Wedding + Solstice Celebration

We met when Adam was working on a boat in California near Rachel's job in bicycle advocacy. We went our separate ways after a few months, but kept in touch and became friends. We were on opposite coasts early in the pandemic, but spent more and more time talking, and watching TV together over Zoom (when we weren't falling asleep watching TV together over Zoom). Rachel visited Adam in Connecticut, and the rest is history.

When Adam visited California in November, we spent a beautiful day at the coast before heading into the coastal hills to the Methuselah Tree, an 1800-year-old redwood (see photo at bottom of page). We proposed marriage to each other in the soft fog, delicate ferns, and stately redwoods.

Rachel loaded up the van and drove from California to Connecticut to start the new year with Adam. We moved into our first home together in Groton, CT. Rachel's first snowy winter went smoothly as she adjusted to Navy life and Adam started working on his first submarine. Rachel's dog, Sadie, and Adam cemented their bond and leveled up to Best Friend status. Over the summer we added two kittens to our household, Rosethorn Goldberry and Briar Moss Moonbeam.

Adam grew up in Marblehead, MA. As a youth, he built an enduring love of the mountains and the shore during family time spent at each. He worked on historic tall ships as crew and educator, and completed major transits such as East Coast to West Coast via the Panama Canal and a trans-Atlantic journey. He studied natural history at Sterling College, enjoying the experiential classrooms of the Sierra Nevada mountains and the Bay of Fundy. He spent several years being a caretaker and hut staff on the Appalachian Trail in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, with boats, farms, and adventures mixed in, including taking Rachel sailing in San Francisco Bay. He went to Japan and pursued a walking pilgrimage. In 2020 he joined the Navy and began the effort to become a sonar technician on submarines. In his free time, he enjoys not-cold beer, his long-running D&D game, his new VR headset, making Rachel smile, and cuddling the new kittens.

Rachel grew up in Menlo Park, CA. As a youth, she learned how to train the family dog, rode horses and worked at a local barn, and ate lots of banana splits in the back of her little pickup truck. After graduating from UC Davis with a degree in landscape architecture (and an unofficial minor in marching band), she volunteered on organic farms for a few years, notably in Portugal, India, and Thailand. Upon moving back to the Bay Area, she made the coffee shop to nonprofit transition and began an evolving role in bicycle advocacy. Halfway through this tenure, she met Adam and took him bicycle camping and let him snuggle her cat, Kitteh (aka The Schmoo). She continued regular bicycle camping with friends and completed a 5-day fundraising ride in 2017 and a tour in New Zealand in 2019. Other favorite epic rides include Crater Lake and Yosemite's Glacier Road. She joined the board of a community bike shop and led the organization through major transitions. At the advent of the pandemic, Rachel and her dog Sadie left bicycle advocacy and Oakland and moved in with the maid of honor and her family. Rachel started a coaching and organizational consulting business, and began her current role with a planning and design firm as a parks and open space planner. In 2022, she and Sadie moved to Connecticut to be with Adam and continue their story together. In her free time, she likes making bread, reading, hiking, riding bikes, making base housing feel like home, training the critters, and making Adam laugh.