Back in the Saddle again....

All right. Fine, so I haven't blogged in a while. 

Here it goes, (don't know if anyone is even still reading this), but, nonetheless I am going to BLOG! 

Perhaps it is because I have felt so ridiculously productive today, or maybe, I like taking care of a dog. Maybe I've been in the sun too long, or it co

uld be that shot of tequila after Wednesday nights' softball game. Whatever the reason I felt compelled to hop on and blog away. So chex it out!

Muck is working full-time as the director of the food bank and doing a fabulous job! This means he is in charge of the Community Gardens, and the Gleaning Project, the two programs dearest to my heart in the valley. Plus he now drives a Green F150, and my oh my, in spite of the spiraling up gas prices, it's a nice truck. Of course I don't get to ride in it cause it is for the food bank only.

I am working part-time leading groups 

on the Challenge R

opes Course at Adams State and landscaping and gardening the crap out of my yard. Please note the amazing raised bed Muck and I built with our bare 

hands (lumber courtesy of Chris Mackey's backyard) because the Rototiller is officially out of commission. 

I still don't know what I want to do with my life. But really, who does? 

I also just got back from a 7 day raft trip down the San Juan River in Southern Utah. It was amazing! Sunny, hot, good company, fun kids, cool water, and delicious food. Here are some pics.

ok, so this might have been the boring-est post in the world. But, I'm just getting started again. You wait and watch. It's gonna be amazing. 

update on gift registry

Hello again all,

Sorry, I realized after I posted the updated gift info for the Minnesota Reception that I forgotten to add the updated gift registry information.

Muck and I are registered at:

www.Gaiam.com
Just click on the Gift Registry button on the lower right and enter either Muck's or my name, just remember Muck is registered under "John."
You will then be led to our registry page. Thanks!

This company sells organic and fair trade home and health products. We are merely registered for some very nice, very soft sheets, which come in fun colors, so please check them out!

We are looking forward to heading to Minnesota one week from today. We hope all is well with everyone.

If you have any questions email us!
kelseamac@gmail.com
muck.kilpatrick@gmail.com

love,
Us

Minnesota Reception

Hello again,

Sorry about the long silence. Life you know.

Well, the snowy days of December have taken ahold of southern Colorado. The Sangres and San Juans have been blanketed for a month now and Alamosa has seen its share of snow, though it doesn't seem to last long.

Thanksgiving at the shelter came a went with a visit from good friends. And the Valley-Wide Health Systems/ La Puente Charity Ball went off without a hitch. This was my (Kelsea's) first experience as an interior decorator/event planner for such a, ummm, expensive event. It was a little fun though to see the well endowed attendees enjoying the decorations and I, was the only one knowing that I had dumpster dived for some of them.

But moving along, things are well with Muck and I, and in less than two weeks we will be traveling to Minnesota for Christmas and our 2nd wedding reception. If you are in the area, please attend. Email either Muck or myself for more information. If you are already planning on attending and want to give us a present, please view the previously posted blog that pertains to wedding gifts.

Thanks for the love,
kelsea & muck

The Wedding (in detail)

From L to R: Muck's sisters Becky, Stephanie, Muck's Dad (John), brother Andrew, Muck's Mom (Pam), Muck, Kelsea, Kelsea's mom (Deborah), sister Meghan, dad (Bruce).

After a bit of absence, here are the first published pictures from the wedding! It was beautiful: out in the Great Wide Open of the San Luis Valley, half an hour from town. The site was on top of a hill with a 360 degree view of the valley. Sunshine and Rain clouds drifted around, making for an amazing view.










Around 35 friends (our volunteer group included) and immediate family members were there to celebrate with us. Margy, Muck's former housemate, and now shelter director officiated the ceremony. She was a clergyperson with the United Church of Christ, and an amazing friend.

Chad, a close friend and a fellow volunteer, who is now studying for a Ph.D. at Missou, read a poem he wrote for us. Lauren, Kelsea's best friend, read a scripture passage.

Muck's brother, Andrew (Dudee) and Kelsea's sister, Meghan, were the attendants. They wore light blue.

Kelsea's dress was handmade (by the bride-after a very stressful dress disaster-she would like to add) and came out wonderfully. The base was an Indosian print of white with magenta flowers. It was covered by a layer of organic cotton sheath cloth from India. It was halter style, with a green sash empire waist. She wore a hand dyed (not by herself) pashmina from Phoenix, AZ. (Thank you sister and mother of the bride).

Muck wore an organic cotton, button up shirt and linen pants. "He looks hot," said the Bride.

The reception was held at the Cottonwood Inn Bed & Breakfast in Alamosa, CO, where the out of town guests stayed. The reception was open to everyone, as long as they brought a potlach dish. "It was the fanciest potlach I've ever been to," commented friend, Paul Tigan, "the only thing it lacked was garnish." Paul agreed to bring a plate of snipped parsley to the next potlach.

The bride and groom informally visited with the guests, who were seated at tables decorated by candles and flowers from the local community garden picked by the bride, her mother and sister and friend Lauren. They were the arranged by Christine Burns. Three different types of cakes, all homemade by Renee Mackey, were served: a Raspberry Cheesecake, dark chocolate carrot cake, and Lemon Ginger layer cake. Red and white wine as well as a non-alcoholic option for those belonging to anonymous organizations were provided. The dancing and grooving lasted well until midnight, as guests signed prayer flags made by Rhonda Mouser for the Bride & Groom. Jenna Boostrom kept the party moving as hostess, and along with aid from Leann Lynch washed over a hundred dishes.

The next few days were hectic ones for the Bride and Groom, as the volunteers were leaving and new volunteers were arriving. Towards the end of August they were able to get away for a long weekend an hour and a half south in Taos, NM. They hope to travel abroad in the future.

Need for chillin'

The final full week before the wedding comenses! T-minus 10 days and counting! We're pretty excited, but also feeling rather drained, it has been an exhausting and a bit stressful last couple of weeks, but, the good news is:
- the wedding cakes are being made by a good friend
- another good friend is organizing the potluck
- the flowers will come from our local community garden and are doing wonderfully!
- the rentals have all been taken care of
- muck's wedding attire arrived on time several months ago
- after much ado, kelsea has found a suitable backup wedding dress to replace the one that never arrived by mail, and chances are, won't.... it will still be beautiful though!
- another good friend will be taking the pics!
- the wine has all been purchased from Trader Joe's after a rather adventurous trip to Santa Fe, where a tire exploded on the mini van we were riding in... (good friend chad actually found the spare and the jack, muck contacted the parents and figured out how to get the lug nut wrench to work (jumping on it) and then kelsea actually changed the tire).
- the wedding license has been obtained
- the ceremony details finalized (sort of)
- and tomorrow the first of the guests arrive!

That means that tomorrow afternoon we are pretty much done with work until after the wedding!! Yeah! Muck will be heading out with his brother and best friend to the wilds of Colorado for a three day camping/backpacking trip while Kelsea and Muck's sister Becky will be back in Alamosa tying up loose ends and chillin', maybe hiking, maybe painting, who knows?! The possibilities are endless.

We hope you all are doing well, and appreciate the gifts that we have received so far, both material and emotional, and supportive. The sense of community with the people we have come to know here has been amazing these last few weeks and we really don't know where we would be without them. It feels like a whole new family that we are a part of, and we cherish it so much.

peace & love,
muck & kelsea

ps- sorry about the lack of pictures, kelsea's computer went down and so we haven't uploaded any pics to someone else's computer yet.... it will happen.... someday.

CSA

As the wedding approaches, (T minus 24 days and counting) we find ourselves preparing the ceremony, trying to figure out how many people are actually coming to the reception and waiting very patiently (and anxiously) for kelsea's wedding attire... not that we procrastinated or anything.

As the planning has moved through its various stages we have been in constant discussion about what and how to share ourselves and our relationship with our friends and family. Through those discussions we've discovered that what we want to share most, besides our love for each other, is our commitment to four main values we share: the importance of community, voluntary simple living, social and environmental justice and our spiritual walks.

Because of those 4 things we have decided to do things a little bit differently than normal. For instance, our announcements, wedding and reception invitations have all been printed on handmade recycled paper (some of it made by us from the trash bins in the office at la puente). Our wedding clothes are made from 100% organic, pesticide free hemp (which is easier on the soil and needs less water than cotton, and is NOT smokeable despite popular opinion), and the clothing is reusable. We both will probably be caught wearing our wedding clothes again simply because they're so nice, why wouldn't we want to?! The food will be potluck on borrowed dishes, our friends are providing the music, photos, guest-signing thing, and we've decided to craft our own ceremony, presided over by our good friend Margy and Kelsea's uncle. All in all we hope to share with everyone what is important to us and focus on what really matters in this whole affair: relationship.

Although, some friends had a very good suggestion that everytime before we sit down to plan we down a beer in order to mellow out... it works.

In other news, we've gone and done something terribly couple-ish. We joined a CSA together. What's that? you might ask. Well, says Kelsea, we'll tell you.

CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. A woman Kelsea met through community choir and her husband run an organic farm just south of Alamosa. But because they are small farmers it is hard to survive and compete with the large agribusiness farms without going into major debt. So, before the farming season even begins, local community members can buy shares of the farm thus giving the farmer enough money to make it through the season. In return, the shareholders receive weekly deliveries of food from the farm depending on how much they paid.

Now, you ask, how on earth do you two afford this? I thought you were poor volunteers?

Yes, yes, it is true, we reply. We trade services. Every Thursday one of us meets Karen at the distribution point and helps the shareholders pick up their food and make a couple home deliveries. That way, we help out the farmers and we get tons of fresh, organic produce and a dozen organic, free range eggs a week! We think we are getting the better end of the deal, but Karen begs to differ.

That's all for now, there will be pictures and a brief synopsis of our recent backpacking adventure to the mountains up soon! In the meantime, we hope you all are well!

love,
muck & kelsea

gift information

Hello all!
We will begin our married life here in Alamosa in Muck's house, until our volunteer service time is up in February of 2007. We anticipate being nomads for a couple of years after that, therefore, we are NOT registering for or asking for any house/home goods such as dishes, sheets, towels, or blenders, etc... (no toasters either, thank you!). Instead, please check out the three options listed below if you are interested in giving us a wedding gift. Thank you in advance!

Option #1: REI
We have registered at www.rei.com, also located in our links on the right side of this page. After coming to the home page at REI, locate and click on the "Gift Registry" tab on the upper, right-hand side of the page. You will then be asked either for our names or wedding date to locate our registry. You know our names, and the wedding date is August 2, 2006. You can either make your purchase online and have it shipped to us, or go to your local REI customer service desk and request assistance for in-store shopping.

REI is an outfitter for wilderness adventures. We have only registered at REI for a few of the basics that we currently do not own, in order to enable us to keep up with the hiking, camping, and soon to be backpacking adventures, without having to continually borrow from our friends.

Option #2: Volunteering Abroad Fund (VAF)
After our time with La Puente Home (please locate link on the right side of the page), we both feel the call to pursue more volunteering opportunities, potentially elsewhere in the world. Unfortunately, travelling costs inhibit us from being able to get to many of the places we would like to volunteer. Once there, volunteers are usually given room and board, and in some cases and small stipend.
The two places we are looking into for volunteering hold special meaning for both of us. For a long time now, we have longed to "return home" to Ireland, due to our ancestoral roots, and India because Kelsea's grandfather grew up there, as did one of our role models, Mahatma Gandhi. We are not wanting to travel as tourists, but as pilgrims, with a desire to give back to the communities we learn from. Specifically, two programs we are looking at are:
www.wwoof.org - World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, an organization of organic farms worldwide that provide room and board for willing volunteers for however long they wish to stay. We are thinking we would like to volunteer in Ireland, if possible.
www.isec.org.uk/pages/ladakh.html - The Ladakh Farm Project, located in northern India, on the border of Nepal and Tibet (Free Tibet!) teaches sustainable farming, while also instilling a sense of pride in the traditional farming practices and anti-consumer culture of the Ladakhi people.

Option #3: Financial Freedom Fund (FFF)
In conjunction with the VAF, we present the FFF; our effort to eradicate our student loan debt. In order to volunteer abroad, we need to make regular payments on our student loans to prevent defaulting while we are gone. While not as enticing as the VAF, we believe the FFF is the most essential wedding gift because it promotes our financial stability as a couple.

Questions & Comments can be directed toward kelseamac@gmail.com or jmkilpatrick@stthomas.edu.

Thank you for your love and support! We love you all!

muck& kelsea