Who needs downtime.

Since the wedding we've jumped right into prepping for our fall-spring home remodel and planning for our winter honeymoon.

We don't really do downtime.

Tentatively we will move into the house on Gala Sept. 13-14. We have been running numbers and running all over town in preparation for the work we will do, and spent hours staring at kitchen cabinets (It's a tough call between the Honey Almond or the Auburn finish as to which better accents the simple lines of the Shaker-style cabinet faces). A lot of pretty nice little Saturdays. When the first phase of the remodel is complete, we'll host the San Diego Lime. Date and time TBA.

As for the honeymoon, we've been learning all we can about ultralight-weight gear for the backpacking we will do. We just bought a pair of thermal sleeping bags that weigh less than 1.5 pounds each and that wad up small enough to fit in your pocket. New Zealand limits the number of people allowed on its back country treks and spots fill up fast, so we've already booked two long tramps for Christmas and New Years — check them out: We'll wake up Christmas morning on the Heaphy Track and New Year's Day on the Kepler Track.

Jason

PS: I checked Trailbrook's site twice by 9 a.m. today for wedding pictures. Anyone else want to weigh in?

Just a tease.

Stan and Jeannette have posted a few teaser images from the reception on their blog — a tease before the much anticipated teaser trailer due out soon. Our rabid, compulsive checking of their web site has paid off: We've seen it and posted about it on our blog before they've even had a chance to tell us the pictures are up (we checked last night around midnight, and this morning around nine).

Click please here.

Jason

PS: All of you who attended the wedding can probably guess the subject of at least one of the images.

Pictures of you, pictures of trees.

The picture sharing on the community Picasa account we created for the wedding has worked out fantastically. The account has 13 albums with a total of 1,575 pictures.

If you have wedding pictures but haven't loaded them into the shared account — please do so! (In particular I'm looking for the person who has the group shot from the second wedding in the clerk's office.) If you already have, sign on and check out everyone else's — more have probably been added since last you looked. There are many great shots from the week's adventures.

So — upload your images, and e-mail us if you have trouble or need the how-to note. My favorite images so far are the group shots, like the one below of the rafting trip. Notice how the image is a bit soft and the colors, especially in the background, are a bit unsaturated — that's because we're rafting through a wildfire that will soon trap us in the beautiful, yet rustic, town of Big Flat.

Jason

Expiration of a web site.

Tomorrow our wedding web site expires.

Thanks for viewing it thousands of times (or maybe that was us), and making it a valuable part of our whole wedding experience. We enjoyed constructing it and maintaining it.

As it signs off, the wedding countdown simply reads "MARRIED", the honeymoon clock displays 161 days, 7 hours, 2 minutes, and 14 seconds — and the mix of reggae and soca that makes up the soundtrack for the site still sounds good. The bio's and the references to "Sturm" are now a bit behind the times.

Browse through the links one more time if you like.

Jason

PS: Looking back, perhaps a more accurate web address would have been www.june25or26.org.

Honeymoon 0.5.

We took some time to ourselves on the way home from Orick and made a stop in Bishop, east of the Sierras, June 28 - 30. From Bishop it's about an hour drive up into the White Mountains where the oldest thing that's ever lived grows — the Bristlecone Pine. Known for its exceptionally contorted and weather-worn exterior, this tree can live for 5,000 years. The nutrient-poor, harsh environment at 11,000 feet contributes to this longevity.

Anyway, it's somewhere we've always wanted to go. We spent a week amid the tallest species that ever lived, skirted the turf of the largest (the Sequoia in the Sierras), and stopped by the oldest — all native to California.

The grove we visited sat at the end of a 12-mile dirt road that twisted through the hot high desert. The temperature dropped from 91 to 66 with the elevation change, but despite the balmy weather we had to hike the last mile of dirt road to the stand because the road was closed ... due to snow. A large patch of pure white snow made a portion of the road impassable and dribbled run off — the only moisture that cut through the dry terrain. As we arrived at the grove, several heavy rain drops hit us out of what moments ago was a blue sky. A narrow trail of thunderclouds had slipped in above us, for which we were unprepared. Near the end of the Patriarch Grove loop, thunder echoed and we ran as fast as the thin air would let us (not fast). As we neared the car lightening struck a low rise nearby, and we realized on that barren moonscape we were often the tallest thing. Meaty hail fell.

It was the perfect little pre-honeymoon. We spent most of the long drive to Bishop (12 hours, another fire on Hwy. 80) chattering about the wedding (which was awesome!) and planning backpacking tramps for Honeymoon 1.0.

Jason

What Would Smokey (the bear) Do?

By the time the wedding week came to a close there were more than 100 fires burning in Humboldt County. Several fires scorched the steep ridges that overhang Highway 299, which runs alongside the Trinity River — the river we were to white water raft on Friday.

Sarah and I got a call Thursday morning telling us that our rafting trip had been moved down stream due to road closures, but when we arrived the company said the roads had opened and the better rapids of the Upper Trinity proved hard to resist. Despite the heavy smoke that dominated our drive to that point, we drove deeper into the wildfires.

The trouble began after the rafting. See Mark's video below.

Jason

PS: The rafting was amazing, great fun: good rapids, excellent guides.


Eagle Fire along Trinity River from Mark Ranallo on Vimeo.

Stop, drop, and roll.

This is one of our favorite moments from the reception. Based on the laughter, the rapid paparazzi response by everyone close enough with camera in hand, and the good natured post-drop conversation — we think many of you found the first dance to be a highlight as well.

Thanks to everyone for helping to make it a joyful, rather than an awkward, moment. And thanks to John for masterfully preserving it on film.

Jason

PS: This embedded video is a bit grainy — but for the record, John's version is crystal clear.

To the trees.

The morning after the wedding as we rounded up the last of the loose items around the Bluff House we were happy to find that eight of our redwood saplings were missing. We set out 24 pots as centerpieces and came home with only 16. With the one we are holding for Kat, that makes for nine of the trees being planted in friend's and family's yards throughout California.

This series of plantings is the is the green aspect of our wedding that we find the most pleasure in, and we hope that you will post pictures or notes on this blog keeping us up to date on how the trees are faring.

Speaking of which, a few comments to get you started.

• Your redwood may look sad after so much travel (the ones we came home with do). No worries, just water it well. It may not outgrow burned tips and such until the next growing season (Feb. 2009). Redwoods recover from almost anything, so don't give up on it.
  
• The little pot your tree is in will lose moisture fast, particularly in the hot summer months — so water several times a week and don't let the soil dry out. Putting your tree in a part-shade environment for the rest of this season will help you help it.
  
• Don't plant or transplant your tree until November. My recommendation is to upgrade to a five-gallon pot (with good drainage) in November and grow your tree for another year before putting it into the ground. It will be three to five feet tall by then and will handle the world better. Less than a year ago your tree was a oat-sized fleck of seed; I planted these trees in July 2007.
• For potting soil I use Miracle Grow Moisture Control Potting Soil. For a little fertilizer I use Miracle Grow All Purpose Liquid Fertilizer — but you can use whatever you prefer so long as the tree gets water and a little nutrients each week, particularly during the growing season (Feb. - Nov.).
  

Enjoy your trees, and e-mail or post with any questions or concerns (see old posts for more info, June 2008 and October 2007). If you didn't get a tree and want one, or want us to grow one bigger for you, e-mail or post for that, too. We'll even come plant it!

Jason

Mr. and Mrs.

That couldn't have gone better.

We returned home yesterday afternoon after taking the scenic route south from Orick, and we talked constantly of the wedding and how amazing the day — and the whole week were. We had the best time.

Thank you to everyone again for traveling so far and taking the time to spend the week with us. Having so many of our favorite people in one place really made the week what it was. We did a lot of planning, but the people made the time special — and a blast! Lots of good times at the cabins, hiking, boating, pub hopping, rafting, causing trouble at the clerk's office, and getting trapped in the wildfires. Because of you all, even the trouble with the license turned into one of our favorite memories of the week.

We are so looking forward to seeing everyone's pictures and video from the week. I will e-mail everyone today about where to upload your photos so that everyone can share, and I will of course post a note here with a link when Stan and Jeannette's pictures are up and ready (we've been checking their site twice daily since the wedding).

There is a barrage of wedding posts to come, so keep an eye to the blog. Thanks again for making the week a brilliant experience. We hope to see everyone soon.

The Williamses