another Wisconsin Wedding

On March 1st we headed up to Wisconsin for a wedding. The bride, Kellie, is more like Jorge's sister than anything else. I met her almost 11 years ago, right after Jorge and I started dating. We hit it off right away, and as weird as it sounds, I have been looking forward to the day she and her sister get married for a very very long time! I was "HUGELY" pregnant so I had A doctors note so I wouldn't be kept from flying, cause let me tell you... NOTHING was going to keep me from this wedding! I just LOVE this girl to bits, and would never be able to forgive myself for missing the biggest day in her life.


"HI HAIRPLANE!!" I swear, I've never heard "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy! HAIRPLANE." so many times in my whole life.

Lori and I sat together, and David and Jorge sat together. Divide and concur. We wont be able to do that for long. :/


After 8 years of visiting Chicago and the Chicago area I finally got to IN and sit and eat, usually we just pick it up and take it to our friends' house. It was DELIGHTFUL! Immediately following taking the picture of Lori and I eating out pizza, Lo burned her mouth. Poor kiddo!


I got to spend some of the early afternoon with Kellie and the bridesmaids. I painted their nails, and got them their lunches from the church kitchen. It was a complete joy to be able to help them that way. Anything I could do for those sweet girls was a delight.


First things first, family picture... it will soon be outdated as we will have a new family member VERY shortly, BUT I wanted one regardless. I was super excited about my dress. :) (15 bucks CLEARANCE! I mean, how awesome is that!?)


Father Daughter dance. I balled! It was to "Cinderella" by Stephen Curtis Chapman, and if you haven't heard that song, go listen... unless you have children and are in public, then I would recommend waiting until you are alone, so that no one sees you cry like a little school girl. Its a very very sweet song!!!


Most of Jorge's High School youth group. I LOVE that after 20 years (TWENTY YEARS PEOPLE! HOLY MOLY!) We still make a point to get together and see each other when we go up to Chicago/Wisconsin. My prayer, among many, for my own high school girls is that they will wanna get together like this in 20 years, and that they'll be invited to our kids' weddings. How special is that!!


One of Jorge's buddies, wanted to get a belly comparison shot... I think its a draw.


The way they did the garter toss was pretty neat. The groom took the garter off the bride, put it on a football and then tossed the football in to the crowd of guys. WELL... The brides brother, John just happens to be a high school football STAR! (Our words, not his!) His varsity football team just went undefeated all the way to win the Wisconsin State football championships. With John scoring the GAME WINNING and ONLY touchdown! Yay Bradford Red Devils! Needless to say, John caught the garter!


Brother and Father of the bride gettin' their groove on.


Two very special people to us!!! Steve (our best man) and one of Jorge's best friends since High School, and his mama, Connie, who I call Mom Con. We love them very much and hate that we live so far from them both.


This is my beautiful friend Bre. We've not been close long, but we've gotten really close really fast!! She is a sister of my heart! I was so excited to get to spend 2 days with her helping out with the wedding prep. When I count my blessings in life, I count her for sure!! "Depth of friendship does not depend on length of acquaintance."


Amy, one of Jorge's fellow youth groupers and Tammy, mother of the bride.


The sweet couple! Mr and Mrs David Johnson!


Another group shot! (I was chasing after David...)


The past year or so has been REALLY hard for all of us, with the loss of several people who we love. This wedding was in some ways bitter sweet, for the Myers since they've lost 3 family members! Tammy's sister Bonnie, (brides Aunt) our dear dear friend Mike, and then just before Christmas Tammy's mom Dee. As a gift to the bride I made 3 charms, with a picture of each lost family member that the florist put in her bouquet. Its not a great picture but you get the idea...


Me and sweet Kellie! She is such a fun "sister-in-law". What a blessing to me and my family!


David (Brides older brother) and Amy, got married last year. They were the reason for our road trip up to Wisconsin last May.


Lori hittin' up the chocolate dipping station. (Note: chocolate on shirt. ha)


David helped himself to some wedding cake but was having issues cutting it, so he just picked it up with the fork (which he stole from a friend of mine) and took a bite. Nothin' can get between this boy and cake!


The day after the wedding we got together with some more of the youth group. As always it was a great time. It had been YEARS since one of them had been around, in fact, I hadn't ever met him and I've been coming around for over 10 years! Roger pulled out the old scrapbook from the youth group days and they had a good laugh at old hairstyles, mustaches and memories. It was fun to watch them all reminisce.


Peter, David, John, Jorge (lookin' good I might add) Chad and Ryan... or is it Ryan and then Chad... no that's Chad THEN Ryan. Yeah, I'm sure...


Never a dull moment...


Lori and "Uncle" John. She LOVES him and keep asking me to call him mom and ask her to have him come down here. :)


David is a breakfast cook at a great restaurant and so on our last day there we took the kids, ours, the Myers and their foster kids to see him and make him cook for us. :) It was good food! Well done David!


Jorge and Roger. Love this guy!


Koral (youngest Myers and SWEETHEART who I love SO SO much!!) Tammy, Me, and Jessica (Myers' cousin.) These girls are so dear to my heart! They are such a blessing and encouragement to me in all things. I LOVE THEM!


Leaving the Myers' house we took a picture of Lori in the snow.. .yes, she has not jacket on (it was in the car)... mom fail.


Lastly, we stopped in Chicago visit with Jorge's dad one last time. Man they look a like!

ROADTRIP!

My dad has always been one of my heroes. I didn't have any brothers and when my dad wanted to teach someone how to use a power tool, or tell them some nifty tidbit about a movie or music group, I was more than happy to be that person. So, when I needed to get from Houston to Chicago (actually Racine Wisconsin) I called my dad to see if he wanted to be the one to drive with me. :) It turned out to be a GREAT idea.

They did VERY well in the car. Here is a video of the kids just laughing and playing.



It was also very exhausting as you can see from this video... (hee hee)

I was very nervous about how my kids would behave, both in the car, and while my dad and I were doing all the things I had planned, particularly during our stop in Memphis. A Memphis stop over was kinda my ploy to getting my dad to agree to this crazy adventure. My dad is a HUGE music buff. Growing up he taught me how to identify each one of the Beatles by the sound of their voice and WHY. (I'm still pretty proud of that. :) ) A friend of mine who was raised in Memphis gave me some tips on places to eat and things to see and do while there. Being a musician himself, he strongly suggested that we take some time over at Soulsville USA, and the former Staxx records recording studio... the birthplace of Soul!! I didn't know just how much I loved Soul music until then. But I'm a fan! He also asked his good friend Kirk Whalum to come down and say hi. It was really neat to meet him. As my dad would say Kirk is "at the very top of a very short list of really good saxophone players" It was an honor to get to meet him and a real treat to get to see the Soulsville Charter school as well, a school that specializes in music.

Me, my dad, the kids and KIRK WHALUM!

We also got to sample some REAL Memphis BBQ at a place called the Rendezvous (which is mentioned in one of my dad's "Memphis Songs" so he got a real kick out of that.) Davey enjoyed the ribs so much that there were legitimate tears when I had to take it from him when we had to leave.

very excited to try my huge plate of food. (I shared with the kids... I swear)

Close up of the boy and his rib... tears followed shortly after.

One of the sweetest things we did in Memphis was get to go as see the ducks at the Peabody Hotel. Basically for the last 70 years they have had ducks living in their lobby's fountain. Every day at 11 o'clock the duck master rolls out the red carpet and then brings the trained ducks down from their penthouse on the roof to spend their day in the fountain, and then everyday at 5, they do the same thing in reverse. Its super cute, and Lori LOVED it.

Peabody Penthouse


I swear the mallard duck stopped and posed for this picture.

Watchin' the ducks swim in the fountain


The kids and the Duck Master!

The view from our hotel room. Pretty sweet huh?

The very cool trolley system of downtown.


Happy girl on a trolley car!

The following are just some of my favorite pictures of my dad and my kids.

I feel so blessed to have had this time with my dad. It is truly a memory that I will cherish for ever. Memphis is one of my new favorite cities and I will definitely be going back, and hopefully I'll be able to convince my dad to come with me. :)

We left Memphis and headed to St. Louis, which was gonna be our second stop. It was pretty much uneventful, accept for the tornado warnings and CRAZY wind! We were able to make it all the way to Chicago and we only ended up using the DVD player ONCE, during a horrendous rain storm that we drove through to get to St. Louis.

We got to Chicago and picked up Jorge from the airport. After that we went to Navy Pier for a few hours and got some GARRETT'S POPCORN. Something I had my first trip to Chicago almost 10 years ago, and had been dreaming about since, but wasn't able to get until then. It lived up to the memory it had burned on my brain. Then we dropped my dad off at an L station so he could take it to the airport and we headed up to Racine WI for the wedding festivities! I was really sad to see my dad go. I had really loved spending some one on one (plus two) time with him. I will treasure it in my heart forever.