Monday, May 26, 2008

A Long Post for a Long Weekend

What a weekend!! By far the best in a long time. I'm sad to see it end, especially since tomorrow means a barnyard full of laundry and a trip to the dentist to get drilled and filled. Blech.
Our friends Alison and JC got married this weekend! On Friday was the rehearsal and dinner afterward at Maize. Unfortunately, Anja wasn't much into all this. In retrospect I should've declined the invitation for the dinner, but I was so excited about it at the time I wasn't using any sense. We had to leave to put Anja to bed before dinner even started; we got sandwiches from Skylight on the way home. Not as festive or delicious as the steaks we had coming to us, but it's my own fault. And at least we got to be there for the cocktail hour. Kim and I each had a glass of wine and Martin got to enjoy a beer. And Anja was very cute and well behaved until the end when it was clearly her bedtime.
Saturday was SUPER BUSY. Knowing that it would be, we got ourselves out of bed early and decided to enjoy our morning. I had made some orange-cranberry biscotti the day before so for breakfast we had biscotti and coffee, then when Anja woke up we walked over to Vienna. It was a BEAUTIFUL morning!!! Soon after we arrived our friend Benjamin Ezra showed up, so we got to chat with him for a good long time. The whole purpose of us going there was to meet up with another friend of ours, Turgay (yes, the guy who taught the class I took and I was sure he hated me. And he might have then, but we are friends now,) who had offered me some marigolds for my garden. Hooray! He came as we were just giving up on him and taking off--so we sat together while he ate his breakfast and he took his tea to go and we walked back downtown together because he was on his way to the Round the Fountain Art Fair! I love that event. I'm so happy they had good weather for it this year! If only we were millionaires and I could buy everything I wanted from there. Anyway, we left Turgay there and walked on home to get the car because the next item on our agenda was setting up for playing at Alison's wedding.

They got married on the grounds of the Fowler House, and Kim and I set up on a grassy knoll above the ceremony with the best sound equipment we had, which I don't think ended up being quite enough, but it was probably better than nothing. Since Kim was working the Farmers Market, Martin and I loaded up the P.A. stuff from his apartment and set it up over at the site. Then we zipped out to Target so I could buy pantyhose and a hair clip, ran home where I got dressed in record time and hurried off with my instruments and was only 10 minutes later than my promised arrival time of 2:30!! The wedding started at 4:00 and the only thing making me truly nervous was the fact that Anja had been asleep when I'd left and she and Martin both had to get ready and get over there with enough time before the start time for me to feed Anja so she'd make it through the ceremony. But they did! And I gave her a tiny snack (two Kim-only songs long) in the car, ran back to my perch and started right into the processional song as the bridesmaids came down the stairs. Lovely! As far as girly wedding details go, it was REALLY pretty in the most simple, yet elegant way. The colors were awesome. A sage green for the (3)bridesmaids' dresses and a kind of burnt orange for the flowers, although each bouquet was a different kind of flower. Alison's hair looked VERY cool with braids on the side, but it was all pinned up and she had one burnt-orange lilly tucked into the side. It was very pretty.

The reception was fun too, although I couldn't eat anything for this darn milk thing. Booo!! I'll be so glad when Anja is over all that. This weekend was supposed to be the weekend to test run a vanilla chai, but I chickened out. Maybe next weekend. Anyway, the wedding was great. And now Alison is married! Weird!!

Sunday we intended to go to 7:30 mass [again] but ended up going to 10:00 at St. Ann's [again.] Afterward Anja fell asleep in the car while we were going to St. Boniface to help set up for the Corpus Christi party, so Martin and I took turns going in to help and waiting in the car with her. While I was waiting and he was helping, I did something I've been meaning to do for ages, which is wipe down the dashboard with baby wipes. It looks so much better and took about three minutes! After THAT we went home and ate a real breakfast and cleaned up the house for our friends who were coming over later that night. It didn't take long for us to stop wanting to clean our house though, so we packed Anja up and went for a mid-afternoon walk over to Vienna. She's lately taken to falling asleep in her stroller during our long walks, which is pretty great, because it gives us more time to visit without her getting bored and impatient. She likes being at Vienna and seeing the people, but for any long period of time, she gets antsy. Her little naps can prolong our stays, which is great! Nobody else was there that time though, so we just had a little date and then walked home again.

Our friends came over around 5:00--Joel, Perkins, and Emily--and we made venison burgers with some meat that my mom gave us from a deer that my uncle shot! It was delicious. Also I made the same old tomato basil pasta salad that works for everything, and our friends brought chips & sala, cokes and lemonade, wine, beers, woodchucks, strawberry shortcake and hummus & carrots. The hummus & carrots was my favorite, as I'd never had that combination before and it was so yummy! It was definitely a feast. We held the party outside on our patio. Anja had a blast, and when 9:00 came I took her up to go to sleep and she fell asleep almost instantly. It was amazing. And then, even better, she stayed asleep until 3:00 in the morning!!!!! It was so great. I was so sure I'd be spending my evening up in our bedroom with her, but I was able to stay outside and enjoy the party until midnight when they all left, and she was still fast asleep. It was wonderful.

Perkins spent the night and in the morning we made breakfast and ate outside again. It was a beautiful morning. I drove her home and when I came home Anja was asleep again so she and Martin went upstairs and took a nap. I can't remember exactly what else we did, but in the afternoon we walked over to the levee Starbucks to meet up with Matt Aiken. After that we went to the store and did our weekly grocery shopping. For some reason we didn't really need much food, and we didn't need any staple items. We could've gotten away with hardly spending any money at all, except the two things we were completely out of were dog food and cat food, which are (along with diapers, which we didn't need this week) the most expensive things we ever buy. So we ended up spending the same amount of money we spend every week, even though we hardly bought anything. Ugh! So disappointing.

Anyway, from there we walked over to Sarah & Andrew's house for a dinner cookout! Andrew made shishkabobs--YUM--and we had chips and salsa and some chocolate chip cookies that Sarah made with special milk-free chocolate chips!! But the best part of the night (other than being asked to be Bella's godparents!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) was when my sister brought out the makings for chocolate cokes and it was determined that there is no milk in chocolate syrup, only a whole lot of sugar and high fructose corn syrup. !!!! THIS IS ME DOING A JOYFUL DANCE!!!! And so, my friends, I had my first chocolate coke in months. And it. was. divine. Without all the other fun we had, that would've made my weekend perfect.

Uncle Martin spent most of the time playing with the kidders, while Sarah and I spent most of the time watching the babies be babies. Fun times though!! Now that our patio is in order we should definitly have them over sometime and they should bring their bikes because we have so much patio to ride on in our backyard.

More pictures to follow!!!!

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