It started with the rehearsal. The rehearsal couldn't be at the actual wedding site because of another wedding. So we just rehearsed in a local park. Apparently a park with pigs. Giant pigs. Pigs that were so big they came up to my waist. There were three pigs running around the rehearsal. Their owner looked like ZZ Top. Quite interesting.
The day of the wedding all the girls got Starbucks, pedicures, lunch, and then primped. Briana was beyond beautiful. Her dress was very heavy with pearls, lace, rhinestones, the works. She tends to be a simpler girl, so the dress was an unconventional choice, but it was obviously perfect. 
The traffic on wedding day was quite atrocious and the ceremony was delayed a bit to make sure everyone arrived. The traffic was caused by several things. First, the wedding was near the beach during spring break. Second, there was a concert near the beach that night. Third, it was Ron L. Hubbard's birthday. Hubbard is the founder of Scientology and Clearwater, FL is a major Scientology hub. Several streets were shut down for the celebration. Briana is an on-time fanatic, but she did very well in the limo during the traffic jams. (Pics in the limo: Bri and Dad)
The ceremony was perfect. It wasn't too hot and the traditional ceremony was very moving.
Pigs weren't the end of the wildlife weekend. The wedding was held by the water. Just after the ceremony, during picture time, several dolphins were surfacing. Unfortunately, they didn't jump on command into a heart shape, but their presence was appreciated nonetheless. (Pics: dolphins, Dad, Bri and the girls)
Hardly anyone noticed that the cake did not show up. Yup. No wedding cake. My sister took the missing cake incredibly well. She didn't care so much about the cake and the pomp and circumstance that comes with a cake, but she was excited about the cake being vegan. She was excited about sharing a vegan cake with family and friends so they could see her lifestyle wasn't all tofu! It was later discovered that the baker had written the wrong date on the contract. He felt really terrible about the whole thing and did refund all of the money, even the deposit. Other then the cake, the wedding was really fun, lots of dancing and alcohol. My dad dedicated Tupelo Honey to me and as we danced I cried almost as much as on my wedding day three years ago. My Granny caught the flowers and her great-grandson caught the garter. (Pics: Bri and Mom, Dad and me, Granny and Tyler, the cha-cha slide)
It was just so overwhelming to see Bri's and Adam's obvious love for each other. I was honored to be the maid of honor and Robb took amazing pics to supplement the professional photography.
Even though most of our time was spent with family visits, Robb and I managed to sneak away one night to the town of Weeki Watchee. Weeki Watchee is a tiny little town in Florida where my Grandpa owns a riverhouse. Before the whole surgery thing, we had planned on doing some kayaking and swimming; sutures put that plan on hold. But I've grown up visiting the riverhouse and Robb had never visited before, so we decided to head there anyway. My Grandpa rode up with us to the house to show us around and then he planned on taking back his motorhome that evening. To say my Grandpa is a hunter is an understatement. His riverhouse is really an homage to his trophies. I had warned Robb, but I don't know if he truly expected the enormity of the dead animals on the walls. So he and Grandpa played with the guns for a little bit. Next time I'm sure Robb will have to shoot with him. 
After Weeki Watchee we headed to Homassassa Springs. The State Park here has a manatee (seacow) refuge and a mini-zoo of local animals (much like Enumclaw's Northwest Trek). We were pretty impressed with this little park. The funniest part of the park was Lu. When the park first opened decades ago, it was an exotic animal park. When Florida took over the park, they decided to make the focus local animals and shipped of the exotics. But people were very upset with the idea of Lu the Hippo leaving; so the governor of Florida signed a proclamation to make Lu an official Florida citizen. 
The Mima Mounds are a few miles outside of Olympia and no one is quite sure what they are. According to Wikipedia they are uniformly distributed mounds of soil, 1-3 meters high. There are a variety of theories as to why they exist. Settlers first thought they were Indian burial grounds, but excavations show that there are no remains. Other competing theories include: gopher mounds, sea rivers, earthquakes, and glacier paths. They're in prairie land and I imagine in the summer they're quite beautiful. We went in the middle of winter during a downpour. We walked along the paths in between the mounds for awhile, but the rain and non-plant/non-animal life made our visit short. Really fascinating. 
On that Saturday we went to the Pacific Science Center to check out "Lucy's Legacy." You've heard of Lucy: the most complete, preserved fossil of a human ancestor. We were really excited to go to this exhibit to see Lucy and because the current US tour will probably be the only time Lucy is in America. The Lucy exhibit hasn't been doing too well in Seattle, due to snow, the economy, etc. The rumor was that attendance was so poor in Seattle, that Lucy may just go back to Ethiopia early instead of heading on to her next American city. So getting to Lucy was a top priority for us.
I pedaled on this stationary bike to see how many calories I could burn in an hour. Robb says that instead of calorie counts they should put burritos on there, then I'd get a true understanding of what exercise does (or doesn't) do.
This periscope goes all the way up to the top of the Science Center and you can turn it 360 degrees to see a neat view of the city.
Capitol Campus is a huge area with open lawns, overlooking Puget Sound, that house giant buildings that function as our state government. The Legislative Building is quite spectacular. It was the last capitol building designed and created in such a grandiose style, dome and all. We took an hour long tour of the building and learned that all the chandeliers were Tiffany. The giant chandelier hanging from the dome is several tons and can fit an entire Volkswagen bug into it. The doorknobs all have our state seal embedded into them. If you touch Washington's nose, you'll have good luck. Marble is everywhere and each room seemed to have marble originating from distinct countries. The building is really beautiful and it must be a pleasure to be able to work in those rooms.
After the tour of the Capitol building, we walked down to the lake and then made our way to downtown Olympia. We were very impressed with the downtown area. Anytime a downtown has interesting stores and no chains, we are happy. In fact, we headed to Olympia again the very next weekend. Stay tuned to find out about our next trip.
