springdellgirl: August 2008

The Wedding

I'm going to let the pictures do most of the talking. The wedding turned out beautiful. The weather couldn't have been better. Mom and Ken had the photographer take family pictures, individual family pictures, and grandchildren pictures rather than typical wedding photos. The pictures I've included are all just candid shots of the setting, decorations, family members, and candid shots of people while getting their professional pictures taken...that's the reason not everyone is is "picture ready".

The wedding colors were white, chocolate and stem green. My mom looked gorgeous in a champagne gown. She wanted her bouquet and our corsages to have a "Vintage" look and so crystals were included in our corsages and a brooch was added to her bouquet. They were beautiful. The family was all in white and khaki. The effect was very Great Gatsby. My mom and Ken had a DJ (a friend of Kelley's) and we danced the night away under the stars. It was a wonderful night and a beautiful wedding.

Here are some pictures:

Congratulations Mom and Ken

I Survived My Family Reunion...Barely

We are home. Home Sweet Home. How good it feels. I came home completely run down and with a fever. After sleeping for hours I feel like I am on the mend and can sit down and blog. But where to begin. It has been a roller coaster of a week. Highs, Lows, Thrills, Scares, Annoyances, Laughter, and Tears. Such are family reunions I guess.

Jordin, Aaron, and Jaylah were the first to arrive. Let me just begin by saying HOW CUTE Jaylah is...oh my gosh!! I could eat her up. She smiles all the time and is an absolute doll.

The next day Kirk, Jayme and Kaiden arrived. Tyler picked them up at the airport and they met us at the park downtown for Kameron's final swim lesson of the summer. We headed to our favorite teriyaki place for lunch before heading to the lake.

Kameron and Kaiden

While eating lunch I got a mysterious phone call from Kirk from the bathroom...some sort of mishap had occurred. Kirk informed me that it necessitated splashing water all over himself to avert suspicion.

Then it was on to our house to pick up the girls. All of us piled into our suburban and set off for the lake.

Stacey, John, Dane and River were already at the lake with Jordin, Aaron, and Jaylah and my mom and Ken and Ken's twin granddaughters and my Grandma. Kelley arrived later that night.

Ailey and Dane had a great time playing together. They were so cute and played so nicely. They loved being in the playhouse, reading together, coloring together, floating on the lake together. They even pretended to be "Kirk and Jayme" it was hilarious. "Listen Babe...you need to help me cook breakfast!!" :)

We watched a lot of the Olympics, had a bonfire, and played games. Here's some pictures of our night of "Catch Phrase"...it nearly drew blood. It was the "The Blondes versus The Brains". Of course "The Brains" won!!

We are a competitive bunch...there are no lengths we won't go to to win!!

What the ____!?! Beer Noodle?? Yeah Beer Noodle!!

We did lots of swimming and floating on mats...the ultimate in relaxation.

For Kirk's birthday present my mom rented a water trampoline with a floating log and we attempted to run the weenie. (It was an extremely phallic floating apparatus.) Unfortunately it was missing some very important parts and we had to rely on Jayme's persuasive skills to get what we wanted and have it delivered so as not to disappoint the "Birthday Boy!!" Jayme has some sweet skills!!

"That is NOT ACCEPTABLE!! We need COMPENSATION!!"

All he wanted for his birthday was a water trampoline...it that too much to ask? :)

The weather was HOT!! It was in the 100's nearly every day.

Kirk having a little pow-wow with the kids after the twins had said that Reilly was trapped under the water trampoline and freaked us all out. Here he is telling them the story of the boy who cried wolf. "Once there was a village..."

Here's our little Esther Williams:

River has really come into her own. This get together she was all smiles and would let people hold her and play with her. She is absolutely adorable. She looks just like a cabbage patch doll.

It was so fun to have all these little ones at the lake...there was always someone absolutely darling to cuddle.

My favorite picture of Kaiden:

"Why I Oughtta..."

Aaron calm, cool, and collected. Aaron was so much fun to hang out with this summer. He makes me laugh...and he is the most AMAZING COOK!!

Aaron treated us to the most amazing KC BBQ. Ribs, Chicken and Shrimp wrapped in bacon with jalapeno. I have lived in Texas and I loved the BBQ there but I think the best BBQ I have EVER had is Kansas City BBQ. And...Aaron makes the best KC BBQ EVER!! Aaron does our old hometown proud. We are begging him to move out here and open a BBQ Restaurant.

Here are some of his famous ribs which were scarfed down in no time!! He also makes the best twice baked potatoes and totally won over our vegetarian kids which was nice as they were giving us the evil eye as we were smacking down those heavenly ribs!!

We also celebrated the August Birthdays of Jordi, Kirk and Aaron. Kirk has his usual "dirt and worms", Jordi had "fish and sand" and Aaron had "bears in the mud". This picture makes me laugh...this is the "before" shot.

And this is the "after" shot. After the singing Kirk leaned over and blew out Jordin's candles and his own before she could pucker up. I love that Aaron is oblivious and just innocently blowing out his candles!!

One of the things that really touched me this whole week was that every time I looked around there were adults cuddling, playing and kissing kids that were not their own. There was a serious kid love fest going on. I don't think it was possible for any of our children to feel unloved with all the hugs, kisses, and attention they were getting from all their aunts and uncles. I love that about our family.

Cute Cousins!!

It was hard to keep track of all the kids...luckily these two had fun hanging out in the "death trap" playpen that we found upstairs in Lilac Lodge. They happily hung out in the playpen!! Crazy!! (This was the playpen I slept in out at the lake as a baby...these have since been recalled.)

We had another scary incident occur one night...Tyler had a major diabetic issue. His blood sugar got so low I thought I was going to have to call the paramedics. It was so scary. Most of the time we forget that Tyler has diabetes. His pump has made our lives so normal. So besides him having to test his blood and ordering his supplies that is about the most we deal with it. (I know...we have been very lucky) since he got his pump about 8 years ago it has allowed him to be in such tight control that we haven't had to deal with many scary diabetic situations. He rarely gets low and shaky. These were much more common place before Tyler had his pump.

The night of the birthday party though Tyler was acting weird. When he came to the table I could tell there was a serious problem. He was dripping with sweat and pretty incoherent. I grabbed the green punch that we were all drinking and had him down a few glass...it had no effect. One of my sisters ran for the jug of orange juice and he drank it and it still had no effect. That was so scary. Usually if he drinks something sweet his blood sugar rebounds pretty quickly. But he was getting worse and worse. I was crying. Our kids were scared and crying. My family sprang into action. Kirk helped me get Tyler to the house and the bedroom. My mom was right there in medical mode. Jordi was right there with cold wash cloths and thick punch concentrate. Stacey and Kelley were there for my kids calming them down. Eventually his blood sugar rebounded and he returned to normal. His blood sugar had to have been in the low 20's...the last time he was in the 30's he was taken by ambulance and hospitalized. So it was really a miracle that he was ok.

What was so crazy was that he hasn't had an episode like this in over 8 years. I had no idea that my kids had never even SEEN this happen before. That is such a huge blessing and makes me so grateful for modern medicine. Before Tyler got his pump things like this used to happen maybe every couple of months. Not this serious but still problematic. So to have had Tyler go 8 years without a major diabetic episode is a HUGE!! Needless to say he scared the hell out of me!! Our lake house is out in the boonies and I was freaking out!! I can't thank my brother, sisters and mom enough. I love how much they love and care about Tyler...how they know just what to do and drop everything and come running...I so appreciate the support they were giving me and the kids when we were falling apart.

The reason for his super low blood sugar was a combination of lots of exercise which drops his blood sugar. Tyler was running in the mornings, wake boarding like crazy, swimming, jumping on the trampoline and then would eat and would dose up like normal not realizing that he didn't need so much insulin. Plus...he has to take his pump off in the water and then he would put it back on when he was done swimming so everything was super delayed. After that one episode he was fine and fully back to normal. Thank goodness.

We also did lots of canoeing. The lake is so pretty in the morning. The kids had fun. Ailey loved going in the canoe to "look for treasure" (odd things that wash up in the coves across the lake.) She loved riding in the canoe and yelling "YO-HO!! Treasure ahead!!" That kid is a crack up.

We ate tons of good food!! I don't dare step on a scale. We divided up the days and everyone had to cook a breakfast, a lunch and a dinner (not all on the same day.) It worked out really well and it was fun to eat everyone else's cooking plus it lessened the time spent each day in the kitchen which was SO NICE!!

It was fun to see my mom, Reilly and Jordi all cooking breakfast together!!

Here's Kaiden:

It was Kirk and Jayme's day to cook breakfast and they made these delicious egg, ham and cheese stuffed breads (they also made a vegetarian one.) They were really good. Anyway Kaiden was hungry and couldn't wait any longer so he went to the toy cupboard and got the doll spatula and tried to help himself to a little breakfast. It was hilarious.

Then it was ALL ABOUT THE WAKE BOARDING!! Oh my gosh it was such a blast!! Reilly totally learned to wake board this summer and LOVES it!!

Even I learned to WAKE BOARD!! It was so much fun!! I finally got it. Yehaw!! Of course in my moment of pure glory my camera died. So no pictures of me!! Bummer.