I haven't updated in a while but I guess I haven't really been around much. Here are some pics from the past 3 weeks.. First I was in Amsterdam where my sister graduated college. In general, I had a great trip home. I saw oodles of friends and loved every single day there. I was there for 10 days. I didn't take many pics (but posted 2 below). The first picture was taken at the airport (I'm hugging my sister upon arrival). The second was at the graduation ceremony.
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Then after I got back from Amsterdam, my friends D and N got married. It was good that this took place when it did cause I spent last week missing Amsterdam like whoa. In the whole 15 years i've lived in the states and thus away from "home" i don't think I was as homesick as last week. This weekend was enough fun that I forgot all about wanting to move back to Amsterdam... at least briefly. The weekend was a blast and the wedding was great. It was a weekend long wedding in Kent, CT at an adult summer camp. The first night was the rehearsal dinner followed by karaoke and fun. Yes, i look wasted in the pics.. and I kinda was. ha!  The second day there were many activities to pick from (water skiing, zip lines, kayaking, hiking, cooking class, wine tasting and bunches more). I mostly recovered from the night prior and got too much sun. Saturday evening was the wedding which was then followed by a smores and keg firepit after the reception. People brought and played instruments and glow in the dark frisbees. After brunch on Sunday I made my way back to New York. I had a great weekend! For those of you on facebook there are more pictures there as well.

See how in every picture I'm holding a glass? Um.. yeah. 

 
don't ask.. haha

Love Shack! Baby, love shack! 
 
Saturday lunch:
 
the ceremony and reception:

 

I hope you all had lovely weekends as well! 

Peace y'all. I'm outta here! (well not quite yet--but mentally i'm already crossing the Atlantic). See you on the flip side.

I've been meaning to write about a wedding I went to but I keep forgetting to upload the pictures that would illustrate the story. The wedding was fun, but had its amazing (as in 'oh no! doh') moments. First off all, it was held at a banquet hall type place that was hosting about 5 weddings at the same time. Like the invite said, I arrived at 5PM to find a prior wedding still leaving the room. There were a couple of guests there waiting, but i would be lying if I didn't wonder over and over whether I had misread or misheard and it actually was starting at 7. Have you ever watched the show Four Weddings? Basically 4 brides attend 4 weddings and rate them based on overall experience, food, dress and venue. This rating would not have been very high (although again,  I did enjoy myself). 

For starters the wedding started 2 hours late. The first hour and a half was spent waiting in the non air conditioned hallway that had only a few seats which were given to older people. Because of my healing sprained ankle I wasn't wearing heals and I was fine, but some women were clearly really uncomfortable.

After a while we were let into the hall and we were able to sit and wait there. The funny part about the wedding starting so late was there was absolutely no sense of haste. The bride and groom were walking around in jeans and a t-shirt and their 3 year old was running around refusing to put on his suit--but no one was actually disciplining him or rushing him or trying to get things moving. They finally rolled out the white banner carpet thing for the bridal party to walk down and then they taped it down with duct tape. The officiant looked like George Lopez. 

During the ceremony (which was short and sweet) the kid was running around yelling and making shooting sounds, and again, no one tried to calm or quiet him.  The bride did look very pretty and the couple was clearly very in love. The bartender was 124 years old and he talked to himself (including during the ceremony). We could also hear the Albanian wedding that was going on upstairs. 

After the ceremony but before the dinner there was a cocktail hour. However, everyone basically sat down at their tables. The first hors d'oeuvre that came out was a chicken wing. A lady walked by and plunked a chicken drum stick down on everyone's bread plate. It was sort of hilarious. I mean, i would not serve that at a wedding because it is hard to eat and people are dressed up.. but also, to get one on the plate like that? I'm not sure i'm explaning it well, but it was funny. Affter the chicken wing there were some other apps that were totally fine.

My favorite part of the whole wedding was the sister/sister dance. The brides parents both passed away (in fact, the way I became friends with her was when we bonded in the bathroom at work over how both of our mothers passed away). The bride works for a company that my company sub leases from and we've never hung out. She brings me the mail every morning and we're always nice, but I was sort of surprised to have been invited in the first place. After the first dance the groom danced with his mother and then the bride danced with her sister. Her sister was very emotional and I don't think that there was a single non-teary eye in the room. It was touching. During the bride/groom dance however 4 waiters came out with what mostly just looked like flaming dog bowls and stood at the 4 corners of the dance floor with fire in their hands. It was random and unhinged but since that somewhat seemed to be the theme of the wedding, it was fitting I suppose.

The buffet was large and had a bunch of options and the food was alright. Sort of typical catering/banquet hall food. The cake was so sweet I actually couldn't eat it. The garter and bouquet toss were very very funny and there was some dancing going on. Cute speeches.. ya know, the regular wedding stuff.  Because the wedding was on the same day as their son's birthday (he turned 3), they wanted everyone to sing Happy Birthday to the boy. The idea was super cute but after all the running around the kid had done, he was passed out. So, we sang to a sleeping boy who clearly was wishing he hadn't been lifted up off of the couch. He missed the whole thing.

I was offered a ride home by the couple that was sitting next to me which was nice since I'd paid $48 to take a cab there..  we left shortly after the cake was cut but I heard later that the wedding only lasted about 20 more minutes or so.

Ultimately what matters is that the couple had a good time and I think they very much did. I am glad I attended.. but when I think back to it, i can't help but giggle a little. Plus, when I look at my white frilly cliche swan votive gift that I was given when leaving I also giggle

In other news I saw the movie Bridesmaids yesterday (finally) and I absolutely LOVED it!!!  LOVE LOVE LOVE!
I can not begin to express how glad I am that today is Friday and I then only have two more sparsely staffed days in the office next week before I then flee the country and go hang out with my family for 10 days. I can. not. wait.  On that note, i'm outta here.... Happy weekend!