A Wedding with a View

As I alluded to in the last post, Evan's swim team season was cut in half by some fabulous family trips.  For the first adventure, we hopped on an early morning plane to St. Louis, our end destination, Grand Lake, Oklahoma.  So, after the quick plane flight and a car ride through the hilly Ozarks that left Evan and I a little queasy, we arrived at our beautiful lake house.

However, we weren't there long.  We had to change into our slightly nicer clothes and head on over to Cherokee Spur Ranch for the rehearsal dinner for my cousin Courtney and her soon-to-be husband Griff.  The ranch was absolutely beautiful, with sweeping views of the lake directly behind where the ceremony would be held.  We had a great evening watching the boys who had been reunited with their cousins Jack and Olivia playing in the big field behind the patio with the beautiful lake in the background, talking with all of my fabulous family that I hadn't seen in far too long, and just generally eating, drinking and being merry.  It was definitely foreshadowing of what was to come.

The next day was the big wedding day.  We headed down for a pre-wedding BBQ lunch.  Everyone was pretty busy getting ready, so we mainly tried to stay out of the way of all of the setting up and beautifying.  The boys were playing outside to stay out of the way and discovered a tiny little fountain up near the house, not much water at all.  However, that didn't stop them from absolutely making a soaking, muddy mess out of themselves.

To separate them from the mess, we decided to walk them down a dirt hill to check out some froggies that Uncle Chip's wife Jane had found on an earlier walk.  We started to walk down the gravel path which led down a hill.  As was walked behind the running kiddos, Ian started to say, "What are our chances of all these kids making it down the hill without someone getting hurt?"  Before he could even get the sentence out, Benny falls face first and destroys his knee.  It was a pretty deep cut, but to keep Benny from completely melting down, we continue on to the frog pond.  We watch the little frogs pop up and down in the pool, and eventually we turn around and march everyone, including Ben back up to the house to bandage the bloody knee.

We headed back to the lake house after that and cleaned our messy selves up for the wedding.  We were significantly more presentable when we headed back to the ranch for the actual wedding.  It was early evening and the light on the back porch for the ceremony was just beautiful.  The wedding was lovely, and there was even a moment where two of Griff's cousins were singing one of my favorite songs and a flock of birds suddenly flew across the scene behind them.  I briefly thought that there was someone in the forest releasing birds because they were perfectly timed and it was lovely!

The reception after the wedding was held in another pavilion, so after some family pictures, we headed on over.  Throughout the whole reception, I just noticed all of these fantastic little touches like hanging flowerpots in the trees, table cards hung with tiny clothespins, painted candle holders on the table, and the wedding programs were even folded into little paper airplanes.

The whole party was lovely from start to finish.  Courtney looked beautiful, Grill looked strong and handsome, and they looked very in love.  I'm so happy for my cousin, she looked so happy, and they both looked so in love!  Their first dance surrounded by friends and family blowing bubbles was such a romantic moment.  The food was the most delicious wedding food that I have had in a long time-chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes, and little individual peach pies for dessert.  However, the most inspiring part of the meal was definitely the kids table next to ours where the kids could sit and enjoy their food together while we enjoyed our food in peace.

The kids also got to enjoy their first post-wedding dance party.  Usually we head out when the dancing starts, but this time the kids joined right in with the party, shaking their booty with all of the other dancers on the dance floor.  However, their favorite part of the night might have been running around in the field next to the reception area and collecting all of the clay pigeons that weren't hit in the target practice that morning and eventually smashing all of them on the ground.

It was a beautiful celebration and we were so lucky to be there to share with with our wonderful family!  The wedding was over, but the week of fun was just beginning, so more tales from our adventures in Oklahoma next time.