Let's Rehearse

Up at 615am for exercise and coffee

Worked from home

Ran three miles after seeing Bella onto the school bus

Mostly cloudy with a few scattered showers – about 56 degrees at noontime.

And for what I’ll call my lunch, I spent about an hour working in the yard. It was too wet for mowing so instead, I prepped and seeded the two large areas where we had the ash trees vacated last fall. There was a fairly deep depression needing filled there as well from where I moved three large boulders. I used composted top soil that I had stashed along the stream. Filled three, 5 gallon pales to fill the void. Before spreading fresh grass seed, I topped both areas with a mix of store bought topsoil and leaf compost. And before wrapping up and heading back to work, I seeded a couple nagging bare spots in the lawn, too.

The afternoon moved swiftly. The kids and Mindy home from school between 3-4pm.

Lindey’s wedding rehearsal was set to start at 5pm. And since both of our kids are in the wedding, we needed to have them at the firehouse union hall. I told Mindy earlier in the day that my participation, at least getting there at 5pm, was iffy and based on work activity. As it turned out, things were well under control, so I was able to shower and leave with the family near 445pm.

And while it had been cloudy and rainy for most of the day, the sky was showing suns of clearing as we headed to the wedding rehearsal. Probably more important was the Saturday wedding day weather forecast. Early in the week they were calling for rain and chilly temps but now they were calling for 72 and sunshine. Ideal, really.

Arrived at the union hall near 5pm – right on time. Most others were already there. Larry let me know that there was beer available in the kitchen fridge. I took him up on the offer, enjoying a Yeungling Lager. I brought along my new Canon 70D hoping to put it through a few paces. Soon after our arrival Josh (the groom) asked if I would be on standby just in case his uncle, who was set to be their wedding photographer, couldn’t make it. As of the evening before, he was in the hospital. Of course I agreed to help however I could, but also pointed out that my camera is brand new thus my skill using it really nonexistent.

I took a number of shots of the rehearsal at the same time trying to familiarize myself with my new camera. Rehearsal took about 30 minutes, nothing more. The plan was to do the rehearsal dinner at the spaghetti warehouse, which is located right behind the union hall. In fact, we could’ve left our cars at the union hall and walked it was so close, but we didn’t.

We were seated in the loft, apparently a special area just for such occasions. There was a prepared menu of food and drinks. The only booze on the menu was sangria. I opted to purchase a beer separately and ordered a Sam Adams on draft. I didn’t mind springing for it at all, but was a little disappointed that it wasn’t fresh. I didn’t complain, however.

Unless I’m mistaken, haven’t been to the spaghetti warehouse since the day of Grandma Lantz’s funeral, which thinking back also marked the first day of my current running streak. Wow! Pretty sure that Mindy and Bella were there the day they dropped me at the airport for NYC.

Bella asked for some cash so she could play games in the mini-arcade. I gave her three $1 bills. In kind, Jacob soon asked and Mindy gave him an equal amount. I think he ended up giving all of his dollars to Bella. I guess they didn’t have any of the games he expected.

They brought giant bowls of salad and baskets of bread to the table. A few trays of appetizers were provided too. The salad and bread were especially tasty. I would’ve been fine with just that. For my entrée, like many others, I went with the lasagna. The lasagna came with meatballs and Italian sausage links. Yum! It was really good, too. I couldn’t finish mine, nor could Mindy and Bella. We boxed up our leftovers for home. I tipped the waiter well for my beer. I think it was near 715pm when we left for home.

Home and quickly out of my clothes and into comfy lounging attire. Opted to pour a Jack & Coke. Before the evening was over I had two. We headed to bed near 10pm.