At long last: wedding pics.

{click here to view the Picasa album}

Friends and family, the hour has arrived: Wedding photos are here! A big thanks to our photographer, Bob Libby (who, in addition to being a talented event journalist and a super fun guy to work with, shoots dog portraits pro bono for the Oregon Humane Society - say it with me, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwww!!).


A few notes (mostly for the benefit of those family members who might want to make prints):

• Bob generously released all copyright privileges for the photos above, so print and distribute any and all photos with a clean conscience.

• All of the photos located in the album linked to above have been resized to 800 pixels on the longest side. This is to save the whales, face, and space on my Picasa account (ok, not so much on the whales or face. It's all about my account.) For those less technically-minded, what this means is that those photos will only make good quality prints at small print sizes (like, 4x6 or smaller). If you would like to make larger prints, let me know; I will get you a CD of these images at high resolution and you should be able to print these as large as you like. If you want to make larger prints/want the higher resolution file of just a few photos, email me the file names and I will email them to you. Almost immediately. By which I mean, when I get to it. You're welcome.

• Anything you see in color is also available in black and white. Anything you see in black and white is also available in color. (See how that works?)

• Any photos contained in a 'collage' in the Picasa album also stand alone as single photos. I organized some of the photos (such as reception details and the endless, neverending, forever, ohmygoshwhendopeoplestoparrivingandhuggingus series of reception guest photos) into collages to make it more browse-friendly. But if you would like to see one of the photos individually, let me know and I will email you that file.

• A few of the photos are courtesy of Spenser's talented photographer uncle, Morgan. I believe we also have copyright release for these. So print at whim, friends.

• There is very little variation in pose or location between the many group shots, which is somewhat boring. If you're looking to change those up, I would suggest cropping a closer shot (I did this on some of them).

Enjoy!

Frosty morning walk.

Spens and I like to take walks and scope out our neighborhood. This morning was frosty! There are lots of small houses - humble, but all unique (which is a refreshing in the age of tract houses) - that look just big enough to fit a small family or retired couple. In a strange way, it's a nice reminder of what it really means to have your needs met.

Sunday night, again.

{via This Is Indexed}

Once a year.

Happy birthday (yesterday) to Spenser!! :)

Back in town.

Hello all! Spenser and I returned from Seattle late last week and it's back to the grind, but in a better, less tedious, two-is-better-than-one, married type of way. For me, that means the 9-5 working routine and for Spenser, that means going from full- to part-time at his warehouse gig and starting a new semester at PSU.

But back to Seattle. A perfect honeymoon destination! Spenser and I enjoyed cruising the city by foot, taking in the touristy stuff to a reasonable degree ($18 to ride to the top of the Space Needle? Puhleeeeeeeeease, heck no) and enjoying the beautiful weather.

On Monday night, we were walking downtown, window shopping, when we got a call from Spenser's mom. She said that Grandpa F (her dad) would like to take us to dinner. Whaaa? Is Grandpa F, who lives in Beaverton, in Seattle? we asked, bewildered. No, he was not; but he had called someone at the Four Seasons in Seattle and made all the arrangements. !! We had just strolled by the Four Seasons five minutes ago, so we made the short trek back to see what was up.

Feeling a little unsure walking into the lobby of the gorgeous five star hotel, Spenser approached the restaurant hostess and started in with "Umm, I think my Grandpa called you a bit ago -" but was interrupted with "Ah yes! Mr. and Mrs. DeLong, we've been looking forward to your arrival," at which point we were swarmed by waiters, waitresses and even the restaurant manager himself (who, fittingly, possessed an exotic, hard-to-place foreign accent). We were congratulated warmly more times than I can count on our marriage, seated at a cozy corner table next to the window with gorgeous view of the sunset, and served chilled Martinelli's in delicate champagne flutes.

Then came the menu and the food. There are not words! My main course was pan-seared scallops, served on a bed of spinach, tomato and garlic orzo pasta with a blackberry and boysenberry reduction sauce. The scallops were cooked to perfection - not undercooked, but miraculously not the consistency of erasers either. Spenser had a yummy Indian-inspired salmon dish. Everything was incredibly delicious, and almost too beautiful to eat. And of course the service was unreal. We agreed that we have never had such a pampered dining experience in our lives! It is an awesome memory - and a classy move on Grandpa F's part to put together something so special that we never would have done for ourselves. Thank you so much!

I will let the photos of the trip speak for the rest of the Seattle festivities. I will also, hopefully, post some wedding photos soon, as well as a long list of shout-outs to everyone who made the wedding possible (because we had a LOT of help, and we really, really appreciate you all).

We love you! ...and each other (aaaaaw/vomit, ok - give me a break. It's a post about our honeymoon! I get to be a little sappy :) )

See a few more photos of the trip here.

In the mountains.

Happy Labor Day! (One day too late, I know.) Did everyone enjoy their long weekend? Did Tuesday come too soon?

Spens and I drove out to eastern Oregon for the holiday weekend to go camping with his lovely family: the parentals, Maddie, Moose and Bails. It was a great time, and somewhat of an induction for me, as I had the pleasure of experiencing for the first time many time-honored DeLong camping traditions. Among them:

• Cheese/onion/mayonnaise/roll breakfast (delish - give it a chance);


• Heppner Branch sacrament meeting (cozy);


• Afternoon jaunt to Gibson Cave (hot/educational);


• Fishin' (competitive).

Overall, we enjoyed the family togetherness, vacation time, lack of cell phone service and distance from recent stresses very much.

I spent my entire life from age 0-18 in the Pacific Northwest, and I must confess that the climate and surroundings of everything east of the Cascades used to seem nothing but barren and ugly to me. It's brown, it's dry, and it's flat! Eventually, I moved to Utah for college (Utah is kind of like Hermiston + mountains) and the desert climate definitely grew on me (no pun intended...ok, I'm sorry - I'm sorry! Stop looking at me like that). There's something inspiring about that hardy desert flora, and no humidity = perfect hair all day long; what's not to love?

Despite my acquired taste for the desert, the comment did escape my lips at one point while traversing a particularly dry, brown patch of land that perhaps God got bored when creating this part of the world. My soon-to-be in-laws chuckled graciously, but I had to eat my words a few hours later when the sun started to go down and everything that was brown and dead a few minutes before became flush, golden and almost on fire with color and reflected light. Beautiful!

Spenser and I had plenty of time to enjoy these gorgeous eventide views as we dealt with the truck's untimely break down right outside of Lexington on our way back to Hermiston :(



We left a bit early on Sunday night (Spens's family was staying through Monday afternoon) hoping to get back to Beaverton in time to handle some routine errands and wedding preparations (11 days - impending!!). On the way out, the truck started struggling. Spens would put it in gear but it wouldn't really accelerate - even with the pedal to the floor. It also started to overheat. So we coasted down the hill to get as close as we could to civilization and cell phone reception before we had to pull over.

Once stopped, we contacted insurance to arrange a tow (Spenser's phone had hardly any battery but good service, and my phone had lots of battery but no service; haha - isn't the biggest benefit of a cell phone supposed to be that it's there for you to use in case of an emergency? Sigh). Post-insurance company phone call conversation:

Spens: Guess what the name of our towing company is?
Me: ...Lexington Towing Company.
Spens: Nope. Loose Lucy Towing Company
Me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Dan from Looslie Towing showed up about a half an hour later. I guess the insurance lady must have stuttered a little bit when she told Spenser who to expect. ;)

Long story short (yeah right, haha - you've already asked yourself three times when this post is going to end), we made it back to Hermiston with a blessedly cheap tow bill (seriously), and Ma & Pa DeLong are helping us sort out the truck issue out there in Hermiston. Spenser and I have been introduced to an American family tradition far less enjoyable than camping breakfasts and long afternoons on the lake: the auto mechanic repair invoice. Haha/uuuuuugh. Despite the hassle with the truck, it was still a very fun weekend, so thanks to the fam for that! :)

A little color.

Spens and I recently found a great little one bedroom apartment here in Beaverton to occupy post-marriage. Thanks to a gracious landlord and a very affordable monthly rent, we were able to secure it for the month of August and have a little time before moving in all of our furniture and possessions to paint! More photos forthcoming...

I'm really excited about finally being able to plant myself in one location for an extended period of time. The move to this apartment will mark my fourth in a year, and as grateful as I am to the many people who have given me a place to lay my head down, all that packing and moving is getting old! :) We plan on being here for a few years, so we figured it was worth the investment of time and just a little money to make it feel like a home.