The Wedding

I'm back from the cold, cold state of Illinois. Well, I've been back for a week now, but I've been trying to get back in the swing of things and get my world back in order. We left Monroe early in the morning on Thursday, January 10, and thanks to my Magellan Maestro GPS we made great time. It took us 9 hours to get there instead of the 9 1/2 to 10 hours that was expected. I was exhausted since I stayed up most of the night getting our stuff together so that Rob could sleep since he was driving. We checked in our hotel and I got to lay down for about 30 minutes before our room was full of people. And then it was back on the road for wedding rehearsal and decorating the church until about 9 that night. The rehearsal was quick, but the decorating was long and frustrating. Too many people trying to be the boss with no direction. So were going around and around trying to figure out how to set things up. I called it an early night and had Rob drop me off at the hotel while he went out with his sister and her husband. I ordered some dinner for delivery and crashed soon after.

All of girls in the wedding got together that next morning to get our hair styled. I liked the back of my hair, but the front left something to be desired. But hey I didn't have many options for an up-do since my hair is short. Here's a pic of the back.

We spent most of the day either in the salon or at the church getting last minuet things together. And keeping Theresa in one piece and sane. The ceremony was simple and beautiful. I did good not to cry because Theresa and Matt are so in love. I'm really happy to have him as a brother-in-law now because he's a great guy.


Theresa just glowed despite all the crap that had been going on in the days leading up to the wedding. We're not even going to go there because that's just too long and drawn out to explain. Let's just say crazy and vindictive family members make me want to bitch slap them. But I can't because it would be wrong to slap your husband's grandmother.

The reception was fun. There was lots of dancing and laughing and great food. We even got Rob out on the floor a couple of times. I was exhausted when it was all over. My feet and back ached like hell.

Rob & I outside of Matt's parent's house

The next day we met up at Matt's parents' house to watch the newlyweds open their gifts and have lunch. We spent the rest of the day with Matt and Theresa just having fun with the occasional run in with the crazies. We went to St. Louis to go to the zoo or the science museum, but both of them were closed or getting ready to close by the time we got there. So we just stopped in at a sports bar for dinner. The first waiter we got took about 20-30 minutes to even come get our drink orders and give us menus. This is after we got talked to the hostess about it and requested to talk with the manager. When the waiter showed up he acted like we were bothering him by coming to eat there. Asshole! The manager was a great guy though. He took our table and tried to make up for the lousy service we had gotten so far. After getting shitty service and talking with the manager we ended up with a free meal. But all in all the day was fun.

That Sunday we kind of poked along in St. Louis and went shopping. We visited the Union Station Mall and looked through their museum. This mall used to be an actual train station that has been renovated. It was full of beautiful stain glass windows and gilded figures. It was cool seeing all the old train items and memorabilia. I found a great Beatles store too. And I snagged a cool poster for my home office. Theresa and Matt didn't leave town for their honeymoon. They're planning a nice one later once they've saved up more money. They spent a couple of nights in a hotel a couple of towns over from us. So we got to spend a lot of time with them. Then on Sunday they moved to the same hotel we were in, right across the hall which was cool. After the mall, we came back and chilled out in the hotel hot tub. We also learned how many fat people it takes to make the hot tub over flow.

We ended up going to a little Chinese restaurant for dinner that was next door to where we were staying. At first it didn't look like it was going to be too good. It was deserted and actually looked like it was closed every time we passed by. But we were so wrong. The food was amazing!!!! It reminded me of the Chinese restaurant in A Christmas Story where they ended up with a table full of food. The service was great and we had tons of left overs. I had a stir fry dish that consisted of chicken, shrimp, scallops, crab, beef, mushrooms and huge chunks of tofu all cooked in a metal pot. It was so good. I wish we had a place like that around here.

Monday we left Illinois about 1:30 that afternoon and headed to an Indian restaurant for lunch before we headed home to LA. This was our first chance at Indian food so we were excited. This place did not disappoint. I had Chicken Vindaloo with a cinnamon rice. Yum Yum! I can't wait until we can have some again! The drive home was good too. We took our time and made some stops along the way. We got in about 12:30 that night. All in all we had a great trip.

I took a ton of pictures on the trip so here's a link to them if you want to look.

Wedding Pictures