clear nights and wedding bells

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this weekend has been a blast. 

a tired blast, but still a blast.  

on friday morning, i was awoken at 4:45 (or somewhere near that time) to get ready for the drive to the big city where we had a doctor appointment scheduled, and it was one of those early sleep busters. 

after finding out that ozzy is putting on weight like a champ, even though looking at him you could hardly tell the skinny little thing is almost up to normal, and finding out that i'm healthy (wooo. yay. doctor's orders to exercise, as well as to drink caffeine when i get migraines, which i think i will translate into 'when hurting, get yourself some starbucks giiirl', we did some shopping, some driving, some park visiting, and generally passed time until 7:00 when our cousins and aunt and uncle had invited us to join them for a bonfire event which involved hot dogs, and marshmallows. 

it was very much fun, even though i said no words to anyone because i am an introvert with a camera, but it was fun listening to the conversations swirling and pooling and ebbing around me.

people, silence is the greatest thing sometimes, you hear so much.

well, i might have said basic things, like an occasional yes and no, and i think i told my brother something, but i did not engage myself in any conversations. 

one of the guys also invited was recently married, and it was fun listening to him school the younger guys about how to treat girls on dates, and i think his new wife found herself a gem.  it was also interesting listening to the younger men's questions. 

do you know, most young men are entirely unsure if girls actually like having the car door opened for them? 

yes, indeed. 

and then, on the flip side, some guys are disappointed if the girl just opens the door and gets out before giving them the opportunity to help her out.

while i don't date, it was still very interesting to listen to.

it was very late when we left out, ad even later when we got home, and i barely made it to bed, doing a face plant into my pillow. 

the next day, a saturday, i had to be roused early yet again to attend a wedding. 

it was a little less early, 6:30 instead of 4:45, but still a bit too early for my general liking. 

but where a friend's wedding is involved, i don't mind quite so much. 

weddings are generally more worth waking up early over than doctor's appointments where you are poked and prodded and given prescriptions. 

as i took my seat between my dad and my 6'3 brother, i was suddenly grounded. 

the bride, while a few years older than myself, was still one of my distant friends. i played soccer and dutch blitz (for you nonamish/mennonite folkses, its basically the only amish card game and can get down right in/tense/. speed skills at dutch blitz are honoured skills indeed) with her, and i grew into my teen years just behind her.  

and she was getting married that day. 

its very....down to earthing. she is the closest thing to a close friend getting married that has happened yet, and it was almost terrifying in the reality.  here i am, two years younger than the age at which my parents got married. 

when my parents were my age, they were dating, getting stuck on stormy lakes (there is a story there) and my dad deciding my mom was the one. 

its very, very scary, realizing peter pan never came for you, and each hour, you are getting older and older, and time keeps going by and by and by and soon this generation will be parents, and watching their children grow up, and soon those children will entertain dreams of being whisked away to neverland, and quickly those children will release they never will be, and they will have to square their own shoulders, and take upon the world. 

drat. 

peter. 

after i had gotten calmed down from just the actual event of everyone i know growing older (except the old people. they aren't aging anymore. its like...they just stop aging, and then they die. but thats pretty depressing...), it was a very beautiful wedding. 

it opened with 'Dawn', which, is the opening song from pride and prejudice, which made me wiggle with the cuteness of that, and then, after the kiss, which earned it's own cowboy whoops, and when the new mister and missus took hands and skipped down the aisle, "Miracle of Miracles", from Fiddler on the Roof, played, and if i hadn't already been smiling at how cute a couple they were, i would have smiled from their music choices. 

pfff i was smiling. 

the reception went like every other, perhaps a bit more informal, as people were up, and walking around and socializing the whole time.  and, i learned of another amish/menno tradition, which starts from one table at the reception and quickly spreads. 

the starting table begins to make a racket, and i'm not meaning talking loud, i'm meaning, stomping of feet, pounding of dishes, standing up and scraping your chair against the ground, banging your palms on the table, and spreads through the whole reception hall, noise reaching a grand crescendo.

and the point, is to continue doing it until forcing the bride and groom into kissing. 

once they kiss, the noise suddenly stops, and everyone resumes their seats and talking as if they had never started, but the newly married couple are left laughing and blushing. 

its very sweet and cute and hilarious to be surrounded in.

the wedding ended with the tossing of birdseed, and the bride and groom ducking into a vehicle spray painted, and filled with crepe paper. 

i don't think you are quite understanding what i mean when i say 'filled'. 

when i say 'filled' i mean, they cannot sit down in the car until pushing all the paper into the also filled back seat. 

which means we can continue pelting them with birdseed the meanwhile. 

on sunday, which is today, we attended our church's 20th anniversary homecoming, and i got to re-see some old church friends who had moved states away and i had lost touch with in the years.  it was nice, and i made sure to get my picture taken, 'the group' was back together, even if only for a day, and we slipped right in like we had never been apart. 

so, yes, it was fun, i have such good memories of this weekend, but i am exhausted from waking up 'early' during the weekends, which are supposed to be my 'sleep in until 10 am' days, but, you know, some things top sleep. 

and i have literally no idea how to end this. 

so,

mozel tof!