Family

A few weeks ago we travelled to Cooperstown to say goodbye to my Aunt Sarah. It was wonderful to see family but terribly sad to say goodbye to someone so young.

Yes, I was named after her (and my father's mother). So now I'm the only Sarah and carry the name with pride.

Many family members brought old photos to share.

This was Aunt Sarah in her youth.


And this is a photo of the Halls. Mom is one of six kids. I think this photo is from one of their trips across the Atlantic (yup on the Queen Mary that is now docked in Long Beach). I'm sure Grandpa is behind the lens because Grammy is in the photo. Can you tell which one is my Mom?

Easter 2011

I promise I'll do a full blog post on Easter.

For now enjoy this photo of my 1 year old nephew Ethan.

His sweater is a gift from his Aunt Sarah. She brought it from Paris for him.

100 Years Young

I'm writing this from seat 25A on an American flight from JFK to LAX. Amazing what technology can do.

The day before Thanksgiving my Dad and I made the long trek (like 5 miles) to Carmichael to visit and old friend. Marjorie Loyd has been a family friend since before I can remember. She sewed the robes for the Small Blessings (children's choir at Westminster Presbyterian), she sewed the costumes for my musicals and she regularly drove the older ladies of church to service (most were 10-20 years younger than her but needed help).



Mrs. Loyd is now 100 years old. She lives in an assisted living facility in a 2 bedroom apartment and has very little vision or hearing left and relies on a walker. While she's showing some signs of aging she is as sharp as a tack.

We had a wonderful few hours with her. I think they made more of an impact on me than on her (she has lots of visitors - she's very popular).

She said that when she's not having guests for lunch she sleeps a lot. Besides that she likes to sit in her most comfortable chair and just think about her memories. She said she has so many wonderful memories she likes to just sit and think about them all.

How amazing is that? What will we look back on at 100? Probably not the family with 6 kids who took a very long time getting through security. More likely the afternoon spent walking around NYC with a cousin and his growing family.

Oh and Mrs. Loyd... she's on Facebook.



She did share one awesome memory. She said she came upon my brother when he was very young sitting outside the Sunday School room. She asked him why he was sitting outside and not inside with everyone. His response was, "I just can't be good in there". She said she spent several minutes talking to him and asked if he could be good now. He said, "Yes, I think I can be good now". I'm fairly certain that's exactly as it happened. Classic Blake.

And now for the main event

You might be thinking that I've neglected the blogging.

I think you'd be right. Can't get out of that one no matter how hard I try.

So we left off with wedding prep which means we need to start talking about the main event... THE WEDDING!

We sent the groom off with the families and 2 of his groomsmen. We kept FX to drive us (Roni, Courtney and I) to the wedding. The photographer stayed with us to snap a few photos as we left and kindly offered to let one of us (I think he meant me) ride with him. Side bar here because this girl gets motion sickness looking at a car and the roads to the church were not conducive to motion sickness - or were - you know what I mean. Okay I'm back. Mr. Photographer had a zippy little Porsche convertible and the thought of trying to speak French to him while not vomiting was too much. I didn't want that. I wanted girl time. So we let the photographer drive ahead.

Courtney and I sprawled in the backseat of our vehicle (you all remember what that is??? It was a few posts ago... yup the yellow Beetle convertible) while Roni rode up front with FX. The ride was a ton of fun. It started with us renaming FX. You see there were two groomsmen named Francois. FX was Francoix Xavier... get it?... get it? Yeah. We informed him that FX is a cable network in the states and not a cool nickname so we gave him a new one. Frankie. Once we'd renamed Frankie we decided we should start singing Disney songs (it made sense at the time). We sang quite a few (no Frankie didn't join us) but we couldn't remember the song from Aladdin. You know the one on the carpets. It drove us crazy! and kept our minds off the turning road and the stress of coordinating all the families for the wedding :)

While all this was going on Mr. Photographer was driving in front of us. Well it was more racing than driving. He was so far in front of us he had time to stop and put the top down and then later stop and put it back up. He was so smooth. You're probably wondering if he got any smoother. You know what... he did. He had a GIANT silk scarf wrapped around his neck and tucked into his shirt. Soooo frenchie frenchman.

Once we arrived at the church we found that while we'd left 45 minutes after the guests, groom, groomsmen and families we hard arrived before them. We went to Benoit's grandparents' house which was literally across the street from the church. We arrived and found that the entire Fleury family was inside the house waiting for us to arrive. We forced Frankie to get out of the car... make them leave the house... wait in the back... so Roni could come in without everyone seeing her. Yes we actually had to tell them this.

Family in Front of House

Okay so we're waiting in the house, everyone is filing into the church, and we're heading over. We arrive at the gates and find that the doors are wide open and the entire congregation is... doing choir practice!!!!!!! (you're all remembering the post about the rehearsal - I'm willing you to). It was too good to be true. Courtney and I left Roni and Becky (sister and maid of honor) at the gate and headed in to make sure things went smoothly. We instructed the photographer to photograph Benoit when Roni came in not Roni (per Roni's instructions). We get the Moms lined up. We told the French people to leave the bride out of sight until it was time. Basically we took charge.

Choir Practice??

Then it was time. Tear (okay not really). We marched in our French processional and watched our beautiful bride come in.

I'm surprised they didn't want us to hold hands while we came into the church

Adorable Flower/Ring Boys (2 Frenchies and a Filipino)

BEAUUUUTIFUL Bride (see Katherine on the right!)

The ceremony was beautiful. We sang...


The best man, Francois, dropped the rings not once but twice. The rings did the whole drop, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce roll, swirl all on the stone floor. It was SO loud! But we got the rings in the right place...


It was wonderful. Magical. Perfect. Half in English. Half in french. Magical.

Interupt Your Regularly Scheduled Programming

I know I'm working on France posts but I had to interrupt to let you all know...

Liz and I were arrested!!

Arrested by the excitement of NBC's new show Law and Order Los Angeles!

I know you're all going to tune in tonight (Wednesday) at 10/9C to watch this exciting premiere. Did I mention I was excited??

Our mug shots would have been way cooler if I'd not started laughing at the end. I was drying to look drunk but instead am laughing away. Sigh. Better luck next time.

Morning of

Imagine you wake up in a beautifully decorated room straight out of a movie set. You throw back the curtains to find the hills of Normandy rolling out in front of you with cows grazing on the rolls of green. Yup, that's what I woke up to. Crazy beautiful.



So what do you do when you wake up in French paradise? You go next door to have mani pedi time with your best girls. I'm shaking my head at how silly fabulous this sounds but it was real. I swear. While each person had their nails done we snacked on french pastries and chatted. Keeps getting better right???





What do you do when the nails are done? HAIR!!!
Benoit drove us all into town to have our hair done by a local hair salon. I don't yet have the photos of my hair to show you but here are some words of wisdom...

When you go to France and are having them do your hair for a wedding do not tell them to "do what they want". Do not trust that they're French and will do something elegant.

Just wait until I get the photos. Just wait. There is a hair lattice in addition to the curls and folds.

Nails... check. Hair... check. Makeup? Let's do it.

Rehearsing

So while Courtney enjoyed her soaking tub I tested out the jets in my shower. Oh yeah the chateau was just our style. We got all gussied up and ready to rehearse the big ceremony.

We emerged as you might expect - hair, make up, heels and dresses. We know how to clean up.

Benoit picked us up in a new vehicle perfect for racing through back roads in the rain.


We picked up Roni from the salon (and managed to avoid a catastrophic blowout incident) and raced to the church. Literally raced. On the way to the church Roni told us to expect the rehearsal to be 1 1/2 hours. I was convinced this was a translation problem. How many weddings have I been in? Well enough to know that rehearsals don't usually last longer than the ceremony.

Prepare yourself for my next statement.

I was wrong.

Yes I was wrong and the bride was absolutely correct! The rehearsal was longer than 1 1/2 hours. It all started with a little something called choir practice. There were roughly - okay exactly - 4 songs that the congregation was participating in. By participating I mean singing the chorus. Our French friends were not convinced we could handle the chorus so we practiced and practiced and practiced. Then the priest arrived and declared that God couldn't hear our voices. It was like a holy call out. Like what God can't hear me? I'll make God hear me!

While all this is going on I want you to picture Courtney and I in our pretty dresses, Roni in a beautiful dress, Benoit in a jacket and slacks and every single other person at the rehearsal in jeans and sweaters. Jeans and sweaters. Jeans and sweaters. Jeans and sweaters. Yeah. Not only were C & I cold but uncomfortable! 4 inch heels on stone floors is not the most comfortable thing in the world.

So after the singing we started rehearsing the ceremony. Benoit's family was organizing the entire ceremony so the wedding coordinator for the church didn't have to participate. Are you wondering how they'd know what Roni would want? or if they'd done this before? Not to worry... they'd watched numerous American movies to find out what Roni would want. Should I repeat that or did you get it?

We all ligned up... mothers walking together... then me (tallest)... then C... then flower boys/ring bearers... then Becky... then bride. Sounds normal right? Well the French said non non non! We looked like the seven dwarfs all tallest to shortest. So we rearranged... C and I walked together instead of one after another. After 2 run throughs "we" decided it was acceptable. With everyone down the aisle we started rehearsing the ceremony except it felt more like we were making it up as we went. Don't get me wrong it was highly entertaining. The priest kept saying how he falls in love with Roni every time he walks in the room. The priest explained to Courtney how to read - like literally how to read out loud to a group - hysterical. It was awesome. At the end we went to walk out with the groomsmen but non non non we had to escort the guests outside to wait for R&B to exit the church.

Once done with our rehearsing we were to walk to dinner which was a few minutes walk. Generally a few minutes walk in my experience equates to 1/4 mile. I did not want to walk in the cold in my heels to dinner. No thank you. B's grandma brought C & I sweaters and jackets. I LOVE B's grandma! Then B offer to drive us in our yellow chariot. Oh kind Benoit. Chivalrous Benoit.

Are any of you surprised to hear that we accepted the ride? Didn't think so.

So we park. We start walking to the restaurant on the corner. Oh it's not the one on the corner. It's just down a bit. Okay next one? Oh a little farther? Okay how far is this place? Wait a minute why is it raining in addition to the wind? Wait why is the rain horizontal? We're still not there yet? My hair! (again pretend to be surprised) Hey look there's so much rain on my face it's dripping off? Is that it ahead? Over there? Phew! Found it.

The rest of the guests walked there. None of them were wet. It hadn't rained on "that side of the beach". They all asked - why are you all wet? So that's fancy dresses and covered in water. It was damn funny though.

Dinner was lovely chatting with everyone (in a warm dry location that served wine). The only photos I took that night were at dinner and mainly of R's nephew Jaxon.

Jax with his awesome drink (that he wouldn't touch)

Jax with R's bro and sis

R, C and the priest - oh how he loved C!

New Wedding Photographer

Church that Night