Wedding Weekend

The pre-wedding:

I got a manicure and pedicure from an amazing girl. The pedicure was decided last minute and was great. I'd never had either so it was a nice treat. I was so happy that my nails made it up to the manicure.

Rehearsal Dinner:

It was a success. Other than the odd fact that my parents were not seated at the main table with us, everyone had fun. The food was delicious. My daughter, having declared that the flower girl should be seated next to the bride, spent a good portion of the night sharing a chair with my sister and I.

The wedding:

Despiter my fears, my hair and makeup came out perfect. We enjoyed mimosas while we got ready. I left my veil at the hotel, but my sister's boyfriend went to get it. We arrived at the Country Club and had more mimosas. My sweetie's mom showed up really late, delaying our pictures by quite a bit. Finally, I got ready. I had to wait a bit for everyone to gather at the bottom of the stairs so that I could make a proper entrance. We were taking the pictures before the ceremony, but I wanted to have a special entrance before the pictures.

My daughter and my sister looked amazing.

The weather cooperated. Despite freezing rain in the middle of the week, the day was warm enough to take pictures outside. Although my fiance hated the photographer when we first met him, he fell in love with him that day. The photographer was terrific.

I waited upstairs to begin.

The ceremony began and went off beautifully. Although we had bought a video camera, my fiance's brother had left it in the car. I looked around and noticed no one was videotaping. I almost stopped the cremony and wish I would have. Luckily, my niece took some video with her camera. I watched it today (my friend made sure to get it copied by the photographer right then and there) and my niece had filmed our vows. I cried when watching it. Though I was disappointed not to get the whole thing, I felt a lot better knowing she got the important part. During the vows I got teary. W held hands through the whole ceremony. Later everyone said they wanted to marry him because of the way he looked at me the whole time.

We mingled during the cocktail hour while one of the staff followed us around the whole time with a tray of hors d'ouevres.

I delayed the introductions because I found out the camera was still in the car. I started crying again, this time because I couldn't believe that after the ceremony mishap, the brother messed up again. The staff took care of it and then my sister made sure that she captured the rest of the important moments.

The food was great. I wasn't nervous. Everyone was terrific. At the last minute, I sang for him. We danced and made merry. My junior high friend took me out on the dance floor twice to spin me around.

A lot of people left early, but plenty stayed. It was a little weird celebrating during the daytime. It made the party atmosphere a little less so, but I had plenty of fun.

After the wedding, we went to our favorite little place in Providence with my sister and his brother.

Then we checked into our hotel, courtesy of my sister.

Our two days were wonderful. Last night we treated ourselves to room service- champagne and strawberries. We also had our first married fight that day, but we lived.

Obama at School

Yesterday, I showed McCain and Obama's speeches in my math class. I thought it was really important for my kids to see them. Some of the kids were clearly uninterested, but many were really engaged. The kids had a lot of great questions and comments.

One class in particular really got into it. They were clapping and cheering during Obama's speech. One girl kept saying how much she wished she could have been there. She also mentioned how nice it was that the Obama rally was so "colorful".

I'm glad I showed the speeches.

On the flip side, there are a few staff mothers that have major issues about how race is being handled. Comments like these:

"He's not even black or African-American. Why are they calling him that? He's not. We don't say he's white."

"Who was he raised by? His WHITE mother and his WHITE grandparents. And where was his dad- back in Kenya."

"You can tell who he's talking to because he changes how he speaks depending on his audience."

"Everyone's saying it's not about race, but all the black people voted for him because he's black, so it IS all about race."

I get what they're saying, but for me it just shows that so many people still don't get it.

What bothers me the most is the assertion that he doesn't deserve the title of African-American. First of all, Obama has the right to classify himself however he wants, though I suspect it's more the media making the decision than him. Yes, it is more accurate to say biracial, but would we make the same argument about any other group? If your mom is hispanic and your dad is not, does that mean you can't call yourself hispanic? How about Native American? How about Irish? French? Portuguese? Seriously, is it necessary to argue that point? When Obama is a stranger out on the street, do you think anyone would say he's biracial? No, they'd call him a black man because in his case it's not obvious that he is biracial (and even if it were, there are plenty of folks, especially the racist ones, that would just call him black). Finally, I can't think of a better description for him than African-American. He literally had an African father and an American mother.

/end rant

Politics

Things I did in my math class this week:

1. Taught how the electoral college works.
2. Taught a voting rights timeline and had the kids create their own.
3. Showed a movie about the civil rights movie called "Free at Last"
4. Graphed lots and lots of voting data.
5. Colored in an electoral map with current polling data.

Monday we'll be creating a circle graph of current strong dem, strong rep, weak dem, etc.

I purposely keep my own views out of it, but I'm thrilled to see my students sporting Obama pins and putting pictures of him in their binders.

Please, please, please let it be Obama!

Presidential Debates

If McCain says "my friends" one more time, I might scream.

In other news, neither is standing out to me as better even though I support Obama.

Visit

Friday night: Drive in pouring rain. Get there at 8:30ish

Sleep

Saturday: gymnastics (cool), swim (cut short due to crying), McDonald's, flower girl dress trying on and buying (she told the lady she had two moms).

Saturday night: babysitting- pizza party, High School Musical, Wii, and random breaking down in tears, much of it about missing her mom (that was fun), snuggling her to sleep because she wanted me to stay with her.

Sunday: more driving, less rain

Wedding Update

Booked the reception.

Booked the cake.

Bought the dress.

Bought the veil.

Picked the flowers.

Have someone working on the invitations.

Meeting a photographer next Monday.

Aunt knows a JP.

All we need is a DJ.

Oh, and some rings. :)

Birthday Visit

For the first time since my daughter was born, I missed her birthday party.

I planned to go, but decided the morning of that I just couldn't cram it in to an already packed weekend.

I felt awful.

I missed the birthday during the year when she's obsessed with me.

My fiance wants to move across the country next summer so this was probably the last birthday party I could attend.

It was rough.

The silver lining is that I'll be going there this weekend and staying from Friday to Sunday.

Today

It's my daughter's birthday today.

I just got home and realized I hadn't called. Now it's too late to call.