A Childless Weekend

Oh. My. Goodness. What a fun weekend we had. What a weekend of gifts. My precious friend, Sarah Carter--wait, that's Sarah Cruze now--got married Saturday in Huntsville. She's my old coffee-time friend. We've been meeting before work for 3 1/2 years now. It started out every other week, but once she started dating Matthew I couldn't wait that long for an update. She gave us some unused Southwest tickets for us to be able to get down to Alabama for the wedding.

So Jim and Lilla drove up Thursday and stayed with the kids. We flew in to B'ham Friday at noon, Heather (B's sil) picked us up, took us to lunch then Jim and Lilla's to get her (Lilla's) car, offered me some great dresses to wear for the wedding events, and we were off to Huntsville. My new St. Louis coffee-time friend, Mary Martha Abernathy, is from Huntsville, and her parents graciously invited us to stay with them once they heard we'd be in town that Friday night, although they'd be in Auburn.

The rehearsal dinner was great--very intimate and sweet. They both come from great families, and it was a priviledge to spend time with them. The wedding was at 11am--my first morning wedding (loved it!)--and there was a brunch reception at the Botanical Garden with the jazz band from the Open Door in Mountain Brook. They catered too. So yummy and so fun! Sarah was beautiful! Did I mention that only one sibling of the Carter's and Cruze's 7 siblings is under 6', and that's with only 2 brothers in the mix.

After the wedding we got to visit with Susan and Eric Zellner. B and E have known each other since College Park their freshman year at Auburn. We've all been members at Faith since our single days, then the Zellners moved to St. Louis for his MDiv at Covenant and are now 3 years out and working in Huntsville. They also have 4 kids, girl-girl-boy-girl, whose ages are all within months of ours. It's such a gift that they know us, know where we've come from, and know all about where we are now location and family wise. They are so encouraging and empathetic! There aren't many people who have lives so similar to ours.

We drove back to Bham late in the afternoon, ate at Cantina, stopped by Jimmy and Heather's to visit a minute, and went on to Kelly and Brad Adair's. Brad had called Andrew Butler to come over, so Kelly and I headed over to hang out with Amy. It got late fast. Boy, I miss my Bham people!

This weekend was the Outreach Conference at Faith Pres. We wore jeans just to shake things up a bit. Our excuse was that we were traveling, and we did get a few comments. Funny thing is that I forgot until someone said something to me. Anyway, some old RUF people had planned to eat lunch together at Milo's, so we tagged along. We got to hang out with a handful of our old youth kids (GKG, Craig, Jeffrey, Anna Kate) and the new youth kids we've never "had" but whom we've loved since they were babies (Davis and Bailey Adair, Maggie Benner). Talk about missing people! I am SO EXCITED though that Lana Benner and Lauren Shaw are going to start teaching the Sr. High girls' Sunday School! Way to go, mamas! THANK YOU for serving these girls in this way!! Lisbeth and Ben Chapman, Sara Ellen and Matt Albritton, Dan Gurley, Pamela and Scotty Stanford, Lana and John Benner, Kelly and Brad Adair, and families, and Richard Vise were all there. We took up half of Milo's.

It was only my second time to have Milo's food, by the way. Much better than I remembered it being. I did order a burger w/o onions though. For the sake of the other people on the plane that afternoon. :)

Jimmy and Connor took us back to the airport Sun. afternoon. Connor is in 8th grade. I feel like we've got a good thing going, him and me; that he'll answer my probing questions and tell me stuff. I might be considered a cool Aunt? But he jumped back in the car before I could get a hug. I think he saw me coming for one, but maybe he didn't know I wanted a quick squeeze before we left. :)

Oh, and in the meantime, back here in St. Louis, Marne had her baby! I knew she'd do that! I texted her to keep her legs crossed till we could get back, but to no avial. We did leave the kids(again) Sun. night--was that just last night?--so we could get in a visit at the hospital. Slade Douglas Wood is his name. Or maybe Douglas Slade Wood? They were still undecided as of last night.

I'm so glad she has a baby. I can now scratch my baby itch. Truth is, now that I think about it, I was much more itchy even 2 days ago than I am now after holding Slade for 30 min. It's a little nuts to think about us having another baby--we've nipped the issue anyway, so to speak, and I can hardly keep my head above water with all I have going on now. Maybe that's why I haven't ached for a baby since I held one last night. I haven't had time to.

The kids did great while we were gone. I think MaMaw and Granda are pretty wiped out. They said it was non-stop the whole time and definitely a 2 person job. But it sounded like they cooperated well. The kids, I mean. They went to the Magic House one day and a movie another. Then church on Sunday where the people at Covenant were very welcoming to them. They met a man with 26 grandchildren. Lilla couldn't get that out of her head and talked about it all evening, lol.

So today B. really started classes. The semester officially started last Thurs, but he missed Friday. He's taking 2 fewer hours this sem and working only Mon. nights and Saturdays. And it's not our first 4 months here; the load he's carrying should be lighter this time around. And I had a breakthrough in counseling today--looks like I'm such a thinker that I repress my feelings and that's keeping me from being honest about my reality here and dealing with it well. Hmmmmm...we'll see where that goes.

Lillian and Patrick are going to the Log Cabin Monday mornings this semester (that's free childcare for 2 1/2 hours), so they started that today. The girls and I did school in Rivendell, the sem's community center. It was a fun change of scenery.

Tomorrow morning we have an appt. with Jon Roberts, the headmaster at Covenant Christian School, where Patrick is 2 mornings a week, to talk about getting the girls in 1st and 2nd grades next year. That is if they can afford to take us for what we can afford to pay. We should know more tomorrow.

Wednesday morning we have an audiology appt. for Patrick to make sure that what we think might be a language processing issue is not a hearing problem. I will say that we've been praying specifically that God will open his eyes to see all the beautiful colors He's created and sharpen his mind to be able to communicate well, and we've seen a good bit of improvement in the last month. Again, I hope that if he's delayed it's not by too much but enough that he'd get services if he really needs them.

So it's a big week. More later. This is certainly enough for tonight.