It's a Nice Day for a White Wedding*

Please don't shoot me for my less than creative title. (It's no joke coming up with these appropriate song lyric titles!)


Anyway, I'm not dead.


I have been to North Carolina and back, and I'm crazy busy at work, and I have a Japanese exchange student arriving in two days, but I'm here.


We went to North Carolina for my cousin's wedding. We flew into Raleigh, where we had some very nice Vietnamese food and then proceeded to have a very disappointing experience with a tuxedo rental store which shall remain nameless.

Apparently, the employee of the tuxedo rental store that measured Gabriel six weeks ago had no clue how to measure a child, because there is no way my son grew three inches around his neck and four inches in his arms in six weeks. (The fact that the employee was hanging out of BOTH ENDS of her DRESS leads me to believe that she had no ability to put the appropriate size clothing on herself, so I don't know why I had any faith that she would get Gabe's measurements right.)


At any rate, the shirt that was shipped to the store in Raleigh was way too small and they didn't have another shirt in the right size at any of their four Raleigh locations. They had screwed up one of the groomsmen's measurements as well (this after my aunt spent four hours on the phone with them - FOUR HOURS - discussing measurements.) The long and the short of this (har-har, I slay myself) - was that someone was going to have to drive back to Raleigh from the site of the wedding, an hour south of Raleigh, on the morning of the wedding, in order to obtain the appropriate sized clothing.


Happily for the groom and the groom's father (to whom the task of retrieving the tuxedos fell), there is a sno-cone shop halfway between Raleigh and the wedding site that has 99 flavors of sno-cones.


The groom later informed everyone that the lemonade flavor was quite nice with Jack Daniels.


So, if you're ever in Smithfield, North Carolina, you might want to see what flavor of sno-cone you like with Jack Daniels...or without Jack Daniels. (Definitely without the whiskey if you happen to be driving, or underage, etc.)


Ultimately, the tux place did find a tuxedo shirt in the appropriate size for Gabriel, and he looked quite dapper as the ring bearer.

Lana was gorgeous as the flower girl in a tea length off-white dress. She was so excited about everything and both she and Gabe danced all night on the dance floor. It was crazy hysterical to me to watch my 9 year old and my 6 year old doing the Macarena.

I think the highlight of the wedding, though, as far as Gabe and Lana were concerned, was our ride in the limo. The limo driver had been hired to ferry people back and forth from the bed and breakfast where the wedding was being held, to a hotel a few miles away. BUT, we were actually STAYING at the bed and breakfast, so we didn't need to be driven anywhere, but the driver was smitten with the excitement of my children about a limo ride, he took us on a 10 minute drive around a really small North Carolina town, and that back to the bed and breakfast.

For the record, it is kind of exhausting to spend two nights at a historical bed and breakfast with a 9 year old and 6 year old. There was no place for them to run and there were a million things that they couldn't touch for fear of them smashing into pieces.

On our last day in North Carolina, we drove back to Raleigh and we were able to meet another Vietnam-Adoptive family, J&C and their beautiful girls Cams and Mia.

Unfortunately, my kids were so wound up that they went a bit nuts when they found themselves in a house with actual toys and other children. (I hope Gabe and Lana didn't traumatize your girls too much, J!)

I'll leave you with some photos of my munchkins in their wedding finery!

*Billy Idol, White Wedding