Wedding in Illinois

On Saturday, July 8, 2006, my beautiful oldest grandson, Ian Scott Denson, married the beautiful Medea Grillos-Saxner in Galena, Illinois. The wedding took place in Medea's father's summer home in the Galena Territories. Here are Ian and Medea (center) with Ian's second cousin Jeanne McGowan Letizia (my grandniece) on the left, and Stan, one of Ian's schoolmates from Waterbeck, on the right. Stan's brother Jack and his mother were there, too. Their mom now lives in Rome and is a tour guide in the Vatican!

Here's another photo of Ian and Medea with some of their Chicago friends.








Ian and Medea wrote their own vows and spoke them to each other while everyone mopped their eyes (including them). Then they exchanged rings and looked very happy.







Here are Ian and his brothers, left to right: Jeremy and Miah Denson from Kansas City, Ian, and Sean Denson Race from Glasgow, Scotland. Missing is Ian's cherished youngest brother, George Race, from Waterbeck, Scotland. George was scuba diving in the Red Sea with his parents Henry Race and Margaret Carew Race, Ian's mum. Is this a far-flung family, or what?!









Here, left to right, are Medea's mother, Penny Grillos; Medea; Medea's father, David Saxner; and Ian.









This photo shows Ian's Carew-Dwyer relatives in attendance. From left to right, Bea, an exchange student from Spain who is staying with the Letizias; Jeanne McGowan Letizia; Sarah Carew Woodruff, Ian's aunt; Susan Dwyer McGowan, my dear oldest niece; Sarah McGowan; and Jim Letizia, Jeanne's husband. Missing from the photo but back at Galena's Eagle Ridge resort are that charming, lively duo Annabelle Letizia, age 3, and Gaby Letizia, age 18 months or so.










Susan, bless her heart, sent these two photos today (July 16): the first is of Sally giving her post-wedding advice and appreciation speech to Ian and Medea. The second is of Ian and beautiful Sean with yrs truly.










On the way back to DC from the Dubuque airport (!), the crop duster dropped me off in Chicago, where my lovely and talented (www.letterartbyhelen.com) grandniece Helen McGowan Costello picked me up at O'Hare and took me to brunch at a nearby pancake house (!). Helen's husband, Andrew, took time out from his chores to join us and take this photo of Helen, precious little Mia (aged 6 months and 2 days), and me, the great-grandaunt. Andrew not only has a much better camera, he is a much better photographer. I'm sorry there's no photo of him, but you can tell from looking at Mia that he's handsome as all get out.