Weeks have passed since Chelsea’s wedding and I’m just now getting around to posting the stuff that didn’t go up on Facebook. That is, pictures chronicling the grueling pre-wedding tasks that had to be completed, the foodless days, sleepless nights, and many tears shed. But man, was it ever good times.
We arrived around suppertime on The thursday before the wedding. Anyone who has ever visited Chelsea will recognize what Roxanne described in her toast as the good vibes that her home exudes. We were all immediately at ease and Chase didn’t waste any time diving into the toys, bossing the little one around or jumping on the trampoline. We ate dinner, Chase went to bed, the boys turned on the Xbox and Chelsea gave me the rundown for the next couple of days. You brought your laptop right? You have photoshop right? She showed me an example of somebody’s idea for a hybrid scrapbook guestbook type thing and told me to hop-to. Several attempts and one photoshop crash later I produced an acceptable product and she let me sleep.. sometime around 1am. It is a cute idea though.
The very next morning we hit the ground running. A cup of coffee, bacon, eggs and we left the boys in charge. There were, in no particular order, guestbook pages to be printed, flowers to be gathered and pedicures to be had. I have to say that my Petit Retreat was great, the rocks in the foot bath were awesome. Chelsea will tell you it’s the reason we ran behind schedule. I’ll tell you I think the fact that she thought that is the reason she wouldn’t let me eat all day.
Off to the Superstore. We picked up the flowers we needed for the tables and a pair of scissors to save the time of stopping by somewhere else for them. Suffering from extreme hunger and fatigue the best idea we could come with for food, in a grocery store mind you, was cheese curds and crackers and come chocolate. I didn’t even remember to get something to drink. The cheese curds surely did squeak with freshness though and there was cheese all over our hands as we stuffed them into our pie holes like ravenous beasts. It was kind of gross I’m glad it was just the two of us. The florist tipped us off on some flowers growing alongside the road not far away and we were off again.
The flowers were easy enough to find along a busy road. We pulled off into a reasonably safe location, got out of the car, fished out the scissors and discovered that they were totally and completely useless. I wanted to hurl the blasted things into the ditch… the blades were zip-tied together so that they opened about 2mm. We weren’t cutting any flowers. Back in the car and over to staples to print the pages.
The 16 year old copy expert told Chelsea that they would happily complete the order and that she’d call her in a couple of days where they were ready for pick up. Um, no, not acceptable is how I believe her response started. You don’t want to f with Chelsea and certainly not on the day before her wedding. We were out of there in 45 minutes but not before we got our scissors open so we could collect some stuff on the way home.
Home again, home again jiggity-jig. Get the kids all packed up and ready to go and we were off to Hudson to pick up some more of the girls. I’ll just skip right over all of the marital unpleasantness that comes with travel, stress and unfamiliar terrain, that’s for another post.. maybe, suffice it to say I got yelled at more than once. Here we are all packed up and ready to go:
That smile lasted for a while. Then we pulled out the apple slices. She’s choking! I screamed on the off ramp going really, really fast surrounded by tractor trailers. That was so awesome. She barfed it up and then later Roxanne put her hand in it. Things were hectic. We both then tasted the apples. She didn’t choke, the apples were so hideously sour that they were completely inedible, turned your whole mouth inside out AND made it burn.
We finally made it to Hudson, said our hellos, dropped of flowers, ties, various other bits of apparel and made out way to pick up Roxanne and Kelly. Oh, but not before Alex offered me a glass of wine. I drank it. AND we scored another bottle, an orange and two cans of ginger ale. Pictures of Chelsea threatening her dad to get him to walk properly, her mom’s awesome house and the flowers.
At this point I still have not eaten dinner. That is, I’m still running on cheese curds and wheat thins. We pick up the girls, load in all their gear and start making our way back. We’ll stop at the tim horton’s when we cross into Ontario she says. Ooh ooh it’s the next exit, I say. Yep, that exit we just drove by. We barely made it to the next one. We ordered a lot. The car smelled like bacon.
We were all concerned that we only had the one bottle of wine, but lightweights that we are, there was plenty to go around. Jenne was there waiting when we got back having broken in when she arrived hours ahead of on schedule while we were hours behind.
It was a happy time but very intense. I really want to describe what it was like to be with so many old friends at once. It wasn’t like a reunion on masse where you just see a lot of people that you knew and it’s nice and then you go home. This wasn’t just a group of people I knew. Roxanne tried to describe it to her partner. She said, this is it. When I described it to Ben I told him when I describe who I was growing up, my friends, my life, that was it. All of it. Memories became suddenly vivid, very real and intense. It was wonderful and so hard. Flooding back with all of the good times and laughter came the bad and all of that hard stuff that comes along with just being a teenager. Not to mention the long road ahead to finding your place in the world and adulthood. The happy ending is that we’re all healthy, happy and productive people. The bottom line is there was a lot of estrogen and girls were crying left and right at the drop of a hat. Wheh, I’m glad that part is over.
We eventually all got to bed. The next morning there was more coffee, showers, and a lot of getting ready type stuff going on while Chelsea went to hair and makeup appointments. Kelly pulled out her dress. Hey it’s nice, says Jenne.. or maybe it was Roxanne, I have a friend that has the same dress. She follows that up with would you believe she wears it as a negligee? Nobody thought much of it. It was short but Kelly has nice legs, she could pull it off. Oh, about halfway to Beantown somebody spots this:
There was a lot of laughing, some of it nervous and a little panic too. In the end, she found a suitable alternative outfit in her suitcase which was good because only a few short hours later yet another wardrobe malfunction and several beers resulted in:
Jenne rocked that negligee. I hope someone else gets married soon because I don’t see these people enough. Geez, I was just laughing and now I’m sad again.
