Oh Happy Day!

It would take FOREVER to tell you all the details of the wedding “weekend”, so instead, I’m just going to tell you my top 10 favorite memories of the ordeal.

10) Getting a bridal party mani/pedi the day before the wedding. It wasn’t the nicest of spas, in fact, it was just a nail salon at the mall…but, it was great to be pampered just a little bit. I splurged and went for a shellac french manicure! It was a pretty penny…and I can’t say it was completely worth it…but I do love my nails.

9) Jon and Liz being in town for 4 days and not having to go to drill. We always love hanging out with them when they’re in town, but drill takes up so much of their time. So, it was nice to just be with them. Brad and Jon are pretty close. Jamielynn says that Brad “comes alive” when he’s around Jon. I would say that’s true.

8 ) When the photographer asked if she could hire me as an assistant! I immediately said “You can!” and everybody laughed. I don’t think she was expecting that…but I’ll take whatever break I can get to learn more about photography.

7) When Zoe arrived at the church with Liz. I had to leave before she woke up, so I didn’t get to see her all day long. The moment I saw her, nothing else in the world mattered except getting her in my arms. I’m constantly amazed at how deep my love is for her…just because I never knew you could love somebody that much.

6) Seeing Jessica’s face when she showed up at the house we were getting ready for. She was absolutely bursting with happiness.

5) Getting to hang out with my sisters for 2 days straight. We don’t ever get that much time together these days. It was awesome to just be with them.

4) One of my very favorite moments: When Jamielynn handed me my dress to get ready and it wouldn’t go over my hips. I thought, “Oh Lord, I wonder if she{the lady who made the dresses} took it in too much” and then tried to get it over my head. It got stuck on my boobs. Jamielynn was tugging and pulling, trying desperately to not rip the dress. I was stuck with my hands over my head and a dress tight across my boobs…not going anywhere…telling her “You’ve GOT to get me in this dress!!”. We were freaking out. I told Jamielynn I couldn’t breathe and she told me to stop being dramatic. I said, “No. Like…I really can’t breathe. You’ve gotta get me OUT of this dress.” At that point we reversed the tugging, I got even more stuck, something ripped a little bit, and finally I was free. It was in that moment that we realized Jamielynn had given me HER dress…a mere 6 sizes smaller than mine. And then we died laughing.

3) Watching Zoe at the reception. She thought that it was her party and everybody was there to shower her with attention. She worked that room like it was that last thing she was ever going to do. She conned numerous people into giving her their chocolate kisses. More than once she dominated the dance floor. It was an absolute riot watching her in action.

2) Giving my sister a toast, I LOST it. Like, I almost started hyper-ventilating, lost it. I’d held it together for the most part all day long, but then I stood up to tell the room how much my sister means to me, and I just crumbled into a mess of tears. I’m crying now, just thinking about it. She’s seriously the best big sister you could ever ask for… I hope the room got that message in the midst of my meltdown. It didn’t help that I was looking at her and tears were running down her face too.

1) Watching my beautiful sister, my best friend in the whole world, marry the love of her life.

Happy Monday Ya’ll!

PS. One more: The wedding happened on Friday and Brad took off Thursday to help with the last minute details, which meant that when the wedding was over we still had a full weekend with NO PLANS!!! It was fabulous.

PPS. Zoe’s favorite part: lfewc eercr3rt****/82222222*8*9+++++0+322222222222.

Red Chairs and Football Season

Just in case you’re curious…I’m writing this post from the upstairs guest bedroom. I typically write it on my couch, the light beige one, to be exact. Tonight, it’s my favorite red armchair in the guest bedroom. So, why am I writing it from the upstairs guest bedroom? {I say that as if we had a downstairs guest bedroom, we don’t} It’s a long story.

Back when we re-installed internet in our house {I canceled it about 3 months into our marriage because we had this ANCIENT computer that took FOREVER to load a website and we never used it. That’s the same phone call that canceled cable and the next phone call got us satellite. Two years later, we’re right back with Comcast} I digress. Anyways, when I was re-installing internet in our house because I was going to be home with Zoe all day and needed it, I also got the most basic of cable packages because I would get a discount for a “bundle”, even though we’d never use the cable because we had satellite, obviously. I mentioned it to Brad at the time, and it’s been posted on our bill for the last year…but somehow, he didn’t exactly put 2 and 2 together that we had basic channels in the guest bedroom.

I’m not one of those people who like to have a TV in every room, in fact, I’m pretty against it. We have a flat screen downstairs, and we have Brad’s ancient ancient TV in our room. By ancient I mean it weighs 1,000 lbs and is approximately 10 years old. Maybe older. Actually, it’s more like 13 or 14 years old. It’s practically the brontosaurus of TVs. Oh, and to top it off, the remote that goes to the TV is on that list of “things the dog {Hemmi} at the first year he was with us”, so…it’s all manual, baby. Anyways, I’ve asked Brad a couple times to move the TV to the guest bedroom, because it’s so massive and it’s a decorating NIGHTMARE, but because we occasionaly watch it, it stayed.

Well, then we did a month without TV during football season and my poor husband about lost.his.mind. Honestly? I really like not having a TV. Sure, I miss my Regis, and I really miss Kelly…but, I don’t miss getting sucked in to watching TV all day long. We don’t get sucked in to watching shows all evening long. We read. We talk. I blog. We watch the shows that we really want to on the internet {gasp}. It’s been good.

But, then LSU was playing Alabama in THE GAME OF THE CENTURY…and Brad practically threatened to take our daughter to a sports bar after her bedtime in order to watch it. I was totally in agreement of keeping her up past bedtime due to DST, but more in favor of the location being his mom’s house rather than a bar…if you know what I mean. {for the record, Brad would never take our daughter to an actual bar…not even for a football game…and you know how much he loves football} That might have been about the time that I casually reminded him that we have basic cable in the guest room. To say he was flabbergasted is an understatement. He’d gone four weekends without it and I was JUST NOW?!?!?!?!?! telling him about this? Ah…wives. Wives and their silly “forgetfulness” 😉

Brad went off to the Gator game, picked up Zoe at his mom’s house and hung out to watch the first part of the game. Zoe made it to about half time and then needed to come home. By the time that I got home from my sister’s shower, my husband was in the guest bedroom with the TV rigged up and sitting cock-eyed in our armchair with the game on. So, because I couldn’t handle the crookedness of the TV, tonight we re-arranged the room, put it on a TV stand, lost internet for about 30 minutes, both got a little bit really huffy, fixed the internet, calmed down, and now he’s watching his beloved Sunday night football game from the comfort of the guest bed while I blog away in the red chair right next to him.

It’s a pretty adventurous life we live.