May Wedding and Nashville Trip

Alex's sister Kyle married John Christian Baker on May 12, 2012 in Nashville, Tennessee.  We all made the trip out for the wedding, including my parents (so super helpful!).  Since it was our first time to TN, we booked a three bedroom condo downtown, came a few days early, and stayed a few days late.  In addition to the rehearsal, wedding, and Sunday brunch, we managed to see a bit of downtown Nashville and the waterfront area, as well as hit the Country Music Hall of Fame! 

Alex and I would love to go back and spend even more time in the area, especially if we could hit the bar scene to listen to the country cover bands.  Those bands played at all hours of the day; morning, noon, and night - and were so good you had to look twice to make sure they were not the real deal.  It was pretty fun stuff!

There was a fountain at this park by the riverfront downtown, but we got there at 10 am Friday and it didn't open till 3 pm.  The girls were a bit disappointed, but we still had fun.

John Paul also enjoyed the park

Lucia at the park

 

Magdalena sliding down the "mountains of Tennessee" (I overheard one mother tell her children these fake-grass covered bumps represented the "mountains" of Tennessee and I wanted to laugh.  Come out to the PacNW if you want to see some REAL mountains, folks! :-)

Magdalena in the sand

Lucia loving the sand

Susan (Alex & Kyle's mother) giving a speech at the rehearsal and holding John Paul

Girls having fun with Aunt Nancy

Here is another angle!

Thankfully my folks came to help!

David and Ginny - his girlfriend of 2.5 years that we were beginning to believe did not really exist as this was the first time we met her :-)

Magdalena and I at the Rehearsal dinner

Kyle and Christian - so happy for them!

Our family at the pictures before the wedding.  Everyone except John Paul was in the ceremony, and I think we matched pretty well!

The bridesmaids and flower girls (one of the few Magdalena actually stood with the group for!)

My boys... (yes, that is JP's christening outfit... he finally grew into it! My mom snuck it on him before I could object, but he did poop through it before too much longer :-)

Susan adding a dollar to Kyle's shoe for wealth in the marriage (Portuguese tradition!)

Kyle was stunning!

Snacking on goldfish before dinner

M and Me

L and Me

Even though the kids left with my folks after dinner and before dancing, we got some good swinging in during the cocktail hour!  Note: I tried to get Magdalena to join Lucia and me several times, but she preferred to dance by herself.

Magdalena was in a daze by dark, lots of mac and cheese and cranberry juice, but no nap = very tired and out of it little girl!  But she was VERY proud to be a flower girl and announced it several times (still does - "I'm a flower girl.  What are you, Mom?" "I'm a bridesmaid, honey.")

 I need to segue into telling about Magdalena's antics during the ceremony.  She was a flower girl, but decided that she wanted to walk down the aisle with me instead of the flower girls.  So she walked up with me and upon reaching the front of the church, promptly trips on a step and the petals in her basket go flying.  She jumps to the ground and starts picking them up as the rest of the bridesmaids come in (and try to sidestep her to reach their positions), the rest of the flower girls walk in to ooohs and ahhhs, dropping their flower petals on the runner as they were taught.  The others (2 four year olds, one was Lucia, and two seven year olds) sat in the front left pew as they were instructed and were quiet and good the rest of the ceremony.  Then the bride comes in, and Magdalena is still on the floor scooping up flowers.

The ceremony began, and everything was going fine until Madalena finished picking up her petals and glanced up to notice all the petals the other flower girls had dropped on the once-pristine white runner!  She makes a break for it and flings herself on the ground, face first, in front of the petals, reaching her arms out as far as they will go to collect the flowers and create a pile of petals in front of her face.  Since the church had two aisles down either side, not just one down the middle, only half the congregation was distracted, and fortunately she did not distract from the main event in the center of the church.

Once she gathered all the petals within arms-reach in front of her, she picked herself up off the ground, scooped up the petals, and ran them back to her basket which I have surreptitiously scooted behind me with my foot.  She pushes past and drops the petals in the basket, then runs back to the runner and the next line of petals.  Magdalena proceeded to do this, back and forth, throughout the entire ceremony!  I was just worried that she would run out of petals before it ended, because at LEAST she was quiet and not TOO distracting!  Bear in mind that the ceremony was at 3 pm (1 pm for us) - which is naptime, and she had been up all morning in and out of pictures, dressed nicely, and basically having a great but BIG day for a 2 and a half year old!  All and all, she was very cute and it definitely makes for a great story.  :-)  For the record, Lucia was a perfect angel all day, at pictures, the ceremony, and even the dinner.  I was sad she had to go before the dancing started, but realize that it was probably the best thing for her to go home around 8:30 and get some sleep.

Mom and JP

They had a trailer giving out ice-cream bars, Popsicles, Choco tacos as well as kettle corn between dinner and dancing - and you can barely make out the lights in the background for the barn - it did start to POUR as soon as the reception began.  Fortunately dinner (behind this picture) was under tents.

This is the living room in the cute condo we stayed in downtown.  The other two kids looked so good, I used this picture anyway even though Lucia is blurry.

The girls really liked coloring the cowboy and cowgirls at the Country Music Hall of Fame

Lucia and me in front of several gold and platinum records

Magdalena running from the camera - she looks like a little imp!  So cute.

JP and me at the Hall of Fame

Here we all are!  Good times in Nashville.