I got a pedicure! And a sister! Oh BABY!!

Weddings. Are. Amazing.

I went to a friend of mine's wedding last week and it was pretty good because I saw a bunch of friends and my favorite professor was the pianist and it was great to see the bride and groom FINALLY get married. But. It was just good friends.

THEN, I went to a wedding Saturday - Jon's brother's. It was AMAZING!!! But I'll back up and recount the entire weekend because a) I had five days of work off in a row instead of my normal 7-days-a-week blahs, and b) trips to visit Jon's old stomping grounds always deserve a day-by-day synopsis.

Oh, actually I'll back up one extra day to talk about the 4th because I had off then too. I just wasn't in Washington.

Yay 4th of July! It was supposed to be 90 degrees in the valley so we high-tailed it to the coast. It was so so so beautiful there!! We got there around 11:30 so we stopped at a great restaurant in Newport called Georgie's. My dad and I stopped there on a trip once just after I came back from Iowa and they had this aMAZING oyster stew (we are big oyster stew buffs) but then when we were there this time they swore they've never made it!! We must be crazy, but we HAD some and it was INCREDIBLE. No kidding! Anyhow, the clam chowder was pretty great and the view was lovely, so we were fine. Haha, the waitress asked us once if we were Whitney's friends and we were like, Whitney? Who's that? Well, it turns out Whitney was the water girl, and she looked uber familiar, but nothing like someone we knew really well. Jason and I figured she must have been a mat girl from Newport's wrestling team or something, so we wrote on the comment card "Hi Whitney! Sorry we didn't recognize you at first!" Turns out, it wasn't even the girl we thought we recognized. I don't know how she thought she knew us, but we sure didn't know her after all. But we said hi anyway! After our super awesome lunch, we went down to the beach and did a little geo-caching. It was pretty fun, although I got a little scratch on my leg from the blackberries which wouldn't have been a problem except I was planning on being in wedding pictures and so I didn't want any scratches on my legs showing up. It took us a while to find the cache because they had two coordinates - one for the beginning of the trail, and the other for the actual cache location. However, at first we didn't realize that the first was just for the beginning of the trail so we were madly - I mean MADLY! - searching in the brush around there for the cache going IT SAYS IT'S HERE!!! when we realize, oh, the clue says that it STARTS at this point. Duh. So, we hiked down the trail and up and down some side trails and found the cache, left a golf ball, and took a really cool little bendy masquerade man. We walked up and down the Jetty and by this time it was getting REALLY windy so we went back to the car. We also looked for a cache at the Oregon Coast Acquarium but realized we probably had to go IN the acquarium to find it, so we weren't interested anymore. Then we hit up Yaquina Head to go to the rocky beach since it was probably the only place with shelter from the wind. We were pretty pooped by this time so we hopped in my dad's monster truck and headed home. We really wanted to watch the fireworks on the coast but since Jon and I had to head out the next morning for WA, we decided driving back home at 11:00 would be kinda stupid. So, we went down to Corvallis at 8:30 to save a spot on the lawn to watch the Corvallis fireworks... they were rumored to be better than they've been before since it's Corvallis' 150th anniversary. So we wait for two hours, my family finally shows up as well as a couple of Jon's friends, and the fireworks begin. THEY WERE AWFUL. So bad. Terrible. Worse than I've ever seen Corvallis do fireworks. They were just really boring and not showy and thrown together and not entertaining in the least. Poo, Corvally. Poo.

WELL, here comes the Washington trip!!

Thursday: We drove off at 9 am and arrived around 2:30 in Lynden at Jon's grandparent's house. You know how I've wanted to get a pedicure for, like, an eternity? Well, Jon's sisters and mom and I had planned on getting them when we were all in Washington. I suppose they forgot about me, because they got theirs Thursday morning while Jon and I were driving up. I was pretty bummed. Anyway, so we got to Grampa and Gramma's (actually, Jon's siblings pronounce "Grampa" more like "Grappa") and chatted a bit and then headed to Edaleen Dairy which has THE MOST AMAZING soft-serve ice cream. No joke. It is incredible. I mean seriously, it's the first thing we did in Lynden after saying hi to the grandparents. Then Jon had to head to his brother's bachelor party and I went down to Bellingham where the girls and my hotel room was (and mom and dad's) and went to dinner at this super great Greek restaurant. It wasn't the one that's in Lynden which is also amazing, but it was really good anyway. We got dessert to go (mmmmmm, baklava) and went back to the hotel and watched Disturbia. It's a scary movie!!! I don't get scared by much in the way of creepy movies because they're all so not real or possible. But this one was pretty close to reality! So, it was good to see the girls again since Katie has been at camp and I'm not going to see her all summer now. Sad!! Beckii and I shared a bed. I told her it would be the night of her life. Apparently it wasn't. Not for me either.... I was stuck in a corner.... the whole night....

Friday: Jon's mom Sue loved her pedicure SO much that she offered to take me to get a pedicure and she got a manicure herself. We got an appointment and while we waited we went to Anna's house (the bride) and tied white ribbons on these beautiful pots her mom had been growing for months. There was some drama about us skipping out on it to get our nails done... But it wasn't my fault, honest!! Anyhow, once we got to the nail place they started on Sue's hands right away and set me in the water to soak for a while. A while turned into 45 minutes. I had raisin feet! So... the pedicure wasn't what I'd hoped it would be but it was nice to get it done finally. Then the lady did the wrong color!!! I picked one that would match the sash on my dress perfectly and she had another one that was a little more raspberry than the deep red I'd picked and she insisted it was the same color and the one she had was a better polish. So my toes weren't quite matchy match match with my dress. So... the pedicure wasn't what I'd hoped it would be but it was nice to get it done finally. Then we had lunch with the fam at Red Robin, walked around Bellis Fair mall for a while, and went to this crazy awesome Japanese store that has all Japanese products that are like "all-American" looking. I wanna go back there. They had home decor stuff that had sayings like "I am at the top of happiness!" and "Best happiness through life." Teehee. Then we searched around Bellingham for things for the Rehearsal Dinner table. We got Andes mints and Annas cookies. It was pretty great. Then we came back to the hotel and got dressed and went across the parking lot to the hall where the dinner was. It wasn't really a Rehearsal dinner because there was no rehearsal beforehand. But it was all family and close friends (I think about 50 people) and a yummy dinner. We played Balderdash by making words out of the initials of people at our table and then passing our words around. Jon's and my table was a little lame - his aunts and grandma weren't very good Balderdash players. When we'd read a definition someone would correct our wording or say "Get it!?" which would give away whose card it was... No fun. Oh well, other tables had a blast. Since there were so many J names and also so many Dutch people, we adopted the Dutch pronunciation of the letter. One word, then, was SMAKJASS. Pronounced "Smack ya ass!" Heeheehee!! Rehearsal dinner down, Bedtime to go, and Wedding day next!!!

Saturday, 07-07-07: Wedding day!!! We slept in. Hahahahaha. Till 9 or so. Then all us girls primped up and showed up at the park where the wedding was around 11. Anna and Andy decided to do pictures before the wedding, so they were already in full swing. Anna was beautiful!!! So was the park, so were the girls, so was everyone. It was just a beautiful day. I got in a family picture or two! Yay!! For the ceremony (They wrote their own vows!) we all sat at tables, and then remained there for the reception. For entertainment they had a three-part skit about how Andy and Anna met, began dating, and got engaged. Random people volunteered to play the parts of Andy and Anna, and Jon was one of them. I didn't realize how much of a ham he is! It was pretty funny. He's very animated and goofy. Anyway, so the skit was broken up by dessert and then dancing lessons since Anna is a dance instructor. She had a couple of friends teach us very simple and quick lessons of the Box Step, the Jive, and the Electric Slide. The whole shabang was over by 5 or so and then we cleaned up. Oh, how we cleaned up. Finally we got back to the hotel and GOT OUT OF OUR STRAPLESS BRAS!!! The girls and I had the same dress but different patterns so we matched... sort of... but consequentially were all strapless. Then we were pretty darn exhausted but went to Grampa and Gramma's for leftovers of the rehearsal dinner food. Gramma is super skilled at making something out of nothing.. We ate pretty well! And got rid of all the leftovers. Then we went back to Bellingham for bed. As we said goodbye to Grampa and Gramma (we thought for the last time on this trip) Gramma said to me "You're a part of the family now. I can just tell." Yay!!! Yay yay yay!!!

Sunday: Got up early to go to church so we could see Grampa and Gramma one more time. Just Beckii and I and we hoped that Ryan and Jon would meet us there also. Fat chance. We got there late so didn't even get to sit by them... just could see them, but they couldn't see us. Kind of a dud. We met up with the boys after church and went out to the Rusty Wagon Wheel (except Jon called it Rusty Bucket so that's what I think of it as now) for some stuffed french toast. mmmm. Got back to the hotel, packed up quick, and drove off to head home. It was my mom's birthday too so we stopped and picked up some flowers and brought them home for dinner with my family. A good end to a great weekend!

Ok, I'm finally done!!

I went to a wedding.

And I got a pedicure.