Back home from Jeff's wedding

We're back from MN. The kids are napping now and that is exactly what I should be doing, but I would have felt bad taking a nap. There are piles and piles of laundry to do, and I just spent the last half hour sorting the colors into piles...whites, darks, brights, and towels. One load is in, and I can't really snooze off now since I know in the next 45 min the kids will wake up. Sooo, its OK. I might as well be thankful that my kids take good naps in the afternoons which give me a little break. We spent the last half of last week in Minnesota. Seems like we've been on the road an awful lot this summer! Dave was Jeff's best man, so he planned the bachelor party for Thursday night. We left for Minneapolis Thursday right after Violet got done with preschool. We picked up a cake Dave ordered for Jeff at Target on our way out, which added what seemed like an hour to the trip. The drive took about 4 hours...and I don't remember how it went. We stayed at the Embassy Suites in Maple Grove. We had a quick supper at the hotel's restaurant, then I took the kids to the pool while Dave went out for the bach party. They went to Dave and Buster's, then came back to the hotel and had cake together. I think they spent some time in prayer for Jeff. Friday morning we visited Dave's grandma Florence and his aunt Joyce. We joined them for lunch in their apartment's cafeteria. The kids didn't like the food served, but they ate the side items (bread and diced peaches). We made the two hour drive to Willmar, MN that afternoon and arrived at the tux shop (we got lost, imagine that!), grabbed his tux and made it to the rehearsal at the church in time. There was really nothing for the kids to do. The church wouldn't open up their nursery (they said they'd have to re-disinfect everything and apologized for the inconvenience). So I was stuck...they had been in the car all day and just wanted to run around and be loud. Martha volunteered to come with me back to the hotel so the kids could swim a little so I went for it. We figured Dave could find a ride with someone to the rehearsal dinner location. The rehearsal dinner was at a senior citizen's center - and Jeff's cooking crew made a yummy batch of jambalaya. More and more people started showing up at this rehearsal dinner as the night went on - the room was packed. More people we knew kept filling the room, and we ended up staying and talking to people til 9 pm. There was a big room off to the side where a bunch of toys were so the kids got to run around for awhile. We finally left and got them to bed in the hotel, and spent the last hours of Friday in the hotel lobby talking to people. It even started snowing that night. It came down all night, and by the time morning came, there were 2 inches of packed snow on my van windshield. No snow brush, either. I used a friend's credit card to scrap it off. Dave had to leave early on Sat morning to be in some wedding pictures, so it was up to me to entertain the kids and get them all ready. Martha was a big help. We swam for a an hour or so, then bathed them and got them all dressed in time to leave. The wedding was beautiful. Everybody on both sides of Jeff and Denise's family were so happy to see him them get married. The reception downstairs was beautiful. Jeff created the menu (yummy chicken topped spinach, bacon and mozzarella, a yummy salad, and creamy pasta) so everybody enjoyed the food. Denise had made all the cakes. That day my voice slowly declined. I could barely speak by the time the reception started. It was dark, and I had a hard time conversing with people since my voice was shot. Both kids were seriously starting to melt down. They didn't eat anything (they got into their whiny upset moods and refused to eat) so by the time we left they were hungry. We all changed into comfy clothes after the reception was over...we had a 6 hr drive ahead of us. I was exhausted, but couldn't rest in the car. Dave drove the whole way home, and I think the kids slept the last 2 hours of the journey. When we got home, the transfers to bed went much smoother than we had anticipated. Calvin fell asleep right away when we put him in his crib and Violet fussed for a little bit while we got on her PJs, but she curled right into bed and said goodbye with no bedtime ritual requirements. It took a couple days to adjust to being home. Calvin slept in til 9:40 the next morning. Dave and Violet headed off to BBC in time for the first meeting, I stayed home and waited for Calvin to wake up. I wasn't about to wake him up - he would be a horrible crab if I did that. He had a little bowl of cereal, and we arrived at 10 am. My voice was still completely shot so I couldn't say much. I was super encouraged though, by the 2nd meeting. We're going through a book on Landmines in the christian life, and today's focus was how to deal with disappointment. Just what I needed to hear, so I was glad I didn't miss that.