We had anticipated Papa Sam and Lucinda's wedding for a while, but never made any firm decisions on whether or not my 8-months preggers self would join in the festivities, due to long-distance travel and high altitude. The plan was for me to stick around in good old Texas with Miss Lyla while Daddy bummed a ride with Aunt Mia's crew. However, being up to my neck in housework and stressful "nesting," I decided at the last minute that a long car drive with nothing to do might be just the thing I needed. Plus, I didn't want my Lyla to miss out on a chance to go somewhere new and see family she rarely sees.
So, Thursday when Luke got off work, I had mostly everything packed and ready to go. We zoomed off to Amarillo a little after 8:00pm, towards a beautiful (foreboding) lightning storm in the distance. About an hour into the dark drive, we were pelted with a classic Texas thunderstorm: cloud-to-ground lightning, booming thunder, minimal visibility, 60 mph winds. You know - perfect driving conditions! Fortunately, we were heading north as the storm was heading south, so we passed through it in about 30 minutes and managed to make Amarillo by 1:30am, laughing at our spontaneity all the while, and wondering if this may have been the worst idea ever...
Friday seemed like a much longer day, perhaps because we had to stop more frequently for food, stretching and relief, and also allow for some pauses on the interstate where there was road work. This didn't bother us initially, due to the lovely cool mountain breeze. We just opened the windows, sat and breather. Later on though, we were quite done. Lyla impressed us with her wonderful travel skills (aka watching videos on her DVD player, completely engrossed in "the zone"). She didn't complain once!
We arrived in Denver just in time for rush hour, extending our trip time by just a hair, and aggravating our star driver to no end. Got to the hotel with enough time to change clothes and head to Papa's house just a few minutes up the road for a visit and some appetizers before heading to a dinner. We wandered around Papa and Lucinda's gorgeous landscape and as Lyla got progressively more difficult to handle due to hunger and sleepiness, I concluded that Luke would be doing this dinner sans his Q-crew. Thus, Lyla and I soon found ourselves waiting exactly 7 minutes for our personal pan pizzas at the nearby Taco Bell / Pizza Hut and taking our meal to-go, back to the hotel. By this time, the previous night's sleeplessness and the loooong day of travel had caught up with my pregnancy hormones to have a little party, soon relieved by the arrival of the Wise-Guys to say their hellos and goodnights. Lyla and I were fast asleep after chowing down on our gourmet meal and watching approximately 2.5 minutes of Titanic on the La Quinta tube.
Day 3 consisted of wedding prep for most family members, Luke's part being repair work on Lucinda's burger-juiced Mac Book, my part being little black dress location and purchase, which proved to be a challenge. By "little black dress," I mean size 3T, which apparently isn't found at Target or Kohl's, leaving me at a loss. I made-do, as they say, by piecing together parts of various other outfits (which I planned to return later because I am sneaky that way!). Why might a 2-year-old need a black dress, you ask? Well, Lucinda had some adorable little butterfly wings for her to wear as an additional (and impromptu) flower girl, and the rest of the wedding party was wearing black. Even though I was dubious, it turned out very cute. Later on, we all caravanned to our new weekend home, the Columbine Inn, up in the mountains of Idaho Springs and discovered our new Mazda5 was not exactly made for 6% grades.
We settled in and relaxed a little while before reconvening for rehearsal dinner at a nearby Italian joint on the adorable main street of the town. Lyla did as well as she could for being a tired and hungry two-year-old, but admittedly, it's difficult to appease a busy, hungry, sleepy, overly-social little girl amongst a big crowd in a tight space. So, we spent a fair amount of time taking quick walks up the bricked sidewalk and switching off "Lyla duty" between Mommy and Daddy. Lyla was particularly fond of the piano man, and even boldly requested at one point that he play "Elmo" for her. We made it home pretty late that night and Miss Loopy-When-Sleepy spent a good 30 minutes jumping naked on the bed, singing loudly and cracking herself up.
Day 4 was Wedding Day. We had time to kill most of the day before the event was to begin, so we spent some time at a local park, wandered along the river, and ate at a pizza place down the street. My Aunt Debbie and family joined us briefly, there, and we were fortunate enough to visit for awhile, though departed in a dash to get to the nearby gold mine tour on time. Yes, that's right. Gold mine tour. It might have been a likable experience on a less stressful, cooler day, with no deadlines, having taken a nap and minus the 30 minute old-man lecture and dreadfully boring black and white mining video. By the time the
actual tour began, Lyla (and Luke and I) were so worn out, instead of unloading the tram at the top of the mountain, we rode it back down and left. Lyla still talks about "the bus" as one of her favorite parts of the trip. A shame, though, we never saw the actual mines. In hindsight, it was a very good decision to select nap-time over mine-time. Also in hindsight, maybe 2 years old isn't an ideal starting age for any kind of "tour."
After the brief nap, we got dressed for the wedding and headed out to the breathtaking mountaintop where the ceremony was to take place. Now, I use "breathtaking" seriously. Breathtaking views, yes. Also breathtaking elevation (*gasp... gasp* lungs... collapsing...) and breathtaking panic on the way up (I thought we were going to roll off the narrow, steep, curvy mountainside and die). If he hadn't been busy getting groomed-up, I would have slapped Papa Sam upon our final ascent. The last part we had to walk up a rocky hill. Some of us in heals. And pregnant. In his defense, though, I guess I didn't technically
have to attend. (And it
was quite stunning).
The next several hours were spent taking photos, filming my sweet butterfly flower girl and trying to keep her from falling off a mountain-top. My nerves having gotten the best of me on the way up and completely dreading the journey down (in the pitch DARK!), I was mostly a useless, exhausted, anxious lump. Lyla really enjoyed her part, though, and upon completing her flowerly duties asked loudly to "do it again!" She also loved dancing with her cousins and exchanging glo-stix as the sky grew darker and darker. Needless to say, we survived the trip back down the mountain, and I am pretty sure apart from our early rise to hit the road back home, it was the best night of sleep I had the whole trip. Thank you, nerves.
We arranged to take two days to drive back to Texas, just in case, but we hoped to accomplish it in one day so we could use the second as a relax/recoup day. Success! We left the Inn at 6:30am and made it back to Keller at 9:30pm. What a long, long day... but we managed it! We were so happy to be back in our own beds. Regarding the messy house and still-to-be-done-nesting, not quite so happy.
Thanks to my parents and sister for taking care of our pets while we were away - we had a great time and hope to return to Colorado soon, hopefully able to partake in more outdoor activities and visit with family when they aren't busy getting married!
More Colorado/wedding pics and other September pics are
HERE!
