A week ago this morning..

we were driving to sacramento and losing our minds with two hours still to go. Okay so we were really losing our minds but dakota had been up since 430 on the car ride she had taken about a 30 minute nap and she was in crazy land. All in all she was such a trooper and my mom and dad who were in the back seat with her did an awesome job of having a good time back there. So we were heading up for the wedding of my cousin Kevin to his sweet bride Stephanie, more on that later. On the drive there it struck me how lucky I am to have such an awesome family, I love laughing and hanging out with them. And boy do we laugh together. It wasn't until we were three quarters of the way up there that we realized that dakotas carseat was not centered and my mom had been squished for five hours and at that point in the drive of craziness we all just cracked up. So eventually we got there and we found our hotel that was beautiful lake natoma inn, set on the american river and downtown folsom. Upon getting to our room I quickly realized I am so not a good packer... I didn't have nice shoes for dakota to wear to the wedding, no toothpaste, no brush no clippies for dakotas hair. As you can see from this wedding photo she is a little raga muffin, a cute raga muffin but come on where is her mother to brush her hair I mean really. The wedding was awesome I mean just really touching and the love that was between the bride and groom and their families and their friends was so heartwarming. And on top of all that love was a ton of fun, during their first dance the music started to scratch and then "groove is in the heart" starts going and they start boogying, little fun funky touches like that were all over the place.
So I have noticed that I am way more into bugs then I ever really realized. And maybe it is because of dakota and maybe I always have been I really don't know but while going to dinner the first night we were there guess who we should happen upon...
yes a preying mantis just hanging out. We (really I mean Derek I am afraid to pick them up after the hissing incident. Anywho I had to look up what the preying mantis symbolizes because well because and this is what I found, interesting. I also saw while at the wedding a yellow jacket eating a worm and don't have a clue what I am supposed to get out of that but thought I would let you know. Other interesting notes about our trip for the sake of my remembering although this first one I am not sure if I want to remember... dakota had her first mcdonalds we stopped there for breakfast on the way there and I hope it is her last unless it is to get a milkshake because I do like their milkshakes. Next on the way home I saw probably ten or so trucks carrying tons and tons of tomatoes and all I could think was I love my garden and I love farmers market. Dakota was offered a mint after the dinner (forgot to mention not very good) we had that first night and I told her we were going to ice cream and she could either have the mint or ice cream and not both and this turned out to be a hard decision for her. She wanted it before we were in the parlor and I kept telling her to wait because she could change her mind about the mint she really wanted but she was insistent. She had about three licks of her mint and decided that she really wanted ice cream and she was running on fumes (this is the day of waking at 430, 20 minute nap and now it was like 830) so I didn't want to get into it and let her share with my mom and she was done.

she just about fell asleep on gaggi!

I have come to the realization also that I have no imagination! I used to play barbies for hours with whole ideas of this and that and it was awesome. Now if I am doing something that requires me to do that I can't and it is awful what happened to my imagination and how do I get it back, it really makes me sad. And I now know that it is ten times harder to sit in the back and entertain dakota than it is to just drive. What a great time.
On Monday before we left we went to breakfast with family friends, dropped off our present to the newlyweds and were on our way home and it is always so good to be home....

rehersal lunch

not so yummy dinner but good company.

dakota making avery good waitress (can you see the sassiness)