The Holidays, The Weddings, and the Recovery Process

Well, here we are in the midst of the holidays! Christmas, New Years Eve, and tomorrow, New Years Day:) Christmas was great:) We spent Christmas morning with Kyle's parents, and Christmas evening with my parents, brother, uncle and grandpa. It was a neat new way to spend Christmas, and we enjoyed the time with family. The day after Christmas, more family began to arrive in town. It was nice to have some extended family around, as it's rare that we get to see many relatives at once:) On the down side, I spent the day after Christmas sick in bed:( It was a one day thing, but it sure was a lousy way to top off Christmas, haha. Kyle spent that day having a LAN party (or nerd party, as I call it;). He had a lot of fun with that:) And no, he didn't neglect his sick wife all day;) He came up to check on me pretty regularly and brought me water and snacks and such:) He probably looked pretty whipped, to the guys, but he doesn't mind;)
Anyway, as if the holidays aren't normally crazy enough, we decided to throw a couple of weddings into the mix. Our friends Mike and Erica got married December 27th. I was a bridesmaid in their wedding, and Kyle came to enjoy the festivities and support his "frat brother" in their special day:) It was a beautiful wedding, and Erica looked absolutely gorgeous, as always:)
The following day, December 28th, was Kyle's and my rehearsal and rehearsal dinner for our wedding (which Erica was also in - yes, we're a bit crazy, lol). The rehearsal began fairly smoothly, with Pastor Jan guiding us through the order of events, as Rachel, our wedding coordinator, helped us all find our places. The rehearsal didn't exactly go smoothly from beginning to end though. In fact, it became quite an adventure. Rachel is 6 months pregnant. About halfway through the rehearsal, she was suddenly in a horrible amount of pain! She's one tough lady, so that's saying something! Anyone who has been pregnant, or is old enough to have witnessed pregnancies up close, knows that sudden, extreme pain during pregnancy is a scary thing! As she lay down on the chairs in the sanctuary, the guys called her husband, while the women tried to figure out what exactly may be causing the pain. When she rated labor as a 10 and this pain as a 9 on the pain scale, we decided it was time to call the hospital. As we waited for an ambulance, Pastor Jan prayed for her. By the time the ambulance got there, the pain had suddenly stopped, but so had the baby's movement. There was a scary few minutes before she started kicking again, much to our relief. When the paramedics arrived, they took Rachel to the hospital where her husband met her and they made sure that everything was okay. Rachel and the baby are both fine, praise God, and are getting some rest for now. They say every wedding has an interesting story - I suppose that one's ours!
The 29th, the big wedding day, was pretty crazy. By this point we knew that Rachel was okay, but would not be making it to the wedding. Eryn and I got to the church at 8:00 in the morning, to begin decorating. Pastor Tim got there at 8:00 sharp to let us in and help us set up the tables for the reception (Thanks Tim!!). We immediately got to work. Soon my mom showed up and began ironing the folds out of table cloths while Eryn and I started breaking out the decorations. It felt like we were working all day, but within a couple of hours, almost everything was done. Around 10:00am, we started getting ready. Sharon did my hair (Thanks Sharon!) and soon all the bridesmaids (Eryn, Erica, Sharon and Cheryl) and I were ready for pictures. The photographers showed up and we began our formal shots. The photographers were great, and were a lot of fun to work with:) I trust they got a lot of great pictures, which I'll be really excited to see:)
The wedding ceremony went smoothly, though we did get a couple of laughs at little-seen accidents, like me spilling the unity candle wax on my hand (ouch!!), and Eryn's heel getting stuck in my train, haha, but it really went great:) The reception was small but fun:) We had catering from Camille's Cafe, my mom's yummy punch, and of course wedding cake:) We also had some super cute wedding favors - gingerbread bride and groom cookies, made by my wonderful friend Kathy!:) (If you need cookies for parties or something, she is one super baker!)
After it was all over, we were all completely exhausted. I don't think I got a chance to stop for a minute all day! I didn't even want to think about cleaning up! I changed out of my dress, and trudged back into the fellowship hall to see where I should start with tearing things down. There in the fellowship hall was the whole Clark family (some of our guests!) cleaning like crazy! I ended up not even having to lift a finger! I honestly don't know what the church would do without the Clarks. It seems like they are the servants of the church, working and serving wherever they're needed:) Thank you Clarks!!
After the wedding, Kyle's family had a re-reception (lol) at their place. It was a neat little gathering, and I finally got to meet and talk to a lot of his extended family:) We got to laugh and smile through close to a dozen toasts and stories:) After the re-reception, all the 'youngsters' went to Chili's for drinks and appetizers (yes, we had designated drivers even though none of us drank more than one drink). It was a fun evening:)
It was all a ton of fun, but I think it will take me a few days to recuperate from it all! lol. I'm glad we went through with the big wedding, and I can't wait to get the pictures from our photographers!:) That's about all the news we have, though I'm sure I've left out something. The holidays and weddings have all been so crazy that I can't possibly remember it all! But we do have a lot of memories anyway:) Thanks to everyone who contributed to our holidays and our wedding!!!