Wedding photo overload!!!

And finally the wedding!

We made a error however, by leaving some of our suitcases at Takumi's house (because the rental car wouldn't hold everything) and realized that our wedding finery was an hour and a half away from us.  No way to go back and get it, and no way (the roads were so bad) for Takumi to come to our AirBnb and deliver it and no place for us to change at the venue (which Leiya had scoped out for us at the rehearsal the day before.)  We ended up meeting Takumi and Julieta and our suitcase at a Target parking lot and Tetsu changed in the car and I changed in a Target bathroom!  

But we made it... though I'm afraid I don't remember the name of the venue.  

Outdoors, grassy lawns above us, chairs laid out under big trees.  

Leiya was in the wedding party but she had set out dress clothes for Luka and Tony had found a nearly matching hat and bow tie so that he and Luka could be look-alikes.

Takumi played "doorman".

Julieta and I sat and enjoyed ourselves...  and for the next few hours Tetsu played photographer as he couldn't talk with anyone anyway and he found lots to photograph.  (More than 800 photographs!)

No photos allowed during the actual ceremony but the pastor (whom I later discovered I'd known when Takumi and Leiya had gone to vacation Bible school in California when they were in grade school!) waited for the wedding party under a huge oak tree.

A nice touch was that Justin (the groom) came down the long walkway with both his mother and father and Kiana also was escorted by both my brother and Marcy.

And here we are after the ceremony.

Colin, my nephew, and Leiya were paired.

My brother and Marcy.

I was so happy to see my brother looking so good as he has had health problems.

Greeting everyone on the patio right after the wedding.  You will notice my brother is smiling throughout most of this day!  He is known for his grumpy look but his happiness overflowed.  I was told that he and I are more and more looking like each other in our old age!

Luka made a splash in his dandy outfit.

The wedding party.   Kiana has always been a sort of goth gal and she wanted her wedding in black and dark purple.  (And I'd made her a black quilt which was a good choice.)

With the parents.  Three years ago when Leiya got married, Justin traveled back to Michigan with my brother's family for Leiya's wedding and he did most of the driving when we went to Indiana and Niagra Falls so Tetsu and I felt like we'd really gotten to know him.  I'm so glad that he has joined our family and I let his parents know it!

My children all together.

There were so many people to meet and talk to.  I was happy to find old friends and make new ones, but it was just nice to spend time with family too.

It got cold as the evening progressed so us gals all put on coats that (except for Julieta) didn't do much for style.

I so love this photo of Takumi and Julieta!

The reception buffet was held on another tier of the patio.

Look at that dessert table!!

There was dancing.

My brother was still smiling!

A bonfire.

Some wild Latin dancing.  I didn't know Takumi could dance!

A crazy photo booth.

Finally a photo with the bride.

Father and son.

And a last photo that we actually got to this wedding!

On to desert country

After our nice stay in the mountains and a few hours of reminiscing, Leiya and Tony and Luka and Tetsu and I headed to Temecula to stay in another AirBnB for a couple of nights.  

My niece's wedding was at a venue near Temecula and Leiya had reserved a place for us that wasn't too far from the venue, thinking that it would make life easier because she had a rehersal to attend and she and Tony were invited to the rehersal dinner.  As it turned out, though the AirBnB was very nice, making access to it was a challenge!

We had some inkling of problems that might ensue when the AirBnB owners had texted to say "Please ignore GPS directions for getting to the accommodations.  The best route is..." and that route seemed to take us a round about way...  We kept getting deeper and deeper into a canyon and the road kept getting bumpier and bumpier.  We were hanging on the sides of the car when we finally made the last turn to our lodgings!  If that was the easier route, Wow!

The AirBnB itself was modern and airy and had a wonderful deck that wrapped around the whole building.  There were hummingbird feeders everywhere and we all enjoyed watching the hummingbirds buzz back and forth to sip nectar.

The canyon scenery was beautiful and there were numerous places to sit and enjoy the quiet.

Wineries in the distance.

We didn't quite trust Luka to not slip through the decking so he mostly got held.

He enjoyed spotting the hummingbirds and hearing them buzz as they flew by.

Three birds there at once!

The building was a hexagon which made for interesting angles everywhere.

We didn't use the fireplace and it grew quite warm in the afternoon.

The cacti flora was so amazing and someone could do a great botany art project while staying here.

Look at the color!

And shapes!  Almost like seaweed underwater...

A couple of glitches though while we staying here.  Because of the poor access roads, it wasn't really even possible to go out and buy groceries and so Tetsu and Luka and I munched on left-over bananas, salad and tortilla chips this evening while Tony and Leiya went out.  After the rehersal dinner, Leiya and Tony decided to try the "alternate route" back to the AirBnB as they couldn't believe there could be a road worse than the one we had used when we arrived at the place.  It was, and Leiya said it was absolutely terrifying trying to drive this road at night with no streetlights and no way of knowing what was on the sides of the road.  

Leiya and Tony's bed also collapsed in the middle of the night and Leiya said she sent off a complaint to the owners at three in the morning saying "the bed collapsed on MY side and I only weigh 120 lbs!"  We found Tony and Leiya and Luka camping on the livingroom floor the next morning.

But finally the 15th arrived and we were ready for my niece's wedding!  I was beginning to tire out...

A very old mountain cabin

Before leaving Idyllwild, we wanted to take a look at the cabin my brother owns and show Tony some of the places where I and later, Tetsu, Takumi and Leiya had made some good memories.

My parents bought the cabin, within walking distance of the little mountain of Idyllwild, when I was 11 years old.  Already, when they bought it, it was 80 years old so it is over 130 years old now...  My father named it Nepenthe after some Indian warrior or princess or someone...

The cabin looks pretty good from the outside and it looks like someone has given it a paint job in recent years.  When I was a child, that chimney was a huge stone one but it and the inside fireplace crumbled during an earthquake... (maybe in the 80's?) and it all had to be rebuilt with a simpler, less dangerous chimney on the outside and a smaller fireplace on the inside.  I think the roof has been redone a couple of times also.

The keys to the cabin are hidden away and I was happy to see that they are now under a password lock, better than behind a can that was the security system that my mother used to have.  Even so, the main key is a skeleton key that has always been tricky to use in the ancient doors.  After numerous attempts to get into the cabin with the skeleton key we gave up and managed to use the extra key to unlock the backdoor padlock...

When I was a child, we actually used this fire burning stove a few times, once to make a Thanksgiving dinner (which my parents always said was the most delicious turkey they'd ever had).  

But building up and maintaining a fire in a wood burning stove was challenging and later my parents found this propane stove at a mountain garage sale and had it installed.  I've always been scared of using this stove which needs to have the gas flowing and then is lit with a whoosh of a match.

The old fireplace mantle was rebuilt with the original stones...

There is an oil painting on the shelf that either my grandfather or my father painted...  

A clawed foot bathtub.  No hot water.  Water had to be boiled on the stove and dumped into the tub to a few inches depth.

Besides the room with the fireplace (the only way to heat the cabin) and the kitchen, there is a bedroom and a wind-around enclosed porch that houses blanket boxes and extra beds.  Actually there is so much stuff now in this cabin because when anyone has an extra chair or table or do-dad that they don't need at home, it gets brought up to the cabin and left.  

There is an ancient refrigerator on the porch that works in a pinch but I remember buying ice from the local market and filling a coffin size icbox in the pantry when I was a child.

On the large piece of property there are two small buildings, one for firewood and tools and the other one for housing a chauffeur!  It seems that the original owners had had a chaffeur who drove them up the mountain a hundred or so years ago and he was relegated to this one room building that does have a toilet and sink in it. 

You can see why Takumi and Julieta didn't think it would be a good place to bring a baby.

We didn't let Luka out of our arms!

Basically the cabin is a slight level up from camping outdoors.  The mice have the run of the place and humans only get up to inhabit it for a couple of days at a time three or four times a year.  Some visitors LOVE the rusticity (my brother's family and Takumi and Julieta, a couple of their friends) and some people absolutely refuse to ever come back.  

The property is quite large and is filled with pines and oak trees and manzanita.

I have memories of spending summers here while my brother and I went to an art and nature came nearby and we would once a year hike to Taquitz peak and earn our "squirrel cards" from the rangers who lived in the fire tower.  My children had the same experience and remember hiking alone along a shallow creek and visiting Indian rocks where there is still Indian artwork on the boulders.

I'm glad we got to show Tony the area and I'm glad that Takumi lives near enough that he can still come up the mountain regularly.

The drive up and down is a nice one!

Mountain stay

Leiya's family and Tetsu and I stayed two nights at an absolutely lovely AirBnB in Idyllwild which my sister-in-law couldn't understand at all.

"Wait.  We've got a cabin up there and you're going to stay at an AirBnB?  Why?"

We made the decision to stay at an AirBnB on Takumi and Julieta's advice.

"That cabin is NOT baby proof.  I wouldn't advise trying to stay there with Luka."

I'll show you why in tomorrow's post.

Anyway, the AirBnB was modern, it had a cozy feel, it was WARM, we had all the conveniences we needed like a microwave, wi-fi, a shower etc.  

A big main room with lots of seating, and two bedrooms.

A cute bear on the deck!

Introducing Luka to the bear.

The next day we drove the short distance into the little town of Idyllwild.

Lots of animal carvings around.

A bear bench.

We spent a couple of hours wandering around the town, Leiya and Tony wine tasting, Tetsu and me buying matching Idyllwild caps.  

We enjoyed visiting a nursery...

In the evening Takumi drove up from his home which is only about 30 minutes away, and he made dinner for us all.  (Julieta had to get to work early the next morning so we didn't see her this evening.)

 A very nice two days in the mountains!