I know I have to explain the title before I go any further.
Corey “graduated” from a program at work called the IT Residence program (ITR). During his time with the program, he met several other ITRs and they formed their own little merry band of friends. They’ve all since gone in various directions, but they’ve stayed in touch. It’s pretty cool to see. When Corey and I got married, we invited that crowd to the reception. One of his friends dubbed the gathering GoGiT ’17, which stands for Convergence of Genius in Tulsa 2017 (they all work in tech). They made t-shirts and everything. So, when the same crowd traveled to Michigan for another ITR wedding, the gathering was thusly named CoGiM ’18 (convergence of genius in Michigan 2018). No t-shirts this time – I was disappointed 😛
Because there were so many pictures I wanted to share, I’m going to tell the various stories mostly through the captions of the pictures. Bit differently than I normally do, but hopefully it works out!
If you want to get anywhere at a decent time flying out of our airport, you have to leave stupid early (we’re talking 5am flight departure time). It’s the worst. We started off Wednesday morning way too dang early.
Can’t go to a new state without geocaching! This one was an easy find, but it was on someone’s private property (the cache owner = property owner). The owners were avid geocachers also, and they came out and chatted with us for a bit. Very neat!
The view from our hotel room the first couple nights. Turns out that Holland, MI is pretty scenic. Wednesday we didn’t do much else besides find a couple caches and crash in the hotel room. As it turns out, waking up at 3am is a bit tiring.
Thursday was another day of geocaching! This one brought us to Hope College, which was founded when Dutch pioneers settled the area.
Couldn’t resist a picture in this gorgeous little city part.
We met up with Pierce (black shirt, far back) and Kevin (right side, blue shirt), both fellow ITR graduates and went canoeing on Lake Macatawa. We rented two tandem canoes with 1AdventureCompany – it turns out that Corey and I are more in sync than Pierce and Kevin are!
After canoeing, we went for ice cream in downtown Holland.
As we were walking around, I was messing with Portrait Mode on my phone’s camera. This was one that I snapped; turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself!
A rare picture of Pierce the grumpy old man smiling.
There’s a fully functional, completely disassembled-and-shipped-from-the-Netherlands-and-reassembled-here flour windmill in Holland, so we went and toured it on Friday! Our poor tour guide was in authentic Dutch wooden shoes. She told us later that she wears anywhere from 6 to 10 pairs of socks just to get them to fit.
Selfie at the top of the windmill!
There were Fresian horses on the property that were very friendly.
Corey and I in front of the windmill.
Pierce and Kevin
I’m pretty proud of this shot. I think it’s one of my favorite pictures I’ve ever taken. The windmill’s name is De Zwaan (Dutch for The Swan).
They had an old organ(?) on display on the grounds as well.
Kevin was actually in the wedding party, so he had to head to the rehearsal dinner Friday evening. Corey, Pierce, and I took a cruise on Lake Michigan in his absence! This ship had recently been remodeled, and apparently we were on its first voyage since. They had commemorative bracelets.
Caught him smiling again!
I love being on the water.
Pierce is Corey’s BFF, so I was glad to see them get to spend some time together.
Saturday morning, before the wedding, Corey and I hiked up Mt. Pisgah, which is a giant sand dune on Lake Michigan.
The view at the top was really pretty! Corey is modeling those CoGiT shirts I mentioned earlier. They are screenprinted, by hand. I think Pierce and Kevin just wanted to see if they could.
But holy toledo did the climb suck. 239 steps to the top! There were locals out running up and down the stairs for a morning workout – crazy people.
Pierce, me, and LoKo on deck of the USS Silversides in Muskegon, MI. LoKo is another ITR grad that got to join us!
The ITR boys: LoKo, Jack, Kevin, Pierce, and Corey
Claire, the bride, did an incredible job with the wedding. It was absolutely gorgeous, and I know she made some of the stuff herself.
Kevin cheesing on his groomsman entrance at the reception.
Photo op at the reception!
The Hadleys and the newly minted Dietrichs – Claire and Alex. So glad we got to celebrate with you guys!
Start the discussion