My Cousin's Wedding

This has actually been a pretty interesting week for a change! Mainly it involved attending my cousin’s wedding in Flagstaff, Arizona. But, more on that in a bit. First I want to talk about the days leading up to the wedding. The days before I left for the wedding were tough because I was trying hard to get everything done for school. The most difficult day was the day before I left—Thursday. I am to blame for this, though, because I should have done more work in the earlier days of the week so that it all didn’t fall on Thursday. Part of the reason was that I let my roommate borrow the fourth season of Lost since he wasn’t sure if he has seen all the episodes, and I find myself unable to resist watching Lost when it is on in the apartment. This has caused me to get to bed a lot later than I should and made the week more difficult than it should have been. Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on how you look at it) my roommate has finished the fourth season, so it won’t be a temptation anymore.

Thursday, I had my class in the morning, and then work in the early afternoon. After work I went straight to Jiffy Lube to get an oil change so that my engine wouldn't burn up as I drove to Arizona. Then, I went home to study for a test I had to take that night. It was a very intense study session, involving doing nothing but focusing my attention on studying for about 4 hours straight (while doing my laundry at the same time). After studying, I went to go take the test on campus, and didn’t do as well as I was hoping. I think I was just tired and my head was swimming with all the knowledge I tried to cram that it was all jumbled up in my head. I learned from this that cramming for a test is never a good idea. After taking the test, I decided to take it easy for the rest of the night and had dinner at Sonic and hung out with Kevin for a while.

The next day (Friday) I began my journey to Arizona. I printed off the directions from MapQuest and they looked pretty long and complicated, which worried me. What I did to help keep me on track with the directions was to keep track of how many miles I had gone since the last change in direction, and I knew the next change would occur when I was approaching the amount of miles mapquest says that step would take. Well, I was approaching a turn, but I was still several miles off from where I should be when I approached this turn according to mapquest, so I kept going straight, passing the turn. When I went several miles over where I should be, I determined that I missed the turn and went back to where I should turn, and continued on my way. The drive from that point on was pretty tough. It was a one lane highway, so it was frustrating when I would end up behind a slow moving vehicle. The only way to pass is to go into the lane going the opposite way (which is scary) or to wait for a passing lane to appear (which sometimes doesn’t come for a while). So, it made for a pretty crazy drive, the cool part though was that I got to see a lot of beautiful scenery, including driving over a huge canyon that looked beautiful.

My second mistake occurred when I was in Flagstaff. I got really confused by the directions, which said to turn left onto I-40 Blvd. I never found that street, and I just kept going straight as highway 89 turned into Route 66. I was getting desperate when I noticed that the street I was on was Milton. I recognized that name from the directions, and was able to find my way to the hotel by skipping over the directions (about 5-6 steps) until it said to go onto Milton St. I was amazed that I ended up in the right place, even though I completely didn’t follow at least 5 steps on the direction sheet. I guess I’m just lucky! After the whole crazy drive, I met up with my family at a restaurant called Bunhuggers and we had a late lunch (I had an awesome patty melt and we all shared fries, onion rings, and fried zucchini). We then went to Target to pick up a few things, and went to the hotel to chill a little and then get ready for the rehearsal dinner for the wedding.

The rehearsal dinner was a lot of fun! There were tons of people there. I’m not a huge fan of being in the middle of huge crowds, but it was great to see a lot of family members that I don’t get to see too often. The food was really good, and I had some good moments talking with each of my family members (except perhaps my mom since she was so busy getting things set up). After the dinner, we basically went back to the hotel room and went to bed so that my mom, dad, and Alex could get up early to help set up the wedding reception.

In the morning, only Lauren and I stayed behind in the hotel room while the rest of the family left to set up the reception. After getting ready, Lauren and I left to go get a late breakfast, but all the restaurants seemed super crowded, so I just drove through McDonalds to get us lunch, since that is my sister’s favorite fast food place. On the way back to the hotel room, a huge storm started up and it even started hailing! My sister and I ran from the car into the hotel while being pelted by rather large hail. As we ate lunch in the hotel room, the rain and hail seemed to get more and more intense and there soon was also lightning and thunder! It was pretty intense, and we just sat in the room and watched a few episodes of Spongebob waiting for the rest of the family to come back.

Well, the rest of the family came back and they were stressed out (particularly my mom) because the reception was supposed to be outside in the backyard of this huge mansion, but due to the weather, they were going to have to move it inside the church where the ceremony was taking place. So, the work they did basically was all for nothing, and now there was going to be a mad dash to get everything set up in between the ceremony and the reception. So, we got ready, went to the ceremony, and it was great! One of the highlights for me was a slideshow put together by my uncle about Trevor and Jenelle, from childhood to current. It was really touching, and then the ceremony started and the pastor said some great things about the importance of marriage and what each partner needs to do to make a marriage work. It was great to see how in love my cousin and her husband are and to see their commitment to each other.

After the ceremony, we all pitched in to set up the reception. It was a lot of craziness, and I found it best to stay out of the way unless I was needed to grab something from the kitchen or help someone lift something. But, the set-up ended up being really nice with some great snacks set up including fruit, pasta salad, shrimp, and cheese and crackers. It was a small room to fit so many people, so there wasn’t really anywhere to sit inside, which made it a little uncomfortable, but it was great to be amongst family and to see everybody so happy for the joyous occasion. Instead of the traditional wedding cake, there were cupcakes, and they were really good! It was a really great reception. After helping to clean up when it was over, my family went to the hotel room to rest from the busy day. My dad got KFC and we ate while watching episodes of The Office. It was a great time as we all enjoyed each other’s company. I love being with my family!

The next morning, we all went to Coco’s for one last meal together and it was really great. I had an omelette that was really good, and we all had fun talking to each other. It was sad to say goodbye as we drove off in separate directions, but I will see them again this weekend, so it isn’t a very long goodbye. The drive home ended up being really easy, and I pretty much just went straight to bed when I got home so that I would be well rested for the day of studying that was to await me the next day. But, I’ll get to that next week…

So, all in all, it was a great weekend and an awesome opportunity to be able to see my family. I am really proud of my cousin and know that she has made the right choice in getting married. Trevor is a really great guy and him and Jenelle make an excellent couple. I know they will have a long bright future together.