McAllen: East meets West Wedding

This past weekend was exciting, a bit stressful, tiring, but oh so fun! Stressful, because we had to make a few arrangements to have Ella dropped-off for ballet practice on Saturday and to school, this morning and because we didn't know how she was going to do without having us around. Keep in mind this was the first time ever that we went out of town without her. The only time I was a bit worried for, was bedtime as I am still the only person who puts her to bed every night and when I'm not around to do that (which luckily, is not too often), there is lots of heartache and crying going on (poor Hrishi!) This time though, mamaie's magic worked on her and she did not cry, not one bit! Yeay! Of course, that made us feel so much better. They played pretend, baked cookies together, played at the park, watched movies, and just had a great time. Aren't grandparents wonderful??

Tiring: we drove eight hours each way, to McAllen, TX where the wedding was.

Exciting: we got to see a very good friend get married to his wonderful bride, caught up with dear family friends, and just got to hang out together carefree.

The wedding was beautiful. Coastal atmosphere and almost perfect weather (90 F but very windy!) Since the groom is from India and the bride is American with Hispanic heritage, they chose to have both Indian and Christian ceremonies. Of course, that reminded us of our own wedding ceremonies and got me a bit teary. (I cry so easily nowadays, maybe a sign of getting older???!!) All in all, we had a great time! The food was delish. Just imagine great authentic Indian and Mexican food, both on the same platter! Let me tell you, it was a royal feast! I should have snapped a photo or two, but I guess I was too busy indulging! :)

Beautiful table centerpiece:



With our good friends, Sumanth and Yelena and their adorable little girl, Bekah hidding behind her milk box :)

The Western/Christian ceremony:


With my handsome man :)

Me, posing for my handsome man:)

(I have to say although it took a huge and very frantic effort to find my dress, I was quite pleased with the result. Finally found something that fitted me well, was modest, and elegant at the same time. Yeay for JC Penny and designers that still have some good common sense! :-) I'm sure I would have probably had more options if I started looking sooner but life is busy as it is and I'm just grateful that I found this dress on Friday, the day before we left for the wedding!!)

Love the table centerpieces... I helped set those up. We also helped with a bunch of other stuff as it was a very "do-it-yourself" wedding. It was wonderful to see how the two families and friends came together to help set pretty much everything up.

They had an excellent Mariachi!

(Obviouls, I took advantage of this ocassion and had Hrishi take wa...aaaaay too many pictures of me! But there was a time when I did not want to be in any pictures so I'm soaking it all in now.)

With my dear friend Yelena. We're related in couple of very special ways (both from Eastern Europe and both married to Indians (stubborn Indians, she'd say! :-))



And Monday night we came home to a a very happy little girl who was so excited to see us! She's had a meltdown on Monday morning before going to school when she heard that we were going to arrive in the evening instead of noon... . She told me about it last night when I put her to bed and said that she just could not "hold" her love and her missing us any more. And she had cried, a lot.