Cool, party of 50, your tables are ready

Mama took the day off from work on Friday so we could go to Burke and Jodi's wedding in Austin. Not that we would have even considered missing the wedding, we still had to tap dance a little, as Mama ain't built up any vacation at her new place of employment.

The plan was to get up early, motor down to Austin, visit with Grammy, Cami, Emerald and Pearl. By 10:30, we figured we weren't going to be leaving early.

We did get out of there by 11:15, which left us plenty of time to get to Driftwood for the wedding. Even by my slow driving standards, we would get there in 4-4.5 hr, which was a comfortable cushion for the 4:30p wedding.

Traffic sucked in Ft. Worth and Austin.

We pulled up to the wedding at 4:31. But they hadn't started yet, and I don't think it would have mattered, as this was one of the most comfortable and casual weddings I've every attended.

We said some "Howdy's" to folks we hadn't seen in awhile, and we did our best to corral the kids in a generally acceptable formation.

In a nice tweak on the formalities, the wine and beer was being served before the service, so folks walked out to the spot overlooking the creek with glass in hand, and Burke and Jodi were formally knot-tied in front of a bunch of drinking friends and family.

Everyone was pretty casual, but I think I might have taken it too far. Next time I'll wear socks with my flip flops. But Jodi...now, she's quite a looker to begin with, but when you see someone you know and still do a doubletake...she was hot! Can you say that about someone in a wedding dress who is not your wife? No? Nobody is making you read this.

I got the chance to visit just a bit with some friends I haven't seen in awhile. Saw JR and Nikki's baby girl, who evidently had too much of the open bar before the service.

Saw Jaime and Melissa. Jaime looks a lot less pregnant than he used to, but Melissa looks way pregnant, which is OK, since she is. The Jaime Lite also had grown his hair out and then went and bleached it...he's looking like a dude in his 20's (which he is) instead of his early 40's (which he did). Melissa (and I mean this in a good and endearing way) looked cute sitting there all pregnant. But she's got the look down, since this is their third.

Lee and Mary were there with Princess Olivia. Everytime I see that little girl I want to just take a bite out of her (like she was a sweet or something). Lee was looking Rock Star, as usual, and Mary is fittingly cool. Can't tell if it is Mary is makes Lee look cool or the other way around, but that's probably why it works so well. But I swear I think Lee must have played with Aerosmith.

David and Melissa were there, but we see them all of the time, so we are used to having so much class around us. We stopped trying to fit in with them a long time ago. They must have really screwed up somewhere awhile back, because they keep hanging out with us. My theory is that is counts towards their required community service.

Saw Jaja, and it felt like I'd just seen him yesterday. He was with a lady, but we didn't get to meet formally. Good thing, because everytime I talked to him, it was all I could do to keep from saying, "Introduce me to your sister."

The service was performed by Tobin, which is always cool to see. Visited with Jen a bit, but chose not to talk shop (teaching) as she is on spring break.

We ate the barbeque like it was someone else paying for it, but I tapped the wine only once, as we still had a drive ahead of us that night. Only Texas beers and wines were being served. If you aren't from Texas, that sounds snobby, I'm sure, as it sounds dumb to be at a wedding in, say, Kansas and say, "We're only serving Kansan beer and wine tonight." Tennessee is a little different, though. And would hurt much, much worse the next morning.

The clubhouse and "country club" used was absolutely perfect. Rustic, but not dirty. Upscale, but not snobby. Hip, but not trendy. And the weather was purrrfect.

We didn't get to hang as much as we would have liked. For one, we had the two youngest with us, but we also had to get on the road to finish off the next 4-4.5 to get to the farm (where we are now) to see Nono for Easter.

Mama and the babies let me sleep in this morning, and since we can make our room ptich freakin' black, I was able to actually take adavantage of this. I woke up, shook out some cobwebs, and went for a 30 minute run that went so well I started contemplating (oh no) triathlons and stuff again. Got me to thinking about Steve Croghan, who I really need to write about soon.

Middle of the afternoon on Saturday, and this is one of the best weekends I could have imagined.

My brutha Burke is married, and he married "up." Good stuff.

Being married is cool.


I'm gonna go ride the four wheeler with Reanie now. Hope she lets me drive.