Julie and her kids (Liam, Blake, and Emma) picked me up at the Miami airport Friday afternoon, and we immediately headed back for Julie's house. Once the kids were in bed that night, Julie and I ordered sushi and cracked open a bottle of wine. We had to practically rip her kitchen apart to find a corkscrew--doesn't drink much, that Julie--but we did find one, and we had a terrific evening.
Saturday morning, we were up and out by 9:30, which was only a half hour later than we had planned. For us, that's practically on time! This was the first time Julie has left her kids overnight for any reason other than birthing another baby, so I had to take a picture of her emancipation proclamation as we pulled out of the driveway:
We pointed the minivan towards Tampa and settled back for 5 blissful hours of nonstop talking. We left no stone unturned--we analyzed ourselves, our husbands, our kids. This was the first time we've been alone without at least one of our kids in 10 years, so there was a lot of catching up to do.
We arrived at the hotel in Tampa just ahead of our sisters and roommates for the night:
Once we had changed into our wedding clothes (Hey, Jenny, are those your wonder unders, or did you accidentally wind up with a pair of Emma's leggings?) and freshened up a bit, we all went downstairs for the wedding. We popped "backstage" to greet the bride and the mother of the bride:
There was a brief delay in the ceremony while one of the bridesmaids was being stitched into her dress after the zipper decided to call it a day. As you can see, Eric (the groom) was eager to get things started:
The ceremony was beautiful and went off without a hitch. We hung around afterwards for a big family photo and then milled around on the pool deck for the cocktail hour before the reception. (Hey, Julie! Who died and made you Kate Moss?)
The reception was a blast! All of us cousins were at table 8, along with Eric's sister and her husband and a friend of his from Orlando. Table 8 was THE party table. We weren't too shy to ask for seconds and thirds (and fourths) on champagne. In fact, eventually we just suggested to the waiter that he leave the bottle on the table, which he did.
Toward the end of the evening, we wandered out into the hotel lobby to take pictures. Here's one that I call "Girl Cousins Gone Wild":
It was also a siblingpalooza. Here are my aunt Suzie (mother of the bride), my uncle Johnny, and my mom:
Here's a shot of me with my sister and my parents. I swear my sister and I didn't PLAN on dressing like twins. It just kind of happened:
As you may recall, every time we cousins get together, we lie down on the floor to take an updated picture of our classic cousin pose. Becky wasn't keen on the idea of wallowing on the floor of the hotel lobby in her white dress, so this time we had to take a picture like grownups:
The rest of the evening went very smoothly, and Jenny even caught the bouquet. Don't hold your breath though--Jenny appears to be immune to the desired effects of bouquet-catching.
After the formal part of the evening concluded, the 5 of us cousins who were NOT the bride moved to room 438 for the post-party party. We tend to go quite a while between reunions, so it's always nice to get back together. We catch up on all the family gossip and look back on the good old days and wonder just what the hell ever happened to Grandma's huge starfish pillow. Saturday night we did all that, but we did it over 3 bottles of wine, which was a nice addition to the tradition. Our entertainment for the evening was watching Julie (who, remember, couldn't find her corkscrew the night before and is seriously out of party training) tie one on:
Cousinpalooza wound down around 2 a.m. when Danny left and we girls went to bed. We slept until 9:30 that morning and awoke feeling (fortunately) none the worse for wear. Julie and I were on the road by lunch time and enjoyed another nice long afternoon of constant talking. We arrived back at Julie's just before 6, and Emma was very happy to see her mom (and her "Cousin Bonnie"):
Julie and I capped off our adventure with another round of sushi after the kids went to bed but decided that we had had quite enough wine for one weekend. We are, however, counting on Danny or Jenny to get married sometime soon so that we can have an excuse for another Cousinpalooza!
- If you want to see these photos plus a few more, you can go here.
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