Before we left for the wedding, we wished Peter a happy birthday because he was EIGHTEEN!
We checked with him before we agreed to go to the wedding and he confirmed that he didn't mind if we were gone or not. He had plans with friends and was happy celebrating with the family on Sunday evening when we got home.
We celebrated him at my mom's house with appetizers and birthday cake and presents.
Last Friday morning, as soon as the kids headed to school, Dan and I hopped in the car and headed south to Columbus, Georgia! The son of one of Dan's best army buddies was getting married. And this son just so happens to be named after Dan! (The groom is named Patrick which is Dan's middle name.)
It was a sunny and warm day and we made good time. We arrived in about 7 1/2 hours but that included a leisurely lunch stop and a stop for gas and the bathroom. (Travel time with no stops is 6 1/2 hours.)
We were really surprised at how cute downtown Columbus is. Since Columbus, GA is home to Ft. Benning, we were expecting your typical run down little army town. And while the area near Ft. Benning did live up to that expectation, the rest of Columbus was as cute as a button!
Within just a couple of minutes walk from our hotel were a bunch of restaurants and bars and the downtown is also the home to Columbus State University.
We had dinner at The Cannon. And then headed to The Loft for a drink.
On Saturday morning we had breakfast at the restaurant in the Marriott and then headed to check out the Riverwalk. The Chattahoochee Riverwalk is a 15 mile linear park that runs from the city marina all the way to the Infantry Museum.
Patrick (the groom) was a whitewater rafting guide for a few years at The Rush South Whitewater Express. This park on the Chattahoochee is the longest urban whitewater rafting spot in the world. They also have a zip line course that spans the river. If you do the course you will go from Columbus, Ga into Phoenix City, AL and back again.
Patrick had arranged for out-of-town family members to do the zip line course. We opted out of the zip lining but did head over there to catch up with Doug (Dan's friend and father of the groom) and Tammy (mother of the groom) and watch some of the family zip across the river.
Afterwards Dan and I walked more of the Riverwalk and headed across a pedestrian bridge to Alabama. (This was my first time in Alabama!)
After our walk we drove to Ft. Benning. Dan was stationed there at the very beginning of his time in the Army and completed his infantry training and Ranger school there. Unfortunately, they weren't letting anyone on the base without a special pass due to COVID. Dan also really wanted to tour the National Infantry Museum which, sadly, was also closed due to COVID.
We then headed to lunch at the Dinglewood Pharmacy. It's a full service pharmacy and soda shop that's been in business since 1918 and they are the home of the Scrambled Hotdog. We read about it in a guidebook and decided we needed to find out what it was.
The pharmacy was closed on Saturday afternoon but the place was packed with people eating lunch. We ordered a scrambled dog and were not disappointed.
The scrambled dog is served in a banana split dish. They take a hot dog bun and open it up and lay it in the dish. Then they chop up a couple of hot dogs and sprinkle them over the bun. Then they ladle on a bunch of their special chili and top it with pickles and oyster crackers. We got ours "all the way" which meant they added cheese and onions. It was a delicious mess of food! We couldn't go to Columbus with out trying this local specialty and I'm glad we did.
After lunch we took another walk through the quaint downtown, found a rooftop bar and enjoyed a drink outside in the beautiful weather.
Then we headed back to the hotel to get ready for the 6:00 pm wedding. The invitation said the wedding was formal so women should be in an evening gown, cocktail dress, or formal pantsuit and men should be in a tux or a solid dark colored suit.
I'm wearing a sleeveless pantsuit with a sheer wrap (to cover the old lady arms) and Dan is wearing a black suit. I thought we looked pretty good! My pantsuit felt dressy enough for the occasion (especially with the wrap) and there is a small chance that since it's a pantsuit instead of an evening gown that I might, at some point, be able to wear it again. It also had slits up the side of each leg and when I crossed my legs, I looked like I came to party! (Which may or may not be a good thing!) :) It also had pockets which I loved.
The wedding and the reception were across the street in the convention center. The wedding space was lovely with all the chairs spaced apart to allow for social distancing. There were a lot of twinkle lights and it felt very romantic. They had an artist doing a live painting of the ceremony as it was happening and then she finished it during the reception. I thought that was a really cool touch.
The wedding ceremony was sweet and simple and before I knew it, we were in another part of the convention center having drinks and appetizers and then dinner. It was all very lovely and I'm so glad we were able to attend.
Here's a picture of the happy couple. Aren't they so cute?
I regret not getting a picture of Dan and Doug but they were busy talking and catching up and sadly I didn't even think about it until the next morning.
We had a great weekend away celebrating a new marriage and an old friendship and I'm so glad we were able to make the trip.
Eighteen is....
Eighteen loves to...
So I'm finally done with my "job". In the 16 days that we were open, we voted over 9,500 people at our little polling place. The turn-out was record breaking and my weary body felt it! I'm very glad to be able to get back to my normal life.
I would like to point out that of the 13 people that worked at the polling place (and we all worked almost every day all day) none of us got sick. I was praying hard that we would all be protected. I think we were all praying that prayer!
We wore masks and gloves (and some of the older people wore face shields) and 99% of the people that came in wore masks as well. We issued each voter a q-tip to use the touch screen voting machines so we wouldn't have to wipe down the machine between each voter. Everything worked very smoothly and based on everything I saw on the local Facebook page everyone was pleased with how smooth voting went.
The only problem we encountered was that our county didn't buy "I Voted" stickers this year - instead we were giving out "I Voted" pens so people wouldn't have to share pens. The pens were back-ordered and by the time they came in over half of the people had already voted. (And because we didn't have pens to give out, we had to sanitize the pens between use. UGH!)
I heard, "you don't have stickers?" hundreds of times each day and it got old. Apparently, if you can't post a selfie with your "I Voted" sticker you didn't really vote.
Enough about voting. What else has been going on in the last couple of weeks?
One of the 100-year-old pecan trees in my mom's yard fell over during the hurricane that blew through. I got a text about it from Sarah while I was working. (The kids were out of school because of the storm.) I almost started crying when I saw the pictures.
She has four beautiful pecan trees in her yard and (obviously since they are over 100 years old) they've been there my whole life. Even though I was sad about the trees (the one that fell, landed on one of the other ones and it had to be removed as well) I was extremely thankfully that it fell the way it did. It could have just as easily fallen on my mom's house or on our side driveway where the kids park their cars.
In other news, on November 1st, I got a text from my brother that said there was a gray cat on their porch but that it ran towards our house. I looked for it but couldn't find it. The next day though, Peter spotted it on our back patio but it ran away when he went outside. We spotted it several times over the next week and I finally broke down and fed it. It didn't appear to be going anywhere and it also didn't appear to be eating very much.
And you know what happens when you start feeding a stray cat....
So I took it to the vet on Monday and she was treated for ear mites, fleas, and worms and was given rabies shot and vaccines and now we have a new cat.
He's really pretty and very sweet....
The kids are out of school for Veteran's Day today. Sarah starts swim team workouts tomorrow and Peter starts football workouts as well. Dan and I are headed to Georgia this weekend for a wedding and life is just rolling on along. I hope to post more regularly now that I'm free from my civic duties but we all know how that goes...
Also, as a side note - the menopause hot flashes are about to do me in so anyone with any suggestions on how to get rid of them, please drop them in the comments!
