The Post-Christmas Travel-Fest

I've mentioned a few times that we went out of town right after Christmas and were gone through New Year's Day. We went to visit my in-laws for a few days in Hometown, USA and then we make the trek across a few states to attend a wedding of some of our best friends (D was the best man). This was one of the first weddings that we have ever taken AJ to (the first was my cousin's wedding in September) and she was fairly well-behaved.

We knew that this wedding would be a fun one, not only because it took place on New Year's Eve, but also because we have a lot of mutual friends with the bride and groom, and both of our families were invited to the wedding as well. We saw old friends from when we were all stationed at Ft. Hood together. The Ft. Hood group was a crazy, fun group. We were all around the same age, none of us had kids yet and the guys were all freshly back from Iraq. We did lots of drinking and eating out, BBQing and nights at the comedy club in Austin. It was great to see everyone again and get to meet the kiddos! ;)

As for the wedding itself, AJ didn't last very long since the ceremony started at her usual dinner time. AJ and I, along with my friend Nickie's son (who just turned 2) and her hubby Mike spent the ceremony in the back room and then headed over to the reception site. AJ enjoyed "looking" at the sparkly ornaments on the HUGE Christmas tree during the cocktail hour. She also enjoyed walking around the reception hall carrying her purse. She basically thought the crowd was there to see her and she was loving it. It was hilarious.

Walking around with "Mimi" (my mom) and her purse.

The centerpieces that looked just like the ball in Times Square!

My brother and his girlfriend.

Looking at the sparkly ornaments with Grandpa (my FIL).

My sister and her boyfriend.

One of the highlights from the night was when we were sitting at the table eating our salads and we looked over at AJ, sitting quietly in her chair, spoon-feeding herself ranch dressing.

Me and my girl at dinner.

AJ with the bride and groom.

Somewhere between the salad course and the main course AJ completely lost her cool and I decided that it was time to head back to the hotel with my Aunt-In-Law (? D's Aunt) and put Miss AJ to bed. We hopped on the shuttle and I put AJ right to bed when we got back. I dropped off the monitor and room key with D's Aunt and caught the shuttle bus back to the reception with Nickie.

It was about that time that things got out of control, in a good way. It was a long night, so to shorten this post up a bit, the evening included lots of vodka tonics, red velvet cake, cigars, party hats, noise makers, vodka shots with new friends, silly pictures, inappropriate dance moves and so much more.

When I look back at the evening I consider myself lucky that I felt decent enough Sunday morning to successfully navigate a 1.5 hour car ride to the airport for a noon o'clock flight on New Year's Day with an almost 2 year old. What the eff was I thinking? Ha! In all reality, I'm glad I didn't worry about it and let myself have a fun night out with my hubby and friends. I'm sure I'd feel differently if I had felt worse on Sunday, though. Maybe its an omen for how the rest of 2012 will go. That would be nice.