Glen and Bree Wedding (4/18)

Presenting Mr. and Mrs. Glen Abney!

We traveled to St. Louis on Friday, April 17th to attend the wedding of my cousin Bree Anne to Glen on Saturday, April 18th. We arranged to stay at same hotel as mom and dad and Shantel and Joe. We had a wonderful time attending the wedding, seeing family and hanging out together for the weekend.

My brother Kurt took the pictures at the church as it was very low light and he has a steadier hand than I do right now to take the slow shutter speed pictures! I've posted some pictures as part of the blog entry and, as usual, if friends with me on Facebook, I'll have all the rest posted there.

Bree coming down the aisle with her dad

Glen and Bree saying their vows

On to the reception - hanging out while the bridal party has pictures taken

Time for cake!
Cute cake topper!
Cuttin' it up on the dance floor - Shantel on left and then Miss K and Mr. M
Brother and sister taking a swing (Shantel has taken dance lessons)!
Connecting with family and friends at the reception

Joe and Shantel Wedding (2/22)

I did receive a copy of the pictures of my sister's wedding, just now getting an opportunity to post some of them. Joe and Shantel were wed on February 22, 2009.

Picture credits: Andrea McKay -> Thanks Andrea!

Location of wedding was the Benton House in Indianapolis, IN

The kids were asked to play their violins for the wedding
I noticed the cute panda drawn on Michael's music - will have to find out the story behind that! The groom awaiting the bride's entrance
Here comes the bride

The wedding ceremony
Congratulations from Mom and Dad

Family Pictures

The Liddy Family
The Nuehring Family
Toast for the bride and groom

Cutting of the cake

On their way!!

Shantel's Wedding Day (2/22)

Choo and I were asked to be Host/Hostess for Joe and Shantel's wedding. Since we got so busy helping we didn't get any of our own pictures of the Big Day. We do know the photographer though so I'm hoping to post some of them once Shantel gets to see them - I heard they just shipped out!

Day before Shantel's Wedding (2/21)

We drove up to Indianapolis, Saturday, February 21st, for my sister Shantel's wedding. We drove right into a snow storm going through the area but still made it for the Saturday night wedding preparations. Joe and Shantel had invited a few people, especially those coming into town, to come over to the wedding location for dinner and decorating. She made an awesome chicken casserole and 2-layer carrot cake.

The guys trying to get one of the light strands fixed.

Success!

A unique way to wear tulle! (The bride having fun before the big day!)

My dad with Choo

The kids got out their violins and played some of their Bluegrass and other fiddle songs (Celtic, etc.) They got to dualing with each other which is why Katie is playfully poking Michael in the next picture.

Trip to Chicago (Day 2, Sun. 1/11)

Today was the big shopping day for Shantel's wedding dress. We packed up, checked out of the hotel, stored our bags for the day and then got in line at Starbuck's while waiting for Shantel, Joe's mom and Joe's sister to arrive at the hotel. I was surprised we didn't see them yet when we had our breakfast and went to sit down - we had talked about an hour earlier and I thought they should be there. I called and they couldn't believe we had gotten past them as they were sitting right outside the elevators and near a fireplace. Fireplace? There isn't any fireplace in our hotel and there aren't any seats near the elevators either. Turns out there is another Courtyard hotel on Michigan avenue, complete with Starbucks as well. Once they realized they were at the wrong hotel they walked down the street to our hotel - these hotels were only 2 blocks away too. (Just a side note, the snow storm was so bad that mom wasn't able to make it - we missed her!)


We shopped and shopped and, of course, had to eat Chicago Style Deep dish pizza at Giordano's.

All of us at Giordano's - our waiter was kind enough to snap the picture of us after most of the patrons had left in our area of the restaurant.

Miss K loved the design of this chair in one of the stores, and then since it was towards the end of the day, promptly fell asleep while my sister was trying on dresses.

Shantel did find her dress at this store but we didn't take any pictures of it (we had taken some pics earlier in case she needed it to make a decision) as it will be revealed later, when posting about the wedding. :)

Trip to Chicago (Day 1, Sat. 1/10)

This was a very "spur of the moment" trip! I had called my sister earlier in the week to chat and she mentioned she planned on going to Chicago on Sunday to look for her wedding dress. She also mentioned that Joe's mom was driving up with her and our mom would drive over from IA. This sounded like so much fun and she mused that it would be neat if I could come too. Well, just a short time ago I had received notices from Southwest of sale fares and found that some of the best fares are to Chicago during January (hmmmm....wonder why ;) ). So I looked up the fares and they were still really cheap. At first, it was going to be a day trip but then I realized that they don't run the early morning flight on Sunday morning so by the time I got up there, it would only allow about 4 hrs for shopping before heading back to airport. After much discussion with husband, mom and sister, I was able to book a flight that would fly to Chicago on Saturday AM (and back to Nashville on Saturday night) and then found a reasonable hotel right on Michigan Avenue (the plusses of January!). A couple of days later I thought since hotel was set with double beds, etc. and flights so cheap, why not have our daughter come with! Her ticket was booked with only a day to spare but at still the same low price.

We had a blast! It was a really nice trip for the two of us and we got our fill of snow at the same time - good thing we wore our warm woolies along with boots, hats, etc. Saturday was very cold and very snowy but we did venture out and walk around some of the area around our hotel - the side streets are the best, great architecture to see.

While walking around it came to me that we weren't too far from Ed Debevic's and that our daughter had been deprived of the experience of eating there, all that time we lived in Chicago. I'm sure it had to do with the fact that the wait can be very long, especially with young children. We walked over there and, due to the snow, no wait on this day! Before we went though she was asking me about it and all I could think of to say to her is that the wait staff is rude to the customers but that it is fun to eat there - she wasn't too sure about that but she thought she'd try it anyway. Our waiter was rude but fun and we had a great time when they cranked up the music and the wait staff danced on the counters!

Miss K has been experimenting with angles when taking pictures.
Miss K saw the sign for the World's Smallest Sundae so we ordered one to check it out.

YUM!