Matt and Miranda's Wedding

Cousin Miranda's was the next wedding we had in Seattle this summer, over Labor Day.  Miranda and her lovely then fiance, now husband, Matt had a beautiful wedding at the Seattle Center for Urban Horticulture.  Surrounded by a beautiful scenery of plants and flowers, they had a lovely outdoor ceremony with a string quartet playing in the background.  It was very nice!

 

The happy couple!

Beautiful bride Miranda

 

 

At the rehearsal dinner

Cousin Jake and wife Jazmin, me, and Cousin Joe's girlfriend Mary

Cousin Joe and Chelsea

The big day is here!

Claire helping her sister the bride get ready

Me and some of the bridesmaids helping Miranda

Getting ready!

Matt looks surprisingly calm!

Mother-of-the-bride Aunt Cathy, ready to help Miranda into her wedding gown

Mother-in-law and Mother-of-the-bride helping Miranda get dressed

 

Grandpa Jack looking handsome in his suit

The Tobys minus a member of the family

 (I think I was helping M&M before the ceremony began!)

Rachel and Andrew in coordinating colors, looking good!

Chels and I

 

Beautiful sisters Claire and Miranda: great photo, Dan!

 

First dance photo

 

More of the first dance.  So romantic!

 

Chels and I were the DJ's extraordinaire, so we didn't take any more photos after this, just enjoyed ourselves!  It was a beautiful wedding and super fun reception.  We had a great time with the family, and of course we danced the night away.  We are the dancing family, after all!

 

Fun in the photo booth with the Toby kids

Chels and I from one of our photo booth photos. Great attitude, Chels!

Maddy, Chels, Miranda, and I in the photo booth

 

Barry and Cindy (and Chels) in the photo booth

The newlyweds in the photo booth, how cute!

 

 

After the wedding, they took a honeymoon trip to Hawaii. What fun!

 Congratulations Miranda and Matt! We love you!

PJ and Karen's Wedding

The weekend after we got back to Seattle from Emily and Josh's wedding in Minnesota, we had another wedding!  Our good friends Karen and PJ got married in Seattle on August 4th.  It was very beautiful!  The ceremony and reception were at the Great Hall at Greenlake, a historic building that was really pretty and a great space for a wedding.  Chels and I helped with decorations in the morning, and helped do some other tasks throughout the event.  We had a great time, and are so happy for the two of them!  Here are some fun pictures from their big day:

The happy couple Karen and PJ!

 

Chels and I in our cute matching outfits

Marit and I with our fans--it was the hottest day in Seattle last summer, what a great party favor the fans were!

 

Their friend Suzy was the officiant, it was a beautiful ceremony

The new Mr. and Mrs. Clarke!

Cutting the cake


Me with Karen, the beautiful bride!



The girls: Courtney, Karen the beautiful bride, Marit, Erin, me, and Chels

First dance

Chels, Marit, me, Erin and Jason all cutting a rug!

 

Courtney, Katherine, Chels, and Karen

 

Karen sang Madonna during the dancing, it was priceless!  She did a great job, really brought down the house!

Chels and I, smooching on the sofa!

 

Jason, Erin, and I

Hat-switch!

 

The girls and the groom!

Erin, Chels, Courtney, Me, and Marit with PJ

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What a fun wedding a fun group of people! Karen and PJ are honeymooning in Mexico this Christmas, lucky ducks! Congratulations again you guys, we love you!

 

Happy New Year's Eve!

It's the last day of 2012, and it's been a pretty good year!

We've been in our *new* house for a year now, wow!  We've had many fun experiences and made a lot of good memories with family and friends.  We're lucky enough to have been able to get legally married! Life is good!

Here's a fun picture of Chels and I from Halloween.  The party atmosphere totally fits for our New Year's celebration!  We got these masks from Barry and Cindy last year after a trip they took to New Orleans.  Aren't they cool?  Very authentic!

 

Chels and our friend Marit

 

Tonight we're going to ring in the new year with our friends Nick and AnnMarie.  They've recently bought a new house, and are hosting a New Year's party to celebrate. Should be fun!

Hope everyone has a safe and fun New Year's Eve, here's to a Happy New Year in 2013!

What have we been up to?

Hello family and friends!  You're probably wondering what we've been up to these past few months, seeing as the blog hasn't been updated lately.  Well, we've sure been busy!  Here are some of the things we've been up to:

We got a new cat, Monty!  We adopted him from my work friend Aaron.  His boyfriend is really allergic to cats, so Monty needed a new home.  We'd been wanting to get another cat, but weren't sure how our existing cat Kitten would respond.  So we decided to foster Monty to see if things would work out.  So far, it's been a few months and we're making pretty good progress.  Monty and Kitten still are wary of each other, and Kitten will still chase Monty around, but we think they are working it out.  Monty is so cute, we love him and are happy to have a new addition to our family!

He fits right in! Snuggling with Chels

 

 

In November, Candace got a promotion at work!  In August, my company went through a big restructure, so my position changed from designer-in-training to merchandising lead.  I had a co-merchandising lead, and then a merchandising manager who oversaw our work, and then the store general manager above the merchandising manager.  Before the restructure, I was the design trainee below two store designers--with the restructure, one decided to leave the company, and the other became the merchandising manager.  We ran this way for a few months, and the work load definitely increased, especially as we geared up for the holidays.  In late October, the merchandising manager decided to give notice, and I was offered and accepted the position.  So now I am in this new position and it's going pretty well.  There are definitely more responsibilities and tasks associated with the new position, and I have a team of people I am directly in charge of, but I think I'm up for the challenge!

 

 

Last, but definitely not least: some of you may know that with the election in November, Washington State was the sixth state to legalize marriage equality, and the first state to pass marriage equality by popular vote. Very exciting! Find out more here: Marriage Equality Washington State and also here: Americans for Marriage Equality.  Washington state has a three-day waiting period from the time a marriage license is attained, before it becomes valid (for opposite or same-sex couples).  The law went into affect on December 6th, so the first same-sex couples were able to marry on December 9th. Chelsea and I were able to apply for our marriage license on December 7th.  We were very excited!  We expected a huge crowd, but luckily missed having to wait in a big line.  The staffers at the court house said the line was very long the entire day prior--they opened at midnight on Dec. 6th to accommodate the many people who wanted to apply right away. 

 

 

 

It was a surreal experience, being able to legally apply for and receive a marriage license.  I'm so proud of our state!  Chels and I are so lucky to be able to get legally married, only three and a half years after our wedding.  Some people have been waiting a lifetime for the law to catch up with love, and some never got the chance to legally marry their partner.

 

On Thursday, December 13th, Chels and I went to the courthouse to have a civil ceremony.  We had a wonderful judge preside over our wedding, and a few close friends were in attendance.  My best friend Todd and our cousin Claire were our witnesses.  It was nice!  Chels was so funny, she was actually a little nervous!  It was very sweet. Our friend Jamie took pictures for us, so as soon as we get them back, we'll post some on the blog.  Afterwards, we went out to dinner and were joined by some more family and friends.  It was a great evening, and we are planning to have a party in Seattle this coming year to celebrate.  Cheers to marriage equality!

 



More Favorites from our MN Trip!

Here are some more favorite pictures from our Minnesota Trip in July:

 

 

Lila and Claire having a tea party

Claire playing with Em's cute niece Coty at the bridal shower

Chels and her new best friend Carter, our friend Heidi's son

We're all princesses now!

 

 

Me and Lila at the Zoo for Auntie Bonnie's birthday!

Cute Sissies playing at the playground!

Birthday Bonnie and nieces, so cute!

 

 Claire and I at the lake when visiting Grandpa Gene and Grandma Peggy

Lila and Ash

Chels and I kayaking

 

Grandpa Gene and Claire kayaking

Claire and Grandpa in the tractor

Chelsea got to go on a combine ride with Grandpa Jim. Her first combine ride, I think she was kind of scared at first, but she had fun!  She was impressed by the computers and sensors in the cab, didn't know farming could be so high-tech.

Filling the grain cart that Dad and Claire are in

On our way back to Cambridge, we stopped for a visit with our cousin Laura, her husband Jason, and their kids Ava and Parker.  Someone had the great idea to let the kids play with water balloons, and chaos ensued!  We had fun!

 

Look out, Ava!

The last few days of the trip we went down south to visit my brother Luke, sister-in-law Amy, and nephew Gavin.  Amy's parents own a resort, so we were able to stay at a cabin at the lake and spend a few days there.  We had so much fun!  The kids loved playing with their cousins!

 

Auntie Chelsea and Claire

Auntie Chelsea, Gavin, Claire, and Auntie Bonnie playing on the tube

Cheese!

Claire, Uncle Luke, and Gavin on the tube

Lila and me

 

Gavin tubing on the jetski tube

 

Amy and her sister Kris getting ready to go tubing

Claire likes riding in the boat!

 

We had a wonderful trip home!  We attended a beautiful wedding, spent fun times with family and friends, got to see many people in just a little over a week, and had an overall great time.  Can't wait to visit again!