The Wine Country Wedding

I forgot on the last post to mention that Anya thinks we should just call Children’s Hospital and tell the doctor (that will put tubes in her ears on Thursday) that he should wait and hour or so because Anya needs to go to swim lessons. I love the combination of the adult mind ideas mixed with the naivete of a young child.

At the first wedding we went to last March, I had to pull Anya away from the cake table while the bride and groom we beginning to cut the cake. She was enthralled by watching that event. Well, not much has changed. Our whole family went to my cousin’s wedding, my oldest was even a groomsman, and Anya still loves the cake cutting. Being family, our table was at the front, right next to the cake table. We all sat and watched them cut and serve each other cake. I turned to my cousin next to me and was admiring her two year old son. The next thing I know, someone tapped me and pointed to the cake table and said, “Look at Anya.” She really wanted to say hi to the bride and groom and got permission from someone in the family to go over to the cake table to do so. But, when I looked up, the groom was taking a fork out of her mouth. He decided to offer her some of the cake! I like to say I’m trying to teach Anya that the world doesn’t revolve around her, but, I don’t know, maybe it does sometimes!

The groom feeding Anya.

"See, I got cake!"

The other thing the girl loves about weddings is the dancing. She is a maniac dancer. I actually made our departure at the first wedding we attended straight from the dance floor. It was all so over stimulating to her that after too much literal head banging, I just scooped her up and said my goodbyes. I wasn’t sure at the time how she would behave if left to dance it out and I didn't want to pay for it later. But this time I let her. It ended up being fine, she just unwound. More on that later. After the bride and groom danced, Anya asked if she could dance. She ran right over to the groom and sure enough, he danced with her. At the end of that dance, I ran over to the dance floor to dance with her. Then my dad came out to dance with her too. Next Dave danced with her. For the first half and hour my dad and I basically tag teamed, I really tagged my dad’s hand as we switched places. It was so exhausting. When I woke up the next morning, for the first time I felt old. Every muscle in my body was stiff and aching as I tried to get this old bod out of bed.

The music just flows through her veins and she responds to the pulse of it. As she wound down, she marched around the floor slower and slower like the energizer bunny actually running out of energy. Dave said she reminded him of the little Keep On Truckin’ character from the seventies. Her head was leaning back and her feet were more forward than her body. It was so funny.

Keep on Truckin'

I decided to keep her away from the woman who was bumpin’ and grindin’ on the guy she was dancing with. If you aren’t sure what that is, it’s about as obnoxious looking as it sounds. Anya kept doing that dancing/walking thing back and forth and was breaking up couples as she went. I got between her and the take it to the bedroom couple to keep her attention averted. She was so focused on her dancing that she was oblivious to anyone else. Then there was the air guitar dance. I’m not really sure what brought that on, but she was jammin’.

I love how my little cousin in green is staring at her!

Getting into it.

This must be major riff in the middle of the song or something else important.

I tried on several dresses for the wedding since I figured we'd get our first family of seven picture. Didn't have much time for trying on and didn't like too many of the dresses. I decided to wear one I already had and just not stress about it. I don't have time or energy to worry about things like that and plan everything out with Anya. So at the wedding I was talking to my aunt and her friend. The dear friend went on and on about the dress and was it a this expensive label or that expensive brand.

"Uh, I got it for $5 at Penny's ahwile ago." All true. Actually I got two dresses for $5 each-it was amazing that I found two things I liked on the $5 rack. And, at that price, I wasn't worried about never wearing them. I wasn't really thrilled about wearing the blue one as it is pretty bold and I'm sure will look really dated some day. Yes, I do sit around and think about all this stupid stuff. AND one of my big blue earring broke the morning of the wedding. Plus I was too tired to get a necklace out when I was packing, even though I have four of them that go perfectly with the dress. Ah, such is life. But I tell you, I always look back at the pictures and ask myself "why didn't I just take the extra steps since it bothers me years later?" Wouldn't you love to live in my head with all the noise going on?!
At least I don't get too lonely.

Anya spinning with my sister and me sporting the latest fashion (that is about 5 years old).

My babies!

Dave and his girls.

Dave and me on the vineyard where the wedding took place.

Did I mention the ride up? It was a 7.5 hour trip according to MapQuest and other SoCal family members who also drove up north to the Wine Country. Our trip was 11 hours. With Anya. Who hates car rides over 30 minutes.

There was an accident, road work and the many pit stops for Anya. Oh well, what can you do? Although I was the one having a meltdown in the first couple of hours when we were still in SoCal. The ride home was 8.5 hours, much better. Did I mention that Anya gets car sick easily and spent some of the trip in the front seat, leaving me as the next smallest person to sit on the bump in the middle of the back seat? And that the back of the car swerves around and that now I can see why Anya gets car sick in the back seat?

~Monica

ps thanks to my dad for many of the pictures!

Anya's favorite school subject.

We decided that a swim class during the school year just might be a good idea. The pool my son Scott lifeguards at has twice a week swimming lessons and the outdoor pool stays heated to 84 degrees. So, today was our first lesson. Scott told me which level class to place her in, so I wasn't worried about that. But, Anya was crazy nervous this morning. We finally got to class and all went well. She learned to float on her back on the first try and was actually swimming the crawl with her arms AND legs at the same time. Oh boy was she proud.


Once in the car, she asked, "Are you so proud of me?"


"Oh yes!"


Then, a command came out of her mouth. "Clap!" So there I was trying to drive and clap at the same time. A huge smile came over her face and then another command, "Kiss my cheek!" Hard to do that kind of multitasking while driving. 


"Mom, swimming is my favorite school." She's probably not the first kid to say that.


"See Anya, I told you that you didn't need to be worried or frightened, did you?"


"Nope. I love it the swimming!"


Right now she is asking to take tap dancing as she taps away-we'll see about that. I bought her tap shoes at a garage sale for $1 awhile back. But you have to be on you toes (pun intended) when she asks about her shoes because to her they are "snap shoes".


I hope to blog more tomorrow on the family wedding we went to this past weekend and the 11 hour drive (supposed to be 7.5) to get there...


~Monica