i've uploaded some wedding photos! thanks so much to kat and paul for the amazing pictures!

Ceremony & Reception

we're finally here in Thailand, got in at around midnight the night before. amy slept most of the day yesterday, while i played with my nephew North. we're planning to be in chiang mai by monday, and then head out to china on the 24th. i can't wait to be back in a routine again, instead of dragging around suitcases most of the time like we have done this summer. i do not know what kind of routine i will have in china, and i have a suspicion that the first few months will be spent trying to figure that out, both at home and at work.
so the honeymoon and the days after were not exactly what we had expected, and it certainly wasn't as relaxing as we had hoped! some of my relatives visited us in the middle of it and stayed overnight, we saw the start of a forest fire in lake tahoe, the largest in the history of the area which forced us to go back to san francisco because of smoke and road closures. then we missed our flight to MN by a day because i misread the date in the itinerary. nice start of married life, eh? note to all: the words "don't worry, i've done this before" might sound reassuring in some cases, but definitely not in this one.
speaking of forest fires, we saw another one on the way to LA from chicago. the guy at the gas station said that it was the largest in Utah history. i hope that this is not a trend that will continue as we travel to china! we stopped at vegas on the way, and i was a bit shocked at how much i reacted inside at the blatant display of greed, sex, and poverty of people who lost their lives to gambling. i thought myself as hardened and even calloused, and it was my second time in vegas. the first time i was there it was over ten years ago, when i first came to america. it didn't really affect me then, but this time around i couldn't wait to get out of there. we were walking on the streets hand in hand, and people would come up and ask if we wanted to get married, or see a sex show, or both, ad nauseum. our curiosity to see the place was soon filled with the need to extricate ourselves from it, so we went back to our hotel, slept, and were on our way to LA by 5 the morning.
it is 5:43 in the morning, courtesy of jet lag that i am awake. i will post some more photos in the days to come.