3 Weddings and a Funeral (or My Summer Trips to Wisconsin)

It’s been a very busy summer for me.  I’ve covered enough miles in the air to have flown to Nigeria in back, but I only went to Milwaukee!

I’ve tried 4 different airlines (AirTran’s at the top of my list so far; sorry Midwest, they fly direct), gone through 5 different airports, and spent 4 wonderful Saturdays in the best place on earth.

All the trips were good, even the unexpected one for my grandpa’s funeral, but by far my favorite was my parents’ giant vow renewal party.  (Ok, technically, that’s not a ‘wedding’, but it’s close enough.)  Mommy and Daddy had a very full house, even before the party started.  All three of their daughters and all three of their daughters’ special friends.  So much fun!  (Photo © dtrizzle.)

Happy tears (Daddy), good friends (yay for Beaker and the Great Ecclestone sticking around late into the night), fun games (Twister!) and plenty of swimming.  Oh, and can’t forget all the yummy cheese!

 

The real weddings were great fun, too, especially since Mommy was at both of them.  Most recently, the whole family headed “up north” (actually about an hour west of Milwaukee, but anything that’s not Milwaukee or on the way to Chicago is “up north” to me) for a Schram wedding.  The last in their family, Mikey, was getting married.  The wedding was supposed to be outside.  Of course, that was the one day like all summer it rained.  Oh well, the inside ceremony was still really nice. 

The DJ’s didn’t play any polka, but it wasn’t the bride and groom’s fault.  They requested polka.  Munchkinhead tried too.  Knowing how much Mikey likes Weird Al, she tried requesting a Weird Al polka song – he has plenty.  It took two trips to the DJs.  At the end of a conversation, one of the DJs said, “Ok, whatever you like.”  Munchkinhead thought the DJ was finally going to play the polka she requested.  Well, not quite.  The DJ played the Weird Al version of T.I.’s “Whatever You Like!”

Despite the missing polka and the reception not being in a bowling alley it was still great fun.  The best part was seeing our old friends that we hadn’t seen in awhile (including the groom).  (Daddy Bunny, Gibby and Timmy Bear were happy to see each other, too.)  And of course dancing with Mommy – we found something to polka to – and Munchkinhead.  Munchkinhead and I were minuet-ing to “Turn My Swag On” until the DJs cut the song off in the middle.  I think that may have had something to d with us being the only two people left on the dance floor, and the only reason we were out there is because one of the groom’s great-aunts told Munchkinhead to go dance with me.  (She hates Souljaboytellem.)

Now at Mel’s wedding there was polka, and not just the “Beer Barrell Polka” and “the Chicken Dance.”  The best part was the middle of the polkaing, when the DJ yelled out, “alright all you -skis!”  (If you don’t understand that, you’re not Polish enough.  I’m sorry.  Maybe in your next life you’ll have better luck.)  The DJ also played a song with Snoop Dogg in it so Mommy and I could have our traditional dance-to-a-Snoop-Dogg-song dance, even though Mommy hates hip hop.  (You can’t tell in that picture up there, but the bride and groom are both giants!  He’s like 6’7”.)

  Mel’s wedding was a little strange for me because it was a whole bunch of people I hadn’t seen in about 6 years.  I felt like I was way past that point in my life and that it was all so different back then than it is now.  So it took a little while to adjust, but not too long.  And you know what, those girls are just as spectacular as they were six years ago.  Maybe even a bit more so – Lupe’s husband just completes her so well that between the two of them I was nearly always in stitches.  It was exciting to finally meet him! 

Other great parts of our old Second Steele crew were there too, Little, Ang and her husband, and a little green army man (on the bride & groom’s present, hee hee.)  Caitlin was there in spirit, especially when the DJ played “California Love;” no one can shake it like Caitlin (Little tried; it didn’t quite work.)

Oh! And one other amazing part of the night, Mel did “the Rooster Song!”  I love the Rooster Song!

Meet the Schrams

A General Story

Since mentioning the Schrams in the previous entry, I think it only fitting
to expound on this and add another story about adventures with them.

First, Meet the Schrams:

The dog: I don't remember it's name. I don't know if it's still around.
But it had one blue eye and one brown eye, so it deserves mentioning.

Lester and Mary, my parents friends - pretty cool for being old like the
folks, but then, I think you'd have to be pretty cool to handle being
friends with my parents, especially Daddy. They kind of sort of grew
up/went to school together. I don't remember all the details on who did and
who didn't go to Bay View (I think I grew up thinking that was the only
place anyone went!) or who was what in which wedding. Anyway, they rock
and are uber-cute together.

Then there's the boys, Mikey and Bryan. Mikey is 2 years older than Wendy
and Bryan is 2 years older than me (at least school wise). Mikey was
Wendy's first boyfriend (everybody say "awwwwww" with me). So whenever we
played games, we paired up in like manner. Katrina traded off on teams
once she was old enough (I suppose we could have paired her with the dog) .

Our most frequent game was Hide and Go-Seek in the Dark. Always fun,
sometimes a little dangerous. Somehow always a little safer played
upstairs at the Shrams' (their house is always cleaner), we once in awhile
played at our house. One particular time, Bryan and I were searching
everywhere for Mikey. Having already found Wendy and Katrina and weary
from searching, we decided to rest, so we all went into my room and sat
down on the bed, thinking, discussing, trying to figure out where on earth
Mikey could have gone, where hadn't we looked. As we sat pondering the
extreme hiding abilities of Mikey, the mattress suddenly jerked a little.
The four of us sitting on the bed looked at each other, "what the...?" It
moved again. We jumped off to see what on earth was going on. Much to our
surprise, Mikey wriggled out from under the mattress. The poor boy had
been hiding there the entire time; he had been not only under our noses,
but under us! (and we were not a light load).

(Original Post)

Contemplative

Spinnathon

A General Story

As anyone would know from reading previous stories, Wendy and I had lots of
fun games that we played growing up. One of my favorites drove our mother
extra-nuts. Wendy and I would clear off the floor in the living room,
probably by putting everything on a chair. Then we would put on one of our
favorite cassette tapes, Queen for We Will Rock You or the Beatles
for Back in the USSR and we would begin our Spinnathon!

Yeah, the name pretty much gives it away. We would spin, as long as we
could, and the last one left standing won. Sometimes it was a as simple as
that, sheer stamina and the ability to stay upright. Sometimes we allowed
"Dorothy". "Dorothy" meant a break taken by throwing oneself onto the
couch. As all good spinners know, just because you stop spinning doesn't
mean the room stops too. Lying on the couch, the room still felt to spin
around us and it reminded us of the house spinning in the tornado on the
Wizard of Oz, hence "Dorothy".

But sometimes we made it more of a challenge; sometimes you could bump into
people. (Hey, sometimes it was people, we roped our friends into this
debauchery too.) The bumping wasn't meant to be mean or to hurt or to
include slapping or anything...but hey, it's not my fault my arms flew out
from my body, that's centripetal force - it just happened to cause my hands
to wind up at the same level as Wendy's face. You can see why Mommy didn't
like that too much!

One of our most extreme Spinnathons ever actually happened after we moved.
The Schrams were visiting, old family friends of our parents. Mikey and
Bryan joined us for a Spinnathon that lasted well over an hour and a half!
Talk about Dizzy!

(Original Post)

Sick