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My brother Nick, soon-to-be sister-in-law Jessie, my beautiful wife Aliciana, and I decided to checkout the Sunday performances at this year’s Bumbershoot. We saw a couple good bands, North Twin and The Bouncing Souls, and also visited some of the art exhibits. We were also hoping to see The Horror Pops, but they canceled at the last minute. Suck.

So, yesterday I became a year older. Well, technically I became 1 day older but custom tells us we should only celebrate once a year, on the day we were born. But, as I grow older, the celebrating seems to become less important.

I don’t feel like I am 26 years old, it seems like I was just turning 20. Paradoxically, I proposed to Aliciana one year ago, on my 25th birthday, but that feels like it took place eons ago. It is funny how specific events feel like they happened long ago and abstract ideas feel like they happened yesterday. I guess it is much easier for the mind to recall abstract feelings than particular points in time. But, I digress.

I had a nice birthday dinner at a restaurant in town called Mexicali. They have beautiful Christmas decorations this time of year so it is always nice to get to eat amongst them. We then came back to the apartment for birthday chocolate and peanut butter brownies, which Aliciana baked for me, and watched a movie. A nice, relaxing, and calm birthday… just like old people are suppose to be.

Happy 26th birthday Aliciana! I love you so much! Everyone should email or call Aliciana to wish her a happy birthday.

Last Saturday, Aliciana and I were in Sacramento and neighboring Davis to celebrate the marriage of Angela Lee and Durin Linderholm. It was a beautiful ceremony at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in Davis. After the ceremony we headed off for the reception in Sacramento at the Sterling Hotel. The reception was quite a festive event, as is to be expected. We had a delicious lunch and got to catchup with some old college friends. But, I think the most memorable image that will stick in my head is the giant smiles on both Angela and Durin’s faces. They were happier than I have ever seen them and I hope they have many more happy days to come.

Seeing what a wonderful day their wedding was makes me long for my own wedding even more. Pictures from the wedding reception are now available in our photo album.

We are currently in the process of packing up all our belongings and moving them to Bakersfield. It has been 3 years since we moved into our old apartment, so we had forgotten just how much packing sucks. Hopefully we will have most our stuff in our new apartment by this weekend. Until then, we might be a little hard to get a hold of because our whole environment has been turned upside down.

We are finally recovering from graduation weekend. First off, I want to say: “Congratulations Aliciana! I am so proud of you!” Aliciana graduated last Saturday with a Bachelors in Business with a concentration in Accounting. She also received a Minor in Philosophy. By the time the graduation started, there were 27 people who came to watch her. These people included her parents, my parents, her grandparents, my grandparents, her sisters, my brother and sister, and her uncle and family. It was quite a large group!

There was actually two graduation ceremonies. The first one was for all the students graduating from every college. It was a nice ceremony, only about 1.5 hours long, and included some good speakers. The second ceremony was just for the college of business. All they did was read everyone’s name and hand out fake diplomas. It was complete chaos, you would think that the business school would be organized, but we still ended up being able to see Aliciana walk across the stage.

After the ceremonies we all went to Round Table Pizza to celebrate. We ended up taking over half the restaurant. My family and Aliciana’s family got to talk with each other and get to know each other, which was nice. Everyone went back to our apartment after dinner for ice cream and cake. It was amazing that we were able to fit everyone in our apartment… it was quite cozy.

My side of the family left Sunday afternoon after we had lunch with them. Aliciana’s parents and grandparents stayed until Monday so we got to hang around with them and have some good meals. Overall, it was a very fun and very exhausting weekend. It was nice to have our families meet each other before our wedding in a year. Now that we are sorta recovered, we have to start packing and move to Bakersfield.