Double Hora Weekend 


Bonnie's Bat Mitzvah; Jordan & Adam's Commitment Ceremony,  

While there's so much to be said about each event we attended ton Saturday, I thought I'd give a quick summary of the weekend first.

We spent all day Friday flying into Baltimore-Washington Airport, then rented a car and raced about an hour away to York, Pennsylvania to see Doug, Liz & the kids and other out-of-town guests before they headed to Friday night synagogue services. For those of you who don't know York, it's actually a cool little town of about 40,000 people. In my pre-trip research, I discovered that it is the "Factory Tour Capital of the World." You'd be amazed at everything that is made there. In the way that hosts of these events occasionally leave "local" gift bags for their guests, Marc and I were crossing our fingers that when we checked into our hotel, we'd find peppermint patties, Snyders pretzels, barbells and (hopefully) a Harley waiting for us. No luck this time, but seeing how much my brother's family is enjoying York, we foresee many more York trips in the future.

Friday night we did get to spend some time with Doug, Liz, Bonnie, Jacob, Rosie and Jonathan, as well as some out of town friends and Liz's parents and brother whom Marc had never met and I hadn't seen in probably at least 10 years. All the kids were running around like maniacs in Doug & Liz's huge backyard, and we were very impressed to see that Bonnie wasn't even the least big nervous for her big day! After dinner, we spent the evening finishing a "retrospective" photo DVD about Bonnie (which we presented the next day at the Bat Mitzvah) and headed out to the must-see movie, "The 40-Year-Old Virgin."

By 11:00 Saturday morning, the entire Arbittier family gathered for Bonnie's Bat Mitzvah, which was fabulous (see next entry). It lasted for HOURS (13 year old kids have a lot of energy!) but at around 5:00 we said goodbye so we could drive an hour and a half to Washington D.C., where my best guy friend from junior high/high school, Jordan Potash, was marrying his long-time boyfriend Adam Nelson in another religious Jewish ceremony. Luckily they waited to start this ceremony till sundown, so we not only got there in time but had about an hour beforehand to catch up with world traveler Jennifer Bildersee -- Jenn was on her way from Amsterdam, through the Balkans, to Oregon -- but managed to stopover in D.C. to attend... and we thought our plans were complex!

The wedding was awesome -- see another post for those details, and we were thrilled to be there to support such a loving couple -- it was a long day, though, with the wedding starting at 8:30 and lasting till 12:30 before we got a couple hours of sleep, only to drive back to Baltimore at 5AM to catch our flight home.

Over 300 miles and less than 48 hours later, we wouldn't have missed any of this trip for anything... but it's nice to be back in Austin, recovering from a 14-hour, 2-hora day of celebrating!

 

Posted: Sun - August 21, 2005 at 01:58 PM          

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