California Dreaming - The Wedding

Then came time for the wedding! The girls of course couldn't wait to get all dressed up and go. Isla wondered why she wasn't going to be the flower girl (and rightly so I guess as she's played the role of flower girl in 100% of the weddings she's attended up until this point). She didn't seem to mind once we told her she could still wear and fancy dress and dance. I don't know why it didn't occur to me earlier that keeping 3 kids quiet during the ceremony might be somewhat of a challenge. Emma was encouraged to be "as quiet as a church mouse" which almost worked, if you consider whispering loudly throughout the entire ceremony being quiet. 

Camera man Scott, hard at work

On the tables at the reception were kazoos, perfect entertainment for the kiddos (and I figured they'd be great for our carry ons for the trip home too....not!)

Even Jack got a lesson in kazooing from Uncle Mike

When they weren't dancing or blowing their kazoos or eating chocolate kisses (Emma!!), the kids could be found in the one patch of dirt in the entire place.

And I thought my flower girl knew how to have fun... Kate definitely had her beat!

The wedding was wonderful the and reception lovely, complete with a flash mop singing and dancing performance of Step In Time from Mary Poppins by all the men and boys in the family and then the ladies too in the grand finale. I hope to post a video soon. Graham also did a live vocal and ukulele performance for the bride and groom's first dance.

Somehow this is the only picture I got of the bride but the moment was too perfect not to capture (her bustle broke).

The kids really broke it down on the dance floor, especially Emma. She's got some mad skills already!

See what I mean?

California Dreaming - Family and The Races

 The remainder of our trip was mostly filled with wedding-related events. We moved on over to the Embassy Suites in Arcadia for the last 2 nights. After "helping" with the set up of the reception (I use quotations because I literally did nothing beyond field and attempt to contain my own children and keep them from undecorating), we made a bee-line for the Santa Anita Horse Races that were literally a 90 second drive up the road. 

 This was totally unplanned and spontaneous and a fun way to spend our afternoon before we headed off to the rehearsal dinner. The girls got to pet one of the horses - not a race horse but maybe one of the staff?? 

 I had NO idea how into horse races people get. The crowd, if you can call it that, was a strange mixture of us (who had absolutely no idea how to even work the machines to place our bets) and then a bunch of men who looked, err, weathered to put it kindly. Let's just say they may know how to use those machines a bit too well. 

 

After the horse races, we brought the kids back to the hotel where a couple baby sitters came to watch them (along with 5 of their second cousins) while us parents went to the rehearsal dinner. Talk about some BRAVE babysitters. It was lovely to spend time with extended family, especially those that we see very rarely like Mark and Heidi who came from out of the country. The next morning we offered to take their kids to the park for a bit so the two of them could have a chance to finish a sentence after being apart for 5 weeks. Our kids just loved hanging out with Eli (who was too busy running around for me to get a picture of apparently), Big Jack and Kate. All three of them were in the wedding later that day so I did Heidi a big favor by slathering them up in sunscreen and then rolling them in the sand pit. Whoops.

 We're still hoping someday their family will move to Seattle!!