Oklahoma

I just got back from spending 6 days in Oklahoma! There is not much to that state but it is where my dad's younger brother lives and 2 of my cousins go to school in towns outside Oklahoma City. My cousin Melissa got married on Saturday in OKC so I flew out Tuesday night to help her with all the last details that come together in the days leading up to a wedding. I got in late Tuesday night to find that my poor cousin was sick with a really bad cold. She had only 3 days til her wedding! We bought echnecia drops and Emergen-C, stopped at jamba juice to load up on fruits, and she even decided to go to a clinic where they gave her antibiotics, liquid cold medicine, and to top it off: a shot of steroids. Needless to say her body kicked into high gear and fought off every ounce of sickness! She was feeling great by on her wedding day!

We spent our time together finishing the programs, doing a picture/ribbon project for the walls at her reception, talking about what photographs to do, finalizing details with the vendors, and then finally....friday we were joined by our sisters and moms for pedis, manis, luncheon, packing for the honeymoon (in Maui!), and gabbing about our lives and her WEDDING! We had so much fun! There are 7 of us girls in all - and that day will hold some of the best memories we have shared together. On the day of the wedding everything went so smoothly! There were a few things that needed extra attention or work...but Melissa never knew about those things and was able to relax and enjoy her special day. Well...she was mad when the photographer was an hour late and we couldn't hide that from her...but her sister did a great job of helping her get through that.

Ben came out for the wedding and was an amazing help getting the truffle favors finished and running back to the house when something was forgotten....We didn't get much time together because Melissa needed me to be doing lots of other things. He did however make sure we danced a few dances, held hands, and smiled at each other from across the room. He is such a perfect husband for me! He let me have my girl cousin time and didn't complain once about what I was doing for the wedding to make sure it ran smoothly.

The flight back home was comical. We needed to drop off me, Julie, and Cathy a little early (8:30 for a 12:00 flight) because we didn't want our Uncle Steve to have to leave a car at the airport and he did not have one vehicle that would fit all 5 of us in! In all there were my sisters and I, Ben, and our Grandma Ceil. The rest of the got to the airport around 10:30 only to find that the flight has been delayed an hour, set to leave at 1:00pm. BUMMER. We found things to keep us busy and our uncle Steve and Nana sat and talked with us until we needed to head through security. We got through, ate at Schlotzsky's, grabbed a deck of cards to play with, and shortly boarded the plane. We were getting nervous as 1:00 drew closer because in order for Julie, Cathy, and Grandma Ceil to make their connecting flight to Tucson we needed to be in the air at 1:05. We took off at 1:02, according to Ben's watch, and as we walked off the airplane in Denver we heard over the loudspeaker, "All remaining passengers on flight **** to Tucson please report to gate ** we are ready to take off." The three of them booked it (as quickly as Grandma Ceil could go) down corridor to their gate and thankfully they made it! They were the last ones on the plane but they made it.

Ben and I had a 2.5 hour layover and I wanted to go outside and walk around. Afterall we were in Denver and it looked like the weather was gorgeous outside. We made our way to the front of the airport - security didn't look like it would take very long to get back through so we continued past it. There were actually hundreds or people in line that we couldn't see. bummer....Ben wasn't thrilled because he didn't want to have to go back through security in the first place - sorry ben. We walked over to where they had an outside patio but they had "closed it for cleaning" we didnt want to walk too far from security because we needed to have enough time to get through. We got TCBY yogurt to make up for not being able to go outside. We then got in line for the 30 or so minute wait for security...got back on the tram that took us to our terminal. We had about 30 minutes til boarding when we got to our gate so we played cards and games on his itouch. We made it home a few hours late but were glad to be back with Arabelle. She's so fun and cute.

I can say for sure that aside from seeing Arabelle, we were not ready to go home on Monday. We loved being in OK and I love my cousins. My whole family was there and we loved all the time we spent with each other. Both Ben and I loved the weather, the scenery, and everything else about OKC. We definitely will be visiting our family in OK often.

*I will post pictures when I get them from my sister...