Eric borrowed Dad's truck so that Mike & I would have more room sitting in the back seat. I love traveling in Dad's truck. Paying for gas, not so much. Luckily, we weren't paying for all the gas.
We left our house at 5:30am on Friday 10/22. We got to the Hilton Garden Inn in Cupertino (where we were staying at) around 12:30pm. And we even stopped about 4 or 5 times for potty breaks. You know when you get older you have to stop more often for potty breaks. Kind of like when you have young kids. Except for now, you are stopping because it is you. Getting old is a bitch.
Since it was too early to check in when we reached the hotel (at least that is what we assumed since check in wasn't suppose to be until 3pm), we decided we would get some lunch. The only restaurant options around the hotel were, Asian, Asian or more Asian. But we did have our choice of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, & Vietnamese. We chose Chinese.
The food was pretty awesome. But I could not master the chopsticks. Luckily they had forks. If I had to eat with chop sticks, I would be skinny. We ended up splitting 3 orders of food and we still had left overs which we took with us since the hotel was suppose to have a mini fridge & microwave.
We got back to the hotel around 1:30pm. We saw Tyler's family in the parking lot. They had just returned from visiting the Winchester Mystery House. They said it was definitely worth seeing.
Then we saw Emily's husband Jack in the parking lot taking their stuff into the hotel.
Once we got inside the hotel, they didn't have any more rooms ready. It seems that Emily, Jack & Aunt Joni got the only ones ready that early. The hotel said we would have to wait about 10 minutes. The hotel had been sold out the night before & check out isn't until noon, so they were still cleaning rooms. We ended up waiting in the lobby for about half hour to an hour.
Here is Eric & Jeannette reading the paper while we waited.
Mike went outside to see this robot contraption. There was a group of high school students from Boise, Idaho who were in town for some robot competition. This was their entry. Mike had a fun time watching the robot. It could kick a ball. Wooped de freakin' do. But then, I've never had to make a robot that can kick a ball. So it might be freakin' awesome.Aunt Joni came down to the lobby to visit with us while we waited as well.
Finally after what seemed an eternity, our rooms were ready. Except, no clean towels. We would have to wait awhile longer for towels.
Our rooms were pretty good. Too bad I didn't take any photos. You'd think since I blog all the time, I would be taking photos of everything. But no, I tend to forget. But the room did have a mini fridge & microwave. Woo hoo! And a big flat screen TV. Too bad the TV reception wasn't too good. But the Internet was free.
We rested a little bit and then got ready for the wedding. We were all to meet downstairs in the lobby about 4:00pm. The wedding started at 5:30pm, but the golf course it was located at in San Jose was at least a 1/2 hour away, without traffic. We were going to be hitting San Jose traffic at it's peak. So we left an hour and 1/2 early, just in case. Good thing we did, I think we only got there about a 1/2 hour early.
Becky & Rick S drove straight there. They had the grooms cake & didn't have time to stop at the hotel first to change. They changed at the club house. But at least they made it in time. Marti, was another story. She got stuck in traffic & missed the actual wedding ceremony.
Here are a few shots prior to the wedding.
Rick, Ryan B & Ryan K. Rick & Ryan B(middle) are John's brothers. Rick is my cousin, Ryan B is not. The Ryan K on the right is Emily's son. Emily is John's sister & my cousin. And if you can't figure out how Rick & Ryan B can be John's brothers and only one of them my cousin. They are brothers from another mother. Both have same father, just different mothers. And since I am only related to one of their mothers, only one of them is my cousin. Family trees can get messy sometimes.
Hopefully I get these right. The girl in the back on the left is Sarah. She is Emily & Jack's daughter. The girl in the front on the left is Brooke, the girl on the right is Riley. They are Rick B & Traci's daughters.
Mike, Kim (me), Eric & Jeannette.
Tina & Jessica. They are Becky & Rick S's daughters. Fun girls. I had so much fun getting to know them better.
Here we are sitting in the chairs waiting for the wedding ceremony to start. I tried numerous times to take our photo holding the camera out in front of me with no luck. Finally some lady sitting in front of us offered to take our photo.
Sarah & John exchanging their wedding vows. The wedding was originally suppose to be outside, but it was rainy that day so they moved it inside. I was sitting in the back so didn't get the best photo. And I didn't want to use my flash.Right after the ceremony they had us all go outside to a deck area for cheese, crackers, veggies, dips and hot finger foods. Sorry, no photos of the food. I was busy eating & visiting with cousins.
The photographer took family photos before the sun went down. I missed getting my own photo of John, Sarah and the siblings (my cousins). I got the tail end of this shot with John, Sarah, Marti, Emily, Rick B & Becky was already walking away. Don't have a clue where Tyler was.
Here is John, Sarah & all of John's nieces & nephews. Well not all, but all the ones that attended. Three of Marti's kids (now all grown up) were not there. And Becky's son was not there.
Aunt Joni is always smiling & looking like she is having fun. You can even see Uncle Ivan in this photo. I haven't seen him in probably 30 years or more. He didn't recognize Eric or me.
John and his beautiful bride Sarah. They are so cute together. Someone needs to seriously photo shop those power poles out of the photo.
Becky, John, Sarah & Marti.
Becky & her daughters Tina and Jessica made the groom's cake. Sarah & John met while playing ice hockey. And I'm guessing that they currently have 2 kitties. The cake turned out really cute.
And here was their wedding cake. I didn't get a very good photo of it. I love how it is all a skewed. Sarah & John's wedding colors were navy blue & orange.
Aunt Joni holding her great grandson Tyson. This is Kira's new baby born 3 weeks prior to this photo. Kira is Marti's daughter. And Marti is Joni's daughter. And no, I did not get a photo of Kira at the wedding. I missed taking photos of most of the family.
Tyler & his son Reed. Reed is such a cutie patootie. Everyone just loved him. He had the best smile.
Mother/son dance.
Eric & Jeannette visiting with Tyler & Becky. That was the best part of the evening, getting to visit with everyone. Too bad the music had to get in the way.
Sarah & John.I loved Sarah & John's first dance. I took a video of the first part, which was pretty boring. But about 1/2 way through they did some dips & twirls. It was quite cute. Wish I had video taped that part, but I didn't. Since the part I taped was pretty boring, I'm not posting it. I may put it on facebook later. Right now, I'm too lazy.
The DJ they had was pretty good and the music for dancing was great. Everyone had a blast. I love dancing at family weddings. Much more fun that dancing at some acquaintances wedding.
All in all, it was a fabulous wedding & reception. I had a great time. The food was scrum-deli-icious. I had the chicken, Eric, Jeannette & Mike all had the fillet Mignon. I should have taken photos, but I was too busy scarfing it down.
For favors Sarah and her mother and grandmother made Italian wedding cookies. Every place setting had a little box full of yummy cookies to take home. Sarah said it is a family tradition. I like that tradition. I brought home the cookies that were meant for Andrea & Jamey (they ended up not getting to go). But somehow, the cookies never made it home. Don't know what happened to them. Is my nose growing longer?
The bad part of the evening was when Mike started not feeling good. We left about 10pm & went back to the hotel. A little after midnight Mike tells me that he is having a hard time breathing & needs to go to the hospital.
Problem is, Eric has the keys to the truck & was asleep. I had to wake him up to get the keys. Lucky for us, the Kaiser hospital was only a mile or two from the hotel. We got to the emergency room and told the nurse that Mike left his inhaler at home & needed a new one. Our options were A: to check into emergency (pay $100), see the doctor & get a new prescription (pay another $10), or B: go straight to the pharmacy to see if they could pull up a prescription & refill it. We chose option B.
Went down to the pharmacy only to find out that northern California Kaiser system has no access to southern California system. Can you believe it? For as much as Kaiser touts how tech savvy they have become, one hand doesn't know what the other hand is doing.
So now we had 2 different options. A: go back to emergency room & check in, pay $100, see doctor, get a new prescription, pay $10. Or B: call the 24 hour nurse advice line to see if they could do anything for us. Free. We chose option B. Had to wait on hold for almost 40 minutes before we spoke to the on call nurse. She first had to give us a northern California Kaiser member number to open up a chart. She then spoke to Mike & determined she would call the on call Doctor to call in a prescription for a new inhaler. Cha Ching!!! Just saved $100.
The only problem was, that would take 2-4 hours. By this time it was 3am. I had been up 1 hour short of 24 hours. I was dang tired. The pharmacist said to go back to our hotel & she would call when prescription was in.
She called about 2 hours later. By that time, we were finally asleep. Told her I would pick up in the morning.
Got up at 7:30 am, went back to Kaiser, picked up prescription, picked up some Gateraide from 7/11. All was well in our kingdom once again.
At least that was what I thought.
To be continued..................
