It’s been so long!
Two months. It’s been two months now since my sweety-baby, honey-girl, Hannah-love was born. My word! It’s been eventful. The problem with too many events being thrown together in a time period where I’m too wrapped up in being a recovering-mom-running-her-own-business-while-too-sleepy-and-distracted-to-accomplish-much-more-than-the-laundry though is that the events pile on top of each other thick and high and now that I have a few minutes to rub together I have to dig back through a mountain to detail the events!
First of all, maternity leave is a MUST! I know that I handled the whole pregnancy and birth thing pretty well, so I shouldn’t have been surprised to see the raised eyebrows from people when I said that I was taking two months off, but I wasn’t going to skimp on that. All the doctors say that babies need breast milk and that every day you can give it to them before starting them on formula is a great thing…well…every day that a mommy can take away from work to be with her baby is a good thing too. I do understand the plight of money. Finances is what sent me back to the office. We need the income until the wedding business is really and truly solid. Jon and I talked long and hard about how much we’d saved up, what we were going to need, and whether or not a full two months was possible for us without the added cash from Lori, the Legal Lioness. Believe me, it was a close call…especially with the traveling that fell during those times…but it was so worth it for me to be there for my girl. Even though there were days that I didn’t get out of my pajamas, and times that I felt so lost as to what I was really doing, I know that those same emotions would have been so much worse if I’d been forced to go back to work any sooner than I did.
Still, the heavens opened up and smiled down, and Jon and I were able to get work and help and we made it through…while having quite a good time, actually!
The most recent bits of news are that Hannah is a fantastic traveler. We landed a wedding in Vegas a few weeks ago and decided to head down early and spend some time in St. George with our amazing friends, the Cottoms. Baby, birthing, and freak-out stories are SO much better with Aaronee there. Vaughn is just a stud and little Asia was a great friend for our little Hannah, so some time to chill with friends was great. We also spent a very little bit of time with some cousins since they let us crash at their house for a night in Henderson so that we could be close to the wedding as the day approached. What amazingly sweet cousins the DeBry’s are!
At first, every time we tried to strap Hannah into her car seat she screamed and cried big crocodile tears until we hit the freeway, and then something about the speed and motion of the car won her over and the drama would stop as quickly as it began. Okay. So she likes the car! Good to know. She lasted nearly 4 ½ hours in that seat on the initial leg of the journey and then was sick of the seat for the final 30 minutes. We debated stopping and feeding her and giving her a chance to stretch, but we figured that getting her BACK into the seat after only a short break would annoy her more than just leaving her in until we got there. SHE didn’t know that there was only a few minutes left! I can’t blame her for feeling too confined. The shorter jaunts over to Vegas and back were much easier for her, and those freeway speeds for less than an hour were just right for her to take a couple of short naps and enjoy the ride. She was cool on the final drive home too, so that was nice to see.
The wedding in Vegas turned out to be so strange! Don’t get me wrong, any reason to travel is great, and we love Vegas quite a bit, but this gig was pretty disjointed! First of all, we’d been told that we were hired by the brother of the bride. The brother of the bride is married to an ex of Jon’s. (Say that ten times fast.) Yes, Jon is still on good terms with his ex…with nearly all of his exes, which is great, especially when they get us gigs, but it didn’t make things exactly comfortable for me this time. I do know that he dumped all those exes for a reason, and that he chose me for more reasons, so there isn’t any jealousy really…it just seems odd to me that someone he cut ties with still calls him for company when her husband is out of town. Add in a little too much youth, not many worldly experiences, and a party attitude, and you can see that I might not have much in common with the girl, or much to talk about. All well and good…I don’t feel the need to push a relationship just because Jon still supports her emotionally now and then…but SHE makes a beeline for me every time we get together and the invitations to stay with them are starting to get unnerving. Uh…sorry, we’re busy. It didn’t help that she was completely smitten by Hannah but made Hannah cry any time they got near each other for more than 30 seconds. Hmm. Baby-dar goes off and you take the excuse to leave the room to calm the kid down. She also kept talking about her pet rats as though they were precious children and compared their personalities and responses to Hannah’s. Okay. I’m happy that people can love animals, really I am, but it annoys me when they humanize them so much. Still…better rats than real kids for this pair…at least for right now. Maybe someday they’ll be ready for it, but rats will suffice in the meantime.
Now, brother dear is a nice enough guy too, who has his fingers in a lot of projects, even though he over-plays a lot of them from my point of view, but we found out quickly that he’s not the best communicator. Since Jon was on point for this gig, I hadn’t done my normal leg-work to nail down details. I’d assumed that Jon had covered all the bases in my mommy-haze-absence from the business side of our lives. Well…Jon may have majored in Communication, but our friends made Jon really work to prove his schooling. I think we were all the way to St. George before Jon confessed that we didn’t have an address or set start time for our work. No one had ever signed a contract, and although we’d been sent a deposit for our services, we had NO idea where to go or who we were supposed to meet. Brother had given Jon just enough information and cash to get us near the location, but NOTHING to seal the deal. Ugh. There were dozens of phone calls through the rest of the weekend confirming times and getting directions. We never even got an address to any of the venues and had to go with restaurant names and phone books to find our way.
First was the wedding ceremony. Okay…the Vegas Temple is a bit out of the way, but hard to miss once you’re close, so we made it there with the help of our own GPS unit…NO help from brother or the ex. We made it, but the only reason we weren’t late was because one of the attendees had been late too and they’d held the ceremony for the tardy party. We rolled in thinking we had just made it in time to be waiting outside with cameras blazing as the couple made their grand exit, but then we found out that everything had been shifted back and we had time a-plenty before the ceremony would let out. Ugh. Okay. Normally no big deal, but that also shortened the time for photos between the ceremony and the luncheon, so Jon didn’t get all the photos he’d wanted to get of the couple. The lack of pictures was also partially because the mom of the bride was a little nuts and kept requesting shots that the couple didn’t care about, that took forever to set up, and just sucked up the precious minutes with her need to be controlling. (I know a few of you are nodding your heads in recognition right now. What is it with crazy moms?! Please, let me never roll up into that great big ball of crazy!) It was surprisingly crisp there in the desert, so I stayed out for a little while watching the shoot, but finally gave in and took Hannah back to the car to warm up and have some milk. It was a little awkward trying to drape a couple of baby blankets for privacy on temple grounds. I didn’t have the whole breast feeding thing totally down yet, so just throwing a cover over one shoulder to let Hannah dig in was still beyond my capacity, so if I flashed anyone in the feeding process that day, I apologize. Jon joined me just as the couple were getting into their car and told me that he had the name of the restaurant where the “luncheon” was supposed to be.
We had been told that the luncheon would start RIGHT after the ceremony and that there wouldn’t be much to shoot, so we’d only be on duty for a few hours and could hit the strip by 4. HA!
The sun was already setting as we LEFT the temple, and the goose chase for an Italian meal began. This time we had half an address and plugged that into the GPS hoping for the best, but we honestly got turned around a dozen times without finding the thing. Several phone calls later, with a couple more mistakes in directions from brother AND the ex, we finally made it to the restaurant. The food was awesome, but the event took FOREVER! The grooms dad got up and spoke as though he were in church. He talked about the ceremony they’d been in, and what it meant. That was fine because they had family and friends that hadn’t been in the ceremony, and they weren’t doing a ring ceremony, so a little sharing brought everyone together…but did he have to drone on for half an hour explaining it all? THAT man is a High Priest! No question there. After he was done with his talk and had thanked everyone for coming and telling them to enjoy the food, he then proceeded to say that we would go around to all the tables and introduce everyone. EVERYONE! Every single person was made to stand, introduce themselves, tell where they were from, how they knew the couple, and then they had to give a word that they felt described the newlyweds. PATIENT is my word! There were 100 people in that room, and it was an hour and a half before the intros were over! Poor Jon barely ate because he felt obligated to shoot every person as they stood.
Next came the kareoke, which was painful and fun at the same time…so Jon had to document that as well. The ex started us off with a difficult song, that she could not have carried off even if she knew how to sing, and she nearly made ears bleed. Luckily, the newlyweds recognized the discomfort and stood up to dance while she sang to take some of the attention away from her painful performance. It could only get better after that, right? I’m still questioning how ANYONE could forget the words to Summer Lovin’ from Grease, but the groom made up for it by singing on key and with humor. Happily, a table of the bride’s roommates all sang along with a Spice Girl’s tune too, and that brightened spirits everywhere.
We had been told that we would be on the strip, having our own fun by 5:00, we didn’t leave the restaurant or the wedding party until 9:30! Too late for the strip at that point because we had to hit Henderson and dump our gear with the sweet cousins that had agreed to put us up! The communication breakdown was really astounding! Part of the reason we’d agreed to the gig, and had offered such a great price was that they’d promised that all the events would be laid back and short. We’d agreed to two days of shooting for the price of one, AND we’d waived the travel fee. Holy cow did they get a good deal! Still…they were taking advantage of the deal already by sticking Jon with a FULL 9 hours on the first day.
Saturday, the second day, was supposed to be a short reception and then we were to be done with it all. Not so much. First of all, the correct instructions were m.i.a. yet again. We were told to take the road that the restaurant from the night before was on and follow it to the end. Uh…okay. Then what? That was it. Well…MORE phone calls and we were given an address. Unfortunately the address took us via G.P.S. to the opposite side of the town. Back to directions and a little clarification that we had to go through a gated entrance to an exclusive neighborhood of million dollar homes before turning onto the road to the golf course which would lead us to the club house. My word! Could NONE of that been explained BEFORE we came to town? It was a SERIOUS lack of information.
The reception was lovely though and really fun to take part in, so that was a great bonus for me. It’s thoroughly entertaining to see a young couple in love dance around and laugh and sing along to the music. Actually…there were lots of things to like with these kids. As the event was starting to wind down, the fire alarm went off! Someone told the couple that the needed to cool things down a little bit, which made us all smile, but everyone took the screeching noise in stride. Hmm. Well done. (Hannah actually fell asleep while the alarm was sounding, so that was a hoot!) Next they had a professional fiddler come out and perform. He was a very large man who was sweating before he even started, but we came to find out that he was extremely talented, made a great deal of money performing and recording, and that it was a coup for them to have him there to play even a few songs. The Devil Went Down to Georgia was my favorite! He was awesome! Even the most persnickity richie in attendance couldn’t help tapping a toe when that one was playing! The kids had also forgotten a garter, so they made due by having the groom undo one of the laces from the bride’s sketchers with his teeth and then throwing that to the single guys. He he he. Nice improvisation. And, finally, when a love song from “Enchanted” was played by the deejay all the girls sang along and twirled…the bride’s big gown was especially impressive in the twirling…and they told the deejay to just let the cd run. He wasn’t needed anymore. I had to grin in surprise when the groom entered during a duet and sang all the lines for the Prince while puffing out his chest and posturing like a stereotypical Royal! He even swung the bride up into a lift, and while holding her high, her shoe (sans laces due to the ‘garter’ incident) slipped off. He set her back down and kneeling put the shoe back on in true Cinderella fashion. Finally, there was a step and a leap and all of a sudden the bride was leaning back with a toe pointed forward as her husband swung her in a great arching circle while her skirt flew in the breeze. Very impressive!
The other bonus was that Jon got a little nauseous and couldn’t finish his delicious dinner, so the breast-feeding-mommy cleaned his plate with gusto. No, not a bonus for him, but he felt better the next day, so I still feel fine knowing that I ate what he didn’t.
Actually, a third bonus was that they gave us a bonus. Really. A cash bonus of a couple hundred bucks! That’s always a great thing too!
Well…I guess after everything, it was a highly entertaining weekend and with the extra cash I will give it an overall stamp of approval. What’s a little extra expense in gas due to the misdirection and mis-communication when there was so much to offset it?
Driving home from that weekend was quite the adventure! We had planned to get up and go to church with our friends in St. George, but a storm was coming in and everyone we talked to said it would be better to start early, drive slowly, and get ourselves home! Jon took the first leg of the drive, even though he wasn’t feeling well. There were several snow pockets that he hit as we came north, but nothing so scary that we stopped. I snoozed through most of that. We stopped for a burger about half way home and then I took over the rest of the drive. Jon slept, and so did Hannah, and it was surprising how calm the weather was. I even saw blue skies several times. And, we made it home in really good time feeling great about our adventure and diving into the packing for our next big production…the family trip to Hawaii.
That will be my next installment!
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