Brudda!

My brother Chris is here!!

He basically flew in via the same route I took to come here in October: United Airlines, Orlando to San Francisco, San Francisco to Modesto. Got a WAY early start this morning, got stuck in San Francisco longer than we expected due to flight delays, but he finally rolled down the local airstrip early this afternoon.

You have no idea how glad I was to see Chris. I missed him a lot and have been bouncing off the walls with excitement for weeks over knowing that he’d be here this week for the wedding; I haven’t seen him since leaving Orlando for good in December. We came back to the house, he met and played with Samson, he got the grand tour. Drove him out to the country club to show him around the venue. Gave him the basic rundown of event plans and the jobs we need him to do. Then we drove over to Kristi’s parents’ house to introduce them to Chris and take everyone out to dinner at El Rosal, our favorite local Mexican dive. Great food and fun all around.

I really enjoyed watching Don proudly touring Chris through his woodshop, opening cabinets and showing off tools and in-process projects, Chris connecting with him over a love of woodworking.

I feel like my family is represented here now: less like I’m joining someone else’s family than we are bringing two families together. I didn’t fully appreciate until this afternoon how much I psychologically needed that feeling before rolling forward with Saturday’s wedding in calm spirit and mind.

Tomorrow: My friends Em and Jason arrive from Orlando! They land in Sacramento in early afternoon and then drive down. Kristi goes in for the final trial run of her hair and makeup. The bunch of us go fetch the tables and chairs back to Kristi’s parents’ place for Thursday’s rehearsal dinner. Then Chris and I spend a few hours of guy time, Em and Jason arrive, and we do an outdoor grill dinner here at the house for the Florida gang.

Tomorrow’s really the last of the calm free time we’ll have before the wedding on Saturday.