Breaking the Ice

When the parents of the bride and groom have not met each other prior to the wedding, it is probably a good idea to get together before the festivities begin.  Fortunately, we were able to meet the groom's parents before all of the friends and family arrived for the big day.  I now understand why the bride and groom never seemed very worried about whether their parents would like each other.  They knew we would!  Well, at least we liked them, I can't speak for his parents, I just have a feeling.

We hosted a little dinner on Thursday before the wedding as an ice breaker.  What we needed was Mexican food.... and beer!  What we needed was a chance for everyone to get into the mood of the weekend and meet the family while still wearing comfortable shoes!  Don't ever underestimate the power of comfortable shoes!

I'm not sure the groom's family knew exactly what they were in for
but they look like they are having fun!

"Our shoes are so comfortable! "
Happy Moms!

Party in the pantry... or are they just wearing comfortable shoes?

Pocket watches for all the men from the groom!

With the ice thoroughly broken we were ready for all of Friday's events and the wedding on Saturday!

Since we were all "old" friends now, we totally enjoyed the bridal luncheon while the guys played golf, hung out with the kids and recovered from the bachelor party the night before.

The bride and her sisters!

Friends and bridesmaids!

Lovely junior bridesmaid and John...the lone fellow with all the women!
Lucky guy!

 The rehearsal is one of my favorite parts of a wedding for some reason.  I have been known to cry more during the rehearsal than during the wedding.  I think this is when it all hits.  It hits the bride, the groom, the father of the bride, etc. that this is going to happen!  We have planned and worked and waited for this day for a long time and now we are one day away.  The wheels are turning and there is no stopping now.

Our beautiful church!

Practice makes perfect...

The bride sang the Psalms and I just love the way he is looking at her.
#Melt my heart

With the ceremony fully rehearsed we were off to the rehearsal dinner.  Another favorite part of the wedding weekend for me....because I did not have to plan it!  The groom's family did a fantastic job choosing a great spot with great food.  It was the perfect place for everyone to visit, relax and get to know more about each other.  Coincidentally, it was also the groom's birthday!

Speaking of getting to know more about each other....I gave the groom a little gift at the dinner.  It occurred to me that he really does not know all about his bride's past.  I made him a scrapbook full of pictures of her from birth through university with highlights of some of her favorite things and some of the special events in her life.  I have made one for each of my children's spouses as a way to give them a glimpse of her/him "before".  I'm not sure who liked it more, the groom or the bride!

What a cool spot!

Mom and Dad welcoming everyone

They look so nice together!

Everyone checking out the bride's past....

At the end of the night we felt a lot closer to the groom's family and the wedding party.  We all came together for one reason; to witness Katie and James' marriage.  Two people brought together all of these friends and families because they wanted us to be there when they said, "I do.".  We were all there to give them our blessing.  With a common goal we felt close.  Each of us loves them in our own way and we want them to have a long and happy marriage.  Finding that one special person is a blessing and it makes everyone happy to witness such a blessing.  We were all definitely happy!

Stay tuned for the wedding!

It's Finally Here!

Tomorrow our daughter will marry the love of her life.  By the time you read this, we will be caught up in the wedding vortex.  We will be enjoying our time with family and friends from near and far!  After months of planning, it's finally here.  During the planning phase it seems like the wedding is so far away.  Before you know it, you are making sure all the t's are crossed and i's dotted and the borrowed, blue, old and new are present and accounted for before that walk down the aisle.  I know my daughter has gone over this day in her mind's eye thousands of times.  My hope is that this day is everything and more than she ever expected...one of those rare and exquisite experiences that not only lives up to expectations but exceeds them by far!

Last week I was reminiscing and read some old blog posts.  As fate... or the spirit would have it, I came across the post below, written three years ago. Apparently, May 3 is a very big day in my life! I thought it was too perfect not to re-post on this of all days.  We have planned, imagined, anticipated and dreamed of tomorrow.  There will undoubtedly be moments that far exceed anything we ever imagined and those that will fall short.  The best part is that after all the dreaming and scheming, Katie and James will be married and will begin their lives as husband and wife.  Here is to the the moments they will spend together anticipating and sometimes dreading the future and to living those moments together.


May 3, 2011
Anticipation vs. Participation

My mother used to tell us that anticipation is better than participation.  This statement was usually in reference to premarital sex and was one of her ways to encourage us to....wait.  I guess she figured our imaginations were much better in the sack than it was going to be in real life.  Why ruin all those great fantasies with that awkward first time?  Thanks Mom.

If you think about it though, how many big events in your life have you anticipated with great expectations?  The first day of school, that first kiss, high school graduation, college, the first day at a new job, your wedding, the birth of your first child, your first grandchild, moving to a new place, visiting some exotic land, my golf game on Tuesdays?  How many of these experiences created serious fluttering in your heart and kept you up at night before you actually lived them?   How many of them actually lived up to your expectations?  How many of them disappointed you?  Some of them might have exceeded your wildest dreams!  Those are rare and exquisite experiences that need to be treasured.

On the flip side, sometimes we anticipate with dread. Final exams, leaving someplace you have grown to love, breaking up with someone, going to the doctor (or is that just me?),  any science class (just me again?), going to confession, surgery.  These anticipations can also be greatly over exaggerated in our imaginations and turn out much better than we expected.  Sometimes they are just as bad as we thought they would be and then sometimes, and hopefully seldom, they are worse than we thought.  Such is life.

I am currently anticipating the month of May.  There are so many things to look forward to.  I am going to see family I haven't seen in a long time.  I am going to travel to places I have never been to before, I will see my youngest child graduate from college and finally, I will be heading to the shore for what might be the longest stay I've ever had there.  I anticipate these events with my usual positive spin....everything is going to be great!  But am I setting myself up for disappointment?  Will the real things live up to my expectations?  Will anticipation be better than participation?  The thing about anticipation is that it lasts for a long time and as far as participation goes, when it is over, it is over.

We can't wait until tomorrow!

What is it About the Garage?

I follow a few other blogs.  Just a few... compared to the number some people out there read on a regular basis.  Maybe this explains why my blog is not on thousands of people's everyday reading list, that and the fact I don't blog every day. The blogs I do read, I read for pure entertainment plus they have a writing style to which I aspire.  I really miss my weekly brain candy when one of my bloggers goes more than a week between posts.  The nerve of them....how can they go and live their lives and not keep me in the loop with a witty or relevant blog post?

Today I noticed that my last post was ten days ago a long time ago and I thought to myself, "If I'm lucky there are people out there wondering if I fell down a rabbit hole or something.".  I know...it is very presumptuous of me!  No worries, I am here, living my life and not blogging.  It happens....so I guess I'll forgive my favorite bloggers for doing the same.  Sometimes life is just more important than the blog.  No! Life is always more important than the blog.

Having a happy Easter with these people
and not blogging.....

So... what have I been up to instead of blogging?  Well....there are a lot of spring golf tournaments and I just don't know how to say "no".  There are the dance lessons TJ and I are taking.  Plus, we have been doing some spring cleaning or as I'd like to refer to it, "cleaning this pit before friends and relatives arrive and see how we really live"... oh, and did I mention the wedding is in less than 2 weeks?  Really, I am not doing that much for the wedding compared to the bride who has done most of the work.  Far be it from me to butt in and take over her finely tuned wedding planning mojo.  I do find myself having panic dreams where I show up to the church and I don't recognize any of the people there or The Dress falls apart or no one shows up or fifty more than we planned for show up.  I'm sure these will become more and more frequent over the next few days.  I am just hoping that soon we will be able to relax, enjoy the moment and trust that all of the people we are paying will do their jobs and everything will go according to plan or as close to the plan as possible.


Let's talk about cleaning for a minute.  In my book, cleaning means mopping the floors, cleaning the bathrooms, dusting, vacuuming, maybe clean the dog nose prints off the windows, cleaning the cobwebs from the corners and putting away all the piles of crap that we have sitting around the house.  To my husband, cleaning means cleaning the garage.  What is it about men and the garage?  Every time we have a party or event at the house he feels compelled to clean the garage.  Why?  We don't ever eat dinner or serve cocktails there.  No one ever sleeps in the garage.  No one goes to the bathroom in the garage...I hope!  We don't even have a ping pong or beer pong table that people play in the garage.  But, without fail, he thinks we  (he and the mouse in his pocket?) need to clean the garage.  This time, since the event is bigger than a little Saturday night barbecue, he has gone way beyond the garage.  "We" are having the outside of the house painted.  The house is getting a total overhaul.  The bonus to me is that the painters are cleaning the outside of the windows after the painting is finished.  A job I was planning to not have enough time to do!  So, for three days the outside of our house has been chaos.  Once the job started and got underway we found out just how badly the house needed painting.  The timing may be a bit off but in the end, she looks very nice with a shiny new coat of paint not to mention clean windows.  On to the garage!

NOT!!!!!

Chaos comes before order.

We finally did it!  We have both always wanted to take dance lessons and with the upcoming wedding we decided to just do it!  After three lessons, I can say in all seriousness, we will never be ready for prime time by the wedding.  We may eventually be able to dance together without fumbling awkwardly through the steps...we hope.

Dancing with the Stars...here we come!

There is a very good chance the blog will be idle until after the wedding.  I'll be busy holding in my stomach trying to fit into my mother of the bride dress, enjoying all of our family and friends and dancing up a storm.  I promise plenty of pictures and hopefully no horror stories.

Bluebonnets Now and Then

In three and a half weeks I will not be sitting on this sofa at 8:30 at night watching TV alone in my pj's all showered and ready for bed.  Actually, there aren't many nights you can find me in my pj's and ready for bed at 8:30 at night!  I'm not even sick... unless you count severe spring allergies sick.  I played golf (poorly) today in hurricane force winds and a shower and pj's made perfect sense to my weather beaten body and mind.  I figure I need to enjoy these days and nights while I can and rest up the next few weeks before wedding palooza.

Last Sunday was bridal portrait day.  The weather cooperated by raining and getting very chilly.  We  had grand illusions of heading north to the hill country to take advantage of the bluebonnets for the photo shoot.  Drizzle and temps in the 50's do not say "outdoor photo shoot"!  The bride scrambled around and made plan B which turned out better than plan A!  Things work out that way sometimes.

Nice changing room!

We, well the bride and the photographer, found a lovely old inn in Brenham, Texas that would let us use the property for the photos for a nominal fee.  The Ant Street Inn provided us with a room for the bride to change into the special white dress and places to take indoor and covered outdoor photos in case of rain.  It was just charming!  Brenham was very quiet on that dreary Sunday afternoon.  There was one bright spot in a white dress being followed by a photographer, her mom and her sister-in-law (aka hairdresser extraordinaire).  We got plenty of honks, thumbs up and congratulations as we paraded through the town.

One of the bedrooms had an old elevator right in the middle of the room.
We thought it looked a bit like an ancient S&M apparatus....but I digress....

Mother Nature smiled on us and the rain stopped a couple of hours before we got to Brenham.  The gray skies provided lovely light for the photos and the town was the perfect backdrop with its old brick walls, wrought iron fences, secluded courtyards and quaint downtown streets.

the covered upstairs patio at the Ant Street Inn

The only thing we were missing was a nice bluebonnet field.  Things had dried off enough and we were feeling brave enough to have the bride stand in a big blue field in the white dress.  The proprietor of the Inn told us where we could find a bluebonnet field nearby and we headed out to find it.

Bluebonnets minus the bride!  
You didn't think I was going to satisfy your curiosity and give you a sneak peak did you?
Even though it is killing me to do just that!

This week marks our fourth year back in Sugar Land.  If you had told me four years ago that I would be standing in yet another bluebonnet field in four years with my daughter dressed in a white dress I would have been as happy as I was on Sunday.  A lot has happened in those four years and this is one of the best things yet.  So for the next little while I'll try to remain calm and enjoy my evenings on the couch in my pj's.

Isolating Media

I think my computer and smartphone or more specifically, social medias, are keeping me from having true friendships.  One the one hand, it is a pleasure to be able to keep up with friends and family via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter (still haven't completely adopted "the twitter" though) and even this blog.  I like seeing and hearing what people out there are doing.  On the other hand, it gives a false sense of closeness.   I know what you are doing but we really haven't talked  to each other.

We post pictures on social media.  The pictures are edited, making our lives look better than they are.  If you look at all of my Facebook or Instagram pictures, my life is full of beautiful places, adventures, happy people and good times.  I want that life!  Of course, I haven't posted any pictures of me doing laundry, sweeping floors, cleaning the kitchen, watching TV, reading, stressing out over the wedding, or the mundaneness of my every day life....who wants to see that?  What you see is my life...the edited version.  I am sure what I see is your life...the edited version!

Writing this blog also creates a false sense of closeness. While you sit and read what goes on in my life and my mind we don't really sit and talk about these things on a deeper more personal level.  The blog can even stifle some friendships.  When I hang out with friends who read the blog they already know what has been going on in my life so it can abbreviate some conversations.  "Oh, I read that on the blog...."  end of conversation...next topic.  But, what I put down here is only a snippet of what goes on in my head, my life and my heart.  This is the stuff I feel might be interesting to read or if I'm lucky be thought provoking.  It happens.....once in a while.  It is a one way conversation though.

Is social media isolating me?

More and more recently, I find myself looking for those real connections.  I found myself having a pity party last week about friends lost and found.  You know how when you move to a new city and you have to fill out all the emergency forms for your children at school and have no one to put down in the "emergency contact" line?  I had a little moment trying to figure out which one of my Facebook friends I could put down in that slot.  Don't worry, I was quickly smacked back into reality by a few phone calls...yes, real phone calls from real people and some quality moments spent with friends.

Apparently I am not the only one to have these thoughts.  I googled this topic after I wrote this post....and hundreds of articles addressing the same topic popped up.  There goes my original thought.  A day late and a dollar short.  I didn't even do a random sampling of over 100 participants to come to this conclusion.  So, today I will go out and have some real human interaction with real people, have real conversations and try not to look at my smartphone or computer... too much.  There may be some photos worthy of posting on Facebook though.....it's a hard habit to break isn't it?

Let the Countdown Begin

Last weekend marked the official beginning of "The Wedding" countdown.  Reality set in big time last week.  Invitations have been mailed!  Responses are coming in! The bride's sisters came in town for a weekend of pre-wedding fun.  The girls had their bachelorette party Friday night while I stayed home... 

 and took care of this little guy.
 We did not
sing karaoke like the bride and her friends 
but we still had fun!

The wedding party threw a shower on Saturday evening, which made everything very real!  Watching the bride and groom open gifts while surrounded by their friends and family gave us a little taste of what is to come.  It was like a practice weekend for "The Wedding".  If this was any indication of how the next big weekend will go, it is going to be a great time!  Of course it is.....

Some observations.....

-The bride and groom really are a perfect match!  I have come to this conclusion after hearing their answers during the fun shower game the maid of honor (LG) put together.  Usually shower games are pretty lame but this one was informative as well as entertaining.  They had each answered a series of questions separately and then we got to figure out who gave which answers.  We all learned a little bit more about the bride and groom in the process!  Plus we got to play with tiaras and mustaches!

Looks like "she" said it!

Beersox cake!  Complete with
a Caged Yarn tag!

-We are all going to have to step up our game if we are going to make it through the whole wedding weekend.  We are out of practice for all day and all night socializing filled with eating and drinking....not to mention standing in heels!  I wish my daily life resembled the events of last weekend but alas, I live in an empty nest and have become very boring.  I think I should make it my mission to "train" for the wedding by going out every weekend and partying....or not!

-We cannot do enough planning!  All the planning we have done and will do are still not going to be enough to make the wedding weekend go without a hitch.  To quote one of my favorite SNL characters, "There's always something!".   This will necessitate the mantra of the weekend to be, "Go with the flow" or "Everything is going to be just fine".   We can plan all we want but there will be something that slips through the cracks or works out differently than we planned and despite our best efforts happened differently than we expected.  It's OK!  At the end of the day, the bride and groom will be married and that is all that matters!  The rest is icing!  (which is going to be delicious)

-The next six weeks are going to fly by!  My usual laid back approach to almost everything in life needs to step it up a notch or two and get busy!  One day at a time and one thing at a time and it will all get done, right?  

The happy couple!
Let the countdown begin!

Ask and You Shall Recieve

My Mother always used to tell me, "Ask! What's the worst that can happen?  They might say no?!".  She was very good about asking for things.  You want an extra 20% off that blouse, ma'am?  Sure!  She really did try to teach us to ask.  I just had a hard time learning that lesson.  I was afraid to ask. Unless it was about going to a party or on a date and then I was all about the asking!  Usually the fear of being rejected outweighed the benefit of getting whatever I was asking for, in my mind.  Luckily, I married a man who asks for the moon if he wants the stars and usually gets what he wants.  Exhibit A, he got me to marry him!  One more reason he is in sales and I am not!

To ask or not to ask....that is the question!

Recently, a group of friends (if you think this is you...it probably is) was sitting around a table discussing whether we call our banks, credit cards, cell phone carrier, etc. when we are charged an extra fee and request the fee be refunded.  I was clearly in the minority!  I guess I also choose friends who ask questions in addition to a spouse who does the asking!

There are countries where you are expected to bargain when you buy something.  I never like bargaining.  So much pressure....am I going too high and cheating myself or too low and insulting the seller?  I never know!  Too much pressure for me!  Just tell me how much it is and I'll decide if I want it or not.  Maybe I would get better at bargaining if I lived in one of these places and had to practice every day.

Recently, I found myself in a position to ask for something and I felt a little uncomfortable.  I decided to put on my big girl pants and go ahead and ask.  This takes a lot for me people ....don't judge.  Anyway, I received much more than I asked for!  What was I so afraid of?  If I hadn't asked, I would not have received.  A lesson I will continue to relearn my entire life.