Going To The Chapel, And...

It is hot.   I do love hot weather, but after months of trying to stay warm, the first 103 degree day always comes as a shocker.   The boys, in an effort to stay cool today, got in a water fight...in the garage...with the hose.   Needless to say, my day turned from "omg it's too hot to even fold laundry" to "ooh yay, I get to empty the garage out onto the driveway!".    We don't run our air conditioner, and I have to remind myself that human kind has existed for millenniums without a/c (except for those fancy ancient palaces that had brilliant pre-electric engineering).  

I haven't gotten the stomach flu yet...making me wonder how long I have to wait in fearful trepidation before I'm past the point of getting it.   Every night I go to bed utterly convinced I have it.  My stomach hurts, I feel queasy...and then I wake up in the morning.  Hypochondriac much? 

We got the dread virus from the New Mexico Felix's, but that's ok, because it was totally awesome to see them again.  I don't know what we'll do when the last Felix boy is married and there isn't a reason to gather for the monster celebrations.   This time, it was Christopher's turn.  Chris and Rachel's wedding was gorgeous, and I love all the weddings I do, but it's always particularly special when it's family or close friends.   

Wedding's aren't like baseball games that can be postponed or canceled due to weather, so I gave a literal, actual happy dance when I realized how perfect the lighting was for their wedding day.   Sometimes I look at wedding blogs and magazines and wonder if I'm the only photographer who has to shoot weddings in the middle of a bright sunny day... or hailing like the last one. 

I tried to make myself useful for more than just the photography, so the rehearsal dinner found me trying to set up a punch fountain, slice bread and generally appear helpful.   Charlie kept getting underfoot, asking me to go out and jump on the trampoline with him.  I kept telling him "go!... go jump on the trampoline."  But of course there were giant spiders, or zombies, or dinosaurs on the trampoline preventing him from jumping without mommy.  MmmHmmm.  Finally I'd had enough, so I opened the door and tried to deposit him outside to shoo him on to play by himself.   "I caaaaan't" he wailed "There's a rattlesnake."  Yeah, honey.  I'm sure. Maybe you can tell the snake to go play with those dinosaurs.    I tried to shake him off my leg where he'd wrapped himself around me like a koala bear.  He tried to levitate around the back of me, "Stop mommy, you're pushing me into a rattlesnake."  I looked down, and sure enough, there was a baby rattlesnake coiled up not six inches from the back door I was standing in.  Lovely.    Some parents give their kids tough love by taking off their training wheels.  Me? I try to push my child into the jaws of poisonous snakes.   I didn't even see it, it was just so little.  But it was a perfect, shiny new rattlesnake with its cute little diamond pattern, and a few little rattles on its tail.

 I should learn to trust Charlie explicitly when it comes to these things.  The kid is really good at noticing creatures.  He may think he's the Incredible Hulk, but I think his real talent lies in saying things like "No Jamie, that little black spider didn't bite you...that little brown striped one did." 

I try not to think about all the snakes and spiders where I live...I try to think about pretty wedding pictures instead .  :-P