A Not-So-Perfect Wedding Weekend

Our friend, Kate, titled her post "A perfect wedding weekend" so I thought that it was only appropriate to title ours as you see above. Last weekend we drove up to Michigan to see Kevin Spizarny, a mutual friend of ours from college, get married. It was nice to see him and nice to catch up with the Oberholtzers and some other friends of ours from Grace Notes (the Christian a cappella group where Jim and I met).

Here are Kevin and Beth at the rehearsal...

...and at the reception as husband and wife.

Here we are with some of our friends from Grace Notes:

(from left to right- Jim, Amber, Tim, Kate, Chad, Jackie, Kevin, Jeff)

Apart from the wedding, we tried to see as much as we could on the way up and back. We happened upon the Neil Armstrong Air and Space Museum in Wapakoneta, Ohio. We didn't go inside, but the boys had a chance to climb inside a mock-up of both the Apollo command module and the Gemini Spacecraft (shown below).

The day after the wedding we went to church in the area with Chad and Kate, and then we headed over to The Henry Ford Museum to see some interesting historical artifacts. We saw the bus that Rosa Parks rode the day she refused to give up her seat, the car JFK was assassinated in, the chair that Lincoln was shot in, and, on a much lighter note, the Wienermobile. The museum had a hot dog bun that you could climb into (complete with toppings) so Ethan hopped in, as did Chad and Kate :-).

After we said goodbye to the Oberholtzers, we traveled to Dayton, Ohio, to see the Air Force Museum next to Wright-Patterson AFB. It was impressive. I will let Jim give his version of the details though-

It claims to be the largest air museum in the world, and I definitely believe it. Planes were represented from all periods of aviation history. The B29 that dropped the nuclear bomb on Nagasaki was there. Decommissioned nuclear bombs "Little Boy" (Hiroshima) and "Fat Man" (Nagasaki) were right there in front of us. It was pretty sobering.

The planes, though, were amazing. F22, F117, F111, F16, F15, A10, U2, B2, C130, C124, B29, B52, and so many more. It was great! Plus, they had some fun spots for the kids. Here's Ethan in a cockpit of an F4.

Micah's watching Ethan practice his "stealth mode" in front of the B2 Stealth Bomber. This is the only permanent display of a B2 in the world. It was crazy thinking that we were standing next to something that cost $1 billion dollars to make!

Is this a great family photo or what!?! There's Amber and Verity with a B2 Stealth Bomber behind them. Ethan has an SR-71 Blackbird just behind him (travels at Mach 3!), and a B1B Lancer behind that. Micah and I have a U2 suspended above our heads! Incredible!!!

It really was a great museum, and the gift shop had some fun toys in it too!!! Best of all, the museum (and parking) was free!! Gotta love that! Okay, back to Amber...

Although we had a nice time at the museum, there were a few details of the trip that made it less than stellar:

• The trip was supposed to take just under 11 hours, but it took us exactly double to get there (do the math- it's not pretty). We were so glad that we decided to take 2 days to make the trip instead of doing it in one shot!
• Micah threw up twice (once on the way up and once on the way back), but thankfully never in the van.
• We got there the day before the wedding so Jim could practice with the organist... who was not there (Jim got some nice pics of the rehearsal though).
• We saw very little of the actual wedding. When Jim wasn't playing his trumpet, he was taking care of Ethan who was bummed that he couldn't go up on the balcony and was emotional because we said no. Amber spent most of the service in the foyer primarily due to the fact that Micah quickly discovered that his voice echoed in the cathedral, kept asking for milk and crackers throughout the wedding, and clapped at the end of every prayer and song (though the last bit was cute ;-)
• The church that we went to on Sunday did not have a nursing moms room, so Amber went back to the car to feed Verity and missed the sermon.

So while we do have some neat memories, it was a lot of time in the car and a not-so-perfect wedding weekend for us. We were definitely grateful to get back home on Tuesday!

One of the things that did go well over the weekend was was the song that we sang at the wedding with the Grace Notes, The Lord Bless You and Keep You. Jim and I practiced on the way up in the car, and a couple of days after we got back Ethan was singing it while he was cleaning up some toys. Here is Ethan singing his version of The Lord Bless You and Keep You with alternate ending. Enjoy!