Wedding Pictures!

Well, this is from the rehearsal.

And this is from the rehearsal dinner. Tsukasa was my dinner buddy. :)

First stop the morning of the wedding: our favorite hair salon!

Julia was up first. She was a little hesitant about this whole thing, but Kim assured her she had just the style! She said she'd been thinking about Julia's personality all week and knew exactly what to do. Kim's just great like that! You can see the enthusiasm is written all over her face.
Doesn't it look purdy? We all loved it!
Sneaky.
Sneaky still. I was banished to the blow dryer because I didn't rise early enough to let my hair dry all the way...
Finally, it was my turn. Kim at work!

Okay, this picture is great for many reasons, most obviously because my mom's hair is sticking straight up. But I love it because it perfectly captures Kim's personality! I'm pretty sure she's in the middle of telling my mom off. Kim's convinced that we limit her art by wanting our hair to

 look "perfect" all the time, when sometimes a little flyaway is okay. She frequently calls Julia and me by our mom's name. ;) She's so funny. I love trips to the hair salon. They're always so entertaining!
I wish I could have these big curls every day!

It was so funny to me, because when we got home from the salon, my brother was relaxing on the patio. We'd been up hours earlier getting ready for his wedding, and 3 hours away from show time he was just hanging out in his everyday clothes.

A little while later, we headed to the church to make sure everything was ready to roll.

Tyler was awesome and agreed (even though he wasn't excited about the idea) to be an usher at the last minute. It's a long story, but we thought Amanda's brother wasn't going to make it on time, so Tyler stepped in and helped us out. It turned out her brother did show up on time (phew!), but Ty still did an awesome job! I mean, he had the tux and everything! These are from the actual ceremony.
I took my responsibility of making sure Amanda's dress was arranged nicely very seriously. Speaking of her dress, isn't it gorgeous?

This was taken just as they were announced. Notice the BIG smiles.

Aren't our bouquets lovely? I want to save mine, so I'm trying to dry it out.
Okay. Enough with the normal smiles.
Aren't my parents adorable? :D
Here's the gang.

Julia and I with Daddy.

This is Amanda after the wedding. She's just beaming! Thankfully, Mrs. L. caught her face before she found out her brother left with the keys to her car. She and James were stranded at the church until a spare set was fetched.

Another great sister photo.
The caption for this, even as it was taken, was "the three sisters."

And here I am with my new sister!
Tali Rose. Isn't she beautiful? I'm quite flattered when people mix us up. :)
When they announced the wedding party at the reception, they said we all had to go dance. I wasn't too keen on everybody watching me dance,  but Tyler led me to the floor and everything seemed okay. :) But I really need to get over this whole "watching my feet" thing...
My brother even asked me to dance!
I love James's face in this photo! So sweet! I love to see my brother smile.
Some of us girls at the reception.

See, we had a wonderful time!

Tali Rose and I had no idea what we were doing, but we didn't let it stop us!

I think Amanda had a great time, too. ;) Ha ha, look at James's face; it seems to be saying, "I'm keeping an eye on my gal over there!"
My dad absolutely loves to dance! My mom, on the other hand, really doesn't. Dad can never get her to dance crazy with him, but on Saturday Mom let loose and joined in the fun, too!
Yes, that's me doing the twist.
When it was time for them to leave, we all lit sparklers! I've never done this before, but I thought it was so beautiful!

A HUGE thanks to Mrs. L. for taking all the pictures of the wedding and reception! She's WONDERFUL!

Happy Birthday, Tyler!

I wish I had time to post a nice tribute to Tyler like his mom did, but today is the day of the wedding. If I were blogger savvy, I would have written it ahead of time and told it to post this morning. Too bad I just thought of that.

Still, I didn't want the day to go by without letting everyone know that today is his birthday. May I just say that he's so kind and sacrificial that he's spending it at my brother's wedding?

These are from our trip to Busch Gardens last Saturday; we couldn't go on his actual birthday, obviously, because of the wedding. I told him we'd just make his birthday last twice as long! That's how we do birthdays in my family. :)

Happy 20th birthday, Tyler! (For those of you who don't know, Tyler is my favorite boyfriend. Okay, he's my only boyfriend ever. But I wouldn't change that! :) And he's still my favorite.) I'm so thankful God has brought him into my life in this respect! :)

Off to my favorite hair salon to get my hair done for the wedding!

Too Cute!

I don't have much to say, but I just wanted to share this picture. I think it's quite adorable.

Last week when I was baby sitting Maggie, Emma, and Wesley (and their cousin), we walked over to my house. We were all chatting and having a great time with my mom and my sister, and then I looked over and saw Wesley sitting on his skateboard, reading. And then I saw Maggie shuffle over and plant herself right next to him. I quickly grabbed my camera, hoping to capture this sweet big brother-little sister moment.

In other news, my brother is getting married this Saturday, so things are pretty (understandably) hectic. After the 5th dress fitting, my bridesmaid dress fits nicely. I'm sincerely hoping I make it down the aisle in my 3-inch heels. Don't laugh! Yes, I know heels aren't exactly "me." But they will be for an hour. (You'd better believe I'm going barefoot at the reception! :) 

Today my government professor told our class that people today are smarter than they were in colonial days. I stifled a laugh and raised my hand. I asked how he could even compare today's literacy with that of 200 years ago, given that our curriculum today doesn't even compare to what students used to learn. There's just no comparison! Most of us today have considerable difficulty even reading (much less comprehending) old writings. He sort of acknowledged my point, but quickly threw out some literacy statistics and said that we have way more information today than we ever have had. I had to laugh at the irony of the situation, because my literate PhD professor didn't realize that information doesn't equal intelligence. Funny, but ridiculous and sad.

Okay, so I had a rant in me after all. This weekend is going to be full of crazy celebrations, so I'd better go make the best use of my time. Off to practice...