The Wedding and Reception

Day Three - Sunday Afternoon

The wedding was scheduled for 2:30 on Sunday afternoon at the Greek Orthodox Church. We've been to many weddings, but this was our first Greek Orthodox wedding! The church was small and beautiful and reminded me of the chapels and churches we've seen on the other side of the world.

There was a sign in the narthex about the use of cell phones - it said DO NOT unless you were texting with Jesus hahaha! We took it seriously and all of us turned our completely off. During the bridal procession, I turned my head . . .and across the aisle . . .all those of Greek descent were filming! I didn't take a single picture of the inside of the church or of the wedding.

We grabbed a few photos outside the church.

Mark is on the left and his identical twin brother is on the right. Bob, the father of the groom, is in the middle.

The bride only wanted immediate family in the wedding photos so we grabbed this one before Susie and Bob had to go back inside. Mark and I are on the left. I was very pleased with my dress! Susie and Bob are in the middle and Alice and George are on the right. Our niece, daughter of Alice and George, is getting married in June so we will all don our finery again soon!

The wedding was in an enormous building on the hotel grounds which was very  convenient.

There was a mirror right inside the door with Maria and Paul's names etched on it. You can see our reflection.

The ballroom was spectacular. There was an atrium surrounding the ballroom and there were tables laden with appetizers plus the bar. As appetizers, they served everything from crab cakes and mini crab cake sandwiches to lamb chops!!

Everyone had a favor at their seat (it was assigned seating). It was an evil eye like we brought back from Greece!! We also had Jordan Almonds and a luggage tag thanking us for "traveling" to the wedding.

These are slightly out of order - you can see Paul and Maria - straight through the middle - on the dance floor.

Maria's father is the man with white hair to the left and he is throwing money all around them on the dance floor. This continued throughout the night.

Below is a picture of Susie and Paul for the mother-son dance.

Below is the father-daughter dance.

Their whole family ended up on the dance floor and there was more money for the couple. We live in Alabama and we've never seen anyone throw money at the reception. I think it is a Greek custom.

We had ordered the beef and it was the perfect selection. It was delicious!

Paul and Maria cut the wedding cake and were sharing a bite or two. There was not a groom's cake. I wonder if that is a southern tradition only?

This was one of the Greek dances and it was so fun to watch!!

They had an awesome photo booth set up. Back row on the left is Thomas (he is moving to Alabama in June - yay!!) and then Susie. Paul, the groom, is the one with the boutonniere. Bob is on the right and Ben, the doctor in NYC, is in front. 

George and Alice at the photo booth (below)

Mark and me at the photo booth. I have the one in motion, too.

I think most everyone had too much to eat and too much to drink haha! After dinner, they had those same tables in the atrium (where there were originally appetizers) full of desserts. They even had a woman making Bananas Foster fresh to order. Mark had two orders of Bananas Foster with vanilla ice cream . . .but who is counting, right?

It was so nice to just walk back to the hotel and fall in the bed!

ZZZZZ!

Do they serve Groom's cake where you live? Have you ever been to a wedding where they shower the couple with money?

 

Hodgepodge

 

I'm joining up with Joyce and the gang for the Wednesday Hodgepodge.

1. What is your favorite room in your house and why?

This is a hard question to answer. There are several spaces in our home that I love. When we were looking for a new house back in 2014, one of my non-negotiables was a large dining room. I wanted an actual dining room though many houses were being built without one. When we found this house, I loved that it had a full size dining room. We host the Young Professionals every Tuesday night plus we are in a supper club of ten plus we often host our family Sunday lunch at our house so a dining room makes sense for us. 

I think there were either 14 or 16 around the
table on this night! Have I told y'all how
much I love the song, "Crowded Table"?
You can listen here.

2. What's something that will instantly annoy you?

Let me start by saying that I am too easily annoyed lately. I am working on it. Things that annoy me quickly are when I realize someone isn't listening to me or when I've asked someone to do something and shown them how I like it done and they refuse to do it correctly (can you tell I like to be in control?) or when someone continuously mispronounces names or when someone makes mouth noises like smacking???? Grrrr! I'm working on it. I promise.

3. May 28th is National Hamburger Day . . .will you celebrate? How do you like yours? If you're not cooking at home is there a favorite place you like to go for a burger? Did you ever work in a fast food restaurant?

I love a good burger but I don't know if I will celebrate on the actual day. We had smash tortilla burgers on Friday night. That is Mark's newest favorite way I make a burger. I like my burger to be done. I do not want any touch of rareness in a hamburger. I love it with cheese, mustard, ketchup, pickles, lettuce, tomato or I love a good pimento cheese burger. There are several places in town that are known for their burgers - Chez Fon Fon is one and Jack Brown's is another. I have not ever worked in a restaurant at all - full service or fast food.

4. What are three scents you like?

I have so many allergies that I can't abide perfumes nor very many scented items. Essential Peppermint Oil and I are friends! I can usually tolerate real lemon scent. Most scented candles send my allergies into overdrive but I can tolerate the apple/cinammon candle for a short amount of time. People who don't have allergies don't usually understand this scent aversion thing. If someone comes into my office with perfume or cologne or even scented laundry detergent on their person . . .it is not good for me. There are other "smells" that I enjoy - popcorn popping, fresh coffee (even though I don't drink it), brown sugar brownies baking in the oven (even though I don't eat them). 

5. What do you miss most about being a kid?

Looking back, I guess I miss that carefree feeling. Growing up, our "job" was to go to school and do well. I did that easily. I had friends. I had sisters and parents and grandparents. We went to church. In the spring, summer, and fall we played outside. In hindsight, I realize that my parents had worries but they did such a good job of not letting those worries affect us. We always had food on the table and clean clothes. My daddy did tell my sister, who was an adult, that he wore underwear with holes so that we might have things when we were growing up.

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

We didn't do anything special on Memorial Day, but we did eat lunch together after church on Sunday. Mark's brother, George, cooked a brisket, baked sweet potatoes, and cooked corn on the cob. I provided a big bowl of fresh fruit. Mark's sister made green beans cooked with Conecuh Sausage. My sister-in-law set the table with a red and white "picnic" cloth and she used "flag" napkins. We sat around and talked for a while so it was a nice time together. My daddy was a World War II Veteran but he didn't give his life for our country. I don't know anyone personally who died in a war. I remember a young man in our home church was declared MIA in Vietnam. I think they did finally receive news that he died in Vietnam, but I was quite a few years younger and the Vietnam war seemed like something far far away. I am thankful for those who gave their lives for our freedom.

Delaware Is A Pretty State!

Day Three - Sunday morning! When Susie and Bob lived in Delaware, Mark never had more than two weeks of vacation at most (long story), so we never had the chance to visit. This trip was our first time in the state, and we took full advantage by spending some time exploring the countryside in our rental car.

Delaware truly surprised us with its beauty—at least the area where we were staying! Just one turn off the main road could lead you down a quiet, idyllic street, shaded by a canopy of trees like the one in the photo below.

We had seen the sign for Brandywine Creek State Park so we loaded the name into Waze and struck out for an adventure.

Once again, the weather was glorious.

All around the region were these beautiful stone walls like we've seen in other countries.

The following is from SAH Archipedia and the article was written by W. Barksdale Maynard.

For many years following the arrival of the utopian-minded Pierre Samuel du Pont to America, the du Pont family held land in a kind of communistic arrangement. But “Boss Henry” du Pont broke with tradition, seizing for himself huge tracts out of the common holdings, to the dismay of some of his kin. As if forever to mark the landscape as his own, he (and later his son, Colonel Henry A. du Pont) had Italian masons build extensive stone fences around their far-flung estate, using rock from Brandywine Granite Quarry which the family partly controlled. The walls at today's Brandywine Creek State Park are good examples—solidly built and with capstones so level on the top that one can easily walk on them. The park property was bought by landscape architect Robert Wheelwright in 1951 and auctioned after his death, at which time developers proposed a housing tract for the 433 acres. Concerned citizens pushed the reluctant State Park Commission to buy the property instead, and today it is cherished open space.

You can see the amazing detail and how you could truly walk along the top of the stones!!

This farm was right at the entrance to the park. We were wondering if the caretaker lived there. 

As we were headed back to the hotel, we passed another silo. I'm assuming this is a silo. I looked up the one above and couldn't really find any details. There were private property signs on the road leading up to the house.

This little house (below) was directly across from our hotel. There were several in a row and they were so cute!! I love seeing the different types of architecture when we travel.

Only two more posts after this one -- the actual wedding and reception and our visit to Longwood Gardens. We crammed a lot into four days!!

 

The Rehearsal Dinner

The Rehearsal Dinner was at Brandywine Prime which is located in a building that dates back to the 1700's. My sister-in-law found a florist who used local flora for the centerpieces. We had all been saving whiskey bottles for her to use. Some bottles were filled with flowers and some had battery powered lights inside.

There were flowers on the tables and flowers on the windowsills.

Some of the bottles had special labels that were personal to Paul and Maria - like on the Angel's envy bottle, there was a picture of Maria with angel wings.

I have no idea what Mark was saying or doing in the picture below!

I had a delicious Cosmopolitan.

My brother-inj-law did a great job welcoming everyone. He also welcomed Maria into the family and said all the right nice things.

Maria was wearing her mother's wedding dress that had been cut off to a regular length dress. She and Paul looked so happy.

Mark and I sat with his twin brother, George, and with some of Susie's friends from out of town. Our nephew, Ben, is a doctor in New York City and he arrived via train just in time for the rehearsal. He is a vascular surgeon fellow and had been up for 36 straight hours and came straight from a 12 hour surgery. How do doctors do it?

 

Sunday Stealing

I am joining up with Sunday Stealing - information and questions pasted below:

Welcome to Sunday Stealing. Here we will steal all types of questions from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent questions. Cheers to all of us thieves!

These questions were inspired by a blogger named Becca. Back in 2007, Becca was asked to reveal 8 interesting things about herself. We're turning her answers into questions to learn a little more about YOU.

8 Questions

1. What habit do you wish you could break? I have several I wish I could break. I HATE that I sometimes respond quickly with a snarky answer . . .I wish I would always remember to pause and think before speaking. I need to break the habit of eating a snack after dinner. Actually, I probably should give up all in between meal snacking. I'm sure there are plenty of other habits I wish I could break.

2. Where is your favorite vacation spot? I love to travel all over the world BUT I do love Orange Beach on the Alabama gulf coast.

3. How many years of formal education have you completed? As of this month, I have my AA. I start working on my BA June 2. I cannot even begin to tell you how amazing it feels to type those words. At 66 years old (almost 67), I have a college degree. I am the first in my birth family to have any kind of college degree.

4. Have you ever had a job that required you be certified or licensed? I don't think so. I worked for South Central Bell and AT&T for 11 years. I've been on a church staff for the last 21 years. My husband is a CPA and before he retired, he had to take continuing ed every year to keep his certification.

5. Do you enjoy camping? Nope. My idea of camping is a "cheaper" hotel room.

6. Tell us about a time you got away with something. I have no idea.

7. Where have you lived the longest, and what do/did you like best about it? I've lived in Alabama my whole life. We lived in our last house for 22 years. We've been in this house for 11 years in June. I love our home and our neighborhood.

8. When you were a kid, were more of your playmates boys or girls? I had lots of girl and guy friends. At one point we had 17 kids on our street and we all played together.

Thank you for playing! Please come back next week.

Day Two - Saturday - Our Family Weekend Away

I shared Day One of our family weekend away yesterday. 

On Day Two, we found out that our kids definitely weren't coming. Our niece, Grace, our daughter, son, daughter-in-law, and oldest granddaughter . . .all of their flights were cancelled and there were no other flights that would arrive in time for them to attend the wedding on Sunday afternoon. This mama was disappointed.

Mark and Bob headed to the airport to pick up George and Alice. George and Alice were supposed to arrive on the evening of Day 1, but their flight was cancelled and they had to fly to Chicago to get to Philadelphia. It must have been the only flight left. While at the airport, Mark picked up our rental car which was a hybrid Jeep and we really enjoyed it!

He came back to the hotel to pick me up and we headed to the Wilmington waterfront.

We ate lunch at Del Pez which came highly recommended. The weather was PERFECT for dining outside.

Guacamole was made to order and it was some of the best "bought" guac I've ever eaten. I love the way it was served.

We both ordered a shrimp taco and it was delicious.

After we finished eating, we started walking to the riverfront. There were apartments all around and a nice amount of green space. The day was gorgeous.

The river was muddy, but still beautiful.

The boardwalk was great. It would be a fun place to take your daily walk.

We were pretty grungy but took a couple of quick photos.

I had not even showered!

After walking around, we headed back to the hotel to take a quick nap (didn't happen) and get ready for the rehearsal dinner.

What in the world did we do before Waze? She helped us navigate I95 and all of the other crazy roads!!!

 

Off We Go Into the Wild Blue Yonder

Last Friday, we had a 6:00 a.m. flight to Philadelphia. Our phone alarms were set to go off at 3:30 (mine) and 4:00 (Mark's). For some unknown reason, my alarm "tone" was set to some silly song and I almost slept through it. Luckily, Mark was awake "anticipating" the travel day and he woke me. I showered, etc. and we finished packing and headed to the airport. It was still dark when we arrived. We always arrive very early for flights, but not this time. We got to our gate and took turns running to the bathroom and boarded the plane. We never sat down. Whew! It is a good thing we didn't miss the flight (more on that later).

We cannot take selfies.

While we were on the runway, the sun started peeking through the clouds. We took off and landed in Philadephia a couple of hours later. Mark's sister and her husband, Bob, picked us up. It was cloudy and overcast at this point so we did a quick driving tour of Philadelphia.

We saw the Rocky steps!

And we saw the statue of Rocky!

We saw the Washington Monument in Eakins Oval at the base of the Art Museum's steps (right across). I would love to have spent some time exploring all of this statue.

We saw where our nephew went to medical school and where he lived (at that time) and we saw all of the old government buildings.

We drove through China town.

We were waiting on one of our other nephew's flight to arrive and there wasn't really enough time to go to the hotel and back before his flight . . .or so we thought. We stopped at a WaWa (we don't have WaWa's here!!) to go to the potty and grab a snack. Oh my goodness. I need to go online to see if I can order a case of their big soft pretzels. It was so good. It was as good as the ones I had in Germany. After our WaWa stop, we headed to the cellphone lot at the airport. A HUGE thunderstorm hit us about the time Thomas's flight landed. They couldn't bring the airplane to the terminal due to lightning so we sat. . . and sat . . .and sat . . .until we had to do an airport drive through so we could all go to the bathroom again! haha! Finally, after a very long time, they were able to get the plane in and he was able to hop in the car. We headed Total Wine and that is Mark peering down the aisle of whiskeys and bourbon. Oh my goodness, we don't have Total Wine here either!

I'm not sure of the exact order, but we went to Total Wine, did the driving tour of their old neighborhood in Delaware, and had lunch. After doing all three, we checked into the Mendenhall Inn in Chadds Ford, PA.

photo is from their website

We had never been to Delaware or Pennsylvania before, and we were amazed by the beauty—the lush woods, towering trees, and rolling green fields. What a beautiful place!!

Around 7:00 p.m., we headed over to the bar of the hotel for a casual dinner. I've never had a Moscow Mule in a clear glass before. You can see Thomas in the background.

By this point in the trip, Mark's twin brother and his family were supposed to join us—but all remaining flights to Philadelphia had been cancelled. Meanwhile, our brother-in-law had to go to the hospital because his mother was admitted. Grace, our niece, was also supposed to have arrived by now, and her fiancé had already made it. Poor guy—he got the full experience of our family, all on his own. 

Mark, Paul (not the groom, but Grace's fiance, and Thomas)

The bride and groom joined us for dinner and I could have sworn that I took a photo of them but it is not on my camera!!! Susie had friends arriving for the wedding and they joined us for dinner, too. It was fun meeting her people!!

After dinner, we headed to our rooms for some much needed sleep. We had been up since 3:30 and it was a long day . . . plus I had taken several dramamine throughout the day. ZZZZZZ . . .