After our road trip to Prince George, I have a whole new appreciation for two things: 1) how big this province actually is (it took us 10 hours to get home yesterday) and 2) how great an Okanagan summer really is. It was only about 18 degrees up north the whole time we were there, and we almost never saw the sun. Blech.

But we obviously weren’t there for the weather. We were there for Dave and Tanya’s wedding, and that went great. A few gems from the weekend:

– While they were getting ready to leave for the ceremony, Tanya looked at her dad and noticed something was weird about his tie: it was on backwards. Someone yelled, “Get the man a clip-on!” But it was a clip-on.

– Brayden, usually such a bulldozer, took it upon himself to take care of his one-year-old cousin Serenity while we waited for the bride to arrive. Serenity would toddle a few steps away, and Brayden would go over, take her hand and gently lead her back to her mother. It was sooo cute.

– Justin did so great walking down the aisle that I gave him a thumbs up when he took his place. He then proceeded to give thumbs up to everyone in the audience — repeatedly.

– Brayden was mighty miffed that he wasn’t actually part of the wedding party, and when the photographer made a big deal about Justin being a ringbearer, Brayden just about threw another fit. The photographer quickly defused things by offering to take some truly adorable pictures of Justin and Brayden together. Crisis averted.

– I knew Dave had to be deeply in love when he and the rest of the wedding party danced into the reception. Dave normally only dances when he’s drunk. (Come to think of it, there was champagne at the photo session…)

– We left before this, but apparently Rob started a conga line, moved his hips in unnatural ways and somehow hit our 92-year-old grandmother in the back of the head with a package of baby wipes. Classic Rob.

– At the end of the night, while waiting for the shuttle bus, a rousing game of bum darts got underway in the parking lot. This is a popular sport among the bride’s family, one that even has some strictly enforced rules (such as “no preparation H”). Don’t ask.

The rest of the weekend was filled with visiting all sorts of family. The boys loved seeing their Uncle Greg, of course — he and Chris took the boys to a science museum a couple times. (Justin was using a space shuttle simulator and managed to crash the shuttle into the space station…he then read what was on the screen and bemoaned, “Oh, I caused billions of dollars worth of damage.”) We also had the kids at the rehearsal dinner, at the actual wedding (Greg was kind enough to pick them up just after the supper so we could relax and party a bit), at a post-wedding open house, at various people’s houses…and they handled it all like pros. After several nights of staying up way too late and getting up way too early, I was relieved that both kids crashed hard at 7 p.m. the last night we were there. Whew.