Wonderful Weekend Festivities - Saturday

I have been looking forward to this past weekend with great anticipation for weeks now - ever since my mom told me that my brother and his new bride got to come spend time with us while he was on leave from the army. Yay! And since they got married on the fly after he graduated from basic training in April, we were going to make this weekend a wedding celebration weekend. Oh how I love a party!








Spencer asking Uncle Jay embarrassing questions for The Newlywed Game!











A bit of crazy timing with the end of summer, school starting a the slew of our birthdays beginning, but I felt up to the challenge and couldn't wait to celebrate with them!

Saturday, I hosted a wedding "shower" for Jacque at my house. It was small and intimate, but I really enjoyed having her at my house and getting to do all the shower-y things for her - the flowers, the tulle, the buffet of desserts, the favors, the games, the froo-froo decorations... I loved meeting her mom, who is super sweet and drove for hours and hours to get there - during a crazy busy weekend for her, too! I loved getting to spend some time with my mom and my girls at our house, too! AND - I loved getting to splurge on cheesecake!

After our lovely little shower and gorging ourselves on sweets, we all headed out to Mom's to help get some cooking done before the reception dinner the next day. I drove Mom's car since she driving is off-limits for her for a while after her foot surgery. We had to make a couple quick detours before going out to her house to pick up some things we needed, so everyone else headed off west toward Eskridge and we headed east to Dillons on Highway 24.

Did all of you know that the speed limit on Highway 24 drops to 60 miles an hour as soon as you merge onto the highway? I honestly forgot this little fact. Forgot, that is, until I spotted the highway patrol car sitting in the median clocking speeders. Speeders... being me. Ugh. So, I slowed down to precisely, or just under the (very slow) speed limit and watched my rear view mirror and sure enough - here he comes with his lights on.

I'm sweating and hyperventilating and imagining the cussing out I'm going to get by my husband. Mom is digging out her insurance information (which, thankfully I knew she had and was up to date because she just got a warning not 2 weeks before that for NOT having it up to date!) Tyler is in the back seat just laughing it up.

Luckily, I got a warning only. And, let me tell you--- because you may hear differently if my mom or my husband or daughter get to telling stories -- I did not pull down the neckline of my shirt and fluff my hair. I did not bat my eyes and tell the very young highway patrolman that I liked his Dodge Charger patrol car. I did not tell him that I slowed down to below the speed limit, so that balanced things out didn't it?

After that, I can barely remember the rest of the errands and the drive out to Mom's. I vageuly remembering singing along to Earl's Got to Die in a horrible country twang and singing Home, Home on the Range at the top of our lungs for some reason...

We got out to Mom's and enjoyed some pizza with everyone. Then donned our fun aprons and got to work, while the kids conned Papa out of some of his uniforms and goofed around in them all night. We cooked and cleaned and cooked and cleaned up our mess until after dark then headed for home to pass out and crash until the next day's festivities....