Wedding day!

Sichan, Matt, and I were supposed to decorate the wedding car, but when we got there, Auntie Mimmy and Sam were already tying ribbons on it. In the photo here, Matt and Sichan really haven’t done much but are trying to look like they’re part of the decorating crew. Baldwin sure loves his car!

Since Baldwin and I grew up together, I was able to see a lot of familiar faces at the wedding, some of whom I have seen more often during trips to Sac, but also others whom I hadn’t seen in years. One of these friends is Gary Quan, who was pretty close to our family back in the high school days, but I haven’t seen him since I lived in SF. I also saw Jahmal and met his wife! I met Jahmal on my second trip to Mexico, so I was in 7th grade at the time. He was one of a small group of people from a church in SF that joined our church for a weeklong missions trip to an orphanage in Mexico every summer. He and I went pretty much every year for the next 4 or 5 years, so the last time we had seen each other was back in the mid-90s! He looks the same, and he said I looked the same, “except with an adult haircut.” I wish I had made more of a point to catch up with him and to get to know his wife, but since we were at different tables at the reception, I didn’t make the effort. :( He is still as much of a crackup now as he was back then. In Baldwin’s wedding video, he said, “When I first met Baldwin, he said that I wanted to be Chinese. But I said to him, ‘Look who’s talking? You’re Chinese, and you want to be a RAPPER?’” hehe…

I also ran into Ryan and Lissa, friends from my SF church. It’s funny how people are connected. Turns out Lissa and Larissa are old college buddies! Ryan and Lissa are expecting their first baby this summer–congrats!

Along with reuniting with old, old friends, it was nice to see people that I keep in touch with but still don’t see that often…and of course, the newlyweds! (every time I come back with photos like these, I always wonder why I take the same boring photos with people?! We have to liven them up a little more, like do a human pyramid or something…)

OK, I know this entry is dragging, so I’ll hurry it up a bit. The wedding was beautiful, food was good (especially the white chocolate heart dessert with berries!), and the wedding video was entertaining (mock Hollywood documentary about the couple, which also mentioned their “mixed marriage” between a Lakers and Kings fan, just like us!).

One of the cool things that came out of the wedding (for us) was that we met another couple that attends New Hope in Sac. I finally met THE Lisa that people keep asking me if I know. She works with my sister and also knew my parents from Grace Bible Church. Not only did we meet her and her husband, they offered to give us their free passes to Sea World (my favorite!!), and we ended up talking to them for awhile in the parking lot of their hotel after we got the passes from them. Turns out Lisa also is a fan of gloomy weather, and her husband has always wanted to go to Olympic National Park–so hopefully we will see them up here sometime soon.

So in addition to going to the zoo, we also got to go to Sea World! We had just been there two years ago when we went to SD for Heather and Eugene’s wedding, but I could sit and watch marine animals for hours, so I was really excited about going again. I practically dragged Matt across the park so we could make it to the Shamu performance, and seriously, those creatures are so amazing I want to cry when I watch them. I think my sister-in-law, Sarah, would be perfect as a whale trainer. She’d be able to swim with them and perform acrobatic tricks. This performance was not as good as the one we saw last time. This time, they had dancers dressed up like trainers, but all they did was stand off to the sides and do go-go dance moves. And toward the end of the show, the huge screens in the background opened up to reveal some random, long-haired rocker guy doing a guitar solo. The cameras zoomed in on him, and he just rocked on. Do I really care to watch him play? NO! Bring out the whales!

(The third photo is blurry, but I wanted to post it–it shows my favorite move of the Shamu show. The trainer dives under the water with the whale and then emerges at the tip of the whale’s head, and flies off!)

We missed the dolphin show, but still got to see the penguin exhibit. Last time we were there, we saw a group of penguins penned up, and those penguins were the ones protecting their eggs, while other penguins stood outside the pen staring in. (Remember “March of the Penguins”?) It’s not mating season yet, so this time, we saw penguins swimming around and sleeping. It’s amazing how fast they are in the water, and how they shot up out of the water and landed on their feet on the ice. Many times, the ice was so slippery that they’d slip back into the water.

We caught a short fireworks show at Sea World before heading out for dinner. We were going to go to the Gaslamp district for dinner, which we heard was the happening place to be, but as we drove around, we noticed that everyone was hootchified and lining up for clubs. We were turned off by that (and by the lack of parking), so we went to Little Italy instead. As we drove down the street of Little Italy, we noticed that the people walking around were all grey-haired. “Cool, old people,” we said. “This is more our style.” (I don’t know if that is more funny or sad…)

Our apartment hosts, Heather and Eugene, came back from a weeklong getaway to Mexico (with sunburns and pictures of their afternoon with a dolphin!!), and we got less than an hour of catching up with them before we had to go to bed. We had to be up by 4:30 the next morning to return our rental car and catch our flight.

So I’m finally done. My California adventure is done. We got a nice dose of family time, friends, and even sightseeing–all you can ask for on a trip!