world's longest wedding train

hello from Minnesota. we are ensounched at the hyatt, waiting to jog downtown to a jazzzzz club tonite, recommended by wesley tanner, who at this moment is walking with his wife on a beach in mexico. hard to recap all we've done, but here goes: Vegas last wednesday, sitting at Norma's pool, chillin-grilling. Puff, the magic fireworks hit a nearby palm tree and KABOOSH! instant 30' torch. draw-matic. off to airport, off the tarmack, off into the humid mid-west. shopped for rehearsal dinner, rehearsed, and had a beautiful sun filled afternoon at nearby indpendance lake. lots of kids, pizza, beer and laughter. nice day.
saturday, day of beauty, day of joy. girls-peggy, mandy, alena, tessa, jules and escort paul louis, drive off for fancy feet and painted nails. I napped. So dress up and get out to Alena's parent's house for ceremony. Look to photos for details on dressing and dresses. suffice to say SHE was a beauty in white and HE the coolest young man in western civ. stood in a flower stuffed garden filled with friends family. the wedding party walked in, a few words were shared and then: choo, choo, chooooooooo. a train roars thru the afternoon heat just behind the garden and must have hooked a total of 99 cars bouncing behind the engines. Definitely the world's longest wedding train! it was three minutes hilarious, unexpected entertianment. the rest of the day music played, friends danced, families talked and ate and ate some more. great to see peg's sista's, mary (and Mike) and patty, mother-in-law ellen a., and lots of wes' and mandy's old buds from our old home town of webster city, and special was the visit with the Oliver's. Friends. nuff said. kids danced into the nite and us old gezzers sat, laughed and wished we had such happy feet. alena, your parent created the prettiest flower garden wedding this side of shangri-la. thanks a gazillion margie and jack for making their day completely memorable.
sunday, woke up to a hot & way-way humid and sweaty city. 95 degrees! what to do? climb into a/c big american car and drove, after breakfast, out to lake minnetonka and checked out lake side living. stopped for late lunch, breeze picked up and 30 min later temp dropped to 75'! nice. back to alena's parent's house and watched wes and alena open presents and share sweets. spent rest of nite here at the hyatt with mandy, jules, paul, wes, alena, aunt mary, aunt patty and myself. ate, laughed, talked, back up to our room and time to cut my hair! shaved it off as pulling it out in public was beginning to bother some of us! so now i look like bruce willis without the attiutde and with a loving wife, daughter, and son and his offical new Mrs F.
today, we slept in, bid mary and patty adieu, had a wonderful lunch downtown and drove out the the botanical gardens. did a bunch of NOGS. (naps on grass) tomorrow we'll do a art musee, a science museum and visit cousin sue in st. paul. then off to the wild and hopefully cooler west on wednesday. later this week we get to flagstaff for round two, let's bring on the chemo and kill more cancer cells. "u gotz to die" says the cancernator.
Enjoy the photos and keep writing back, love and laughter to all, marcus