907 number this is my Alaska area code, so of course I answer it quickly wondering who it is. My dear friend Lori Jone’s, what could she possibly want, considering we never just chit chat on the phone. She is very forthright with what’s on her mind. Can you come? I need help with the wedding; I will buy your ticket. Three magical sentences’ that propelled me to get Brian on the internet. He found Edik and me seats for 2 days prior to the wedding. So with air miles we went to Alaska.

We had a great flight, Edik asked about the airplane wheels and how airplanes are made, and how this works and that works and are the tires full of air or solid rubber. It was fun to hear all his questions and to get to answer them. Some questions we asked directly of the pilot. The pilots invited him into the cockpit to have a conversation. It was a lot of fun for him. He watched movies and cartoons on his portable DVD player and read the emergency seat card in Russian and English, and trust me there were lots of questions about why the airplane was in the water and were we going to crash.

When we were standing on the curb in-front of the Bill Sheffield Rail Road Station. This is the station that takes the tourist from the airport to the port of Seward I am assuming. Because cruise ships certainly do not come in the muddy, silty port of Anchorage. This is also the building that we were going to have the wedding and reception in. It was so close. Lori had suggested I walk over to it but it was new to me so I declined, but once I got my bearings I could have done it. I could have even gone inside the terminal and gone through the tunnel. But we waited for LJ to pull up in the Tahoe!

We checked out the place and then met up with Lori Vergason for lunch and coffee. Edik and I along with Cami the beautiful bride to be and mom Lori Jones all had lunch at a fun little café’ great company but horrible coffee.

We ran around shopping, hunting and gathering for this wonderful event. We made it to all my favorite haunts, JoAnn Fabric where we ran into Suzanne Gionet, amazing. Michaels’, Wal-Mart where we scoped out fish for the center pieces. I even got to go to the Floral Wholesale and pick out flowers. Awesome!

The colors where Red and Orange with ascents of brown and white. I found out as we were shopping that I would be making corsages. I thought Lori had understood that I did not want to make them but she was insistent and she had not ordered them from anywhere else.

We spent 6 hours setting up everything for the wedding. It was pretty with large red paper balls and white table clothes with red table squares and glass cylinders and gold fish. There were white lights everywhere and red and orange tulle. It was a magnificent transformation.

The bride and groom were to stand with the Chugach range in front of them. There were round tables with seats for all the guest, no single seating for all the guests.

I woke up early and went down to my design studio (Lori and Bruce’s garage). Before everyone else had got up I had finished three of the large arrangements. Dylan put on DVD’s for me as I worked. I made all the brides bouquets and the Brides that must have weighed 10 pounds. I pulled all the flowers for the boutonnières and the corsages’ that I really did not enjoy making. By 11 am I was working on the above mentioned torture items. With Cami and Naomi helping wrap stems we were done by 2 pm. We had to have the flowers to the Rail Road Station by 4:30 pm, we still had to get dressed and go to two stores for food that was needed for the reception.
It was a mad house getting everything set in place and pinning all the flowers on people. But it was so pretty. Dustin did all the food and he had a prime rib that was so good, I just wish that there was more room. We ate well.

I got to see a lot of my old friend and I had wished that I had Edik with me so they could all meet him. But I had met Uncle Mark in the parking lot at Sam’s club and gave Edik to him. Now there is a lot of trust and faith on all of our parts but it worked out great.

With the wedding behind us we set out to have some more fun. We met up with Uncle Mark, Aunt Cheri, Stuart and Kevin at Danes regional x-country running meet. He did amazing and it was a beautiful day, clear sky and crisp air. Felt good to be at a running meet at my old high school brought back lots of memories of those old days, stories that my nephews are not yet ready for.

We watched Kevin’s soccer match at Eagle River High School field. What an amazing back drop I can’t imagine a school having a prettier setting. After the match, the Goodman’s, Keyser two, Vergason’s and Crabtree’s set off on an adventure. We hiked the Eagle River Science trails; we saw salmon spawning, and a closed trail due to a bear dinging on something, big rocks with great views and a rushing raging river that was fun to throw stones in. A three hour hike that involved a lost standard poodle and lots of hikers and no lunch.

We were famished and went back to the Vergason's and had a big salad with some of the other left over food from the wedding. We all had to prepare for Ed and me to go home. We had our sad good bys. The Crabtree’s got on our flight home and Tracey and I talked for the three hour flight and Steve and Edik sat together, once again Edik was fascinated with the emergency flight card in the seat back in front of him.