April trip to Iowa – Andrea and Lucas Wedding

My cousin Andrea got married this past weekend and as always, we decided to drive to Iowa – in the new car. Kiarra and Jayden have always traveled well, even when (8+ years ago) we didn’t have a TV in the vehicle. They would color, Jayden would play with cars and Kiarra would play with babies. They would take a ton of books and sit and listen so patiently to each other read them (this was before they could read but had the books memorized) or Jeff, Mom or I would read to them. Well all those wonderful years of spending 18 hours in the car (one way) to and from Iowa have come to an end…at least for a while anyway. Taryn doesn’t do so well in the car – she hates it actually. We were not even out of Moms sub-division and she was asking if we were going to Grandpa’s house. She must have asked 300 times…before getting to Dallas!!! “Mommyyyyy, are we going to Grandpa’s house?” She didn’t understand why we had to stop for gas and why it was taking so long to get there. In her sassy high pitched but questioning voice she would ask/say “Mommy…. ughhh – what is taking so LONG?” Needless to say, the trip seems to get longer and longer. In the 40+ trips we’ve made to/from Iowa, we had never gotten a speeding ticket – until this trip. I wasn’t speeding by much; actually I wouldn’t and still don’t consider it speeding but he wrote me a ticket anyway – Jerk!
We arrived on Thursday around 3:30 pm and were quite exhausted. After getting settled; Jeff sat outside in the peace and quiet, listening to the birds while the kids played with their cousins and I ironed our clothes that got wet from the rain we endured on the way - ugh! Jeff wanted a good steak (corn fed beef) so we went up the street for dinner. Grandpa, Marcia, Kay, Teige, Kathy, Logan, Morgan, Talan and Molly joined us. It was YUMMY. We went back to Grandpa’s and crashed for the evening.
Friday morning I helped Andrea decorate for the reception. You should have seen us ladies trying to arrange tables for all their guests. Talk about funny! We thought we had it figured out several times to find out we were 40 chairs short or more! We had rehearsal that evening and Taryn decided she wanted to be shy…so shy that she wouldn’t walk down the isle when it was time to practice. I knew we had some major convincing to do to get her down the isle during the wedding ceremony. We had a great dinner that evening in Decatur and got to catch up with the family. I can’t believe how grown up my nephews and niece are getting!
The big day arrived. I could tell Taryn was scared of walking down the isle. We talked about it a lot, trying to get her to loosen up and get excited but she was super shy with everyone and was not having anything to do with being the flower girl. The time for pictures came and she was scared, I mean really scared. I’ve never seen her like that. She normally loves the camera and poses and says “take my picture mommy”. There was NONE of that, she cried and cried. She sobbed on Andrea’s shoulder saying “I want my Daddy.” Of course I called immediately and told him and Mom to hurry and come because she was acting a hot mess. The photographer is going to have to crop me out of half the pictures because I’m in them trying to get Taryn to chill out. It took another hour but she finally loosened up and stood pretty for a few pictures. All the guests arrived and time was ticking. Jayden handed out programs and Kiarra lit the candles with Morgan. They did so awesome! The music started and all 8 bridesmaids/groomsmen walked down the isle…this meant it was time for Taryn to make her grand entrance along with the other flower girl, Kailee and the ring bearer, Max. After finding and chasing down Max I said, “ok guys, it’s your turn – go ahead.” And they all looked at the hundreds of people staring at them in the church and looked up at me like I was crazy. I said again, “go ahead.” Nothing…none of them moved…you could have heard a pin drop. I’m looking around for Logan because the back up plan was for him (since he was an usher) to escort them down the isle if they wouldn’t go on their own. All of a sudden Max sees Lucas, the groom, and off he goes. I nudge the girls, “go ahead girls – walk down the isle – follow Max” I said. Again, nothing… I turn to Andrea with a questioning look asking if it’s ok for Jayden to walk them down. She agrees so I have Taryn take Jayden’s hand and said “go ahead – walk with Jayden”… They were having nothing to do with that. Taryn was saying “no mommy, I don’t want to.” I kept saying, “Walk to Daddy Taryn.” I look back at Andrea again and next thing I know, Kailee is gone. I don’t know where she is but she is gone. Come to find out, she RAN down the isle to her Grandma when I turned to Andrea. Andrea said to me “you take her down”… “Me,” I said, “yeah, you walk her down” Andrea said again. So with a deep breath, off we went down the isle. Thank God it was a short isle, I was crazy embarrassed and not at all prepared for that. All that happened in like 30 seconds! Taryn was so scared to walk down that isle by herself but after getting to the front she stood there with her new friend, Gretchen, the Maid of Honor. She was so good during the ceremony. I was very proud of her.

Andrea was stunning beautiful, the wedding was beautiful, from the gorgeous bride, bridesmaids, the flowers, music and guests. Everything was beautiful.
We had a great time at the reception. Food was awesome, cake and mints even better and the dance was a great time too. I’m so glad we got to be part of Andrea and Lucas’ special day.

We got up Sunday morning, packed and loaded up the car and headed to Logan to have breakfast with Teige and Talan (and their families). We didn’t get on the road until 1:30 pm so by the time we got home, at 5:30 am Monday, there was no way Jeff or I were going to work and I couldn’t make the kids go to school. We all slept a few hours and enjoyed the beautiful day at the park, washing the car and unpacking.

We’ll make this trip again in June so stay tuned to see if Taryn rides any better this next time around.
Congratulations Andrea and Lucas!

EASTER

Spring is my favorite time of year. We have amazing weather, flowers are blooming everywhere, the kids are almost finished with school (which means no more homework for a few months), but most importantly we celebrate Easter. We all love Easter. We’ve gone out of town the last few years on Easter but this year we stayed home and celebrated in our new church home with my Mom and our long time friends. We had a little egg hunt in the front yard and the kids had a blast…the adults did too, confetti eggs – need I say more? Taryn was so excited this year; it was so cute to see her spend hours playing with empty eggs. She would separate them by color, mix them back up, and divide them up into baskets. We even colored eggs this year, which is something we have not done in a while due to going out of town. When I was a kid, we had 5 colors to color our eggs. Blue, red, green, yellow and we would mix the red and yellow to make orange. Now, they have all these colors plus more, fancy glitter eggs, camouflage eggs, and there are fancy ways to color the eggs. We all had a great time putting our own spin on the eggs.

Jeff is a few weeks into his new job and he no longer thinks its going to be easy. He’s been learning how to run his crew, learning all the programs they use and is starting to get used to sitting in an office. He’s been a traveling man the past 1o years driving job to job so having an office and using 2 monitors is new to him. He is like a kid in a candy store; he is so excited to go to work every day and talks about all the new things going on non-stop. It is great to see him happy again.

I’m not sure when my new job will officially go into effect. I guess it already has but I haven’t transitioned my old duties just yet so I’m still wearing 3 hats. I’m enjoying traveling to campus’ again this spring for our annual recruiting events.
I’ve been to Texas A&M and will go University of Texas this week, Oklahoma University next week and then Texas Southern University sometime after that. This is for sure the most fun I have in my job and I get to keep this responsibility in my new role so I’m happy about that. I’ll hit up another 3-4 schools in the fall. I still love my new car and can’t wait to take it on the first road trip in a few weeks. I’m even more excited about seeing all the family at my baby cousins wedding!

Jeff’s Grandmother is out of the hospital and will be moving to an assisted living facility in New Orleans this month. She wasn’t very happy about leaving Columbus Georgia, where she has lived her whole life, but I think she is starting to warm up it. Please keep her in your prayers. Jeff’s mother Shirley has been there with Benny, taking good care of her and is getting her prepared to move.

Taryn started dance last week and she is too cute. She told me “Mommy, you forgot to buy me dance clothes”… oopsie, I guess I need to do that. She is going to have a recital later on. I can’t wait. They are so cute at this age. She’s already learned a lot and she can even stand on her toes. Amazing!

Kiarra and Jayden brought home their progress report for these 6 weeks and they are both getting A’s and B’s. Kiarra is really excited for Jr. High; I’m not so sure I’m excited for that yet. Kiarra on the bus with 8th grade boys…… hmmm, NO. Definitely not ready for that yet. I just realized that Kiarra will be finished with Jr. High before Jayden gets there. He’ll be in 5th grade when Taryn goes to Kindergarten and a freshman with Kiarra is a senior. I’m torturing myself thinking of all this. Why can’t they just stay in elementary?