This Weekend

We drove through Birmingham this weekend to attend the wedding of Wilson and Callie Nash.
Dude, what an evening.

In all seriousness, if you picked up the most polished and thick-paged magazine on Weddings In The South, 95 of the 98 pages would contain pictures taken at this wedding. It involved a very rooted and reverent Christian service, 12 attendants, 12 communion servers, a crucifer, ringbearer, flower girls, ushers, the Bishop, many ministers and over 1,000 in the congregation (or do you say audience?) who could have all been heading for a runway photoshoot. Our dear friends Angela and Will and I scored a phat seat on the front row of the balcony, 30 minutes before the service began, to observe all the beautiful people. Seriously.

The service was an hour in all its glory, and then the reception was so hugely huge and beautiful that it took me a full 2 hours to even find the chocolate bar. I needed 2 plates.
We did get to visit with John and Denise, parents of Maggie and the Harper/Holder clan briefly. Unfortunately we only observed Tyler from a distance (did I mention this was hugely huge?) and so I didn’t get to sock him one and tell him to post to his blog already. His peeps are waiting.

The band at the reception was rocking, and there were flowers everywhere – even from what seemed to be an upturned parasol hanging from the middle of the ceiling.
There were so many cars there that our car was re-routed onto the actual golf course where we got to park and walk about a mile to the country club entrance. One of the best parts was when we left and I could take off my heels and walk through that perfect golfing grass in the dark, sweaty in my dress from dancing and white wine, and smile with Brian over all the people we got to see who we hadn’t seen in years. In that moment we were timeless, full, and so content.

We were also in bed by 9:30pm.

Early the next morning, we packed the sexy minivan and headed to Destin.
This year is our year of road trips, hence the purchase of the Cream Puff (found in our January archives) and we have made many keen observations of the cars around us.

First, there are many reeeeeeaaaalllllllly long 18+ wheelers on the roads connecting Evansville with the Southern States, and I hate to be insulting, but they are just bad news. They are terrible to drive around. We observe them swerving and drifting and over-correcting and being the over-protective, over-anxious, judgmental parents that we are, we make appropriate comments about the drivers and what they should be doing other than driving this huge house-on-wheels around our family.

Then there are the smaller cars which are terrifying in their own ways.

For example, from behind a vehicle we’ll see a silhouette of a male driver with one arm bent at the elbow with the wrist resting on top of his head, and the other hand holding a phone to his ear. He’ll be in this position for many, many minutes.

We also have seen a female driver in her convertible using one hand to gesture her conversation, with the other hand holding her phone to her ear.
Seriously people.

We see lots of two-handed eating, committed nose-picking, hands beating the TOP of the outside of the vehicle in tune with music. At least we assume it’s in tune to something.

I really hope they are teaching youngsters how to drive with their knees in Driver’s Ed these days.
Henry and Svea will probably play video games while singing and driving and eating a Big Mac when they are 15 years old because the laws will change just to make me and Brian more nervous parents.

And if those laws do change, we just may make Henry and Svea park their video-gaming cars in a borrowed golf course to walk barefoot through the perfect grass and feel timeless and surrounded by those who love them, full and content, just as a reminder.

We all need those.