April 21, 2017.  This morning, Nancy and Bill picked me up at the campsite at 10 am to get in some sightseeing and family visiting before we all head to the wedding rehearsal party and dinner late this afternoon.  Brad stayed behind to pack up our things and stabilize the Airstream for the two nights we will stay with Nancy & Bill at Beech Mt.

First we visited my nephew David’s new office building in Boone — a very big building (10,000 sq. ft. I think) housing the many employees busy at work in the vacation rental management business which David and his college roommate started a few years ago and have grown substantially.  David is the father of the bride (Grace) and is Nancy & Bill’s son.  David and Hannah, his beautiful wife of 20 years, have nine children and are expecting #10!  About 15 or so years ago, they made a fundamental life-changing decision to leave Atlanta and David’s stock-broker career there and move to the mountains just outside of Boone.  David himself built a huge log cabin with plenty of room for an expanding family, and they set about filling all the available bedrooms.  Hannah home-schools all the children!  You have never met a more talented, well-educated, polite and loving group of children (Grace, Heidi, Hope, Greta, Schuyler, Thomas, John, Faith, Sudie and TBD).  Several young like-minded and prolific families (the Whites, the Barrys, the Cockmans and the Kennedys) live close by and form a unique community of spiritual, musical and practical support,  life-long friendship, and general sympatico.  With all this togetherness, it is not surprising that Grace & Andrew’s wedding will have over 400 guests — mostly relatives of these families.  (Grace is a Kennedy; Andrew is a Barry.)

Next stop on the pre-rehearsal tour today was trip to nearby Valle Crusis to visit to my nephew Clarke and his wife Marcia and their one-month old son, Bo.  Clarke is David’s brother (making him the uncle of the bride).  Clarke and Marcia got married last April at our lake house in Georgia, during Daddy’s 103rd birthday party!  They gave me two days’ notice that they planned to get married at my house!  It worked out beautifully, but that is a “whole nuther” story as they say.

Brad joined us at Nancy & Bill’s house at 3, just in time to meet Stacy, the dog sitter who will entertain Doris while we are at the party tonight and the wedding tomorrow.

The festivities began with a cocktail party at 4:30 for out of town guests, followed by the rehearal dinner at their large community church.  Among the many toasts and presentations, Heidi, who is an accomplished pianist at age 16, played and sang a hauntingly beautiful song that she composed for the occassion, called “Figure Eights — for my sister Grace, on her wedding day (and everyday).”  It was a wonderful party, with equal measures of reflection and promise.

We arrived back at Beech Mountain by 11 pm to find Doris in good spririts and well satisfied with having been entertained by Stacy for 9 hours.  Also staying with us at the Beech Mt house were my niece Denis, her husband George and 3 of their 5 children, all from Atlanta.

All in all, it was a grand familial day.  Looking forward to the wedding tomorrow!