This one is long so I’m going to cut it here. Interested parties can click through to read more.
Short summary: I got married.. it was kinda cool.
It’s good to be home. Don’t get me wrong, it was good to be at my parents and to do the wedding.. but it’s good to be home.
We left the Bay Area on Friday 8/23 and hotel’d it for Purg up in Arcata. My doctor had advised that it was ok for us to take the long drive as long as I took a 10 minute stretch break for every 90 minutes of driving. This lead to a longer drive.. but it had the added benefit that I actually drank as much water as I wanted to (since we were going to be stopping anyway).
On one of our breaks on the way to Arcata we were walking around the truck and Fearghus noticed that the trailer tires were looking a bit smooth. Not “OMG freak out the tires are failing” .. more like “Huh, we should look into that and maybe do something about it”. When we got back on the road we decided we’d stop off at a tire place and get an estimate for replacing the tires. Exactly two minutes later we heard “fwap fwap fwap” from the right-hand side of the trailer. F looked in the side mirror but didn’t see anything.. and the noise stopped a few seconds later. We made it into the tire place about 15 minutes before they closed. The new tires were going to cost $281. For a minute we wavered.. that was a lot of money to spend the week before a HUGE expense (the wedding). Finally I realized that we had to replace the tires… we had noticed that they were worn smooth.. and Murphy would laugh his ass off at us if we drove off without replacing the tires. I just KNEW that if we didn’t replace them right then we’d run into some epic catastrophe that would strand us somewhere on a desolate road between California and Montana. So even though it was an unexpected cost.. we spent the money anyway.
It’s a good thing we did too. As Fearghus was backing the trailer into the car bay for them to pull the tires off I noticed that our “slightly balding” tires had graduated up to “OMG REPLACE THEM NOW!” tires.. and a patch 4″x8″ of the tread had flown off of the tires on both sides.
Murphy is a bastard but this time we didn’t suffer too much because of him.
We left Purg on Saturday afternoon and hit the road to Montana. It was relatively uneventful. We stayed that night in eastern Portland.
On Sunday morning I got a sore throat.. and sneezes and sniffles. At the end of the day I admitted I had caught a summer cold. Very annoying. Not only annoying to be sick while on vacation.. and sick the week before my wedding.. but there are precious few cold remedies you’re allowed to take while you’re pregnant. The cold progressed over the week into a deep chest cold.. and I found myself waking up at night having a minor panic attack because I couldn’t breathe. I’m sure it was a combination of the cold and the stress of getting ready for the wedding but it sucked.
On Thursday morning I woke to find I had no voice. Not a bit. Luckily by Friday afternoon my voice was mostly back and on Saturday, for the wedding ceremony, my voice sounded almost normal.
On Saturday morning, the morning of the ceremony I woke and spent a few minutes cuddling with Fearghus. This was our big day. Fearghus had his hand on my belly and finally, for the first time, Fearghus felt the baby move. Fearghus held me and wept with joy.
The wedding was wonderful. Even the things that didn’t go exactly right were still ok. We had probably 70-80 people at the wedding. Fully half were family. I think all of my family from my mother’s side were here except for two of my cousins.
More photos:
Facebook album: Marc and Monica Wedding
A long while ago I mentioned that my perfect vision for my wedding day had me getting married in a gazebo.. so my Dad built the gazebo specifically for the wedding. Dad and Fearghus were putting the finishing touches on the gazebo right up until the very last day before the wedding. The wedding dress was purchased for $150 from the Montana Rescue Mission. I removed the zipper and fake buttons from the back and added lacing rings and a lace instead. My aunt Janet did all the bootineers, bouquets and signs.
We had Judge Pedro Hernandez as the JP for our wedding. He was a hoot. (While I was upstairs, waiting for it to be time he came up to talk with me.. he asked me if I wanted the short ceremony or the long ceremony… I said “um.. the short one” He said “Ok, you’re married. Congratulations!”)
The wedding itself was fairly short. We just hadn’t set up a terribly long ceremony. After the ceremony we signed the marriage license and wandered around getting the wedding photos. Finally we made it to the barn and started the reception. Haley, a friend from California offered that as a wedding present she would cater the wedding for us if we would pay for her flight to Montana. Haley worked for 3 full days and made a lot of super tasty food. I have to admit my favorite dish was the wilted kale and spinach. I guess I just had a craving for deep greens. In the end I was sad. I wanted more food but knew that I was full so stopped eating (luckily we ate leftovers over the next week).
The cupcake bar was a big hit. Instead of the traditional wedding cake Fearghus and I opted for a single cake (for us to cut and feed each other)($12 from Walmart) and a cupcake bar. We had a couple dozen undressed cupcakes, 4 vats of icing and a bunch of different sprinkles. Each person got a chance to dress their cupcake the way they wanted with as much or as little on top as they wanted. The kids loved it.
Then we did the dancing, karoke and open bar. The party lasted long into the night. I think it was about 2am when I finally dragged Fearghus off to the love shack. I can say with authority the I know that I left the love shack pregnant 😀
After the wedding we spent the next week winding back down to normal. I’m glad a few of the out-of-town folks were able to stick around and see the sites. We even had a few who were able to run off to Yellowstone Park with us.
As I said.. I’m glad we did it.. but I’m also glad to be home.
That’s one more big stresser for the year marked off my list. Only two more to go (baby birth and job). But both of those seem to be moving along fine.
