How to get married

After a wonderful day, we finally leave our own party to enjoy some peace together. Our wedding day was fantastic, we could not have wished for more, so many great friends and family, a beautiful service and even the weather was perfect!

These pictures were taken by a friend of Frank, so this blog post is with special thanks to him!


Nice friends, nice food, nice drinks, just one more thing... A little dancing!


Frank is testing our wedding gift, money was collected to furnish our new home (still to be arranged, both the house as well as the furniture...). This very nice inflatable Pooh chair for very small children was a symbolic gift.



These are Frank's brother and Minke's sister, our wedding 'mates', they have done everything to make our wedding day a fantastic and unforgettable experience!


Just Married, after the service we enjoyed some drinks and a meal, afterwards the party continued at this location, which was very nicely decorated for the occasion!



Two very happy people, a very happy couple!


And of course, exchanging our wedding rings!


Frank's dad, reading aloud the formalities, wedding vows in a Dutch church can be read by the pastor.


The service, here we are listening to Frank's dad who married us.


Happy Frank, still a little nervous about what to come.


This is in front of the church, right before our wedding service started. We arrived in a Mercedes convertable, all our friends were waiting for us outside, a perfect welcome!



and of course, a Very Nice Lady


So this was Frank's biggest dream, a Very Nice Car

Sequoia & King's Canyon National Parks

Watch this space - More to come, folks!





Our first stop after a 2 hour-hike: Misty Falls.



Our hike to Paradise Valley. Big parts of the hike were along a big wild river.




Zumwalt Meadow near Road's End in King's Canyon.






And now we had to descend into King's Canyon. It was a good thing we had had replaced our car's two front rotors and brake pads, cause the descend was quite something, especially with the high temperatures! King's Canyon is even deeper than the Grand Canyon!!


On our way to another national park/the other part of the park: King's Canyon.

Since no one else was there (and it appeared no one had been there for some time), the only thing we could do is use the self release function of our camera to take a picture of ourselves.

Look at the layers of granite!!

and we build our own little 'stoneman' as we're used to in Switzerland (i.e., to mark a path or top).


Yet another huge granite rock!


On top of Little Baldy with a great panoramic view of Sequoia!

Like some other rocks in the area: looks like a face!!








Another hike, straight from our campground.

Trying out our brand new super stove - not to be used when you go backpacking!!

Look at the sheer size of it: this is merely a branch - the size of a large 'normal' tree!!



And here it is: the largest, biggest (not tallest) tree in the world - the General Sherman.



We could actually drive through one of them!!

Then on to the largest/biggest trees in the world: Sequoia Trees!!


Pretty tight places we had to squeeze through!






This is the valley we drove through the day before: from the very hot and dry Central Valley to the green and cool (cold at night) high altitudes in Sequoia.





Climbing Moro Rock - one massive granite rock with a great view!!


The view from our campsite was awesome: we looked over a wild river and could see all sorts of wild animals.

Our campsite - note the brown bear box on the right - this is where we had to put ALL our stuff in that smelled. So not only food, but even toothpaste in order to save the bears (and us I guess!!)


Into the Giant Forest high up the mountain.




A rock shaped like a face - Moro Rock.


From June 7 till June 11, 2008 Minke and I spent a number of days in Sequoia and King's Canyon National Parks. We did some hiking, including one day hike of approx. 7.5 hours.