Weddings and Hurricanes and Pony Rides, Oh My!

What a busy weekend we've had, starting all the way on Friday with a wedding rehearsal. I got to play music with Heasty Puddin' for a very simple and pretty wedding out at the Battle Ground chapel. It was SO MUCH FUN to play with them again. And they're such sweet people. So the rehearsal was on Friday night and I took Anja out there with me and Martin met us there as soon as he could get there from work. Until then everyone loved on Anja, but I was very grateful that he came because the place was so incredibly crowded and hot that she would've been miserable and I wouldn't have been able to play at all. But everything worked out perfectly--the groom and groomsmen were all late, which gave Martin time to get there before I needed my free hands. It was a fun rehearsal.



On Saturday Martin and Anja went for a morning walk together while I showered and met them down on 6th Street. Martin had gotten breakfast sandwiches from McCords for us!! DELICIOUS! We ate them as we walked through the Farmers Market, then back home for a late morning nap for all of us, followed by a quick getting ready and getting out to the Battlefield by 1:30. The wedding went nicely, I sang the processional song and thankfully didn't screw it up, like I did at the wedding where I had to sing the John Denver song that I still can't believe I messed up. That was a long time ago.



Anyway, after the wedding we sped home to eat snacks and change clothes and make it over to the St. Boniface GermanFest in time to have some fun before my work shifts started. We met up with Martin's family, including AnnLaura and Aurelio, ate some kraut dogs, some goulash, and Anja was crabby for awhile until the CC band started playing and then she cheered right up. She really loves music. It's very cute. I worked at the brat/hotdog/potato salad booth for an hour (funnily enough, and by chance, with my parents and brother-in-law!) before being relieved there and moving on over to the Football toss in the Kinderville. Halfway through that shift Martin came to relieve me and I took Anja (who was happy to see me at last) and we kind of wandered around for fifteen minutes killing time until finally Anja was just too tired, and we asked my parents to take over the last 15 minutes of our shift and we headed home. But what a trooper our Anja Pie was! And she looked ADORABLE. Unfortunately, I don't think I took any pictures of her, because I am an idiot. Oh, but the best part about GermanFest was the pony rides. !!!!!! I was serving hotdogs and scooping kraut at the time of this happening, but Martin took Anja on a pony ride, and SHE LOVED IT. I wish so much that I could've seen it. He said she held on tightly with one hand, waved to the ponies across the way with the other, and squealed and screeched happily the whole entire time. I can only imagine how adorable she looked. The pictures on my camera didn't turn out very well (*sniff*) so I'm hoping AnnLaura might send a good one from her camera. If she does, I'll post them!



This morning we were up early enough to walk over to the 7:30 mass where during the announcements at the end I took our hot and sleepy Anja outside to the steps and let her sit on the sidewalk, where she found an ant. First she just touched it with her index finger... then she touched it a lot... and finally she just squashed the thing. I think she was very pleased. An old couple came out and told me that they admire her from behind us and that she's always well behaved. Haha! Yeah right! It's not neccessarily behavior, but she's always pretty tired by the end of mass and ready for a nap, no matter what time we go. And an Anja in need of a nap is not always a pleasant Anja!



After mass we went for a nice country drive where we saw some wild turkeys and let Anja have a nap in the car before meeting up for breakfast with the Schaps and TusaRebecca's friend Kevin who is visiting from Ireland. (We'd actually met him the night before at German Fest.) He is so sweet--he brought us gifts! He gave us a box of chocolates and for Anja, an adorable little book called "Glorious Things to Do" and is full of everything you could think of from cloud and bird identification to scientific explosions to baking to crotchet flowers. It is ADORABLE!!! And has so much stuff in it! There are cute little games, one part that teaches three guitar chords and then has a song to go with them. And it's Irish, so all the recipes are really funny and it has all the fun spellings in it, like "yoghurt." Such fun! And so generous and thoughtful of Kevin.



Straight from breakfast we went out to Ivy Tech where I played music for their homecoming. I just played for half an hour, by myself (a rarity) then we listened to the amazing Amanda Fletcher play a few songs and headed out. Martin needed to get on the road for St. Louis and we wanted to hang out with our friend Matt. Turns out Matt is out of town for a wedding, so instead we did some necessary around-the-house work, took a trip through the remnants of Ike to the hardware store, and ended the afternoon with a family date to Vienna where we got warm drinks and a blueberry muffin and sat in Martin's college van with both back doors open and enjoyed the last bit of the rainy afternoon together. We went our separate ways then--Anja and I homeward, Martin to Crawfordsville and then on to St. Louis. He actually just called and is still on the road.



I loved the rain today. It's not every day that a Tropical Depression comes through Indiana!

OH MY GOSH!!!!! I just accidentally highlighted this entire post and replaced it with "n" and sat in shock for some moments before thinking to close it all out quickly, and go back to the auto-saved draft! And it was there!!! In it's entirety!!! LUCKY ME!!!!!

So anyway..... I'm happy that the cooler weather is here too. Anja has some really cute fall clothes that she's eager to wear. (translate: that her mother is very eager to put on her and then parade her about town.) I'm looking forward to tomorrow.

I haven't decided whether or not to cancel rosary group tomorrow for Anja's throat thingy. She seems much better but since I don't know how long she is contagious it might not be a good idea to have all the little kidders over to our germie house. Hummm....

All in all, a good weekend. Next weekend might entail an Irish festival and somebody's birthday...... then the next weekend is THE FEAST!!!!! Soooo excited! I'm going to spend much of this week up at my mom's house sewing up a little Feast costume for Anja. Should be pretty quick and easy... and I'm obviously going to make it kind of big so she can at least wear it next year too.