A wedding in Montana

At the end of October, we drove to Montana for Ken and Liesl's wedding. They have already been married for about a year, but this was the official get-together for family and friends. Liesl is Ben's second cousin - you may remember Ken and Liesl from the blog entries of our USA road trip at the end of last year (eg. decorating gingerbread houses).

After work on Thursday 29th, we crossed the border (an ordeal that took about an hour because our US entry permits had expired, so we had to go inside and wait in line to get new ones) and stayed the night in Mt Vernon, WA, with our new friends Donna and Terry. We know their daughter Janae from Vancouver, but the connection with her parents was made when it came up in conversation within minutes of meeting Donna that some decades ago she had boarded with Ben's grandfather's sister in Montana, and had always wondered what had become of the Byrds who'd moved to Australia!! Donna and Terry will feature again soon, as we are going to join them for American Thanksgiving next week. :) On this Thursday night we had a great time getting to know them!

On Friday morning, we arose early and spent the day driving the rest of the way to Montana. It was a beautiful drive past many mountainsides covered in green and gold pine trees. Ben's last visit to Montana was 6 years ago (his dad grew up there), but it was my first time. After an 11-hour drive, we arrived at the B&B where we were staying (and where the wedding was held): the Carolina B&B in Helena, MT. We spent a few hours meeting friends and relatives, eating and chatting before retiring to our charming room upstairs...





The wedding was at 10am the following morning. It was a short and sweet affair - a family friend shared a few thoughts on marriage, and then Ken and Liesl said their vows.













Afterwards there were a lot of group photos taken...

And we enjoyed a delicious breakfast buffet and scrumptious "Texas Yum-Yum" wedding cake (made by Liesl's mum Dixie - even the icing gerberas!)...











...And posed for more photos (here we are with K&L's friends Peter and Marissa; also featured in gingerbread house decorating entry from last Christmas - poor P&M only had a couple of hours sleep before the wedding due to delayed flights!)...









It was also great to meet Connie, a cousin of Ben's (and Liesl's) that he'd never met before! She lives near Seattle, WA, and was kind enough to babysit our car and run us to and from the airport for our Hawaii trip, so we ended up seeing her these last three weekends in a row!!







Well, I think the above is a reasonable cross-section of the many photos we took!!! If you are interested in seeing the rest of the 102 photos I uploaded to Picasa, including more comprehensive "Who's Who" details, please click here.

It was so wonderful to be at the wedding - big thanks to Ken and Liesl for a fantastic weekend!

Coming soon - the Halloween party after the wedding!

Our whereabouts for the next week...

Whistler weekend

On October 16th, we headed up to Whistler for a weekend getaway with Myla and Angharad. It was my first time at Whistler (venue of the upcoming 2010 Winter Olympics!), but Ben had been there when he lived here 6 years ago. After a 2-hour drive on Friday night, we reached our destination: the Golden Dreams B&B. The girls had the "Wild West Room" and we had the "Black Bear Room" - here's ours...



After a relaxing laze-around until late Saturday morning, we walked into Whistler Village along a path bordered by tall trees, log homes, and the local golf course. Due to the fog and light rain I couldn't see the surrounding mountains, but Angharad assured me they really were there!





The rest of our day was spent wandering around the pretty village...








Eating yummy food...






Exploring gorgeous art galleries (not something I can say I've ever really enjoyed until now!)...




And photographing leaves ;)...






After an early tea/dinner/supper, we headed back to the B&B for a blissfully lazy evening of reading books in the loungeroom. (There was also a Jacuzzi and an outdoor hot tub we could use... the host delights in cooking a different and delicious breakfast each morning... AND she and their dog Sam put on a morning routine that involves Sam "singing" for treats... we TOTALLY recommend this awesome B&B!! Also, host's hubby is a well-known local personality and once skied with Princes Charles, William and Harry - I saw the photo evidence!)

The next morning we went to the little meeting at Pemberton, which was actually the reason for spending the weekend in Whistler in the first place. We had gone up to boost numbers but it turned out there were lots of other extras too! We all stayed for lunch and had a wonderful visit together. A few more "small world" stories emerged, such as meeting a couple who stayed a night with my grandparents in Queensland some years ago... and a number of folks had spent time with both of my mum's brothers on their respective visits to Canada. Love it!





On the drive home on Sunday afternoon, we were able to see the scenery we had driven past in the dark on Friday night. Pretty spectacular!




So that's Whistler! :) To view these photos and more in Picasa, click here or on the link under "Our photo albums", above right.

Ben's birthday

For Ben's birthday recently, I took him to Horizons Restaurant on Burnaby Mountain, which has a gorgeous view of the city lights and local ski mountains. We had the three-course "West Coast Feast" menu - delicious!!

On his actual birthday, which was the day before, we also had a "sundae buffet"-style supper (brownies, icecream, nuts, fruit, toppings etc!) after our meeting. This scrumptious event was very kindly hosted by Janelle and Gerard (thanks again!).

Happy birthday Ben!