Wedding Weekends are Busy

This weekend one of Bryan's cousin's was married. Early on Bryan offered to sign for her reception to be at the Yacht Club and we have had a lot of contact with her and her family since. It was great getting to know her so well - she is a beautiful girl inside and out.

She asked our daughter to be her Jr. Bridesmaid - of course Julia was thrilled. She doesn't live here in town, so she made the most of getting to know Julia on the few times she did come into town for planning and visiting family. We were able to go to lunch several times and of course attended a great engagement party. This past week, Lofton even invited Julia to go out to for lunch and ice cream. We all went to the rehearsal dinner and Lofton included Julia in the Friday manicure/pedicure appointments. She even gave Julia a beautiful Felice Designs necklace at the bridesmaid's luncheon on Saturday. The necklace was just like the bridesmaids, no separate gift just 'cause she was "Jr.". Lofton including Julia like this made her feel very special and it warmed my heart to see her treated so kindly. It also saddened my heart to see her acting so grown up - ugh - slow down Father Time, please!

During the wedding, Julia was escorted out of the church by two groomsmen due to the uneven numbers and it was precious. These 20 somethings were very sweet to my almost 11 year old. They actually talked to her like she was a 20 something herself. Because she was a child I was afraid that they would ignore her, but they treated her every bit the part of a young lady.

The reception was wonderful and didn't get over until sometime after 11:00. Julia and Legare were going strong. Julia had danced ALL NIGHT long and even got invited up by the band to dance with the bride and one of the other bridesmaids who knew the band because they played at her wedding. All three girls did a really cute rendition of "the jerk", "the swim", and "the twist" while the leader singer was leading the dance moves.

We got home and put the children to bed (a few minutes past midnight) and woke Sunday to start yet another busy day. It started with 9:00 swim practice for the city meet Sunday afternoon. After practice ended at 10:00 we went straight to the Charleston Aquarium for a wedding brunch and then back home to rest before the 2:00 warm up at the meet.

Ah, the city meet. Some 20 city teams meet for the championships. Both of my children swam. Legare swam freestyle and back stroke and Julia swam backstroke, butterfly and IM (Individual Medley - one lap of each of the four strokes). I was really nervous at how the children would perform after such a busy weekend but they did fantastically. I wonder how they would have done on a full night's sleep???

Each event had 6-8 heats (6 swimmers per heat) for over 40 swimmers competing for each age group's stroke. On his stokes, Legare was the heat winner and finished 24th 23rd.

Julia finished her strokes at 20th, 15th, and 23rd.

And when we left the city meet around 8:00, it could be said that our weekend was finally over - whew! We do have one more day of swimming at the City Meet on Tuesday for the relay races. Then we're off to Kiawah on Saturday for a week with Bryan's family - this is always a lot of fun!