As we rolled in Henrietta, New York, everyone was gone. It was early in the afternoon with both mine and Kim's parents were gone at work. Kim's mom works at Lowe's, so we decided to pop in. Mind you, we were expected to be home, but not for another two weeks or so. Needless to say, when we saw Kim's mom, she just about fell on the floor. She was extremely excited, and her customer was not. Well, scratch that. She had a customer approach her just after we began talking, and the old crank wanted to design a kitchen without hesitation. Kim's mom politley began to aplogize and explain that she hadn't seen us for so long since we were gone traveling, but this rusty nail was as friendly as the ticks I had been pulling off of Westy's back. Unfortunately, we ended up teasing Joyce (Kim's mom) because she had to finish her shift knowing we were in town, but had to put up with Mrs. Badweather's kitchen. From there it was off to surprise my mom.

We couldn't keep the bus parked in the driveway for any normal surprise. Instead, Wooty was parked at a nearby middle school parking lot, and we walked over. Westy and Fink were roaming the house for a bit, when my mom soon opened the door. Westy heard the car door shut from when my mom pulled in, so even Westy was excited just to see someone new. My mom dropped the bags she had in her hand and started yelling. About an hour later, my dad came home, and he replied with a, 'hey, I know you guys.' Both reactions were equally funny. It is also funny how we cannot hide in Henrietta driving Wooty.

The next day we were exhausted from all the driving, so we didn't head to practice to surprise the cross country and track team. My mom, however, works at the same school we coach. When we talked to her the afternoon after we arrived, she said several kids were asking her when Kim and I were going to be back. They saw the bus drivng the 2 mile round trip from Kim's parents house to my parent's house. Needless to say, we didn't miss the end of the season, and were able to attend some of the last few meets of a great track season. When the summer hit, we finally had some time to see some of our friends that had been awesome enough to keep contact with us while we were traveling.

One of the first things I got to do was go on a great bachelor party. It wasn't typical in any fashion, but was right up my alley. My good friend, and teammate, Chris was getting married in August. His best friend, Matt, was in charge of putting the party together. Matt had such a fantastic idea for the bachelor party. He borrowed his parent's RV for a weekend of fishing and traveling throughout Mansfield and neighboring towns. From the Crunch 'n Munch disaster, to Josh C. wandering the night on foot, and nippless t-shirts, the RV managed to create lots of memories very fast.  I was extremely lucky to have been a part of his bachelor party. Not long after, Chris was soon married.

Clarissa, Chris' wife, was also a native to Mansfield. She, along with Chris, was my teammate in cross country one season, and her brother and I had been teammates and roomates multiple times. Both Chris and Clarissa's family are just plain kind and fun; so the wedding was really exactly what anyone could have hoped for: two great people and families coming together to celebrate. Chris and Clarissa (doesn't that just have a good ring to it?) were the first of my friends to get married. I couldn't have been happier. You know what? I'm going to write another paragraph about it just because they deserve more than one photo on this blog of their wedding. So here goes...

That day really was perfect. It was summer, but it wasn't blazing hot out. It wasn't really humid, either. Despite being in a tux, I was pretty comfortable being August and all. The wedding took place outside for the ceremony, with the reception being held in this fantastically sweet barn. The barn was decorated to the point where it almost didn't resemble a barn, but more of a perfectly placed dance hall. That night seemed to be too short, but it didn't have one dull moment to it. Congratulations to you both! Formality is great, but I think if you've been following this at all, you'd know that both Kim and I are more informal than anything. That means it's rafting time.

VJ, the man who whipped this whole site together, had an ingenious idea: go rafting down a river near his place in Massachussetts on a bunch of tractor intertubes. Ok, so he wasn't the first to come up with the idea, but he at least bought all the tubes and refused to get any compensation for it. The water was a tad cold at first, but it was nothing short of fun. Even if I did run nearly two miles on a paved road barefoot and cold because some random guy who came with us got lost along a highway after we floated miles down a river, it as still fun. Needless to say, no matter what seems to happen along the way, it usually makes for a great story. Whenever we have a story, it is because we have some very very great friends!

I'll be updating more about our adventures this summer shortly!

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