A+A

My cousin Aaron stood in a garden last weekend and vowed to love the very lovely Anastasia "forevermore."  

(Photo by wedding photographer Erin Eppenbaugh)

A wonderful series of parties and reunions with friends and family surrounded the couple A+A over four days and here I get to relive some of the special moments with a recap list...

The entire clan on my mother's side were gathered with four generations. Six weeks after her open heart surgery, my mother was able to fly out as planned to celebrate her nephew. From seven siblings, there are 14 cousins and 19 second cousins. We were all there - except for my Aunt Pam who sadly couldn't make it out from New York last minute due to illness. The last big event in the Markley family was three years ago at my brother Matt's wedding.

We flew into Omaha and went straight to my friend Gigi's house. Gigi and I worked at Maxwell's on the Lake waitressing for seven summers during high school and college. I was a bridesmaid in her wedding 14 years ago. We were both excited to introduce each other to our children. We bbq'd, looked at wedding photos and even cracked a 1995 Saintsbury Carneros Pinot Noir, a remnant they found in their basement from the case of wine I'd given them as a wedding gift.

Lunch of reuben sandwiches (invented in Omaha, who knew?) at the Crescent Moon Alehouse

A walk across the Missouri River (and into Iowa) on Bob the Bridge with a stop at the Lewis and Clark Landing to stamp our National Parks Passport.

An excellent and short-lived midwestern thunderstorm.

Markley Family Reunion gathering at Tom and Sandy's house and getting to meet Anastasia for the first time. Second cousins ran around in a pack in the basement while all of us first cousins and aunts and uncles chatted. We watched a slideshow of family photographs, including this one of me as the flower girl in Uncle Tom and Aunt Sandy's wedding 38 years ago.

A Cotton + Chrome creation for Georgia made by designer (and my cousin) Andrea, who also made her new sister-in-law Anastasia's wedding dress. Here. Georgia in her new threads playing "Ball!" with Uncle Pappy.

Three generations of girls: me, Georgia and my mother Susan.

Aunt Diz (short for Dolores), sister of my grandfather, Charles Markley, arrives with her daughter Colleen from Texas. Diz on left with Evelyn and my sister Mary Ellen.

Omaha Zoo with cousins.

First cousins here at the rehearsal dinner at the Blatt Rooftop and Zesto ice cream cones for dessert.

Late night hang out with cousins on the hotel bar patio

Leisurely 3 plus hour lunch on the patio of La Buvette with many bottles of rose.

Wedding Ceremony at Mt. Vernon Garden. My mom posing here, with her four children and spouses.

Reception at the Living Room with Indian Food. Aaron, the groom, is a musician and productions man, a key player in the Omaha music scene and Hear Nebraska, so he made a highly curated playlist with his friends.

My brother-in-law Andrew, a man who is 6'5" suddenly came flying across the empty dance floor to get the party started when Stevie Wonder's "Boogie On Reggae Woman"came on. He beckoned to my sister to join him and they got down. And then everyone else did.

Georgia danced and twirled and ran through people's legs on the dance floor. When she spotted the red heels my cousin Jessica had kicked off in the corner, she sat down to try them on. She partied until the wee hours.

Sunday hosted breakfast at the hotel. Then 8 of us cousins with our families descended en masse on the beautiful Joslyn Museum to stroll the gallaries, hang out on couches in the sunlit atrium beneath the Chihouly sculpture and play with the kids in the well-designed and interactive Art Works.

Lunch at the Ahmad's Persian Cuisine where my Half-Persian cousin Sasha choreographed a boisterous family-style lunch for us with the owner.

Then to top it all off, a reunion with my friend Rena I met at Spanish school in Oaxaca, Mexico. She recently got married and moved to Omaha. We had another bbq and relaxing evening talking Apollo space missions with Xavier, chasing kitties and Ted played his guitar for us with Georgia insisting "More!" after each song.

On our last morning we walked through Fontanelle Forest before going home. We flew back to Seattle on the same flight as my sister and her family, so Mary Ellen and I got to chat about all the wedding details.

Thanks to all my family and friends for hosting us for such a fantastic time in Omaha! And cheers to A+A, now gallivanting around the Almalfi Coast on their honeymoon. We wish you a long and beautiful life together!

And just a few more happy photos....

Foerster Family Portrait, 1919

Tomorrow I fly to Omaha, Nebraska for my cousin Aaron's wedding. Every single member of my mother's family will be there, so it will be an unprecedented family reunion of three generations with lots of new babies in the family to meet. I was looking back over family photographs and remembered this poem I'd written about my maternal grandmother's family. How I wish my grandparents Chuck and Dolores could be there!

Foerster Family Portrait, 1919

Grandmother, you are four, maybe,

the darling baby in a family of –

count them—eleven children,

plus who knows how many

additional miscarriages

or young deaths your clear-eyed

mother may have suffered quietly;

her German fortitude betraying

no struggles, she is all serene

and proud with her hearty brood.

Here, one of your sisters wears the

habit of Catholic nuns, in a few years

another sister would too.

In the back row: Hilda, Ella, Leo,

Sister Luke, Otto, Bruno, Laura

(later Sister Marcella) and Julia.

In the front row: Rudy, your father Frank

then you, little pixie, front and center,

your mother Mary, then Genevieve.

Grandmother, was it from your mother

or father’s line that you inherited

your wry sense of humor? Which sister

taught you to sew? Did your mother

make pickles with you each summer?

Which of these siblings was the prankster,

which the athlete, which the artist, which

one shy? What did your father like to do

in the evenings? Was your home filled

with music, baseball, stories round the fire?

Did your mother play cards like you?

How did you celebrate birthdays?

What did you do for the 4^th of July?

I study the faces of your family - 

my family –

I hear the click of the camera,

the whoosh of the flash bulb.

A momentary pause

then in the next instant, I hear

you all jostling, laughing, 

heading off to lunch

into each individual and

infinitely detailed life.

You Came Walking to Me

You came to me, you came to me.

You came walking to me, calling me “Mother,”

instead of to someone else.

To me, my child…come walking,

Calling me “Mother.”

~Haida Song

Consuelo, Duchess of Marlborough and Her Son by Giovanni Boldini

Mother's Day Weekend is a double-whammy holiday in our house. My son Xavier, the one who first made me a mother, turns four today. We are celebrating him with a big picnic potluck in the park. I can't wait to see his face when I bring out the Darth Vader cake.

Tomorrow we celebrate me and I get to bask in how much I love being a mother. Plans include my husband's eggs benedict with hollandaise, a stroll in the Japanese Gardens, pushing Georgia in the swing, perhaps a nap and then a babysitter watching the kids while we go out to dinner. Bliss.

In the past few weeks we have also been rallying around and celebrating my strong and resilient mother, who just came through open-heart surgery beautifully. She exemplifies the power of positive attitude for fast healing. I have so much gratitude for her, to her, that I will need to write about that separately. I try to celebrate her continuously and take notes, always.

Happy Mother's Day Everyone! As Thich Naht Hanh says, "We are all, each other's mothers."

Next Year, Same Time, Same Place

Indian Springs Girls Weekend to celebrate the birthday of our beautiful - on the inside and outside - friend Vanessa. A few photos to share....

Earth Day, A List of Praise

I found myself today, on Earth Day, driving five hours east of Seattle over the Cascades, past farms, over the Columbia Gorge, through more farmland and the lovely Palouse to Moscow, Idaho. The sun was shining most of the drive, then rain clouds moved in when we took an after-dinner walk on an edge of a thunder storm past tulips and trees all abloom, and the finale, apparently just thrown in for fun, a full rainbow over my sister's house.

While marking this all this variety and majesty today, I thought about the vast beauty I've had the privilege to witness on this earth. 

A List to Praise the Earth

Walking barefoot in the garden in early morning dew

Quietly stepping into a grove of migrating monarch butterflies resting near Santa Barbara, California

Hiking in the Badlands, South Dakota

Peak fall colors near Quebec

Nesting Black-Browed Albatross in the Falkland Islands

Northern Lights over Denali, Alaska

Diving into a perfectly still Lake Okoboji in Iowa

Trekking Fitzroy, Argentina

Listening to Humpbacks whales breath as I kayak alongside

Assisting a hatchling sea turtle and its siblings in their first run into the ocean in Oaxaca, Mexico

Swimming in Fjords in Greenland

Eating fresh rhubarb pie, picked from my grandmother's garden

First backpacking trip up to Garibaldi Lake in British Columbia with the man who is now my husband

Snorkeling in the Great Barrior Reef

A week-long river rafting trip down the Rogue River in Oregon

Watching the Porcupine Caribou herd migration in the Yukon

Camping in Yellowstone, Glacier, Yosemite National Parks

Swimming in phosphorescence of Vieques, Puerto Rico

Staring up, up, up at the Sequoias in Muir Woods, California

Watching a lineup of Muskoxen break into a run in Nunavut, Canada

Soaking in Jerry Johnson Hotsprings, Montana in a snowfall with my entire family

Listening to the Loons on a lake in Minnesota

Eating oysters fresh out of the sea in Brittany, France

Eating oysters fresh out of the sea near my home in Washington State

Walking among 50,000 King Penguins on Salisbury Plain on South Georgia Island

Tramping around ferns in Olympic National Park

Taking in the vast sky over the Mongolian Steppe

Listening to Elks bugling in Jasper National Park

Walking at night through a snow-globe snowfall in Big Sky, Montana

Locking eyes with a lynx

Seeing the first magnolia blossom open in my garden.

"This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never dried all at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and island, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls."

~ John Muir

Ledward Kaapana

Ledward Kaapana on the stereo. I'm remembering when Georgia met the legend near Kailua, at his regular weekly gig. We do miss Hawai'i, but barefoot weather is here! Happy sunshine, happy spring!