We’re back in town again, after a weekend excursion to Texas. Not just Texas, though… San Antonio. Seven hours down, seven hours back, which at different points felt more like fourteen thousand miles total with two toddlers on board. It was well worth it, though, as we were able to be there for Kevin and Elise’s wedding! We stopped over in Fort Worth going both ways to break up the trip a little bit for the girls, which helped immensely. They’re napping right now, seemingly content to be back in their own beds instead of in the car…

I think this picture was taken somewhere in Austin. I know — they missed all of the exciting traffic!

We left on Thursday afternoon, arriving at our “pit stop” (aka, my parents’ house) just in time to eat some pizza and celebrate Ana’s birthday with a cookie cake that we brought with us all the way from Oklahoma. A cookie cake which Ana didn’t even end up liking, of course. (She ended up eating Oreos instead.)

On Friday, we drove down to San Antonio and arrived at our second “pit stop” (aka, Wes’s parents’ house) in time for the girls to nap. Wes’s grandmother treated me to a pedicure and manicure… at the same time that the groom went in for his manicure. (Now see, I wasn’t supposed to say anything about that, but how could I not say something about that? He was getting a manicure! A MAN-icure!) We all went to the rehearsal later that night and enjoyed a fabulous fajita meal. Yum!

The next morning was Emma’s birthday. Here she is with her charm bracelet…

… NOT in her mouth! Well, color me surprised, y’all.

After breakfast, we loaded up the girls for a trip to the portrait studio, where many, many tears were shed. The photographer was perhaps the saddest of us all, as he couldn’t understand why our girls were so terrified of him and his scary, scary camera. It’s a mystery to us all! He did manage to get a couple of good shots of the girls individually while I made a complete fool of myself in the background, but they were both so distraught after only a few minutes that we didn’t even attempt a picture of them together. Here are the two best…

Wes’s thumb doesn’t make an appearance in the final product, just in case you were wondering. (We had that cropped out.)

That’s actually yellow icing, not mustard. After an afternoon spent playing and napping, we got the girls dressed up for the wedding, in the dresses that they would have worn in their pictures together…

So adorable!

The wedding was wonderful. Kevin is Wes’s cousin and was the best man in our wedding. He is such a great guy, and Elise is so wonderful and sweet. Wes was honored to do their ceremony, and we were so happy to have been able to be a part of it all.

Wes’s parents and my parents were both there to help out with the girls, which was great. This is the first wedding we’ve attended as parents, and wow. No one tells you before you have kids how even simple things like sitting through a short wedding ceremony, eating a dinner at a reception, enjoying the dance… how you just can’t do it anymore! (Or maybe people did try to tell me that. I probably just ignored them like the fool that I am. Ha!) Ana and Emma were in great moods and stayed up later than normal without too much of a fuss, but it was still a change from our non-chan days. (“Chan” being the Okinawan term of endearment for children. Ana Chan, Emma Chan, etc.) Wes and I didn’t even get a chance to dance together because we were so busy dancing around two tots. And speaking of dancing tots, here’s a picture of the birthday girl, showing off her dance moves…

So happy! (No, I wasn’t choking her. Although it looks like I was, doesn’t it?!)

We were able to be at church on Sunday morning for the dedication of one of Wes’s other cousin’s daughter, Hannah. I didn’t get a picture of her from Sunday, but she looked adorable! We packed up after lunch, headed to Fort Worth for the night, and arrived back in Oklahoma just in time for lunch today.

Whew.

This week, our new garage door is being installed (yay!), Wes is having a committee meeting at our house tomorrow night, and our family and friends are heading up on Saturday for the girls’ birthday party. I feel bad about the San Antonio bunch having to make the drive after such a busy weekend, but I’m excited about them seeing our home and the church for the first time. Wes’s great grandmother was at the wedding and will be here this weekend as well. How many kids can say that their great-great grandmother was at their birthday party? Amazing!
And with that, I should probably continue to sort through the massive loads of laundry begging to be unpacked…

(And family members — I’ll post ALL of the pictures from this weekend on snapfish and send you a link. Please send me links to all of yours!)