The Wedding Trip

What a vacation! It was great to get away and act like newlyweds, again. No kids, no curfews, just us. Wednesday was taken up entirely with flying, laughing at the ill-hemmed tux pants (there is a hilarious difference between inseam and outseam), and my exploring a couple old small towns while Jonathan was off mini-golfing at the bachelor party. Thursday we went to Kirtland (Jonathan had never been, my visit was before all the renovations, over by the Whitney place) before going to the rehersal.


Dinner was at the Dubrovnick Garden Restaurant in the Croatian National Center--which also contained a Croatian language school, a Croatian Heritage Museum and a Croatian Cultural Center. The food was excellent and not Chefed-Up, but not exactly Croatian, for our meal. I'm sure if Craig chose to visit he could get nearly any home-cooked Croatian food he could think of.


Friday, we headed downtown, hoping to catch Renoir and Picasso at the art museum, but they were closed for renovations so we went next door to the Cleveland Institute of Art for an Ansel Adams exhibit. While there, we discovered that another nearby building was designed by Frank Gehry. The pictures you see represent his style fairly well, though I've never seen that done with brick, before. The other side of the building looks more like the top and is covered in titanium scales.



The wedding itself was beautiful. Chrissy is Catholic and the wedding was in her home parish. It wasn't a full mass, but the ceremony was still an hour long. There were readings from scripture, a sermon on the importance of marriage, vows, rings, presentation of the bride and her prayers to the Virgin Mary, and final blessings by the priest. It was my first experience with anything Catholic, so I don't really feel qualified to comment any further than that.



The reception was amazing. The food was spectacular. Jonathan, as best man, gave a nice little speech with his toast about the importance of friendship in marriage. I have to admit I got a bit teary-eyed at that. We ate, we chatted, and we danced the night away. I didn't get pictures of the amazing bathrooms (mini powder rooms in each stall on one side, gold swan-shaped faucets on the sinks on the other, two huge floor-length mirrors draped in flowing purple fabric...) but I did sneak someone in so he could look at it. ;)





I'll admit that I did have baby withdrawal while I was away from my children. Sariah Croft and Enoch Daniels filled in, for me. Even so, it was a bit of a shock to be chucked right back into mom duties when we got back. Thankfully, there hasn't been too much whining yet, and I've been doing fairly well at retaining the hard-won serenity of my time off. As I said, what a vacation!

Mawage... Is What Bwings Us... Togethuh... Today

We'd like to welcome Aunt Sherry to the family and tell her how excited we all are to have her with us.

So here's our run-down...

Elena, Joseph and I picked up Jonathan at school early Friday afternoon and headed up to Fort Worth for the night-before dinner and gathering. We got to meet Sherry's family and had a lot of fun. The next morning, we went to the Dallas temple for the wedding. It was beautiful! Sherry was radiant, Rick looked a bit giddy, nearly everyone was tearing up.


Once outside for pictures, all sorts of fun things happened.

We caught Paige munching sticks.


Elena started splashing in the fountain (for those of you who remember, hark back to Michael doing the exact same thing--almost the same pose--at Nate and Kim's wedding).


We stopped for a family portrait.


After just a few pictures, we went to Abuelo's for lunch. Elena flitted from seat to seat to seat, not really eating. Joseph got to try out refried beans, spanish rice and guacamole.


Elena and Paige sat on the step at the edge of our corner of the restaurant.


At the reception, Rick and Sherry both reveled in having so much family near. Here's Rick and his nephews.


The music was infectious and you couldn't help but dance.


Elena discovered the table set aside for coloring, but the edges were all full.


All in all, we had a blast. Maybe we didn't get to spend enough time with everyone (weddings can be hectic like that) but it was certainly a lot of fun.