Leaving Town

Last week Casey and I began preparations for our upcoming trip to Portland.

.

First, we packed a completely inordinate amount of 

baby gear, clothes, toys, etc. into the van and drove to Williamstown,

where we would be dumping the troublemakers (pictured below)

at their Grandpa's house for the week.

No matter how many things you bring for a baby,

you are always at least one short.

This time, we lacked our trusty bathtub and were forced to improvise.

Orin was less than amused at this degrading treatment,

but we found it pretty funny.

After everything was ready ( and 45 minutes later than we meant to leave)

we said a hasty good-bye-until-Christmas to my sister

and took off in a cloud of dust for the airport...

and, yes, the van can, in fact, move fast enough to produce clouds of dust. 

Even after our late arrival, were able to board the plane early enough

so that Orin could review the safety pamphlet before his first flight.

He was a little weary of the water-landing instructions,

but we convinced him that everything would go smoothly.

He was so confident in our assertions that he did not even bother to stay awake.

Upon arriving in Portland, we were greeted by Katie and her husband-to-be, Tony.

The following two days were spent in a blur of wedding preparations 

and baby-family introductions.

Here are a couple of the highlights:

This is Orin hanging out with his Uncle Steven and Aunt Lacey.

The feelings of love-at-first-sight appear to be mutual.

And here is Orin meeting his Grandpa Ed.

You really should click on the picture to enlarge it 

so you can see his enormous grin.

Ed must have just told him about the shiny blue bicycle he bought for Orin

 to use when he gets a little bigger.
On Thursday, the guys tried on their tuxes for the wedding.

Here is the most wonderful husband in the entire world looking

as gorgeous as ever.

And Steven, who might have come in second for the cutest boy in the room...

had it not been for Orin, stealing the show in his super-cool sunhat.

After the tuxes, we turned our attention to the bride-to-be and her final dress fitting.

Casey, Orin, and I got to go behind the scenes to learn the detailed process of pinning up the train so that Katie could dance at the reception.

I have to say, dress-makers don't make it easy.

The next morning we all met at the wedding site for a walk through of the ceremony.

Here are the siblings, making their way down the path to the alter.

In the next blog, this picture will be repeated, 

but with significantly different outfits.

See you then.