Here comes the bride...

2 weekends ago, we headed to Connecticut for the weekend for Tony's cousin's (Beth) wedding. We missed the family reunion in Maine this year, so we were looking forward to seeing Tony's mom's side of the family.

We had plans to leave Friday around lunchtime. It was my last prep day at school, and I busted my butt all week to make sure I was all set. All I had to do was go to a faculty meeting. Tony was off work... Of course, something had to foil our plans :) Tony went mountain biking and ended up taking a trip over his handlebars and into a tree - which ended in a trip to the ER. A bruised thumb and huge scrapes/bruises all over his back and butt only delayed our trip about an hour. The one good thing about it was that as soon as I found out about the accident, I left the faculty meeting to go get the kids... Yes! Missed an hour of meeting!

The drive up was kinda sucky... Took 7.5 hours :( The kids slept the first 2 hours, but we hit NYC right at 4:30 and 95 in CT was brutal. We took the laptop and let Lucas watch some DVDs in the back seat. We were hoping that would keep Lottie quiet too - no deal! But they were as good as you could've expected 2 toddlers to be. Before going to our hotel, we went to Dave and Nancy's house to visit with them since we knew they'd be busy the next day at the wedding. When we lived up there, we loved going to visit with them! They fed us and we hung out for about 2 hours before heading 10 minutes up the road to the Ramada. The kids went right to sleep, and so did we!!!

We were up around 6 Saturday morning. Headed to a local diner for breakfast and then walked some river trails that we used to go on when we lived up there...
Then we went to a local elementary school playground...
And back to the hotel to clean up and get dressed. We're probably the only family of 4 with 2 small kids that can not rush and be showered/dressed in under 40 minutes... Anyway, I borrowed a suit for Lucas from one of my friends at school... It was the cutest thing you've ever seen... except his skinny waist didn't keep the pants up. We had to stop at the dollar store on the way to the wedding to get a belt! And Charlotte... this is the ultimate story of how "spirited" Charlotte is at this point... she was all dressed in her white/pink lacy dress. We were all dressed and just about to walk out the door. I turned around for one second to grab her shoes... She ran into the bathroom and fell in the bathtub (that was still draining). Completely soaked - hair, dress, everything... Luckily, I brought a spare dress.

We had a little trouble finding the wedding location, but made it with about 5 minutes to spare. And Lottie took a short nap on the way over :) Beth and Matt got married outside, and it was a gorgeous day. A justice of the peace performed the ceremony and it was over in about 6 minutes (tell me again why we had a Catholic mass?!?)
The reception was at the same place, so it was nice to not have to drive anywhere. While the bridal party got the family pics taken, we went inside to have snacks and mingle with Tony's family. We were at the reception for about 4 hours and the kids were great, especially considering they didn't get naps. The wedding favor was a candy bar, so you could fill up a bag with all sorts of candies. Lucas filled up his bag and was running across the wooden dance floor to get to Tony, when he fell and dropped the bag and candies scattered everywhere! It was hysterical!!! I still can't believe he didn't cry. We picked it up and put it right back in the bag... Lucas and Charlotte both loved dancing and everyone loved watching them run around.
Lottie fell asleep on the way back to the hotel and stayed asleep while we carried her to the room and put her in the crib. Tony and Lucas went to the pool... Lottie slept for a few hours and then was up and ready to party... right when we were ready to go to bed. Grrr.... So we watched football, ordered pizza, and hung out in bed. Lucas finally fell asleep and Charlotte wasn't having any part of going back in the crib. She ended up sleeping in bed with me for the first time ever. And she was up at 5 am... Good times.

We were planning on stopping by Dave and Nancy's on the way home for a quick visit, but the kids were cranky and we were just ready to be home. So, we hit the road and made it home in 5 hours... Nice!