Katie's engagement party

[rusty]

Wow, our little Katie is engaged! Not only has the past 20 years gone by so incredibly quickly, so have the past weeks. Sorry it has taken me so long to post some photos of the celebrations.

We made a lightning trip to orange county to meet up for the party, hosted by Ben's folks Rick and Cindy and it was an amazing week packed with new people and new experiences, plus catching up with family. Not only Mom and Dad were there but also Dave and Laura, Jason and Ann as well as Mike and Hannah. (Plus all the kids who were all fantastic!).

There was a fantastic beach top cliff sunset barbeque the first day with the Babcock clans, before the main event. The job that everybody did to prepare the Nicols place for the party was amazing, the place looked perfect and everything was just right. It was a wonderful night meeting more of Ben's family and friends and even some old mates of Katie's who were in North America. Thanks so much to Rick and Cindy for making it a really special evening.

There were a couple more days catching up with everyone, going to the beach, and since it was Easter we had a really lovely dinner at Ben's Grandma Lee's place. Katie and Ben wanted to show us Mexico and had booked an air B&B place between Ensenada and Rosarito where we spent a few days, seeing the sights, relaxing, surfing, being sold stuff we really didn't need, and watching the whales and pelicans go by. Survived a fair few highway U-turns.

One more day in LA before we had to hit the plane, we had a memorable dinner send off at a beautiful Mexican restaurant in the country at the back of Orange County.

I have posted a few pictures which are mainly from Ben's Aunt who was taking a lot of photos and did a great job.

Sadly, i lost my camera while surfing in Mexico, it got washed out of my wetsuit, and i lost all my photos from the trip. There were some real crackers too, so i am still feeling sick about that. I know everybody has a few pictures from this trip so i would really appreciate it if you could all post a few good ones, i don't have any pictures of my family from this trip, and it meant a lot to me that i was able to spend some time with so many of you guys.


Love
Russ

[Grampa & Gramma]

Here are a couple more. There were a lot of pics taken at the party and hopefully they will show up here soon! There were pics taken at the beach where the little kids were enjoying the surf and sand. And there were some other "family group" pictures taken at the party. Where are these?

[rusty]

Great to see those photos dad and mom, thanks. Katie sent a link to her and Ben's web page where you can find a bunch more photos:

http://benjaminnkatie.com/pictures/the- ... ent-party/

[Katie]

Hi Everyone!

Thank you for all making it out for the party and a great family get together. I loved seeing you all! The link below goes to all of the photos taken by Trish. If you would like any high res versions let me know! Here is one of the family. Love you guys!


http://benjaminnkatie.com/pictures/the- ... ent-party/