Birthday Party and a Wedding

We are home! What a wild few days. It began with the surprise party for Jill on Saturday evening. It was one heck of a luau! We were blocking the road with banners and 50 balloons when the birthday girl arrived to celebrate her 50th birthday! Her sister and brother-in-law really know how to throw a party! They even built
a small Tiki Bar in the backyard and he made very strong cocktails! The food was catered with Hawaiian pork, chicken and lots of other goodies. They even served spam sushi! A friend made gorgeous cupcakes and sand dab sugar cookies as party favors. It was a lot of fun!

We only stayed until 8:30 so we could get enough sleep to hit the road by 5AM Sunday. The wedding. Maddy and William (Anna and Doug's son) were being married on the Queen Mary in Long Beach at 6:00PM. We had about six hours of driving ahead of us. It was a piece of cake. We arrived, checked in but discovered that there was a concert just outside the Queen Mary and that the hotel, which we chose to stay because of the free shuttle to the ship, was not offering shuttle service because of the massive concert traffic. We had made a nice connection with the front desk person and she asked how we felt about a golf cart! Brilliant! So right at 5:00, we hopped onto the golf cart, passed all the cars and the police and the fire department and arrive to the Queen Mary.

Up on the third floor, we walked the length of the ship on its old, very slippery wooden deck. It reminded me of the bowling alley where I slipped and fractured my knee so Michael had a first grasp of my arm as we slowly made our way to the wedding site.

It was gorgeous. The weather was in the 70s, so rare for this time of year. It is usually very hot. It was outside, the theme was fitting for the ship as it was flapper style, 1920s. The bridesmaids dresses were sequined and shimmered in the sunshine. The men were dapper. The music was glorious, all 1920s.

There were only about 70 people attending the wedding so it was intimate and lovely. William's brother Daniel was the officiant and hilarious. When they said their vows, there were a few tears. This couple will be together for the long haul.

We left around 9AM Monday morning for a longer drive home. We made our way north on the Pacific Coast Highway, which was packed with traffic in areas. We even found this sign! Read the sign just above Olympic. It is the beginning of Route 66 in Santa Monica!! We made our way through Malibu and other coastal areas before connecting with Highway 101 near Oxnard. We loved going through Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, King City, Salinas before sneaking back to Highway 1 just south of Santa Cruz. From there, we were only 45-minutes from home. Traffic was light the entire way. We made it home by 5:00, not too bad.

It felt like we had nice road trip, though it was short. Today, I am working out and doing the food shopping. Back to life.