What A Success

Liz has impressed us beyond belief during this trip. She managed to be an expert traveler - handling turbulence by adjusting her portable DVD player so it wouldn't fall off her lap, and somehow was the star flower girl fighting off utter exhaustion.

Liz went through security at O'Hare like a pro and she gave one of the TSA officials a laugh when she handed me her gummy sucker straight from her mouth. I then tried to shake off the sticky sucker from my hand before dashing through security. He chuckled saying it reminded him of his kids - 30 years ago.

Not one tear on the flight - just about 500 questions. Of course, Brian and I are used to that. Now, the passengers near us were either slightly annoyed or mostly amused, as she continued to ask over and over again: "When are we taking off, when are we landing? I believe she asked about landing before we'd even taken off.

I'm typing at a hotel computer so I'll make this brief and head to the most important event - the wedding. It went perfectly. However, we'd been doing so much since we got here - walking on the beach, playing on a pirate's playground that we wanted to see if we could get her a quick nap before the wedding. Brian took her for a drive, a mission to try and get her to fall asleep.

It didn't work. At one point, she said to him: "Daddy, where are we going?" Busted. So, I took her to the bride's hotel and we got our hair done. As Liz was getting her hair done, she was practically falling asleep on the chair while a hot curling iron was being used to curl her hair. But she was so excited she couldn't bear to sleep.

I wanted to dash her out of the hotel promptly when we finished hair and again take her for a drive before the wedding in hopes that she might get a quick cat nap. The photographer wanted to take a few pictures of the bride and bridesmaids and wedding party. As we were finishing the pictures, Liz started to cry. Well, I was convinced she was exhausted and at her breakdown moment and hoped that if we left at that moment we might have a glimpse of getting that quick nap. So, I dashed her out.

Unfortunately, I misread her tears. She was sad because she hadn't been included in the pictures. Of COURSE the photographer wanted shots of our girl, but I thought Liz's tears were from exhaustion and I swept her out to try and get some rest in the car. I forgot that our girl is pretty used to the family paparazzi. And even though the photographer had taken dozens of shots of her getting ready, she wanted to be in these shots - now that she was in her pretty dress.

So, the 2nd attempt at a nap was an utter failure as well. Of course, the photographer took TONS and TONS of pictures of Liz in her pretty dress - inside, outside, during the ceremony, at the reception....the list goes on. I got some too and I promise I'll post on our return.

Even without that cat nap, she was a pro. Finally, the big event occurred and I walked down the aisle in front of Liz. I reached the end of the aisle and she came down - pretty quickly. She even threw a few flowers... Just a few. Everyone oohed and aahhed as she strolled down.

During the ceremony, the officiant compared the wedding rings to an unbroken circle. Quite loudly Liz said: "What's an unbroken circle?"

Of course, people in the last row could hear her and shortly beforehand she couldn't resist a fast booger-pick during the ceremony. Luckily, just a few of us saw that.

After it was all done, she kept saying: "I want to walk down the aisle again."

And, that's what we call quite a success for our flower girl.