The after-party

While we were in the back room waiting to come out, Debbie was back there with her baby Paralee. I thought it would be really funny to come out holding the baby but as soon as I picked Paralee up she started crying. Oh, well, a good joke spoiled. Our receiving line was a lot of fun as we each got a few moments to talk to someone we had not had enough time to talk to for a while. The food layout was fairly impressive...oddly, my favorite part might have been the cheese and crackers. They also had an interesting marionberry lemonade. I must have had a half dozen glasses of it, it was not like anything I had drunk previously...or am likely to encounter again.

Once the dancing started things really kicked into gear. With any luck, after Emily gets home I will be able to download some pictures into the computer at which point I will try to post a few. One of Emily's greatest fears was that nobody would dance but the floor was almost always fairly full as lots of people participated including some I was quite surprised at.

I was able to spend some time circulating and talking to people. Had extra nice conversations with my Aunt Goldina, cousins Brenda and Jason (and Jason's wife Shannon) and a few others, including my old softball teammates J.J. and Betsy.

Brooke and Morgan, the pink-clad flower girls, took turns running across the dance floor and jumping up for me to twirl. There is not much in this world to make you feel more out of shape than doing that for 10 or 15 minutes!

Finally, about 10:30 we had a "final dance" and after about 5-1/2 hours the party was over. Had really good talk with Alan.

Over the years as our life paths have diverged we have kind of lost contact. 11 years ago when I married she who shall not be named he was best man. 7 years ago when he married Amber I was in his wedding. In this one he was just a guest. In some ways this is merely symbolic of life...not one of the people who stood with me in the first wedding (Kyle, Alan, Billy) was up there for this one. Not that I have regrets...at that time they were my three closest friends and now my 4 closest friends are my Dad, brothers, and brother-in-law...this is in no way a slam on anyone, simply an acknowledgment that roles have changed.

Billy got married, moved 3/4 of the way across the continent, has a wife I have met but once and I have lost count of how many kids. We e-mail every 3 - 4 months but don't hang out like we once did. Kyle has a wife I have met only a handful of times and 2 kids...1 of which I had not seen until the 7th and he is almost 2! I seldom get a chance to talk to him anymore, much less hang out. Alan got married, had a kid, got divorced...and we get together maybe once every 4 - 6 months or so.

In some ways these things make me sad. But in other ways it does not...it simply reveals that life causes changes, some of which are good, others of which maybe not. But it is the way of the world. On the bright side, Alan & I have committed to hanging out more so that was nice.

It was close to 11 by the time we got squared away to leave and believe me...after getting there initially about 3 o clock, that was more than enough time to spend at the Acadian!