All Dressed Up

Here we are in all our glory at Samad and Stephanie's wedding. If you want to see more pictures, join Facebook and become my friend, if you dare. The trip to Cali went well. No, we weren't gone for a week, but I'm just getting my lame ass on here now to write about it.

Let's see, if was definitely a whirlwind journey. Left Friday morning and had a pretty easy flight with the kids, thanks to the brilliant invention called the DVD. As soon as we landed, we got our rental mini van (tip: rent cars on Hotwire and save mega bucks), drove to the hotel near Irvine, I race in to change into my party dress, jump back in the car and get dropped off at the Irvine Spectrum for the bachelorette party. It was my first bachelorette party where the dad and brother attended, but hey, they were buying the drinks so I didn't care! We went into LA to see Chris Pierce (who btw Jamie reminded me of a nice former roommate of yours) and totally fell in love with his music. It's not my usual type of band I'm in to, but he had the most beautiful voice and his songs were just so damn positive and sweet it's impossible not to fall for this guy. Debby Holliday opened for him and she totally blew me away with her powerful vocals and catchy tunes. Man, I wish I could sing like that.

So that was just Friday night. The next day was Saturday and needless to say I was illin', especially since the kids got up at 6:30 or some such nonsense. We hung around the hotel for a bit, then saw some cousins who lived nearby, then drove to Riverside to the Mission Inn. This place was simply gorgeous and the chapel where Sammy and Steph were married was perfect. Just like one of the old churches in Mexico. After a day of rehearsal, hot tubbing and a rehearsal dinner with about 75 people,we were ready for the wedding. Sadly Kaveh decided to skip the bachelor party (damn - I wanted to hear the inside dirt), but he was better off since we didn't even get back to the hotel until close to 11.

The next morning, Nina and I awoke at 6am to go to Steph's place to get our hair done. Groan. Nina's hair looked great, mine looked okay except you couldn't tell I had it done. I decided to splurge and get my make-up done and I felt glamorous for the first time in a very long time. The wedding was beautiful except for the fact that Niko, the ring bearer, decided to be a very naughty boy during the wedding and threw a fit when he had to give the pillow (it had fake rings on it, thankfully) to the best man. Kaveh and I were both in the wedding so we were powerless to deal with him. Thanks to cousin Sahra and Aunt Vikki for calming him down. He fell asleep immediately after the wedding. Poor kid.

I could go on but, hey! WAKE UP! I'm sure this is boring the crap out of you. It was so great to see family (especially you Sahra and Marilyn) and I am very happy to have Stephanie as my sis-in-law. She is truly soooo sweet. The kind of sweet person who kind of makes you sick they're so nice. I'll have to uncover her dark side so I don't feel so mean and cynical around her.

So we're back to the grind now and are too broke to travel anywhere else for a while. It's starting to feel like fall 'round here and the excitement of the holidays is in the air. I'm settling in to work and starting to get to know my new students. The kids seem to be adjusting to their new schedule without too many issues. Time is moving ahead and we are just riding the waves seeing where we'll go next.