Marriage

Back in mid summer, my sister Natalie got married. She married her 'high school sweetheart' after dating for almost 8 years.

There are many many pictures of the wedding done very professionally by an actual photographer of the event. You will find nothing of the sort on this site. This is the man (or woman depending on who held the camera) view from the action. Enjoy!

Rehearsal dinner at the park. All the flower girls got cool Gucci sunglasses:
Natalie's bride's maids plus a flower girl lurking below.

The next day was the wedding, standard protocol the day after the rehearsal dinner. The wedding party was 'encouraged' to arrive about 16 hours prior to the ceremony for pictures.
Here's me with the only girls not married to me that really still like me:

Everyone wants to see the cake:
Me and my best friend:

The dirty little secret as to how we were able to convince Natalie not to bolt during the wedding:
Yes, there was a bagpiper.
Yes, said bagpiper came equipped with a kilt.
No, we are not Scottish.
No, Aaron's family is not from a highland sheep herding culture either.

Overheard just before this picture: "Just in case, my car is right outside the gate and the keys are in it."


All decorations, arrangements, issues, coordination, assimilation and beyond was made much easier by Shannon. I honestly believe we would have seen how the weather was in Vegas the third weekend of July if it wasn't for Shannon. The Tobin family dermatologist sends his thanks.


Way to go Aaron! Closing your eyes while kissing is only for when you are courting.

Natalie laughing at something funny our dad said.Okay, maybe the champagne made it funnier but it's my blog and I'll post my version of the event as I see fit.
Speaking of my blog this was also my champagne, err sparkling wine of the champagne method:

Some people were ushers, some people set up tables, some people help with catering, everyone had their role. My official job was 'enabler':

Jump Jump
I had to borrow a one year old (Molly Sobo) just to fit in for this picture. Also feel free to leave any thoughts on Mike's hair in the comment section of the blog. I'll make sure he gets them:

This was the only picture I could find to prove that Patrick was actually at the wedding, thus it's inclusion:

Grace during the 'money dance':

Aaron wasn't nearly as popular during the money dance, thus I felt the need to step in and fill the gap.
You wonder where else Natalie had money stashed from the dance:


That was pretty much the synopsis of the night. We had a great time and I think everyone else did as well. Big congrats to Natalie and Aaron or as they are now known, the Coiteux's. You will now be cursed by mangled pronunciations and misspellings for the remainder of your days! As the night wrapped down, I think we all would have liked to do as Lexi and just have a binky:

It's a small world after all........

From the 'it's a small world after all' portion of the blog we had house guests last night. This is not a rare occurrence in and of itself as we still like to entertain at Casa de Tobin.

But last night was very special as we entertained two 'professional athletes':

Yes, loyal readers of this space will recognize the tall girls we met on a ferry boat on the way to Dubrovnik in Croatia. It turns out they weren't lying and do actually live in Seattle.

We had a great time and hope to do something in the future with our new friends. But basketball season in England starts in a few weeks and one or both (as the eight ball says 'answer unclear, ask again later') are leaving for England and the glamorous life of a US professional athlete in Manchester. You know, hanging with Wayne Rooney, Christian Ronaldo and the ever suave and oft injured Frenchman Luis Saha is just part of the daily life as an American basketball 'star' in Manchester.

Here are a few archive photos just because I liked the pics and have a semi good excuse to tie them to this post.
It sure looks like she might have been pushed off that ledge.......?


Rest assured that while we had a good time last night, we were not tempted to jump off the back deck of the house or anything.

And in very late breaking news, many congrats go out to Dawn and Steve Piacitelli. Samuel David Piacitelli was born around 4 PM today (Friday the 21st) weighing in at a robust 6 lbs 15 ounces and 20 inches long. Mother and son are doing fine and father is still planning on attending the Seahawks game Sunday. That's a dedicated fan right there!

Congrats Dawn and Steve.

Semi-Annual Rafting trip

Last weekend we went on our somewhat semi-annual rafting trip to the Tieton river. Pictures of us in our rafting kit:


We got really lucky with the weather again. Who said that global warming is bad?

Archive footage of the action rafting photos as we had no one to take pictures:

The Saga Ends

That is the picture of our two boxes we shipped from Galway. They ended up coming today. For those of you keeping track at home, that is about 3.5 months on the shipping time from Galway to Seattle.

As you can ascertain from the pictures, they are in questionable shape to say the least. But at least they arrived. FINALLY!

New Car plus Wazzu

After 'borrowing' Natalie's Isuzu Rodeo 'rowdy' for the past couple months (thanks Nat!) we finally pulled the trigger on another Volvo S40 for Paty:

Notice the Seahawk Blue color! Just in time for the season to start today.

On another note, the Wazzu cougars played their annual 'home' football game in Seattle yesterday. Being as that most of my family is either an alumni or a student at WSU except me, I was really surprised to be the lone Tobin carrying the Wazzu flag at Qwest field yesterday:

It doesn't look like it, but the Pyramid beer garden beer line was actually longer than I have ever seen it yesterday. The Cougars were really living up to their reputation! It was pretty much required to double fist due to the length of the beer line.

Required cheese ball photo from the stadium. About 60% full, pretty good attendance but not great. It might have something to do with the absolute lameness of San Diego State. They did not look like a division 1A football team.

Speaking of looking good, the Jake Locker era is in full force after two weeks! Bring on the Buckeyes! (And be careful what you wish for, those farm boys of Ohio State are going to be a little tougher than the Syracuse Orange or the Boise State Broncos.)
And on another entirely unrelated note, Shadowrx got her epic flying mount today. /Cheer
Ironically, I had the 5k gold for the flying skill but didn't have the 200 further gold for the actual bird. So I haven't actually flown fast yet. After the Hawks get done pummeling the Bucs I'll have to grind out a little more gold for that bird!

Odds and Ends, PLUS Lincoln City

What is this you ask? A blog post? Chris still knows how to operate a computer?

Yes, yes, yes, I know it’s been a long time. To my loyal readers (all two of you, thanks!) I will try to do better.

Coming in this space you will soon (relative to my summer posting habit at least) see the last of the Croatia posts. I still need to cover Dubrovnik and Montenegro. There has been a wedding in the last few months. Most of you that read this space were attending or else have seen the pictures, but you will see my perspective of the wedding scene. Plus I have a few other photos from the summer stored away somewhere on the hard drive that I might be able to scare up.

In the interim it is now Labor Day weekend. Paty and I went to the Oregon Coast, Lincoln City to be exact. We are staying at the Jonasson family cabin, called Sea Cliff:

The cabin is really nice, directly on the beach. Reid’s great grandmother bought this place in the early 1950’s. As a reference the cabin is about a 5 minute walk south of the casino. We are close enough to the Surf Tide Hotel that this post might be uploaded using their wireless network.

And for those of you that read this space and haven't seen me lately, that tree hugger Camry Hybrid on the right is mine. Just to make up for all the Co2 I conserved on the trip to the coast I decided to throw a few plastic bottles in the bon fire we had Saturday Night at the beach. That way I am upholding my duty as a polluting American while still saving money on gas.

As the cabin is only one bedroom with a loft full of beds, here is our ‘room’:

The weather at the coast is mid 70’s with a 5-10 mph light breeze and really no wind to speak of. Got to love global warming! It never gets nicer than this on the Oregon coast. The view from our ‘room’:

We hiked out to the end of that rock in the background today, apparently it is called the Cascade Head. A few photos:




After the big hike we came back to Sea Cliff to chill out:

Even Heather’s dog Sadie was relaxed! Loyal readers of this blog will recognize Heather as Reid’s girlfriend. The same girl that ran the Prague Half Marathon with us in March. On a very weird tangent that I will close this post with. Reid’s parents brought their dog to Sea Cliff for the weekend, also named Sadie. So there are two small golden colored dogs named Sadie running around Sea Cliff this weekend.