the housewards: Wedding: part 1

This past weekend, Ben took off for the mountains of Colorado for Spencer and Mattea's wedding. Spence was one of the guys who lived in "the Ponderosa House" Ben's senior year of college, and also stood up in our wedding. For money's sake, Jodi stayed home, which turned out to be the case for the other guys who lived at te Pond, which meant it was a man-filled weekend of bachelor fun.

I found a flight out of Visalia, which is a tiny airport with one flight to and from Ontario daily. I was one of two people on the 16-passenger plane, and I was entertained watching the pilots since the cockpit was open to the cabin. I also was able to watch the sunrise over the Sierra Nevadas.

The same day I arrived was the bachelor party, which involved paintball, Super Smash Brothers (we had the n64 hooked up to a projector in the hotel room all weekend), Dinner (Spence's choice), and a LAN party. I unfortunately don't have any pictures of any of these events, but this is the best way I can describe the office of the place where we played paintball:

It was also an armory, and there were people firing rather large real guns not far from where we were lobbing balls of paint at eachother.

The next day while Spence got ready for the rehearsal, we met up with another friend for lunch who happened to be in Colorado Springs for work, and then we headed up to 9,000 feet to the wedding location to tag along for the rehearsal.

It was a really neat place, and we enjoyed clear skies the whole time we were there, even at night which you'll see later.

After the rehearsal, we drove to "the lodge" where Spencer's family was staying and we enjoyed a wonderful dinner. I, of course, stuck to meat:

We had a great time hanging out and playing games like volleyball and "hit the baseball with a piece of firewood."

I even tried my hand (feet?) at slacklining. It's basically a tow-strap stretched between two trees and you try to walk across it.

Games and dinner were followed by a campfire and s'mores.

Like I mentioned earlier, the sky was very clear, and the stars were not shy. We even saw a few shooting stars, which I think I captured in the first pic.

After spending the night in our bachelor pad in Colorado Springs, we drove back up to the lodge in Divide to ~~get in the way of~~ help out with preparations for the wedding.

It was a really nice outdoor wedding, and the reception was in the building immediately behind the ceremony.

Between the ceremony and the reception, the wedding party took pictures and the rest of us played Vollyball, Horseshoes, and more slackline.

even the bride and groom joined in!

By the end of the weekend, I made it across once, and I might invest in a tow rope to practice some more.

They served more delicious meat at the reception (pulled pork, chicken, and brisket), and we danced the night away - it was required per the invitation. Even Mattea's grandpa danced the whole night:

There were times when I felt we were like "those guys" at the wedding, as we were sort of the obnoxious college roommates, but I think everyone there was very chill and was just there to celebrate. Here's the boys and the bride: