Everything started Friday morning. My dad and brother showed up at about 6:30AM and we transferred their stuff from their car to my car. It was a very fast process. I already had my stuff packed, and they didn't have a ton of stuff either. Since we were picking up mskate about halfway through the drive, I agreed to drive to her place and they would drive the other half. Aside from dad spilling his coffee within 1 mile of leaving my house, things were pretty uneventful that way, it was just like all the regular trips I make to see her except it went a little faster since I had company.
Now we pick-up mskate and things get fun. I brought my laptop and headphone splitter so we could watch movies on the way down, just like when my brother and I were kids watching VHS tapes on the car TV on road trips when we were little. Same splitter actually, which I spent probably 10 minutes looking for. Together we watched Christopher Robin and Wonder, and on my own I watched the first 2 episodes of Pokémon Orange Islands. Mskate isn't into Pokémon, and when she saw I brought it she was wondering why I brought it, but she didn't want to watch movies all the time so I took that as my opportunity to watch it, and I'm glad I did. We stopped for McDonalds for lunch, and I learned they're doing a Pokémon promotion. Mskate and I split a happy meal, and I got an additional McRib, because that's apparently in season. McDonalds doesn't advertise like they used to, which is annoying because then I don't know what the promotion is. This took us to Evansville.
We get to our hotel, and they don't have our room ready, so we're sitting in the lobby with all our stuff on the cart. My grandparents were already there, and other relatives started arriving as well. It was fun seeing everyone again as they show up. We were able to get my grandparents set-up, and then my grandpa was able to get in the pool. He used to love to swim, but isn't really able to anymore because of stiff joints and such. Well this pool had a handicap entry chair that loads people into the water. This was quite a scene, because this was apparently the first time the hotel ever used it and none of the staff knew what was needed. My aunt, brother, and I were all gathered around the chair trying to figure out how it worked, and we realized we needed some kind of pendant to control it. Well, we knew there was some kind of controls, but we couldn't figure them out. We went to the front desk and they brought out the controller, and I was able to figure out which port it plugged into. However, when I turned it on and set it to lower it wasn't moving very fast, so we figured the battery was dying. The hotel staff went to the back room to get the other battery pack, but that one was completely dead. My aunt thought that maybe it was missing the contacts or they were dirty, but after putting my hand on it I could feel it was trying but just didn't have a charge. The staff then went and got the other battery and we put it back on figuring it just moved slow for safety reasons. My grandpa was already in the water by now after my mom and brother helped him down the stairs. However, this was good for getting him out. Unfortunately the pool wasn't very friendly to him, having a very steep drop-off and a rather small shallow end. He was able to have some fun, but not nearly as much as he wanted to, and he was really looking forward to it.
Once we were able to check-in I set-up my bitcoin miner and enjoyed free hotel electricity; the returns on mining doesn't compensate for the cost of electricity, but when I don't pay for the electricity it's all profit. Mskate and I went grocery shopping because we weren't going to like the wedding dinner, so I brought my crock pot to make us something on Saturday. She also wanted to get an Indiana Starbucks Cup, and I wanted to go thrifting, so we went to the goodwill that was right by Starbucks, and then went to Walmart to get food. I unfortunately wasn't able to find any rare or mystery VHS tapes, and I already had the videogames or they weren't worth the price tag, but she was able to find her Indiana Starbucks cup. At Walmart I let her chose between meatballs and pot roast. She chose meat balls, and I was able to find a ground beef and pork blend which was really good. I also picked-up BBQ sauce, and she also found some snack food she can't get elsewhere. I checked the electronics to see if there were any amiibo or PS2 games I wanted, but they didn't have either so it was only groceries. After that my brother, dad, and I went to the liquor store to get some drinks. I didn't really have anything I was looking for, having brought stuff from home, but then I saw moonshine pickles and I said "I can't get that at home, I need to see what that's like."
Now it's time for the rehearsal dinner. It was at a fire house banquet hall thing. Apparently this is where turtlegirl and hubby (I'll need to find a screenname for him) went on some dates, so it's important to them. However, it was way out of the way and kind of in nowhere, so it was kind of hard for us. Anyway, mskate, dad, bro, and I head over and we were the first there. Now long time readers may remember I had pink hair at my aunt's wedding (link if you don't remember). It was a college fundraiser for breast cancer, and my family wasn't super thrilled. I wanted to do something similar for turtlegirl (that was the first thing I thought of when I heard about the engagement), but as a professional adult I can't dye my hair crazy colors anymore. So I did the next best thing, pink wig.
I walk into the hall with this on my head and the grooms aunt, or whoever was setting up, called the grooms mom saying there was a suspicious man here, thinking maybe a vagrant wandered in. Once my family started showing up she could tell I belonged, and most of my family got the joke. My uncle who married my aunt when I really died my hair pink didn't get it, and neither did turtlegirl's father, but all my aunts and cousins got it. Mskate kept trying to get me to take it off, because she doesn't like it when I get eccentric, but turtlegirl had to see it. When she saw it she just shook her head with "of course Pokematic would do that." After she saw I took it off. Dinner was alright, catered fast food Italian food, nothing super special. Near the end of the party the grooms mom said "I got a call about a suspicious man that wondered in." That was my first time meeting his family, so yeah, here's "crazy cousin Pokematic." Nothing really happened after that.
Now for the big day. I started up the meatballs and let them cook for 4 hours in our hotel room. Since the ceremony was at 2PM, we gave a tour to dad and mskate. First we picked up pepperBC from her grandma/my great aunt, and her mom gave us a tour of the house. Because great aunt got her hair done but it wasn't sticking, some of my other aunts had to find hairspray. The tour was fun, hearing all the crazy stories they had from "trips to the darkness" and "the murder that took place before great aunt bought it." The hairspray was called "big sexy hair," so we joked about how she now had "big sexy hair." After great aunt's house we went to this hill that is like the highest point in Evansville where you can see the whole city. It was cool. After that we went to see great uncle's house, the same house that grandma, great aunt, and great uncle grew up in. He has a very interesting house, like a street light in his driveway and a fire hydrant next to his garage. I lead the tour on that, because I really like his house. There was a split where the men played in the garage and women toured the house. It was just a quick little stop.
After that little stop, I placed a take out order for an Evansville delicacy, brain sandwich. I also ordered chicken livers for my grandparents, because they like chicken livers and the Hilltop Inn has some of the best according to my grandparents, and Hilltop is one of the few places you can still get them. We dropped everyone off except for msake and dad, because they wanted to see the place. When mskate stepped out of the car she said it smelled bad/funny, I said "it smells like fry oil." She didn't want to see me eat the brain, but I took some video back at the hotel if you want to watch a mini food review.
Now for the big ceremony. We got dressed and my grandparents in the car. It's always a bit of an ordeal getting them anywhere. It was Mskate, bro, and I in the car, and I was driving. I missed our turn, and that was kind of crazy. We got in and found our seats after saying hello to the family. It was a good ceremony, and my mom was a Eucharistic minister. That's important because she distributed the wine, and it's the Eucharistic minister's job to drink the leftovers in their cup, and there were a lot of leftovers. After the ceremony my mom said she was feeling tipsy and needed some carbs, and was glad she wasn't driving. We had about an hour before the reception, so mskate and I had our meatballs at the hotel and we just hung out for a little while.
Now for the reception. We had some fun trying to find the place, and find a parking spot. It would be another hour or so before the festivities started, but that just meant time to visit with the family and get mskate a new lock screen photo (because the last one was from the last wedding we went to). Now it was time for the wedding party to enter. The ushers were first, and they tried to do a group act that ended with one guy face planting. I ran into them in the dinner line (because I wanted some salad and rolls) and his friends were trying to fix his bleeding nose. However, they were all drunk/buzzed and were struggling. I offered to help since I was pretty sober (half a glass of wine, I wasn't feeling anything), but they didn't want it. Oh well, later in the night I saw he had a nice X of bandages on his nose, so someone helped him. I had green beans and corn, as did mskate.
Now that dinner is over it was time for dancing. The bride and groom had their dances with their respective dad and mom, and then there was the dollar dance. I remember great aunt wanted a dance with her new nephew. I didn't participate because I knew I'd have my dances with them later in the nigh. In addition to the dancing they rented a photo booth, which is something mskate and I enjoy doing when we find them. We did it twice by ourselves, and once with grandma. Grandma was fun, because we didn't really know what we were going to do, and the last picture involved mskate sitting on my leg while I kissed her cheek, which was a lot harder than anticipated because I didn't realize how much taller she would be when sitting on my leg, and while this is happening grandma is trying to get out of the way while mskate is trying to pull her back into frame, and we only had 5 seconds to figure out what we wanted.
Dancing for the most part was pretty standard. We did some line dancing, and the ones I knew were really fun (like cupid shuffle and cha cha slide). I was trying to do the line dancing for cotton eye Joe, but it was a little to fast for me and I kept tripping on myself because I kept trying to catch up. Then there was the macarena; when that happened, I started yelling with excitement and ran onto the dance floor. I love the macarena, it was the first dance I learned as a little kid back in the late 90s. The slow dances were pretty fun too, mainly because I had a partner. Even when mskate was sitting them out I still had fun joining in on the group hug slow dancers (because for reasons I'll get to shortly, there were many guests that got creative with some of the dances). The fast dances were also great; I'm not very good, but I have fun. About halfway through the night I was able to have a dance with turtlegirl when she was on the dance floor and didn't have a lot of people around. I was right, I didn't need the dollar dance. All the families were allowed to request 1 song, and my grandparents requested a slow dance. The DJ made a note it was a special request by "great aunt and uncle," and we got them up and out on the dance floor. Unfortunately because they move so slow the song was about a third of the way done, so I had the DJ restart it. It was really sweet to see them hold each other and dance after 60 years together without their walkers; surrounded by their kids, grandkids, and other family making sure they don't fall and no one runs into them. After their dance they took their walkers back, and grandpa stayed on the dance floor for one more, dancing to a fast song with people. It was all really sweet.
Now for some shenanigans. My mom and I were basically the DD for "our immediate family." Since neither of us really drink a lot, that wasn't a big battle. However, the same can't be said for the rest of my family, and apparently the same for the rest of the wedding guests. The dance floor had a nice layer of dry beer on the floor, which felt really weird since this was in a school gym. When we did RockyTop (a dance where it's like "make a bridge, go under the bridge"), mskate got a little upset since someone spilled beer on her dress (she's not a drinker either so this was extra upsetting, but she didn't want to drive at night so she wouldn't DD even if I was a drinker). After my brother had a few and a slow dance came on he wanted to dance with me, which I said yes to because I wanted to have fun, but we basically spent the entire time trying to figure out who would lead. Some of the groomsmen and other male guests started up a chorus line with one of the songs, which I joined in on. There was a guy that was double fisting them on the dance floor that always seemed like he was lost. Later into the night I saw my brother slow dancing with one of the groomsman, and they were both pretty smashed. I also did a fair amount of bad and excited dancing, but I do just because I like dancing. Since I'm just weird I don't need alcohol to do the silly things, so I basically had "drunk fun while sober," which mskate made a joke about. I was wearing my Pokémon tie, because I have a Pokémon tie, and everyone was complementing it (except for mskate, she doesn't really like it). I told her "I'm getting a lot of complements on my tie," and she like, "yeah, from DRUNK PEOPLE!" (I do get a lot of complements on it regularly though).
Now comes the end of the night, the reception is coming to a close and we need to get the grandparents back to the hotel, along with the rest of the family. By now mom just kind of "doesn't want to deal with drunk people anymore," so when drunk guests were hanging out in the hall on the way to the car, she just pushed them out of the way. "Out of the way, my mom and dad need to leave." She also told me I was in charge of my brother, and he needed charge. He took his boots off because they made it hard to dance or something, and I had to tell him to get his shoes. As we were driving back I was channeling my safe ride home skills from community service back in college. I got really good at driving nice and easy for the drunk passengers so they don't get sick, and he said I did really well. He also kept wanting to go to Denny's, and I kept telling him "no, mom said to get you back to the hotel;" "but Denny's." I told him I have meatballs at the hotel if he wants them, "but Denny's." "If you want to stumble down the block to it I won't stop you, but I'm getting you to the hotel." Ultimately he didn't need Denny's. I was supposed to sleep in the bed that night, but he laid down in it not long after getting into the room, and I realized "that ain't moving," so I slept on the floor again.
Sunday wasn't super spectacular, just a drive home. Dad was the first one up and woke us up at around 7AM. We ate breakfast, packed up our stuff, said our goodbyes, and started our drive home. Mskate and I watched some movies again, finishing up Christopher Robin first and then watched Storks and Bandslam (which is a great film). For lunch we stopped at a McDonalds and shared 2 happy meals (I ate the burgers and 1 of the fries, mskate ate the apple slices and other fries), and we each got our own toy; Pokémon for me and Hello Kitty for her (because she likes Hello Kitty). That took us to her apartment. We unpacked her stuff and said our goodbyes. We then began the drive home. Because I took care of him after the wedding, bro drove about halfway, leaving me time to watch more Pokémon and take a nap. We stopped at a rest stop and switched drivers, so now I was driving. Dad and bro commented on how boring the drive is and how "there was nothing around." Yeah welcome to my drive every 2 or so weeks. We got to my place, swapped vehicles, and that was it, rather uneventful.
All in all it was a great trip. I really enjoyed seeing my family again, seeing mskate again, and with turtlegirl and her new husband the best. I'm glad my grandparents were able to make another trip, because it's getting harder and harder for them. Soon we may have a gen 4, and then trips may be a little more regular again. Time will tell, but until then, this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.
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