Here comes the Bride TWICE!

Well, today we left home on our way to Las Vegas with a wedding in between.

Not just any wedding but Joey’s son, Erlan, got married to Rachel. They actually had two ceremonies..The 1st one was on Wednesday Dec 30th at the City Hall in San Bernardino, CA.

It was really well done. I had no idea that city halls now have a little wedding chapel…but they did & Rachel was in a beautiful gown & looked truly lovely. The judge was a woman…I liked that for some reason. When it came time for the ring part….no rings to be found.

I don’t know yet what exactly happened but Rachel & Erlan were so cool, calm & collected. They & everyone laughed at the situation & one of the guests ran out, perhaps to the car, and came back with the rings within about 3 minutes then we ALL laughed with relief and the ceremony continued.

The wedding party & guests numbered about 20. The original plan was to have us all drive up the mountain to Running Springs, Ca where Rachel’s parents live & have dinner there. Mother Nature stepped in & spoiled that plan.

Running Springs, Ca is at about 6,000 ft altitude & was getting snowed upon which meant we all would have needed chains for driving up the mountain. NUTS TO THAT!!!

The reconnoitered plan had the food brought down to the flatlands of San Bernardino to Rachel’s friend’s home and we had a sit down dinner together there. Their beautiful house was still decorated for Christmas with two Christmas trees inside. The outside of the house had white icicle lights framing the total two story, white colonial-type home. The approach to this lovely property had a long circular driveway which made the view of the lighted decorations even more outstanding. The trees, too, all had tiny white lights outlining them & there were some white-lighted reindeer too. I’ll try to add the photo here but being a night shot won’t do it any justice........ but it will help help us remember.

Here comes the bride AGAIN. The second ceremony was the next night Dec 31, 2009, New Year’s Eve in Fontana,Ca about 10 miles from our San Bernardino RV camp.

Rachel has lots of friends & this time there were three of their homes in a row that had patios that ran together & the 2nd ceremony & party was held there. There were about 100 guests including many from Joey’s family from San Diego as well as Joey's daughter, son-in-law & the two grandsons from Alpheretta, GA (Atlanta area). It was really nice to spend time with them all. Some of them we hadn't seen in YEARS!

This 2nd ceremony was performed by Rachel’s dad. He’s a judge & the “kids” wrote their own vows. Being New Year’s Eve we stayed until…..
gotch ya… 'bet you thought we stayed until at least midnight…nope. We left about 11 pm. Old farts are we! Just don’t like to be on the road on New Year’s Eve when everyone else is. We like to celebrate in our own way.

Actually, that’s our regular motis operandi on New Year’s Eve. We’ve not partied this way even in Paris & London several years in a row and are perfectly happy avoiding the crowds.

So we spent the two nights in "San Bernardino RV Park" & then on to Las Vegas again. More on that next time.