home again...8 more days

The wedding was gorgeous (pictures to come later). Somehow during the wedding it was really hard for me to take pictures and do my duties. I managed not to blubber through the ceremony and only had a few tears streaking down my cheek. Let's just say, the appropriate placement of a nose-hair made all the difference in the world. Allow me to explain: the preacher, a wonderful-but hairy-individual officiated and every time the tear ducts started to fill I stared, very long and very hard, and a single, protruding nose hair. It makes me wonder whether it was strategically placed. It stuck out of his right nostril at least 3/4 of an inch, if not more. So it served as my saving grace (wonder if it was divine intervention...hmmm).

We had a great time with our families. Sunday night was Mom & Michael's 8th anniversary; Wednesday was the Guessture's battle at Dad & Jo's and lunch with my friends from the good old Raleigh days; Thursday I baked the cake; Friday I decorated the cake & went to the rehearsal and dinner; Saturday the big day; Sunday was brunch with the extended family and blubbering, lots of blubbering. You would have thought my heart was broken, which-in hindsight-probably was true. I referred to that as my "transitioning." I realized yesterday that I had always seen my little sister as the 6-year-old who loved to change clothes 3 times a day and while I knew she was growing up, the enormity of it didn't really land until the wedding. We also got a chance to see Matt's family. It was so great to see them all looking so fantastic. Grandma is walking with a walker (just for safety), Momma D is the cutest bald lady I've ever seen, Patty D is awesome (as usual), Bill & Susu are two of the best. We got to have dinner that included Southern fried chicken and catfish, coleslaw, white beans, hush puppies, and sweet tea....mmmm.
An 11-hour drive Monday and we were back to home...just for a little while.