Wedding

Lets start at the beginning of or trip, where we have to wake up at a terrible hour just to make it to the airport on time.  I truly have grown to like this small New Mexico town, but man alive I am jonesing to live somewhere where there is an airport close by.

We cross all fingers and toes that the boys will sleep on the 1.5 hour drive down ( in pitch black in the middle of the night), but they don't. Not a single solitary wink of sleep was had by any of us on that drive. I SWEAR! These kids and sleep. We arrive at the airport where John dumps us, and our pile-o-crap out on the curb. 

The boys go through security and board the flight like champs. However, they both have developed a habit that freaks me out. The second we get to our seat, they both take out the in-case-the-plane-goes-down-in-a-ball-o-flames card and begin to feverishly review the procedures. Every.single.time. It's like a dog and storms, I always wonder if maybe they know something I don't. 

Miracle of miracles, they sleep on the flight. 

I'm not a germaphobe by any stretch of the imagination. Quite the opposite in fact. Some people are completely skeeved out by letting their kids play on any any floor, but the airport and it's international germs really do some people in.  But, not this girl. Germs schmerms. 

After our flights, the boys are filled with excited energy. They think we're at the lake. We quickly burst that bubble by informing them, thanks for you patience with the ridiculous o'clock wake up, and the 7 hours of airport time, but we now have a 3 hour car journey ahead of us. There was a lot of, "are we there yets?", some McDonalds eating, a few minutes of sleeping and the all exciting GPS dying and getting a touch lost, but we all arrive in one piece.  

We were there for John's sisters wedding, but we of course made some time to play as well. 

Bram, I realized, is totally John's son. He is a thrill seeker. He couldn't get enough of going max on the jet ski, boat and gator. Ambrose on the other hand, is a ball of anxiety like me ( poor guy). You should have seen the drama that ensued over trying to get him on the jet ski. Thank goodness for John's brother, Sam, who literally lifted Ambrose up by the life jacked (while he was kicking and screaming) and loaded him onto the jet ski. In the end he liked it, but  only at very very low speeds. More drama when trying to get him off the jetski, he didn't want to swim, so he must be dropped off ON the dock like a 98 year old grandma afraid to get her JCPenny perfectly curled hair wet. 

He did enjoy fishing, and there was a lot of that over the weekend.

Saturday was the big day! Wedding day! Woot Woot! Ambrose and Ethan were ring bearers, and they looked stinkin adorable.

The boys had the (of course fake) rings threaded through on their fishing poles and they walked them up the aisle. Audrey was as adorable as ever, and did an excellent job as the flower girl! 

Here's the best family pic we got from my iphone. Ambrose is mid chew on a cracker and Bram is getting ready to walk away, but there we all are, in the same place at the same time. That in and of itself is an accomplishment. Hopefully the photographer got a better one. 

The location was amazing, the weather was absolutely perfect and the bride looked gorgeous! 

We spend Sunday and Monday doing much of the same lake shennanigans and then pack up for the drive to the St. Louis. On the way, Ambrose of course has a bathroom emergency, and we make a B line for the nearest exit. He goes ( while his mom takes an embarrassing pic), and then loads back into the car. We quickly realize that the exit we take doesn't have an on ramp for many many many miles, and we have to turn around, at which point we end up taking another wrong exit, and have to back track a few minutes. 

After a bit of St. Lous traffic, we get to the hotel, where john realizes we unknowingly had 2 emergency bathroom experiences on the road. Traveling with toddlers....party party all the time. 

That night we meet up with family that John unfortunately hasn't seen in 5+ years. It was awesome to catchup and talk with family! 

We go to the hotel to get some rest and get ready to fly out in the morning. We wake the boys up early, return the rental car, check in and proceed to our gate. Wouldn't ya know, our flight is delayed, and we'll miss our connecting flight. The gate attendant rocks our world, and before we can even ask, sees that we'll be missing our connecting flight and rebooks us on two different flights so we can get home on time. Awesomesauce. but again, we are delayed on the rebooked flight. waiting, waiting and more waiting.  

Here I am, embracing the germy airport floor and just totally giving up and laying down.

The smiles in this picture are a total lie. We are into hour 3 of delays, and we are tired.  Southwest comes through though, and we end up leaving late, but in time to make our connecting flight. All's well that ends well :)