Congratulations Chrissy and Steve

My cousin Chrissy decided to do it all in a two week period. You know nothing like Graduating from Law School and Getting Married in the same week. Yep…she is that amazing. We were so excited to be invited to her wedding. My Uncle Jim and his family (Chrissy his daughter, Danny his son and Aunt Betsy his wife) live in Tennessee. We do not get to see them often and the thought of everyone being together was very exciting. We had to do some financial finagling, but with my parents help we were able to make the trip. IT WAS AMAZING.

We packed the kids and ALL our gear in the civic and headed out to our first Vegas Wedding. We decided to take the trip in Sylvia the Silver Civic. It was tight but we fit and we saved for sure! We headed out at about 4:30 hoping the kids would just fall right back to sleep. OOPS! We are new to the traveling thing and well we will only learn with practice. After about forty five minutes of questions and concerns we decided to give them their milk and a snack. We were hesitant to give Jacob his milk because in the past he has been car sick and we feared the smell of spoiled milk and some projectile vomiting might put us over the top, not a good place to be in the first hour of our trip. Everything was fine though and after another forty five minutes they were back to sleep and we enjoyed some quite grown up time. We forgot until that moment how much we enjoy road trips. It is great alone time to chat and reconnect and for the next couple hours that is what we got to do. The trip was smooth and quick and before we knew it, we were there. We got to the hotel, we stayed at the same place as my parents and Uncle Terry and Aunt Cindy. We had a cheaper room of course and when we got there we realized we would have been in a different building down the street. This could have been a bummer but Uncle Terry had already got us a free upgrade and we were just across the pool from all our extra hands. The kids thought having everyone there was just so cool and it was FUN for all. There was pool time, nap time and some Starbucks. We love having people around who want to be so much a part of Jacob and Annika’s lives. With Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Terry and Aunt Cindy around we even feel a little un-needed, in a good way of course.

So day two was the wedding. The kids took awesome early naps after some fun in the pool so they were in great spirits for the big event. We were nervous about all of it. We knew we were not taking the kids in the ceremony. It was really small and quaint and if they made a peep all would hear. When it came down to it though I ended up taking Jacob in and David stayed with Annika! It was great. Jacob started to ask a question but I whispered in his ear that if he talked I would cry and we would have to leave. Not the best parenting but I can not tell you how quite this room was and well we had already had numerous talks before entering about not saying one word. He responded well and he did not talked again till we were out of the room. The ceremony was short and sweet and Chrissy looked AMAZING. Her dress was beautiful and I kept thinking I can not believe that is my LITTLE cousin. She is incredible.

The reception was at a really nice restaurant called Roys. On our way there my nerves overwhelmed me. We were not quite sure if we should go? Will the kids be disruptive? Will it be too quite for kids? We went for it though and the kids did great. They sat and let us enjoy a really nice dinner for over two hours. We could not have asked them to behave any better than they did. Once again though we were grateful to have all the other hands who helped.

The weekend was awesome and while it would be great to go into MORE detail, I will try and spare you and just give some recap bullets.

Annika had her first ice cream cone
We saw God’s protection when Jacob opened the hotel door in the middle of the night to go look for me. David and him were asleep on the bed, he woke up and went to find me. I was with my sister in law Julie by the pool. Only God could have kept him from leaving. When I came in the door was open but everyone was in bed, I just thought I did not close it all the way. The next morning when I told David he said no, I made sure it was closed. Jacob then told us he got up to find me. Thank you Lord for keeping him from the streets of Vegas. Note: to all parents many hotel doors do not lock at all from the inside. Needless to say the next night we did not sleep.
My Cousin Danny won over $23,000 in black jack, he is 22 (I think)
Danny bought us all brunch on Sunday
Danny graduated from college this week also
Uncle Jim retired this month
Aunt Betsy is retiring at the end of the month
Did I mention Chrissy graduated from law school this week too?
I am so proud of ALL of them.

(she closes her eyes just like Jacob)

We had an amazing weekend. Thank you Chrissy for inviting us to your beautiful wedding! We had a great time!!!

Congratulations Chrissy and Steve!!!