So we wake up, I got ready first so Shannon could sleep a bit longer. Then Shannon got ready.
After Nathan, Jenny and Taylor were ready, we headed over to my Parents house. Terry couldn't go 'cause he was helping Zeke put in GFI outlets into the house he was selling and help him move to the apartment.
So we headed over, and were greeted by Mom and Dad, Emily and Brent, and their three kids (Mary, Jared and Julia), Hyrum and Diane (Spencer and Dallin). So quite the crowded house. At first I think that Nathan was a bit worried about Taylor fitting in, but she fit right in and started playing with the crowd. We unpacked our new coffee table and put it in my parents basement.
Breakfast, late as it was, consisted of pancakes, muffin bread, apple bread (I think), fried ham, and apple syrup. It was all very good. My mom (and the assitants) are all very good cooks.
A bit later Jed and Stephanie show up with a pan of cinnamon rolls and a pan of raisin cinnamon rolls. The raisin ones were pretty good (I assume the others were too, but I didn't try them).
After a bit more chatting and stuff, we had to head back to Nathan and Jenny's cause I forgot my pills and then we headed to Chucky Cheese's to celebrate Taylor's 18 month birthday.
Eventually we found Terry, Zeke and a girl that Zeke is seeing (I never caught her name).
We played a lot of silly games, and won Taylor a lot of tickets. They had this moving line game, where I wont the jackpot on (36 tickets) and won a bunch of other tickets on this circle game thing, but I kept missing the jackpot. it was very frustrating.
All this was fun.
They got pizza, but it was...well...greasey and not the best. I guess I can remember why I don't eat there :)
Taylor had fun, she watched this bee game lots and slid on the slide.
After exchanging her tickets (and a bunch of money for the tokens to get the tickets) Taylor went away with a stress ball (looked like a koosh), a slinkey, and some stickers.
We headed to Nathan and Jenny's and got ready to go to the wedding.
So Richard and Elana's wedding was held in this nice lutheran church. It was a nice service and Elana was very striking in her wedding dress. There were 4 attendants on each side, which was quite a lot. But the red dresses that the ladys were wearing and the tuxes the guys were wearing were all vey nice.
We headed out through the line, where we heard Richard introuduce us to Elana's mom (in russian).
We chatted for a while with various people (including Kelly, who I hadn't seen in a long time), while we were waiting for them to take pictures. Got some bubbles and entertained Taylor with them (BUBBLES!).
Eventually they headed out through a highlight of bubbles and headed out in Richard's dad's car (a clasic car...but I can't remember what it is now). And they headed over to the reception.
We also headed over, following Nathan, since we left our map on our fridge in Des Moines. We made one wrong turn and we got to the reception.
We headed in, and dropped off our bag 'o gifts and steaked out a table. At the table we had Dan's fiance, Shannon and I, Nate Jenny and Taylor and Bret and his wife, and Kelly. Surrounding our table was Clif and wade. It was a good time.
Beer, wine and soda was free so I had a couple of beers. There was a nice booklet that explained the ins and outs of a Russian wedding. I kinda wish I would've taken one with me, but I didn't. One of the thing that I remember though was in a Russian wedding, at least once during the night, the friends of the groom are supposed to steal the bride and ransom her back to the groom. Also, it is expect for people to drink at the wedding. In fact, I believe it said that a good wedding is no one can remember what happend ie, people are encouraged to overindulge.
So we had settled in and when the newly married couple arrived, they were greeted by Richard's parents and Elana's mom with a specially made loaf of special wedding bread. So the idea is that whomever tears off the biggest piece of bread will end up being the head of the household. Elana, though given the chance, let Richard tear the biggest piece off.
Then there was a speech. Richard's dad spoke and spoke and spoke and talked about many things. In part he was waiting for one of the groomsmen to arrive, cause they were late. Although what Richard's dad said was very nice. And after a LONG time, he finally showed up (who know's what he was doing).
Then came the food. The food was better then I expected, given the rusted out van in the parking lot. The potatoes were actually very good. It was probably one of the better wedding meals I had had. It's too bad I didn't catch who the catering company was, otherwise I'd plug 'em here.
After a while, it was starting to get late (cause things were running so far behind), so it was about time to go home.
So we made our goodbyes (we forgot to say good bye to the bride and groom, but I think that had more to do that they were doing thier first dance then anything). While doing so, Dan asked me to be a Groomsman at his wedding. I was very moved by this. So I guess some time in February, we'll be heading to Texas to go to that wedding.
We then got in our car, and headed back to Des Moines. We got home a little before 11:PM and we pretty much immediately went to bed.
