Memorial Weekend 2010!

"The best laid plans" should be the real title of this post. It's amazing with even my superb planning skills (more like OCD/controlling skills) how things still can go completely awry. (love the word "awry.")

Lo and behold, Ryan had Saturday off- this does NOT happen people. Normally when there is a holiday, everyone else at Culligan is home but RYAN is the one they send in to do some grunt work. You can imagine my excitement and PURE JOY when he told me he was off on Saturday :)

Saturday was spent cleaning and doing yard work. I planted a mini-garden. It's MINI MINI. Ryan kind of refused to dig up a patch of grass larger than a beach towel... (yeah that's about the size of my little garden... one of those over sized beach towels). We got this wiggle worm hose thingy for Maeve to play in while I concentrated (intensely) on planting my squash (that's all I really have growing in there at the moment... BUT along w/ my scattering of melon plants- which are coming along VERY nicely & my 3 topsy turvy's I am hoping to have some luck!)

Saturday night we rented "Dear John." I was disappointed. I was waiting for her to write "I'm pregnant" or "I have cancer" or SOMETHING really dramatic. Instead it was just a bunch of "blah blah blah." Ryan joked that in order for me to deem a movie "really good" there has to be either a pregnancy or a death. Not true, not true... :)

Sunday we woke up bright and early- I had to be at church at 10:30 to photograph a dedication. We were taking the kids (the dedication was at the church we go to anyway) but I didn't want to try and focus on taking pictures with Maeve tugging on me. So I left early and went by myself & the kids followed with my parents. The service was great... somehow that pastor speaks to my heart each and every time. I honestly start looking around like "are there cameras somewhere recording my reactions???" Because the messages always hit home (sometimes too close to home).

Now, I've expressed my desire to someday be a "photographer"- I am hoping to take a post-production class at some point... anyways, I would love to continue to photograph children, babies, couples, seniors, etc. BUT I have absolutely NO DESIRE, WHATSOEVER to photograph a wedding. The stress combined with church lighting... ummm no thanks. So yeah- that church lighting- this is my 2nd time photographing a baptism/dedication and this one was tougher than the first. This church had stage lighting so it was pretty shadowy. Fortunately the parents saved me a great seat RIGHT in front of where the pastor dedicated Lottie. I was grateful I didn't have to run all over the place :) And believe it or not, even with the crappy lighting, there are some pretty cool pictures. Still editing...still editing...



After the dedication we headed up to Detroit. It was WEDDING time. Our (my family's- not OURS) old foreign exchange student, Martina, was getting married. We totally missed the wedding. I mean, the wedding party was marching out as we were running in. Whoops. We met up with my family & thus began the waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

First we waited outside (for about an hour & a half) for the wedding party to get to the limo & do bubbles... during this time, I made my sister and her boyfriend, Cody, pose for pictures. We joked everyone was going to think they were engaged :) ... they're not. Just for the record. But they do make a cute couple...

We made our way over to the reception which was in Greektown- the only part of Detroit I'm semi-familiar with. Greektown 5 years ago (pre-kids/marriage) was fun... but Greektown with 2 babies, uhhhh not so much. We went to the reception (which was in the upstairs of this really good pizza place) and let Maeve dance and dance and dance. No joke- about 2 hours later (by this time it was 8:30 or so?) dinner still had not been served and my kids were losing it. Well... Henry was okay- he just wanted to sleep but was having a hard time because of the noise and lights. Maeve was a second away from a meltdown. This was really not very "mom" of me- but we were IN Greektown- like a step away from the casino... so I asked my mom if she could watch Maeve for 20 minutes while Ryan and I spent 10 bucks in the casino. We ended up winning 50 bucks. We're lucky like that :)

We ran back up to the reception and dinner was STILL not being served. Now it was around 9 or so. It was time to pack up and leave. Maeve actually fell asleep like a sack of potatoes and Henry followed suit. Luckily we only had a 10 minute drive back to our hotel in Southfield.

We got there, checked in, got the crib set up and ordered room service ASAP. I felt HORRIBLE- Maeve kept saying "I SO HUNGRY!" The food got there semi-fast and Maeve was in heaven :) We spread the food out on the bed and she picked away. I think it was 11:30 or so by the time we fell asleep. It was a LONG DAY.


The next morning started out promising- a great breakfast, followed by a HUGE DOWNPOUR. No Detroit zoo :( We drove home early- around 9 or so, and I was deterrrrrmined to do SOMETHING for Memorial day. Unfortunately the rain hit Jackson as well, and the parades were canceled. Ahhhhh well. The best laid plans, right?

We didn't get to swim at the Westin. We didn't get to the zoo. We didn't see any parades. We even missed the fireworks on Saturday night. BUT it was a good weekend. Even though our plans were kind of all over the place...