San Diego, balm for a burnt out Amy

Okay, so here, finally, is the wrap-up of our weekend in San Diego, at the wedding of a very good friend, while the kids stayed home with grandma.

Since it's Friday and I'm lazy, a photo-essay:

Good Times:
The unbridled joy of the bride and groom, but especially the groom.


The fact that Heidi confiscated my camera, which meant that some pictures actually got taken. And good ones, too!



The incredible awesome-ness of the wedding band. Besides being a 30 piece band, complete with dancing girls in sequined dresses and 18 year old blonde surfer dudes in shiny tuxedos singing Earth Wind and Fire at octaves usually heard at the opera, they featured a blind piano player doing Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles impressions, several outfit changes for the whole band, a fiddle player to challenge any Kentucky blue grass band, and a God Bless America medley which might have been cheesy, but for the one soldier at the wedding, in full uniform, standing at attention through the whole thing. Oh, and later in the evening they handed out props, like the guitar you saw me "playing" in that other post. Seriously, even the fact that they sang both "Kokomo" and "I just called to say I love you" did not take away from the fun times we had dancing. Oh, and maybe the best thing of all was the priest throwing down when they sang Mary J. Blige's Praise Me* towards the end of the night. I WISH I had a photo of that.

there he is, before the dancing started

the band, going off

That my husband performed his best man duties admirably, including giving a nice speech at the rehearsal dinner that didn't even embarrass me.

(I'd love to have a picture here, but--well, Heidi wasn't at the rehearsal dinner, and although I did bring the camera, I didn't remember to take it out of my purse. Sorry, honey. He looked hot, though, trust me.)

That Heidi's new boyfriend continues to step up to the plate, say the right things, and be the right guy.

(Again, no photo. The Cake, as we call him, is relatively new, so he did not get the invite to the reception. He came for the weekend though, and loaned Heidi and I his porche to drive to the church and back. Very cool.)

That so many people who were at the wedding are good friends and good people.



That my kids enjoyed spending the weekend with their grandparents almost as much as Lance and I enjoyed spending the weekend without them.



That my dress, due to the extreme tightness around the bodice, which required two people to zip up and made breathing difficult, actually gave me some cleavage. A miracle in and of itself.



(the existence of cleavage is enough to overlook the fact that my face looks terrible in this shot. Focus on the boobs, people.)

Not so good times:

That I lost Heidi's $450 sweater at the last bar we went to, after remembering to grab it from the church, the cocktail spot, and the reception hall, all of which are places where, HAD I left it there, I would probably have gotten a bit more help than the guy who answered the phone at the bar ("What? Sweater?Oh, I don't think so. Someone else probably stole it already.")

See the sweater?

there it is again

That although we managed to arrive in Del Mar with an hour and half to spare, we still missed our designated start time at the church for the rehearsal by 15 minutes, since my pretty pretty husband was so busy primping, AND saying things like "Don't be such a nag!" "It's only 15 minutes away!" "Chill-ax, babe". Oh, I love him so. The bride was thrilled, as you can imagine.

That the 8-year-old dress I brought to wear to the rehearsal dinner made me look exactly like a stuffed sausage. Since apparently when I tried on said 8-year-old dress a week or so before the wedding, I was drunk. Or blind. Or something that caused me to believe it actually still fit.

(No picture. Duh. Haven't I embarrassed myself enough?)

That there was not sufficient water pressure at the ghetto, I mean Best Western, where we were staying to get the shampoo out of my hair.
(See all above photos.)

That we decided against calling a cab and instead walked 1 mile to the hotel from the bar (withOUT the sweater, I should add) in barefeet.

And that was our weekend. Very much fun, and worth the life-threatening hangover I had all day Sunday.

The happy couple. We owe it all to you:



*Okay, I was very drunk at this point, but I swear it was a Mary J Blige song, and I swear she was singing Praise me! or Praise him! but now I can't find a song like that anywhere.
In any event, the priest was wasted and REALLY enjoying whatever song it was.