Some wedding pictures

Here are a few pictures from our wedding (compliments of my Uncle Bernie). Thanks to everyone for making it the most special day of our lives. We're still talking about how much fun we had that day.

Off to China!

An assembly of studs the likes of which no man has ever witnessed.

The beautiful bridesmaids!

Reader Mady Taylor - great job!

The mighty ring bearers, Davis Carlson and Patrick Taylor - they performed flawlessly.

The Special Voices Choir - they did an amazing job!

Charlie Taylor with cousin Aveda Taylor

The cutest flower girl in the world - Molly Taylor

A week in the Fujian province

Our first trip inside of China is over. We traveled down to the Fujian province for the week. We flew into Fuzhou for a night and then took a three hour bus ride to Xiamen - right on the east coast of China. Xiamen is actually an island. We spent the week going to the beaches and exploring Gulangyu Island - just off of Xiamen. It was a good omen when we got dropped off at the bus station and walked twenty feet to a hotel. I said, "Wouldn't this be great if this was our hotel?" It had no signs in English, so we asked a taxi driver to take us to our hotel - he just kind of looked at us and pointed to the hotel we were standing in front of. Xiamen was beautiful and the people there treated us like celebrities (apparently not many white people in that area of China). People would stop and stare and some even asked if they could take their pictures with us.

On Friday we took the bus trip back to Fuzhou and flew back to Shanghai on Saturday. We were glad to get "home". I was crushed to find out about the Twins' early exit from the playoffs....

We stayed on the ninth floor of a five-star hotel in Fuzhou on our first night.

This is on the ferry to Gulangyu Island. The mother of this baby wanted this picture taken with Mandy. People came up to us all week and wanted to have their pictures taken with us. I think they thought we were Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie?

This is in back of a motorcycle taxi. The bumpiest ride we've ever been on. Not sure that it's meant for that kind of American girth.

Xiamen in the distance. It was extremely hot all week.

This is on Gulangyu Island - you can see the city of Xiamen in the background.

Enjoying the nightlife of Xiamen. This includes: being stared at by Chinese people, watching kids pee in the street, and having people trying to sell me things I don't want or need.

This is on the beach of Gulangyu. We rented a table with umbrellas and they poured tea for us. None of the tea tastes like Mountain Dew, so I wasn't very interested in it.

This is at the site of a traditional school in Jinmei - just outside of Xiamen. On the school grounds is the tomb of the founder of the school.

This is the beach where we spent our last day in Xiamen.

This is a view from Xiamen University.