The Wedding

It's always a gamble when someone plans an outdoor wedding. The worst thing that could happen is rain. Thankfully we didn't have to deal with that. By all appearances it was a beautiful day... and it was (except it was BLISTERING HOT and really humid).

Here's a photo of the setting:

There was a lot of preparation for this event. Here's the wedding planner extraordinaire. And by the way, I know the bride is supposed to be the most beautiful woman at a wedding. There are exceptions to every rule. Here's the prettiest woman at the wedding:

The cake table looked gorgeous!

Here's the happy couple taking their vows:

Sealing the deal. No turning back now!

Here's the wedding party:

No wedding reception is complete without bartenders. Here's Michael and his friend Andrew:

Of course a wedding needs beautiful guests too:

The kids had a blast and were sufficiently worn out!

I'm baaaaaaack!

I'm baaaaaaaack!

If you'll check the time stamp on the post below this one, you'll see it was posted at 1:59 A.M. Yes, we got home from the wedding/reception THAT late. I posted something last night only because I was running on adrenaline and was so relieved that the whole thing was over.

One of the highlights of the weekend was a trip to the St. Bernard Firehouse for the little ones. My brother, Kerry, the Fire Chief arranged an amazing visit for all the kids. Elliott absolutely LOVES firetrucks and was in toddler heaven! I know all the other kids had a good time too (as evidenced by the photos below). A trip to the fire station reaches a whole new level when Uncle Kerry the Fire Chief gets involved. Thanks Kerry for making the memory of a lifetime for my grandchildren!

It's all over!

The wedding of the century is finally over. It was a big day and everything went well. Nobody worked harder on this wedding than Tami. As an act of love for her brother, she dedicated the last month and a half to planning and organizing a boatload of wedding and reception details and she is thoroughly exhausted. I know she and I are ready for a break.

A good time was had by all today. It was a lot of work, but also a lot of fun.

High Roller

As I get ready to walk out the door for a full day including the big outdoor wedding and the pig roast reception that follows, I just had to post one thing.

We had a bachelor party yesterday (which wouldn't be the typical bachelor party). We went to a shooting range in the morning and then to the Reds game in the afternoon. After baking in the heat at the game, we came back to my house for a pool party and grill out. There WERE some adult sodas consumed, but everybody drank in moderation. Like I said, it wasn't a typical bachelor party where guys drank themselves into a stupor. At this party we also played poker again. This time it was just for fun... no money involved. And guess what... I won again! I only mention this because I totally stink at playing cards. For me to win is unusual. To win two nights in a row is unheard of. A good time was had by all.

Here I am firing a handgun for the first time ever.

Wasn't gonna post

I know it's late and I wasn't gonna post anything, but I just had to tell you all...

I won the family poker tournament tonight. $50 will go a long way. Just call me high roller!

Don't go away

Ok folks. I know you have gotten used to seeing something posted on this blog every day. As well you SHOULD be used to it because I have posted something every day for nearly four years. In fact, this blog celebrates its 4 year anniversary in about a month and there are over 1,600 posts to show for it. Anyway, I wanted to let you know I may not be posting for a few days. My brother-in-law from California is getting married on Sunday (right here in the Tri-State) and it is going to be a crazy busy weekend. We have family coming in from California, Washington State, Virginia and of course Ohio and Indiana. I won't have much time for anything else (especially posting Pulitzer Prize worthy literature here on the blog). So please don't expect anything Friday through Sunday (although I may be able to sneak a moment to post something... we'll see). I should be back to blogging on Monday. Please don't go away and please don't forget about me. I promise I will be back as loud and strong as ever next week. I have never failed to post anything for such a long period before. I must admit it is going to feel a bit strange.

Wish me luck, everybody. You know what it's like when you get large family groups together. Anything can happen and it usually does!

Don't know what you got

it's been said you don't know what you got until it's gone. My family experienced this first hand the last two days. On Tuesday our wireless internet service was down for several hours in the evening. Yesterday it was out again all day and well into the evening. The outage was caused by a severed fiberoptic line. I was okay without internet service. I was busy and I had lots of things to do anyway. The kids however seemed to be going stir crazy. They didn't know how to act and their world was in a complete tizzy with no internet service. They didn't verbalize it, but they were visibly agitated at not having their wireless devices connected to anything. Now, in their defense, much of their homework is online and the outage impeded their studies. But I also think being disconnected from FaceBook and other social media was driving them crazy. If withdrawal symptoms exist for addiction to the internet, I witnessed it in my kids last night. The symptoms were mild, but they were still present. I must admit I felt s sense of disconnection too, but not to the point I didn't know what to do with myself. For me, it was more about not having access to my online grade book and work-related e-mail. I also had no access to my blogs (yes, I also maintain a school blog for my students). I'm a hip, 21st century teacher. What can I say?

This morning all is right with the world. Internet service has been restored and Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, and Instagram once again reign supreme. My kids can now breathe again. Chill pills were taken and the crisis has been averted.

Geography

As a teacher of geography, this graphic makes perfect sense to me. Many people think Great Britain and England are the same place. They're not. Many people think Ireland and Northern Ireland are simply regions of the same country. They're not. Most people either have no idea what the United Kingdom is or think it's synonymous with England. That's not true. And the British Isles? Oh brother! Don't even get me started! Admittedly this is a confusing geographical set up. However, with a little bit of simply paying attention to the world around you, the whole situation is fairly simple to understand.

Smacked in the face

Every day at school I put the date on the board for my students. Today I wrote September 1st. SEPTEMBER???? I knew it was coming. Yesterday was August 31st and there is no such thing as August 32nd. I shouldn't have been surprised, but there was something about writing the word September that smacked me right in the face.

September leads to October and this only means autumn is coming. I'm not dealing with my yearly autumn blues yet, but now that it is September, I know the depression is not far behind. What happened to June, July, and August? Wasn't it just spring last week?

Donation

In my previous post I mentioned I don't remember much about the morning of my dad's death. However, I do remember one thing and it shows how young and naive I was. Within hours of arriving at the hospital to be with mom, a lady approached our family. There were a lot of people coming and going that morning, so another person didn't seem unusual. I remember her asking mom about donation. I guess I was grief stricken and also tired, because I thought this lady was callously asking for a financial donation to the hospital mere hours after dad's death. Mom told the lady she would think about it and get back to her. When the lady walked away I told mom how appalling and insensitive it was for somebody to ask for a donation so soon. Mom weakly smiled and told me I had it all wrong. The lady was asking about organ donation... not money. I sure felt stupid!
In the end mom told them to take anything they could use. As it turned out, most of dad's organs were unusable because of the leukemia. I know they were able to take his corneas, but I'm not sure about anything else. (Mom, correct me if I'm wrong here. This is all REALLY fuzzy in my memory). I still feel a little silly about thinking the hospital people were asking us for money. Funny how I remember that particular event after 25 years.