One Musical Mom's Life: Our Labor Day Weekend

It's been a couple days since my last post, so I thought I'd get caught up:

Friday evening: My debris-blowing neighbor is fine, with no acrobatic exits from his roof, that day.

Saturday morning: Took my wonderful parents to the airport for their "Cruising Europe" trip, and cried like a little girl when we had to say goodbye. It was weird, because this is not the first time they've been gone for an extended trip. So I was trying to figure out why I was so emotional this time around, and I guess it was because they are all but unreachable for 2 1/2 weeks. Their traveling companion has international cell phone coverage but it's for emergencies only. And they're not the type of "addicted" people who would check their email (or a blog!) while on vacation. SO, for 2 1/2 long weeks, no parental interaction. This from someone who finds it somewhat strange if she doesn't talk to her mom at least every other day...

Here's a picture of my folks right before we left for the airport:

Saturday afternoon: Went shopping with my buddy, Diane, to find a dress for the wedding--even tried on the same cute red dress at Ann Taylor that Laura had, but alas it didn't fit :-( Did find a really cute dress at Macy's, and then of course, had to find shoes to match--hello Nordstrom's Rack!~~By the way, the picture of David & I at the top of the page is from the wedding, and I'm wearing the dress I found.

Sunday morning: Drove Kyra to her other grandparents' house (David's folks) who were to watch her as he & I were driving up to my cousin John's wedding in Union, Washington.

A little history here: My side of the family is quite small, as my Dad's only brother & his wife have no children. My Mom also has only one sibling, her brother. He & his first wife only had 2 boys, so when my sister & I were growing up, it was just us 4 cousins.

And as most extended families go, as you get older, you typically only see each other at holidays, weddings & funerals. Subsequently, I believe the last time I saw John was 5 years ago at our grandma's memorial service.

Anyway, when we got the Save-the-date notice in the mail last June, we thought it might be fun to drive up for the day, and this was a Happy occasion :-) to get together.

We gave ourselves plenty of time to get there, as you never know what Labor Day weekend traffic catastrophe can occur, and arrived around 2pm--the ceremony was at 4:30 with dinner & dancing afterwards.

The wedding site, the Alderbrook Spa & Resort, was this absolutely beautiful place, right on the waterfront. I knew it was supposed to be "fancy-schmancy", because I'd looked it up ahead of time, on their website, and also saw that it's not cheap to stay there. So, here I am, expecting beautiful million-dollar lake houses, picturesque scenery and the wildlife in tuxedos.

We pull off Hwy 101, onto SR 106, and I thought, "Have we taken a wrong turn? How could a resort like that be down this way?" What I didn't realize is part of SR 106 goes through a kind of depressed area before you hit the vacation homes part. Maybe it's different coming from the other direction???

Here are some pictures of the resort--I apologize for the grayness of some of them--it really was a nice day, although a little overcast, and I didn't realize I needed the flash:

if you click on the picture to enlarge it,
you'll see, off to the left, where they got married--
where all the white chairs are

An interesting note: right next to where they were to get married, was the outdoor bar. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but about 20 minutes before the ceremony was to begin, a lounge lizard announced he would be the entertainment for the afternoon, and proceeded to sing & play a ukelele, all while being accompanied by tracks. This is literally spitting distance from the ceremony site. Although he wasn't half-bad, I'm sure this isn't what they had counted on for wedding music! Also, another family member was to play some nice prelude music while the guests were being seated...

Luckily, said lounge lizard made a little speech, after one of his tunes, saying, "Apparently there's a wedding here in a couple minutes (DUH!), so I'll be taking a short break, and then I'll be back!"

My uncle, who is a judge in Reedsport, performed the ceremony, although he had to get special certification to be able to "practice" in Washington. He tried to play the "visiting judge" card, but they wouldn't go for it, so he went to Rose Ministries online, and for only $39.95, he can now do weddings in 46 states (for some reason, Nevada is not one of them--might we say they're worried about cutting into their business???). Just like Joey on Friends, who became an ordained minister online. Too funny!

Anyway, the ceremony was very sweet, the weather held--there was a slight chance of rain, and then on to the food!!! Alderbrook has amazing food! In fact, one of my family members, who is very into food, said, "This is the best wedding buffet food I've ever eaten!" The appetizers served out on the lawn included huge crab legs, chilled jumbo shrimp, oysters on the half shell, cheese, crackers, fruit and a seafood pasta salad.

Then on to dinner, where they had another buffet filled with 3 kinds of salad, rolls, potatoes, salmon fillets, chicken breasts & beef medallions, and then cake, wonderful cake!!! They also showed a great slide show~~Windows of course, as they both work for Microsoft :-), and then after their first dance as husband & wife, the mother/son dance & the father/daughter dance, everyone got to dance. And they actually had a real band, who were quite good, instead of the typical DJ with his/her mp3s. And I have to say, I got up and danced with the groom, although the family I married into, doesn't dance, as a general rule~~I had to include that for David's sake, hee hee!

All in all, we had a fabulous time and Kyra did really well at Grandma & Grandpa's~~she even stayed over night as we knew we'd be back really late Sunday night. The only really scary thing happened when we were driving home from the wedding. We were on that same SR106, and it was really dark. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, this crazy woman appeared right in front of us~~well, I don't know for certain that she was crazy, but I don't know any sane person who would just jump out in front of a car. Luckily David was able to slam on his brakes to avoid hitting her. Otherwise, we'd probably still be up there, while they sorted everything out--What is with people?

I'll leave you with some more pictures of the wedding--By the way, yesterday (Monday), was pretty quiet--a little yard work (for Labor Day!), and just hanging out.

my cousin, Noah, my cousin, John (the groom), his new wife, Cait,
and her sister, Bridget