Sam's Blog

CONGRATULATIONS A.J. AND VANESSA...

AJ and Vanessa got married on Saturday, June 24, 2006 at 7:00pm at the Mont Bleu Resort Casino in Lake Tahoe. Congratulations AJ and Vanessa!!

Now...about the trip...

Friday, June 23
We left the house at about 7:30 to make our 10:30 flight. Traffic was a nightmare. We were sitting in a parking lot on I-5 when, at around 8-ish, I decided we'd take some side streets. I took an exit in Kent and looked for familiar roads (assuring Lisa that I knew exactly where I was going). Very quickly, I found a familiar road and turned on it towards the airport (in the direction of the airport is the correct phrasing...). After 15-minutes, I was getting worried. We were in a residential area that we'd never been in before...then we saw the airport sign. "I knew we were close," I said pounding my chest...

Getting to the ticket counter was quite the chore with our 7 bags of luggage (3 suitcases, 2 carry-ons with kids paraphernalia, and 2 car seats in the top-of-the-line car seat bags...). We actually purchased a couple of the rolling luggage carts to move the bags 100-yards. Check-in was a breeze though and we were at the gate by 9:30 - just in time for us both to take turns sipping down a bloody mary at the airport bar (it was the Mitch and Aly's first flight - we didn't know what to expect).

The kids were awesome on the plane ride. The only breakdown that we had was when dad (that's me) decided to pack away all of Mitch's toys 30-minutes before we landed (I didn't want the flight attendants to be cross with us...). We landed in Sacramento on-time, purchased a single cart for the standard luggage while I carried the car seats. Lisa and the kids sat down for lunch while I took the shuttle to the car rental - everyone marveling at the car seat luggage (little do they know that they were nice to look at but not any easier to carry around - despite the arm straps so you could wear one like a backpack...). I picked up the Buick LaCrosse (I thought it was a pretty nice car but Lisa was unimpressed.) and headed back to pick up Lisa, Aly, and Mitch.

We didn't leave the airport until after 2:00 so we hit quite a bit of traffic along the way. We arrived in Lake Tahoe at 4:30.

Thanks Nanny, Jessica, and Andy
Mic called several times on our way up to Tahoe. She was up there with Jessica and Andy and was anxious to see the kids. When we got into South Lake Tahoe, she called to find out where we were staying...and almost beat us there. They offered to take care of the kids Friday evening (we already arranged to have them take care of Aly and Mitch on Saturday). We had to meet up with the wedding party right away so we took Mic up on her offer.

We went to Cecil's Steak & Brew and met up with AJ, Vanessa, Matias, Adam, Heather, Adrienna, Jr., and some of Vanessa's family. The beer was good, the ribeye was tasty, but everything else about the place was lousy - especially, the service. One of our waiters was ok but the other was downright rude...guess he knew he was getting 15% no matter what...

Lisa and I gambled a little bit and had a couple of drinks for the rest of the evening. We met up with AJ and Adam late in the evening and were at the hotel by 11:00.

Great start for a mini-vacation to go with the wedding...

Saturday, June 24 - Wedding Day!
We (Lisa, AJ, Matias, and I) arranged to meet with Nanny and the kids, Jessica, Andy, Adam, Heather, Adrienna, and Jr. at one of the beaches Saturday morning. Because Adam brought his dog up, we thought a dog-friendly beach would be nice. I searched the Tahoe rags (magazines for those of you not familiar with the hip-speak...geek-speak, really) and found Kiva Beach, which permitted dogs on a leash. We arrived late (Nanny was a little annoyed) and found that Kiva Beach wasn't much of a beach at all - it was more like several small mini-beaches (5-feet of sand surrounded by rock and brush....). After walking for about 1/2-hour looking for a spot, we decided we'd drop off the dog and go back to the South Lake Tahoe beach (Nanny was a little more than annoyed at this point). The South shore beach was cool and we all had a good time for a couple of hours (enough to get pretty sunburned in the ~90-degree temps...).

Lisa called the Horizon Casino Resort and arranged for an early check-in (AJ and Vanessa would get our original hotel room for the night). We were in our room and napping by 2:30. We woke up at 3:30, got cleaned up and dressed, and headed over to Mont Bleu at 5:30 (now the fun begins...).

AJ didn't eat much all day. He was (literally) sweating all day long (his dad told me so when I talked to him before the wedding).....

We figured that the wedding would be quick and followed immediately by dinner so we didn't feed the kids - what a mistake (stay tuned)...

The wedding started a little later than expected but not too bad. It was a beautiful outdoor setup. I'd love to describe more but...

Almost everyone's been to a wedding where there's some kid screaming and yelling and crying... You're sitting there thinking "can't those parents control their kid?" Well...I have a different perspective now... You see, I am that parent...! As the ceremony started, one of ours (the humiliation will be all mine...) was that child. We had a contingency plan, so I immediately took the child away so we wouldn't be a distraction. Unfortunately, I missed the ceremony (and the family pictures afterwards) but it was the right thing to do.

After the ceremony, I took the kids right over to the reception area so we could get a little food in them. Unfortunately, they were still setting up the area when we got there. Then Aly had to use the restroom...unfortunately (again), the restrooms on our side of the casino/resort were under renovation....so we had to walk all the way to the other side... Luckily, we met up with momma near the restrooms. We walked all the way back only to find that they still were not serving food (had to be after 8:00 at this point). We were livid. I set out, unsuccessfully, to find some quick food for the kids...Mitchell pee'd on himself - and Lisa's dress...we were going nuts.

Then, Kylie and Jake (Aly and Mitch's cousins) arrived and took care of the kids. The kids started playing and dancing (Aly and Adrienna were sooooo cute on the dance floor) and forgot about food. Then, the food came. Neither of the kids would eat much. They were beyond hyperactive at this point - during the toast's, Mitch was screaming and yelling - out of control. At one point, a booster seat came flying from behind the head table - with Mitch following close behind... We pretty much chased the kids all night. It was 10:30 or so that we decided we'd had enough. We bid everyone adieu and headed back to the hotel. I don't know about Lisa and the kids, but I fell asleep the minute my head hit the pillow...

Sunday, June 25 - the morning after
Although I fell asleep immediately the night before, I hardly slept a wink all night. I woke for good at 4:30 and was in the shower by 6:30. We were on the road back to Sacramento by 9:30 (When setting up the flights, I was able to choose seats for the flight down but not the flight back. I went down to the front desk and printed our boarding passes. That's when I found that we weren't sitting together so we had to head to the airport ASAP to rearrange seats...). We stopped at our original hotel and checked AJ and Vanessa out then we hit the road.

(more to follow...i'm too tired right now...plus, i'm sure i missed a bunch...)

posted by Sam @ 8:22 PM