Let the love of Jesus fill your heart

I went to the most bitterly cold place on the face of the planet this past weekend (Minnesota) for my cousin's wedding. Despite the fact that I got to see my gay aunt and her partner (plus their two adorable springer spaniels), my recently cheated on then divorced, but now a totally liberated and thinner woman aunt, and my mom's identical twin sister, yet another aunt, the weekend was somewhat of a bust. I must say that I love my family so much. I've never laughed so hard as I have when I'm with them. In addition, I also found out that my Goldman Sacks employed, Dartmouth grad cousin was a Kappa. Apparently, for Chapter meetings at Dartmouth, the Kappas must wear black and pearls. I think it sounded very interesting.

My cousin Troy, the groom, and his bride, Mary, both work for Young Life. If you're fortunate enough to not know what this is, it is basically a club of christian ministry, charity, and overall bigotry/hatred of non-white, non-christian, non-heterosexual, non-American people which takes teenagers on fun trips to make the brainwashing seem more legitimate.

I love my cousin Troy and his uber conservative baptist family, but it was a little much. First of all, the blasting of Christian Rock before, during and after the wedding ceremony was a little distasteful. Secondly, and most importantly, no booze!! :( How can you throw a decent wedding without drunkeness and dancing??!! I was most dismayed.

However, the bride's family was the kicker for the weekend. My family, aunts/uncles included, were told that our help was needed for decorating the reception hall (low budget wedding). We spent 3 hours that morning to put together a lovely room complete with fake fikas plants and miniature plastic slippers filled with mints (my Aunt Cindy, mother of the groom's idea). During all of our hard work of table setting, etc, no members of the bride's family showed up!! The mother of the bride showed her face for about 5 minutes to speak with Aunt Cindy, then promplty left.

This wouldn't be such a tragedy, except that negleted to help clean up after the affair. My mom and her 3 sisters were busy slaving away downstairs with my cousins and I taking orders. If you really want to see something scary, it's 2 sets of identical twins (my mom and her twin, and my aunt meg and marsha are twins), on a war path! The bride's family came to take away the gifts, and it apparently took 10 of them to decide what to do with the flowers. After being as indignant and pissy as possible during the clean up (passive aggressiveness is a trait in my clan), we all went back to the hotel for a drink. It was also my parents 33rd wedding anniversary that day, but I'm assurred that their wedding was better.

So, after a weekend of interesting things, I've made some highlights:
1. Finding sales at Banana Republic, Nordstrom, and Tall Girl at the Mall of America
2. Learning that the untimely death of my cousin's toy poodle, Nibbs 8 years ago, was actually due to my Aunt Kathie backing over it in their mini-van, instead of the story of a mountain lion attack that my cousin's had heard, and then told me.
3. Being late for the wedding and having my aging grandfather ask 4 times when the wedding was supposed to begin.
4. My aunt's dog, Cody, jumping up on my Uncle Charlie, spilling red wine on him and the floor, then drinking/slurping the liquid clean off the floor. Who knew dogs could be budding alcoholics?
5. Waking up this morning to find a 1/4 inch of ice on our entire rental car, then taking 2.5 hours to go 10 miles, running through the MSP airport, and almost missing our flight back to Missoula.

I hope every one else is doing well. Miss you!