Jim's wedding

Hal writes:

I've been up in the Appleton/Oshkosh Wisconsin area for the past few days to celebrate Jim and Christa's wedding. The events began on Thursday afternoon. As a precursor to the bachelor party, I was invited to participate in the 3rd Annual Fox Valley Mini-Golf Invitational. The event covered four 18-hole mini-golf courses in the area. New this year is a traveling trophy to be awarded to the overall winner with engravings to occur after each year. Below are course officials tallying the official results.

The next morning I had no responsibilities until the rehearsal in the late afternoon, so Dario (one of the groomsmen) and I traveled to Green Bay and take a tour of historic Lambeau Field. Security officials confiscated my Vikings jersey on the way in. The photo below was taken just before I threw some grass killing chemical in the shape of a Viking horn on the field.

One of my former RAs from Wartburg, Jenni, is now a grad student at UW-O and is dating Peter (one of the groomsmen). It was fun to spend time reconnecting with her. Now that I am not her supervisor, I no longer have to worry about not corrupting her, so I showed her how to smoke her first cigar after the wedding reception. ;)

It is also worth noting that Peter also owns a PT Cruiser, so Anna and I are not the only ones under the age of 40 to do so. I would be remiss if I did not include a picture of the bride and groom. Here they are at the rehearsal dinner. We went to the restaurant that they went to on their first date in Oshkosh.

During the wedding ceremony, another usher and I snuck outside to "decorate" the rented Cadillac that Jim was using for the weekend.

It was assigned at the reception and I was randomly placed next to a former UW-O RA who UW-P just happened to hire as a hall director this past week. Small world after all. A highlight of the evening was a live 20-piece big band that played for the reception. I guess I was too busy dancing and singing along ("Don't get around much anymore", "Somewhere beyond the sea", etc.) to take a picture of the band. Here's a picture of Jim and I at the reception.

I am currently back in Platteville for one night. Tomorrow is a new student registration day, so I will be leading a Parent Transition Session as a part of the day before leaving for Minnesota. Tomorrow night I'll visit the naughty antelope and we will go see Pirates 3. Then on Tuesday I will spend some time with my niece and nephew (hopefully at the zoo) before flying down to Arizona for the week. This time I hope to post some pictures from Arizona while I am down there, but if not, there may be a two week gap before I post again.