Austin and Lauren's Wedding

I wish I had some entertaining things to relay about Austin and Lauren's wedding, but we were so busy at that time that I didn't have a chance to reflect or write down thoughts. Sorry, guys!

Basically, the wedding consisted of four days of wedding festivities, and I gathered that this was typical Southern fashion. And this was only wedding stuff, and did not include Bier family fun-times, which JB and I were not able to participate in as much as we had wanted. Cry, cry.

JB and I enjoyed the celebrations, but I still craved a day of rest. At one point I broke down crying in front of JB because I realized I wouldn't have time to return to the mega quilting store, Stitcher's Garden, in Franklin, to finish shopping. The store is so huge that Marian and I only got through about half of the building on our first trip. We squeezed it in while the guys were off getting their tuxedos. Fortunately, Lauren's Dad lost his car in the mall parking lot, so it gave us extra time to shop before we had to meet up with the guys again. Okay, so it wasn't any fun for Mr. Brown, who thought that his car was stolen (it wasn't--he just couldn't remember where it was parked), but it helped Marian and I out. :) Yes, I am weird for crying about not getting to go to a quilt store, but that's me.

The rehearsal was your typical rehearsal, but the dinner was something else! We ate at Mere Bulles, and it was very good food, and JB and I had a lot of fun visiting with people and also relaxing. I had 2.5 glasses of wine. That was about 1 glass too many. Ooops--haha! Here is Austin working hard on rehearsing, with Aaron Zull in the background:



The ceremony was very nice, if you ask me. The Reverends did a nice job. Aaron Zull (longtime family friend of the Browns, and incidentally I went to SLT with his son, who played the cello at the wedding, and his wife was Marian's IV staffer at UofM--small world!) did the message, and Chris Wright (longtime family friend of Hunts) did the marrying part. I enjoyed myself. Though perhaps a bit of the enjoying was due to the fact that Olivia was in the nursery with a sitter. I love being a free woman! Oh, and I had a front row seat:




The reception took place in downtown Nashville, at the Avenue, an old warehouse just south of Broadway. I had never been down Broadway, which is full of honky tonks and cheesy neon lights. It looked so fun! I secretly wanted to go there instead of the reception. I wanted to drop Olivia off at the reception and go have fun without her. No, I am not a bad mother. I am a woman. A woman who has for years loved Big & Rich's song that has the line, "Ridin' up and down Broadway, on my old stud Leroy," and now I knew what they were talking about.

But I was a good sister-in-law and attended my brother-in-law's reception instead. Where we got to hang with JB's family, who are lots of fun:


There was a live band, which I learned was Lauren's Dad's band. The dinner was dee-lish, though I didn't get enough of it, due to time and Olivia. JB did his best-man speech, which I think was head and shoulders above the girls' speeches (sorry, ladies, but victory for Jib!). And, no, I don't just like it better because I helped him write it (the gun show reference was all me)! Then they cut the cake. Wedding cake is so...so...generic? IDK. I just don't like cake, unless it's homemade with the frosting that you get in a plastic tub. Any other frosting is too sugary to me. So I never get excited about desserts at weddings. Fortunately, Austin had requested cheesecakes as a special side thing. MMMmmm. Good move, BIL.

I attended the reception with Olivia in tow. I had wanted to get her a sitter, but Marian reminded me that there would be plenty of people to play with her (and who would want to see her), so she came along. And Marian was right, that plenty of people wanted to play with her, but in an odd twist for Olivia, she only wanted to play with me. She was a very, very good little girl, but I couldn't just do whatever I wanted because I felt responsible and that I should be checking on her regularly, since she kept wanting me. She stayed up until 10:30, and then her little baby body gave out on her. The next morning I realized that she was cutting a tooth that night. So really, she probably would have been a party animal like usual, if it wasn't for that tooth.


So, a good time was had by all.

For more photos of the fun, check out my flickr set.

Austin's wedding toast

I thought I would let y'all see what you missed this past Saturday at my little brother's wedding in Nashville. More to come...

--------------

Roughly 25 years ago I rode in the back of our parent’s Volvo station wagon with my new baby brother Austin. At that time I was bigger than him. While playing with my brother for the first time, I solemnly told him that I would “learn” him everything I knew. Since that time I’ve done my best to educate Austin on the finer points of life.

I thought it might be appropriate on the night Austin starts his married life with Lauren to give him a few more nuggets of brotherly wisdom…

Austin, I believe that I can speak for myself and everyone here in saying – No one wants to go to your gun show. We’ve all been there and once was more than enough

Be considerate of Lauren. You’ve lived the past 25 years in male dominated households. Put down the toilet seat

Disputes and Arguments will crop up from time to time. Be slow to anger, quick to listen, and first to apologize. From my experience your wife will always win anyways.

Finally – let her know that you love her everyday. Never stop telling her she’s beautiful and don’t be too annoyed when she beats you in any competition.

I love you Austin.

Lauren, it’s been wonderful getting to know you. Austin has been a new man with you in his life and we are all excited to having you as part of the family.

Congrats! Let’s all raise our glasses to Austin and Lauren.

Quilt 2009

So I can FINALLY tell y'all what I've been doing for the past four months! Since January Marian and I have been furiously working on a quilt for Austin and Lauren's wedding. I don't know how many hours we spent deciding on a pattern, creating the layout and measurements, picking out fabric, washing and ironing fabric, cutting, and then finally assembling the quilt. We pieced the quilt, which means we put it together, but we hired a woman to quilt it, which is the part where you sew the top, the batting, and the back together. We don't have a special machine and it would have taken us way too long to quilt it ourselves.

The quilt has the Ohio Star block in it. We used a bunch of Marian's fabric scraps, which she said included a lot of fabric that used to be Aunt Helen's (recognize anything, Aunt Helen?). We also bought some fabric that we wanted featured, including a "Go Green, Go White" print, some horse/riding prints, a snowman one, and some Civil War reproduction fabric, since Lauren is from Tennessee. I LOVE that Civil War fabric and want to buy a bunch more for myself.

It was a load of fun to make it. We wanted to see them open their gift and figured the days around the wedding would be a little too hectic. Well, and basically, we were tired of waiting. :) So we gave it to them Friday night when they were in town.

The Bird goes to Chicago!

On Sunday JB, Olivia, and I made a sort of impromptu trip to Chicago to see our brothers. Neither of them have met Olivia. Austin has been traveling a lot the last few months and we probably won't see him until the new year, and it's always fun to see my brother and his girlfriend Virginia, so we hopped in the car and went!

Unfortunately for me, the Bird only slept from 1 a.m. to 4 a.m. that day, and I had volunteered to drive TO Chicago, because JB is a better night driver and would be driving us home. I was soo tired! Agh! I drank this crappy gas station cappuccino to keep me up but caffeine doesn't really help me. Then I decided to count the cars on the other side of the highway. That also wasn't effective, as it was early Sunday morning and no one was driving around. So I filled my mind with "worst case scenarios" about the drive, which I do often (gotta be prepared!). I came up with game plans of what to do if, say for instance, a giant semi-truck suddenly came barreling out of the woods to the right and was about to t-bone our car. Would I a.) drive down into the steep median but keep going in the same direction, hoping to avoid the semi by inches, b.) yank the wheel hard left, causing the car to do a 180 and drive into the oncoming traffic lane and attempt to maneuver around THAT traffic, or c.) try to miss the truck by either hitting the brakes or the gas? This game worked pretty well until I got too wrapped up in it and started to wander out of my lane because I was looking at the amount of oncoming traffic across the median to determine if driving directly across the median to avoid the semi would be my best bet. The car's tires hit the rumble strip and JB woke up. He got nervous because he thought I was falling asleep. I was not--can't be falling asleep if an evil semi could be lurking in the woods!

When we arrived in Chicago we met up with Austin and went to Eleven City Diner, a neat cafe in the Grant Park area. It still strikes me how excited people get when they see babies. Olivia was riding in the Baby Bjorn (front-carrying backpack thingy) and no one could see her face, but ladies got excited nonetheless. (I'd at least wait until I saw the baby's face: what if the baby was SCARY looking??) The owner was just enamored with Olivia, especially after she looked in the carrier and saw her. She was an older woman wearing these sweet funky eyeglasses, and I was pleased to have such a lady take interest in my child. This was the second restaurant owner to rave about Olivia. The first was Marie Caltrib, whom I blogged about previously. When Marian had returned to Marie Caltrib's three days after Olivia's visit, Marie had asked Marian, "Where is your baby?" Well, either that lady has some memory or Olivia made a major impression on her!

The hostess at Eleven City Diner looked at Olivia and then at me and said, "I think she's going to have your red hair!"

LOL.

I didn't have the heart to tell her that my brown hair had randomly turned reddish, though I did point out JB's red locks to her.

After lunch we headed with Austin to Tommy and Virginia's place in the Lakeview area. I would like the record to show that on the Wii I am the cow racing champion. I can't play any other video games worth a dime, but man, can I race them cows! haha. Olivia sort of played her first video game, as JB managed to juggle holding Olivia and the Wii remote control at the same time. We had dinner at Joy's, my favorite Thai restaurant. I was very excited to be there but the Bird was not, and so she cried the whole time, which prevented me from eating. Boo, Olivia! I say, Boo!

JB and I both agree that if we were to live in a big city, it would be Chicago. For now, though, we'll just have to make the 3-hour trip here and there.