We Spent April and May in Wedded Bliss In Columbus

So after our neat Hawaiian honeymoon, Liz and I drove from Chicago to Columbus to start being married people together. With Cornelius!

This will be a post about things we did during April and May in Columbus, but it will also be pictures from walking around in the neighborhood, something we and I did quite a bit of.

A great thing about Columbus is driving over to Katie and Joel’s for a meal or for a hang. Right off the bat we were there right away.

Just a few days after getting to Columbus, Mitch & Niall and Co came through town as part of their great American road trip and we met up with them for Mexican. It was wonderful!

Also right away it was Easter and Katie and Joel hosted a big Hawaii-themed Easter dinner where we made kalua pig and showed a honeymoon slideshow. Also Cornelius had to wear his Hawaii outfit but didn’t have to come to dinner.

As you might know, we got a cat carrier backpack so I started taking Cornelius on walks around the neighborhood. He doesn’t love it. But he does love sitting in the carrier out on the patio. He understands that that’s the way he gets to go outside so when he sees me come down the stairs in the morning he runs full speed and leaps into the backpack. And also here are some pictures from walking around outside, not always with the backpack.

One afternoon I was helpful and picked some stuff up at the church that Liz had left there.

There was this evening where we walked to the Giant Eagle grocery store.

April 14th we had a real fun night — we went out to Marion, Ohio to see their High School production of Mean Girls as one of Liz’s intern Alyx was handling percussion for the show and the show was just great! Amazing star power they’ve got out in Marion. And equally amazing was the Stewart’s Root Beer Drive-In they have in Marion. They hang it right on your window, just like in the movies! Great stuff.

The next day (Saturday the 15th) I got to go watch Liz play songs for old folks at their home and then we did some furniture shopping before my niece-in-law Carolyn came over to eat noodles and watch Champions with us while outfit-coordinating with Liz.

Here are miscellaneous photos from April 16-20th…

On the evening of the 20th I got to go see Liz play with ORB (the Obscure Reference Band), a video game music band.

Then the next night I went with Liz and her (our?) friend Claudia to see this band Snarky Puppy. Always interesting when a band you have never, ever heard of before turns out to be very popular.

Then the next day, April 22nd, I had an early birthday party with the adults from Liz’s family at the 94th Aero Squadron by the Columbus Airport. I had my 15th birthday dinner at the Chicago Aero Squadron so it was a lot of fun to return to one again, even if it was about to close in a few weeks and definitely acting like it.

A few days later we had a picnic dinner before helping clean the newly renovated Columbus Temple

Another performance by Liz for old people … this time at a really fancy retirement community

And then on the evening April 28th we drove down to Nashville and got dinner at the amazing Joyland before crashing at Jeff and Noelle’s

Saturday the 29th started with Benji’s football game, a visit to the Buddy Bench, and tiny donuts before a visit to the new Prince’s Hot Chicken (I miss the old Prince’s) with Cousin Katharine joining us before it was time to say adios to the R*smussens.

Then we went to Loveless Cafe with Annemarie and Adam before spending the night at their place. And then I woke up and it was my birthday! Which began with country livin’ and chickens before the drive back to Columbus (with a stop for a little birthday lunch at Skyline Chili!)

Here are pictures from around the neighborhood and of Cornelius and a second ORB gig from another during the next space of time before our big Columbus reception and the visit from my folks.

After the reception weekend and after my parents had left there was a big gathering of Liz’s family at a very fancy Dairy Queen. And after this there are nice pictures of things we did before our trip out to Utah for our big third and final wedding celebration, like making cavatelli at Katie and Joel’s or going to Target a few times or taking Cornelius out in a stroller he didn’t like very much and stuff like that.

Oh and something really fun we did before the Utah trip was go on a little taquito tour of our neighborhood, enjoying a little meal at Las Carnitas and Super Torta before getting dessert at a very busy Culver’s.

Oh! And the Saturday morning after that there was a surprise birthday party for Anne, Liz’s mom, who is also my mom now, too.

And then we went to Utah and came back from Utah. In the tiny little bit of time before we left for New York I got my neighborhood pool pass and went swimming once. What a life!

Ok, now I just need to make a blog post (or two?) about our Summer in New York and then I think we’ll be all caught up? As long as we don’t do anything else, like drive back to Columbus or fly out to Aunt Louise’s birthday party.

We Had a Honeymoon!

Ok. Finally. I am starting this blog post about Liz and my Hawaiian Honeymoon!
Our flight out of Midway left EARLY, so early we had to leave our hotel at, I don’t know, 2:30am? This isn’t a photo of us leaving at 2:30am, but it gives you the idea of what Liz and me being in our hotel lobby was like.

But the nice thing about leaving Chicago so dang early in the morning is you get to Maui around, what was it, noon or 1 or something? I hadn’t been since I was 15 and the airport was mostly like what I barely remembered it being like. When I came to Hawaii as a 15yr old I noted how everyone else had rented convertibles so this time I decided: Convertible!

We zipped over to our hotel to check in and drop our bags off before zipping back over to our first Hawaii attraction…
(Here are hotel establishing shots)

Hawaii Attraction No. 1? The Maui Tropical Plantation tour!

Then followed that up with dinner at the plantation’s Mill House restaurant

And then back we went to our hotel.

Day Two, or Full Day #1 — we wake up in Wailea and walk from our hotel to the ones next door, past the White Lotus, and to where the condos started then turned around and came back, had some breakfast, explored our hotel a bit more, and then had pool time!

Then we drove up to Lahaina and ate lunch at Cheeseburger in Paradise, which I had eaten at on my trip to Maui when I was 15. Seemed about the same! Walked around Lahaina a bit and saw some sights I sort or remembered from that 1992 trip.

Then we drove up to what I’m going to ignorantly call “the north coast of Maui” and took a walk along the coast all the way to the Ritz before coming back down to the Lahaina area for a wonderful dinner at King Noodle. During the walk we sure saw lots of people getting their sunset beach portraits. Beach portraits like crazy! Oh and we also popped into a grocery store and wound up buying a box of Kraft Instant Spaghetti Dinner which we would later eat in Columbus.

Day Three: Had a traditional Hawaiian McDonalds breakfast to get us the energy we needed for our next big activity: a visit to Haleakala national park where we learned it is a LOT easier to hike down into a volcano crater than hike out of it. Holy smokes! Don’t let the smiles totally fool you, it was a lot of work!

After our hike we had an absolutely bangin late lunch at Da Kitchen — really wish we’d “found” this place sooner and gone there more—and then took a nice walk around our hotel and the coast by it before calling it a Maui night one last time.

Day Four — Saying goodbye to our hotel, overrun with runners, then grabbing breakfast at a nice place the name of which I cannot remember or find right now, then returning our car and catching a flight to Oahu.

Get to Oahu, deal with a rather curious car rental situation that turns out to work out quite well, and head straight for the last Pearl Harbor tour of the day

Then we decided to grab a little dinner at an L&L Barbecue since we loved our dinner at Da Kitchen the day before.

Then we took the super beautiful drive up to Laie (no pictures) and got milkshakes from the place the Obamas go. Angel’s Ice Cream. I think that’s it. And we also noted that there was an L&L in that same shopping center.

And then we went over to our home for the next few days: an amazing cliffside condo leant to us by Carol and Geoff. Holy smokes! What a place! What a view!

Day Five — got up, walked around our neighborhood, checked out the private beach and then had smoothies and loco moco at, uhm, the nearby L&L Barbecue!

Then we drove down to the Macadamia Nut farm store before getting lunch with Carol and Geoff (HUGE mistake: did not get a picture from this) before making a visit to the Laie temple AND, well, getting dinner at L&L Barbecue.

Day Six — We heard the thing to do was watch the sunrise at the end of our little peninsula so that’s how we started the day. Then I went over to the grocery store to check things out and we spent the morning at our local private beach before some general Laie activities like eating fried fish, corn dogs, visiting BYU, going to the part of the Polynesian Cultural Center that’s like Downtown Disney, and taking a hike up to a World War II pillbox that turned out to be a little more demanding than we had expected. Then we enjoyed the North Shore a bit as it got darker and darker and, uhm, got L&L Barbecue for dinner (No pics)

Last Day: And the honeymoon ends like it began: Early! Got up early, drove to Honolulu, dropped off our rental in a really odd manner (but everything worked out) and enjoyed a nice and easy flight back to Chicago with a nice and easy layover in, I don’t know, Phoenix or something? All I know is wherever it was, they didn’t have L&L there.

Okay, now I just need to blog:
-Misc April-June Columbus Stuff
-New York Summer Stuff (including visitor posts!0

We Had A Trip to Utah (and a Third Wedding Reception!)

On May 24th I took a long, delayed flight to Salt Lake, got in too late to pick up my rental, crashed on the Clark’s couch, and then got my car early on the 25th, getting up to Highland in time for a Don Joaquin lunch with Kristen and Cory.

That evening I drove up to Logan. I was going to be speaking at the Mormon Scholars of the Humanities Conference that weekend and Andrew’s mom was letting me stay at her house. I’ve been up to her place a LOT over the years, it was nice to take the familiar drive to the familiar home one more time. We had tomato soup for dinner.

On the morning of the 26th I got up bright and early and enjoyed some familiar sights around the home before going up to the conference. I was glad to be speaking on the second day so that I got the first day to “suss out the vibe” of the conference. It had a good vibe! I also got to explore Utah State’s campus, a campus I had basically never explored before.

That night guess who turned up in Logan? None other than everyone’s favorite, My Wife Liz — here she is playing the harpsichord the next morning.

And then it was time to go back to the conference for my presentation on references to Mormonism in Finnegans Wake. I am so glad to say that the presentation went very well and was well received as well. Here is a photo of me and my co-presenters when we were doing the Q&A after wards. That’s basically all I’ve got to show from the presentation. Oh and here, I’ll try to embed the Instagram Live video Liz took. Did this work? https://www.instagram.com/p/CswVg2roawd/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

I was lucky to speak right before lunch. For lunch we celebrated with turkey steak sandwiches, something I had never had before or even heard of before.

After the rest of the presentation more Utah State and Logan were explored (Liz finished college at Utah State so it was a Liz’s Logan Reality Tour), culminating with dinner at Le Nonne, Liz’s favorite Logan Italian restaurant.

On the 28th we enjoyed a wonderful bacon and fruit breakfast with Candy (that’s Andrew’s mom) but I have pictures of other favorite things around her house instead of that. After church we went and found my pioneer ancestor Susannah Stone’s grave and then bid Candy farewell after an extremely good time at her home.

Then, in a move I was not expecting myself to make, we went up to Downey, Idaho so Liz could see where all the Barneses and Brims come from. Aunt Linda welcomed our surprise visit with open arms and gave us a VIP tour of the farm house and all the cemeteries. Candy had set us up with some lilacs for the graves and it was good to check in with my great grandparents and grandparents.

Then, the next day, May 29th (a.k.a. “Memorial Day”) we took Liz’s Davis County Reality Tour (after a little morning Highland hike) to see where she spent her formative Utah years. We got Tasty donuts (and a french dip) before visiting some modest Layton homes, running into friends, and bumping into the almost-complete Layton temple and then had a lovely fried chicken meal from C&B’s, which everyone says is the same as Maddox — but honestly, I don’t remember Maddox being this good!

Tuesday the 30th: a big thing about this day was we had dinner up in Midway with Andrew and Sidney and Henry’s house and got to tell them what a great time we had at Andrew’s mom’s house.

Let’s just say these pictures are from that Wednesday? I was working out of Kristen and Cory’s house, don’t always have a lot to show from it. BUT Wednesday night I went to get pizza with Cory and Walker and the restaurant wound up comping the whole meal because of some order confusion and that was pretty cool.

Thursday, June 1st — very unexpected happenings that morning: turns out “my” company ran out of money and they’re not “my company” any more. Maybe if I hadn’t been busy doing my job I would have noticed things weren’t going well? Oh well. I’ve been sending out resumes and looking forward to the next opportunity and telling myself that the company must have been in real bad shape if they had to let me go.

As a consolation, I got to go to Provo with Liz to pick up koloaches and wow they were good and probably not spelled like I just spelled them?

Another bonus was I got to meet up with all the Woolleys and Gardners and Pearsons and go see the Little Mermaid, eat Hawaiian food, and visit an awesome park in Magna with them. (An especially cool thing: The Pearsons rented out a whole auditorium so we got it all to ourselves to watch the Little Mermaid to — pretty cool and fun way to do it)

Night time walk in Highland upon our return. Bumped into my old roommate Quentin while we were out, too.

Friday, June 2nd — Ah! Freedom! Started the day with a morning Highland hike with Liz and then that afternoon Owen’s family turned up. Finally got to meet niece Phoebe and reunite with nephew Hayden. And I think I picked my folks and Emily up from the airport that afternoon? Probably? That night we went to see Across the Spiderverse but didn’t rent out a theater to do it.

And then, before we knew it, it was Saturday the 3rd, the day of our Big Party. Liz and I started the day with another drive up to Provo, this time to pick up BYU mint brownies. Turns out the guy in charge of where you pick up brownies was a real jerk high on brownie power but, ok dude, hope you enjoy being king of feeling important about brownie pick up. Provo traffic was also a pain because of a half marathon. But we were able to make a visit to a nice, quiet Sam’s Club and get lunch at Taco Time so the expedition was a pretty good one.

Back at Kristen and Cory’s things were full swing with the setting up and such. Sarah and Sally M*rrison from growing up in Chicago were over early to help and also Sarah gave Liz and me the most incredible gift, a gift beyond our wildest dreams:

Uncle Dick and Aunt Beulah were among our first arrivers. As the party was approaching, we really didn’t know how many people to expect as we didn’t ask for any RSVP’ing. Turns out a lot of people came! Probably around 200? I forget the number but the taco truck sold close to 400 tacos, or was it more than 400 tacos? Anyway, turned out to be quite the party. And something I’ve learned from having 3 wedding parties now is: You’ll see a lot more people that you want to talk to than you’ll ever be able to actually talk to as long as you’d like and also you will not know where your “other half” is most the time because they are talking to other people, but occasionally you’ll get to introduce some of your visitors to them. Maybe this is why receptions have those lines?

Here is Liz and Mom and Kristen and then Kristen and Ellie and Rachel

Our Taquero Preferido Ricardo was on hand to keep everyone fed

Old roommmate Quentin had driven by and noticed me while we were on our Thursday night walk so he dropped in for a minute

From here on out I’m at the mercy of what photos I grabbed or was sent. But so many wonderful people came out to see us and lots of fun things were happening in Kristen and Cory’s back yard, and there was all this good food, I wish I had photos of everyone and everything.

Huge score to have Jill Br*m pay us a visit! Made a real Suburban West Ward Reunion of the event.

Here’s pictures with the Beans and then Shane, Jen, Whitney from London, Erin, and Cindy — I’ll call these all 1995/Thee Martinis-adjacent friends, what a thing to see them all again in June 2023!

And speaking of 1995, here’s the arrival of none other than freshman roommate Matt L*mmon (and were roommates a lot of other years, too). What’s in that container he’s holding? Oh, we’ll be finding out!

Extremely honored that Paul (1999 buddy) and Lynsey (finally just meeting her!) came up from Las Vegas to honor us.

Also totally tickled that Jennie (1998) and Ryan came to the party. Oh that I could have had a whole party with each of these sets of guests!

Nice picture of Mom (1977) . . . I don’t have any pictures of Dad (1977)? or Emily (1981)? or so many people?

Candy (2001) and Me . . . we didn’t get a picture with Andrew (1995/2000) and Sidney (2019) and Henry (2021), too? Shoot. Too much partying!

POV: you’re about to get a hello hug from Heather (2000). Again, so tickled and honored to have 3/4 of her family come up to the party.

Ok so Matt appeared to be up to something behind the fence and then was like Hey Guys Hey Guys come look at this so here we are coming to have a look . . .

Mom’s reaction

But what were we looking at? WEll. Turns out Matt had brought a dead rat to the party?

Friends forever, what can I say?

As the party wore down I was able to snap more pictures of Liz and friends and family. What a great bunch of people! I keep saying this kind of thing but it’s true!

And then it was Sunday the 4th — time for Liz and me to take a long couple of flights home to Columbus … we had a nice long layover in Dallas so we had plenty of Whataburger time. And wow, those Whataburger can sure run a hamburger stand!

Ok . . . now I just need to blog:
-Our honeymoon
-May-June Columbus overview
-Ongoing New York Stuff!