2009 Year In Review

If you read this blog all year long, you'll find nothing new here, but just in case you haven't caught all of them this year, here's the very condensed 2009 King Year In Review!

Happy Holidays to our Family & Friends!

2009 was another busy year for us!  Our year started and ended in North Dakota where Nathan continues winter work with Theodore Roosevelt National Park.  In between, we visited a combined eighteen states plus the District of Columbia.

Amber continues working for IBM, where she leads teams in the U.S. and China.  She completed her Project Management Professional (PMP) training in May and filed her first patent the same month.  Amber is taking her office on the road and is working remotely full-time as of November.

Nathan worked at Pipestone National Monument over the summer.  The work was both challenging and enlightening.  The site is used today as it was in generations past, for the collection of a sacred stone used for making smoking pipes.  You can learn more about Pipestone and its significance on the web at www.nps.gov/pipe.

Amber spent a long 4th of July weekend in Colorado with her friend Sara, where they visited Rocky Mountain NP, Garden of the Gods, and saw the famous Greeley Stampede rodeo.  Yee haw!

The most fun we had this year was going to the Eastern U.S. to attend Amber’s sister Samantha’s wedding in North Carolina in October.  Along the way, we visited Chicago for a live taping of Wait! Wait! Don’t Tell Me and got to meet the cast, then headed to Gettysburg NMP, Washington D.C., Shenandoah NP, Blue Ridge Parkway, Appomattox Court House NHS, Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania NMP, Moores Creek NB, Great Smoky Mountains NP, and Mammoth Cave NP.  We hiked to the top of the two tallest mountains in Shenandoah, down into the longest cave in the world, and walked the hallowed grounds of Civil War battlefields.  Our favorite hike was to Ramsey Cascades in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

In July, Nathan’s mom passed away from complications of multiple myeloma.  She was 53.  Nathan misses her every day and thinks of her often.  We are grateful for the continuing love and support of our friends and families.

Next year, we will be moving to Kansas for at least half of the year.  Nathan was hired for a permanent status job at Fort Larned National Historic Site, a well-preserved fort along the Santa Fe Trail.  We plan to sell our house in Minnesota in 2010.

We wish everyone a happy holiday season and a great 2010.

Amber and Nathan at Ramsey Cascades

Sami's Married!

My little sister got married this weekend in Wilmington, NC.  She had a gorgeous ceremony & reception!

First things first - I and her friend, Meredith, were in the wedding party, so we threw her a bachelorette bash Thursday night.  I can't give you the details to protect the innocent, but we started with dinner and ended at 2am at a Cowboy Bar called City Limits.  Sam had a great time as you can see form this photo (all others have been destroyed. :)

Samantha holds her own on the mechanical bull!

I also got stopped near the UNCW campus by a mandatory drunk driving checkpoint.  This was pretty fun, since I was probably the only sober person on campus that night.  The cops, however, apparently didn't believe that I hadn't been drinking (I don't think anyone in that town believes that the MN driver's license is real), so I got to take a breathalizer test on the spot!!  Double zeroes, baby.

Sam recently moved to Massachusetts, so this may be the last time we visit Wilmington and we needed to live it up while we had the chance.  Nathan and I stayed at the Blockade Runner hotel on Wrightsville Beach.  Although it was too cloudy each day to see the green flash, we did enjoy the very beachworthy weather (80's in October!) and took full advantage of the beach (we saw dolphins almost every day)!  I also met up with a woman who was on the Corporate Service Corp Tanzania 3 team, Gloria.  We'd worked together via the phone, but had never met in person.  She showed me around the South side of Wilmington and took me to Carolina Beach State Park.  I bet you thought Venus Flytraps lived in abundance in the deep forests of the Amazon, right?  Me too.  Apparently, they only live within 75 miles of Wilmington, NC and that's it!  They are also incredibly tiny!  I got to see two patches in the wild, which was, well, wild.

Wild Venus Flytraps

Ok, back to the wedding.  Sam had been planning to have the wedding outside in Greenfield Park, but all week it was threatening to rain.  It was touch-and-go there for a while, but we all arrived at the park at 3:30pm to sunshine.  The place is gorgeous - a lake, beautiful trees, and Sam walked over to the ceremony on a bridge.  Colors were ivory and wine.  Look at Sam all grown up!

 

The ceremony was short and this turned out to be key.  Five minutes after it ended, we heard thunder.  We scrambled to simultaneously take pictures and get chairs and music equipment into the cars.  Just as we'd finished taking the basic set of shots (the last few were quite dark), it started to rain.  We'll have a good picture of the wedding party running to their cars.  About a minute after we got into the cars, it started to pour.

The reception site was the Best Western Coastline Convention Center in downtown Wilmington, a cute little brick building on the river.  Dinner was awesome, then we danced the night away (wait - did I say we?  I meant Adam's family - they are much more outgoing and comfortable with their moves than we are!).  Actually, I felt a little overpowered by Adam's family; our side being so far away, we barely rounded out one 8-person table.  The rest of the 63 guests were Adam's.

Anyway, Sam had fun.  She and Adam left in style at 9pm, riding in a limo all the way to Raleigh to catch an early flight to St. Lucia for their honeymoon.

It was a VERY successful day.  The only thing that "went wrong" is that the black chairs Sam ordered turned out to be white.  This is by far an improvement over Nathan and my wedding, in which the officiant forgot to have our witnesses sign the marriage certificate (the one thing that needed to happen to make it official)!

Congrats Sami & Adam!!  Here are some pictures for you to enjoy!

  

Getting Ready

Meredith, Sami, & Me

Sam & Adam (Picture Courtesy of Nathan King Photography, Inc)

Table Decorations

Cake Cutting

 

First Dance 

 

Amber & Nathan

Mom & Dad

Ring

Dancing - Sam & Adam's Dad

Get-Away Outfits

Wedding Week

Wedding Week is officially coming to an end. We got quite a lot accomplished including three cake tastings, two flowers appointments, bridesmaids dresses purchased, and ceremony & reception sites viewed. Not to mention some miscellaneous verbal interrogations from various family members on other details yet to be decided.

If you are lucky enough to get an invitation to my sister's wedding, and if you judge weddings based solely on how delicious the cake is like Nathan and I do, I promise you will not be disappointed! Sam and Adam have decided to purchase a cake from Sweet T's Cakes. Don't be fooled by how beautiful they look, they actually taste even better! We were able to sample chocolate, marble, and vanilla cake with various flavors of icing from the normal chocolate and vanilla to snickerdoodle and peanut butter. Ammmmmmmmazing!

On Tuesday night, Meredith (Sam's other bridesmaid) and I made short work of the wine-colored collection at David's Bridal and ordered the following dresses:


The skirt and top are actually separate, so I may find a way to wear the cute shirt again.

In other news, Nathan has been deciding on jobs this week and yesterday he called Denali to turn down the offer he had from them. It just wasn't economically feasible and we really like having running water at our residences.

However, the hiring manager called him back and refused (for the moment) to accept his rejection! She came up with some very intriguing ideas, the front-runner being that I could volunteer a bit so that we could both live in park housing. Interesting - tell me more! Well, they're not sure what I might have to do or the hours, but after Nathan told them I was working on my Project Management Certification (PMP), they thought they'd be able to find some kind of project for me to manage.

We'll wait to find out what that might entail. I still argue that there is no use being in Alaska if I have to spend every waking moment either working or volunteering - even if my project is to count grizzly bears for the summer....eat, sleep, program, bears, get yelled at by customer, bears, program, beautiful mountain scenery, eat, sleep, imagine said customer getting eaten by bears - wait a minute, that's actually starting to sound fantastic! Where do I sign?

Working Vacation

Despite the horrors of my job currently (which you read about in my last post), I was finally able to pull myself away and take my vacation to visit my sister, Samantha in Wilmington, NC this week (sans work laptop, I might add!!).

Wilmington is right on the Carolina Coast and is currently 14 degrees warmer than Rochester, so I can't complain. I met my parents here, not for a relaxing beach vacation, however, but to help my sister finish off some planning for her wedding in October.

First order of business: meet her fiance, Adam. Check. Adam is great! We spent most of the day yesterday hanging out in an Old Chicago restaurant watching the Badgers lose against Xavier. I'm happy to say he has my official and enthusiastic seal of approval. He and Sam are great together.


Second order of business: cake, dresses, flowers, see venues, and maybe a few things I forgot about. I started the day today calling a half-dozen wedding cake places to see if we could set-up a cake-tasting. This is easily one of the best parts about wedding planning and although Sam had her heart set on one place, I convinced her to try several before choosing because, let's face it, what do you have to lose? (Except trying several fabulous cakes for free if you just go with the first place you see.)

Adam took a half-day to spend the afternoon with us, so we got to do some fun wedding and non-wedding things too. First stop? The beach! Even though it is just March and our temperatures were in the 60's, the ocean was dotted with surfers and the beach with mostly naked people. I guess some of the North Carolina students get together in large groups to rent out the beach houses to live in during the year, so they were out doing what college students do best - avoiding their homework.



After that, we drove downtown to take a look at the conference center where the reception will be and the park where the ceremony will be. The conference center room was open, so we broke in and took some pictures.


The place where the ceremony will be, however, was not open. When we drove up there were huge semis parked along the road supplying power to what I thought was maybe U2 on tour or something. Everywhere people were sitting with large cameras waiting to take pictures and the cops were keeping people from getting to Sam and Adam's actual wedding site. A guy came up and told us to clear off the path because they would need to bring equipment through. It turns out that they were filming a scene for the show One Tree Hill, which is filmed in Wilmington (Dawson's Creek, apparently was filmed here too)! I took a picture just in case there were any famous people out there, but I don't watch the show (and neither do most locals), so I may never know!

Confessions of a Dakotaholic

This was one wedding where both the Bride & the Groom got cold feet. On Wednesday, two of our friends who have been engaged for 10 months and wondering when they were ever going to get back to Massachusetts to allow their families to watch them get married, threw in the towel and decided to have an impromptu wedding in the park. I confess that it was by far the second best wedding I have ever been to.

We found out about it two weeks ago, no invitations were ever sent, and the morning of, the bride didn't even know what she was wearing. Rumor had it that the dress code was jeans and "something warm", so I pulled on some sweatpants under my jeans, threw on a button down shirt, a fleece, my coat, hat, gloves, and my hiking boots. A little afraid that Nathan had gotten the wrong message, I felt better when we pulled up to the visitor's center and there was an elated couple - also in jeans and jackets.


Not more than 15 of us - all of us related to park employees or local law enforcement - caravaned into the park for the ceremony, which started off feeling more like a funeral procession, but ended on a cute spot overlooking the Little Missouri River. The spectators grew by double right before the ceremony when a group of bison joined us on a parallel bluff. Thank goodness the Justice of the Peace kept it short, because it was FREEZING! Really, we have evidence. It was so fitting, though - for a pair that both loved & worked for the park, it started and ended with pictures at the visitors center.



Now, you know you're in North Dakota when:
1) At least one person at your wedding is in full cowboy get-up.
2) You are presented with this - a packet of recipes from the North Dakota Beef Commission and Cattlewomen!


That pretty much puts the booklet on safe pregnancies we got from Milwaukee County to shame.

The reception was the best part. It was, of course, in the top floor of the only restaurant/bar in Medora that is regularly open - The Iron Horse. They had all of the elements of a great reception - cake, appetizers, dinner, good fun, and the groom's brother, who couldn't make it out for the wedding, called and opened up the bar. The best part was, though, it was so easy and SO fun that it made me wonder why I ever thought my wedding had to go the whole nine yards? If I could marry Nathan all over again, I would definitely be taking some pointers from Dan & Jen!


Yes, by the way, that is beer in their champagne glasses. :)

In other news, Nathan drove to Bismarck today for an Elk Management public meeting. If you read his blog, you'll have already heard about the Elk Management plan in excruciating detail, so I won't get into it here. The funny thing is, I am one of about three people left in town today...which inspired me, at about 12:30pm, to get out of town too.

I'd already worked way too long and hard this week, so I thought it might be fun to go into town and see a movie! Just in luck, the Dickinson Carmike Theater had "Confessions of a Shopaholic" playing. Just the kind of brainless, hopefully entertaining theater I needed (and the best part is, matinee prices are $4)!



So, I drive the 30 minutes to Dickinson, get money, park the car, walk into the mall and.....yes, the theater is closed. What? Did I look at the right theater, day, time? Oh Well. I hung out in the mall, got some errands done, and came home. It just goes to show you that not everything is great about North Dakota and when it comes to going to an established, public event advertised on the internet, always call.