Sleep Glorious Sleep

The dust has settled and I had a great nights' sleep. I may have finally recovered from last weekend. Maybe.

I realized this morning that I had forgotten to post these pictures from last weekend. I put them in facebook, but they never made it here.

I am not sure how much I mentioned to you about the wedding, but the bottom line is that our kids did amazingly well. I'm not sure that anyone at the rehearsal dinner or the wedding would have ever believed it had we said any of our kids had special needs. They all held it together and acted appropriately. It was a joy to see how far they have come, to know what for the most part they all made good choices over the weekend, and that we had some nice times together as a family.

Yes, there was an incredible amount of stress -- from the simple amount of work it takes to get everyone dressed and ready for a rehearsal dinner, wedding pictures, and the wedding -- to the organization of the grooms dinner and then the stress of the slide show. Bart had the prayer to write and the opening greeting.. and had to buy the first sports coat he had owned in 15 years. He has worn a robe or alb to preach in all that time and not needed one.

Bart spent probably 3 hours of the weekend simply ironing! And then there was the feeding of the group each day as well. But we did it. There were no tragedies, no rages, no aggression. Most of our expectations were upheld by everyone, and all of them by most. WIth the exception of a couple people, everyone was helpful and cooperative when it came time to pack up and leave. I am not sure that I could have believed they would be as good as they were had you told me in advance. Typically our family vacations are horrible.

I attribute the whole success to a few things.

1) They really respect and admire Kyle and didn't want to embarrass him.

2) We had all of the kids over in another building except for Dominyk, Leon and Wilson. They had a PCA there as well as Bart's mom and aunt on one night, and they were all 15 and over. I don't know what they did over there and I told myself to let it go and not care. They are all old enough now that their behavior is a reflection on me and not on them.

3) I focused on remaining relaxed and only controlling what I could control -- and that was me. I gave myself permission to enjoy my son's wedding even if nobody else did. I think my reluctance to over-correct helped everyone relax.

4) I have the most amazing husband ever. He skillfully and thoroughly did the things needing to be done which freed me up to do things like run into town for the DQ cake and answer all the kids questions and direct them. He also gave me several hours to finish up the slideshow.

And Kyle had what he's always wanted. The kind of wedding with the kind of girl he's always dreamed of and I'm proud of him for making the choices he's made over the past years that led him to her. He's worked hard to get where he is. And I'm proud of my husband who has been central in Kyle's development, even if Kyle doesn't always recognize it.

I'm waiting for some really good pictures with Kyle and Christy in them, but there aren't any good ones on my camera.