Return to sender

Two weeks ago today Amanda and I were privileged to take part in my brother, Greg’s wedding to a wonderful young woman, Alisa. It was an absolutely beautiful ceremony and we had a tremendous time at the reception afterword meeting her family and celebrating the start of an exciting new time for both of them (and I now have a sister J!!). The moments I will remember most though are not of the wedding. They are the ones I got to spend with my brother leading up to wedding. Greg and I have been what I would term as distantly close over the last several years with our lives evolving in unique and exciting ways. Some of which involve being in different places at different times. So the time we spent in the days leading up to the wedding will be cherished forever. By age we are separated by five and a half years but growing up that was rarely ever a problem. We spent much of our childhood playing sports (primarily baseball) and video games together and that pretty much continued throughout my time in high school as well. After moving to Tucson prior to my senior year in high school Greg was an anchor for me and probably never even realized how much our relationship meant to me at the time and how much that time still means to me now.

 As our lives have changed and our relationship evolved into its current state I’ve always known who my brother is, what he stands for and that he’d always be there for me regardless of the distance that separates us or the amount of time that has passed between visits. Now that his life has turned another corner and he settles into a long and wonderful relationship with his new wife I want to express how proud I am of everything he has accomplished and how excited I am to see where life takes him and Alisa. I know it will be a wonderful journey filled with all of the experiences that provide for beautifully full and enriched lives. Finding a young woman as remarkable as Alisa to spend eternity with couldn’t have happened to a better person or more loved brother! Go Greg and Alisa!

Now that I’ve managed to make my mother cry…..again (I love you mom) it’s probably best that I curtail the walk down memory lane and begin describing the rest of our exploits in the states.  Anyone who knows me even remotely well, will probably roll their collective eyes and shake their heads when I explain that my primary objective for the visit, outside of celebrating the wedding, was to visit as many of my favorite restaurants as possible. Followed closely be catching as many Texas Rangers games as I could. I was reasonably successful on both counts given the short amount of time we were stateside. I even managed to wrangle a short visit down to the site of what will someday be our family vineyard and winery. Lots of work left to do on that end but mom and dad are making progress all the time.

The night we arrived in Tucson was also the night of Greg’s bachelor’s party and while I am forbidden to discuss any details I can say that we had a great time and managed to make it back to our respective hotels and homes in one piece and with most of our dignity still intact (Greg lost a foot race while wearing a fuzzy pink tiara to a man in Friar’s costume. hehehe. Love ya bro). While we were in Tucson and when I wasn’t spending time with Greg and the other groomsmen (Ben, Pat and Brandon), Amanda and I got to spend some time visiting family and friends that made the trek out to Arizona and share our experiences from the UK with them. I’m hoping that the stories we imparted were enough to convince everyone to make their way across the pond for a visit before we have to leave. A few days after the wedding we flew into DFW so Amanda could check in with her boss and spend some time with her family before we made our way back to England. We both really enjoyed getting to spend a little bit of time with family and friends before we left (and I watched lots of Rangers baseball) and had a great time at Bill and Debra’s house before we flew out.

The flight back home was uneventful, Amanda slept and I watched 3 movies plus another 8/10ths of a fourth before they turned off the inflight system in a little under 10 hours...I still can’t sleep on a plane.  After landing we made the mandatory trip through customs and caught the bus back to Bristol. Our time back home was short but we had a great visit and look forward to seeing everyone here in the UK.