Steph's wedding and Hold Em

Our whole party was a few minutes late. I am so sorry Steph. We didn't leave home early enough to account for traffic etc. I thought it would take less time than it did to get there. I still would have missed the Chapel if Gretchen hadn't turned left in to it off Telegraph Road. We (me and Kat) still missed the turn and had to go farther down to do the U turn thing. Poor Dana was strolling Telegraph Road looking for us and brought me my Grandmother's corsage and hustled us inside.

The chapel was tiny so there wasn't a very long walk down for the wedding party. Arn emerged first looking great. No turban bandage on his head or anything. Then cute girls in cute dresses blah, blah. Then it was Steph and Jeff. The first of many Kleenex moments for me. Steph looked gorgeous in her dress. She and Arn had matching hair dye and I actually liked it. (a very yellow blond) It looked good on both of them. After a few pictures at the end of the wedding the important people went to a park to take more pictures. I had a bad walking and standing day so we decided to go directly to the hall and wait there.

The hall was decorated beautifully. All those little details that Steph was obsessing about the last couple of months turned out great. The candy bars, the candles, the balloons, the beta fish, she even had little cards with bells on them for people to ring when they wanted the newlyweds to kiss. The toasting wine and little plastic glasses. The fish were a navy blue color and the fishbowls all had blue, white and black stones at the bottom and were placed on a blue placemat and surrounded by white-wrapped mints. I'm sure I'm forgetting some of the details but it was just great.

The food was some of the best I've ever had at a catered event. The DJ did a great job. All the usual, introducing the bridal party etc. garter throw and bouquet throw. They even got Kathy and Megan to go up and try to catch the bouquet and Kelly to go up to try to catch the garter. I'm not going to pretend to you that any of them tried very hard.

When we got home, Jackson was playing in the living room and played with us till his mean mom made him take his bath and go to bed. He knows how to deal with mean moms. Let me tell you, he was the baby from Elm street all night. He was delightful and playing between 1:30 and 4:30 and after a pick-me-up nap he was back up and ready to play at about 7. The delightful part is how he exacts his revenge. He knows you gotta love him.

Not knowing what else to do with him without waking up the whole household Erika and I took him over to Rita's house where Kathy had spent the night and Kat took over with him while Erika was able to catch a little pick-me-up of her own. Rita slept right through most of it.

So, the Hold Em, we played for about an hour. Me, Erika, Gretchen and Gordon. We each started with a roll of pennies and we started with a 4 cent blind. It was lots of fun and is totally doable. Gretchen knew more of the finer points than I did so now we really know what we're doing. Not quite ready for TV tho.

Now I'm all alone again till next Saturday when Mel gets here. Hopefully the weather will be a nice as they say its going to be and a big group will come down from west branch to swim and frolic. All are invited. If the pool becomes not an option weather-wise Gretchen has other ideas for entertaining the troops.