The Big Fat Awesome Weding

I'm well aware that I'm a week behind in blogging.  Whoopsy.  I'm gonna blame that one on the new job, plus the fact that last week was Halloween and Mama had the big idea to hand construct someone's costume...  but I digress.

I've got a two-parter in mind, because our trip to Texas for my cousin Ashley's wedding was as big and eventful as they come.  In my first post, I'd like to shout it from the rooftops that Miss Asha was the cutest, sweetest, most polite and well-behaved child on earth for the vast majority of that trip!  (yes, we are talking about the same child who seemingly invented the nuclear level-1 catastrophic meltdown tantrum.)  She was awesome, and I was SO proud of her!  The kid didn't bat an eye when she took her first plane ride.  She didn't shy away when meeting all our faraway relatives for the first time.  She didn't fuss when we drove around longer than we'd intended because our GPS led us to the wrong address.  She withstood a very long weekend full of rehearsal, pictures, boring grownup stuff, hair curling, gown fluffing, ceremony, reception, dancing, etc. and followed her instructions to a "T" for the ceremony.  She didn't melt down despite being overwhelmed, having little sleep, no schedule, and a little run-in with a pissed off fire ant.  I was amazed, and proud, and relieved all at once that I could pull off the illusion that I have a perfect child.  WOOOOT!  Little did I know that she was saving up for later...but first, the pictures:

Before the ceremony, when the hair was still a little curly!

Discussing the fire ant situation with Uncle Wade

She saw everyone getting all teary-eyed and had to join in... how sweet!

 

Showing off her pretty flowers

 

Walking down the aisle with her two new adorable pals
(Mom was choking back tears here... my mind fast-forwarding ~20 years from now...)

partying at the dance with her BFF Alex

Chillin' with uncle Seth at the hotel

With her little cousin Addyson, the cutest baby EVER!  The next generation of crazy Veeder kids!

Helping Papa do his rope tricks at the Veeder ranch on Sunday

She played "lifeguard" for a good hour all by herself...

Jackie O meets Lady Gaga?

Having a quiet moment with Grama, reading their school books

Singing "You are My Sunshine" with Uncle Gene and Cousin Jessie by the campfire... melted my heart!!

With my Aunt Judi and Uncle Wade, our wonderful hosts for the weekend. 

We almost made it back home sweet home without incident.  Almost.  As some of you undoubtedly heard, we had a little, uh, mishap on the flight back from Dallas.  Actually, it was the leg of the trip from Minneapolis home, which is about a 40 minute flight.  It was a rather large plane, and we hit some rainy / windy weather and caught a lot of turbulence.  Alex & I had thought it was a wise idea to feed her some Quiznos before taking off, becacuse, well, she looked hungry or something.  Baaaad idea.  No sooner did the wheels go up, then she looked at me with terror in those big blue eyes and said, "I'm gonna puke Mama".   She gave me a whopping three-second warning (which seemed like 30-minutes in slow-mo) in which time I managed to grab a Delta Sky Magazine while I searched frantically for a bag.  No barf bag to be found, omg, omg, omg!  The ol' Sky Mag didn't quite do the trick, but it did prevent our poor neighbor from getting hit by debris.  He was kind enough to ring the flight attendant (a dude, who immediately started gagging.  Pansy.) and was actually very helpful in getting Ash calmed down (she started crying cuz she was so embarrassed, poor baby!)  Cut to 10 agonizing minutes later, and the flight attendant finally let us go back to the teeny tiny bathroom to get her into a clean outfit I had pulled from her carry-on.  Bless Alex's heart, she stood back there crammed into that 2'x2' bathroom with me as we tried our best to get the chunks out of Ash's hair and keep what little dignity the poor kid had left intact.  When the parenting books tell you about how difficult parenting can be, they never mentioned this.  They leave that kind of stuff out so you are left with the real surprise in the moment.  How nice of them. 

But we survived. And Asha seems to be remembering the great parts of the trip, not the bad...
So next week, I'll spare any more puke stories (though I am aware of at least 2 other family members who lost their groceries on that trip as well... I'm not naming names, but you know who you are!) but want to commemorate what a wonderful wedding weekend it truly was.  Tune in next week for Part II of the Texas Wedding Trip!!