My older sister Deserae got married on the 11th. It's taken me a while to blog about it because I wanted to have all of the pictures edited. The wedding itself was great, but my health not so much.
My doctor called me at 7pm the night before I was supposed to get on a 5am flight to Omaha to tell me I had a UTI and that she was calling in an antibiotic. I had a reaction to the antibiotic. Puking every few hours, not being able to keep anything down - I shit my pants you guys. Twice. That's how awful this antibiotic was. Don't take Cipro - it's straight up poison.
I got on the flight, was dehydrated and down for the count the first two and a half days I was in Omaha. It was miserable. I pulled it together for the wedding. I saw family I hadn't seen in years. Legitimately, it had been 20 or more years since I'd seen my sisters; kept up to date with them through Facebook and face time, phone calls or texts. But they had never made it to my part of the world and I'd never come back to Omaha since I left it when I was 10. The exception being my family reunion in 2013; but that was in Des Moines Iowa - three hours from them.
My grandpa Charlie and my Aunt Quellie were at the top of my list. My grandpa had helped raise me and shape me into the person I am today along with my grandma Esther who has unfortunately passed and my aunt who I was able to see. The house hadn't really changed. Instead of being pink on the outside; it was a light gray. Beyond that, it was still the same house I grew up in. I was thrilled. Jason came with me on this trip and it was so nice to be able to show him the house that I had raved about and for him to see that I was not exaggerating - everything was pink or purple! The walls were still bright pink as you can see, the carpet worn away in places because it's 30+ years old. The mirrors that lined the wall were falling off, the chandeliers were still hung and the same gold curtains. We sat on the ancient gold couch that used to house hundreds of stuffed animals.
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| Its tradition; all the kids down to great-grandkids have to have their height taken and dated. Last time they marked my height was in 1990. |
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| So I came back and I had grandpa mark my height. |
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| He was talking about how he would leave just this one part of the house pink; or find a way to cut it so they could keep it. |
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| There's a huge gap from when I've been there. |
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| This is my Aunt Quellie - we are basically twins. |
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| This is my Grandpa Charlie; one of the best people I've ever known. |
It looked so barren without my grandma's things cluttering every wall, every surface; pictures or knick knacks or stuffed animals. My grandma was a collector and a hoarder and she was wild and fierce and it was good to be able to go back and see it once last time before they remodeled it.
After visiting with them I spent most of my time with my sisters, April and Desarae and April's kids - we tried to get the venue all set up for the wedding, tried to get the wedding cakes together. April designed all the decor, the wedding cakes, make the bouquets; pretty much did everything but the wedding dress!
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| Jason and I - I do not do serious pictures ya'll. |
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| Kissy Face |
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| My niece blowing bubbles - Photograph by the wedding photographer Michelle. |
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| Ok, one nice one for the folks back home. |
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| I call this "Selfie-ception" where someone takes a photograph of a photograph being taken. |
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| The family weirdo's |
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| My usual face. |
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| My sister Dez and her new husband Mark. Photograph by Michelle |
The wedding was very nice; but also very short. I got there at 11am as I was instructed, fully made up and ready to go because we were supposed to start doing pictures. No one was dressed or ready except me and one other bridesmaid. I ended up helping do hair. We did a quick rehearsal, then had the wedding. The ceremony was extremely short - 20 minutes. No muss or fuss and boom; meet the Kepners!
The reception was equally as short. We ate, had cake, danced a bit and were breaking things down by 3pm. Jason and I went back to the hotel, then out to dinner and then went to hang out with my sister's and Mark at their apartment. They were partying it up while Jason and I watched Beethoven and petted the kitty cats.
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| Black cat: Panther, Yellow Cat: Tiger - super original names. |
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| Missouri River from the Airplane |
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| The McDonald's outside our hotel said it was about the same temperature as Pluto in Omaha when we were staying there. |
The next day it was up to my brother's in Sioux City, Iowa. It was an hour and a half drive up, where we went to my brothers house and watched a season of Ash. vs Evil Dead, talked about life, hung out with his cat The Mighty Cheetara and then had some BBQ for dinner before driving back to Omaha. I hadn't seen him in about 10 years, so that visit was long overdue. Thankfully there was no real drama, although we did get into a discussion about our mom - I was just grateful that it didn't become a crying and screaming style fight. That's normally our style but we've both grown as people and are adults and to my delight it was left as a discussion and nothing else.
The next day was supposed to be filled with lots of sight-seeing. However my cousins couldn't make it on one of the days we had originally planned on meeting up. So it turned into just my cousin Krissy coming up and hanging out with Jason and I before our flight at 5pm. We had breakfast and then walked around Old Market. I bought a really cool print from an artist named Sarah McWilliams, bought a pair of space underwear from Homer's - you always have to go to Homer's for music if you're in Omaha. But I download everything and Vinyl wouldn't fit in my suitcase - BUT new underwear would so it won out!
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| We found some cute stores in this little alcove of the Old Market. One was a chocolate shop, the woman keeps bees and uses honey in all of her products. The tags have paper w/seeds you can plant to grow flowers. |
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| Interesting sculptures and fountains |
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| Jason was apparently afraid of being locked...out? |
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| A bookstore, two cafe's, two art galleries, a bunch of eclectic shops - I was in love! |
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| We found McLovin! |
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| We popped into a candy shop where Krissy and I discovered they still made "Candy cigarettes," which were a staple for us to feel like the cool kids growing up because our parents smoked. |
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| Art from Sarah McWilliams purchased at Passageway Gallery |
After a few hours, I said a bittersweet goodbye to my favorite cousin (Oops! Too bad its true.) and then made our way to the airport. Eppley Airfield is quite literally the most boring airport in the United States. Nothing to do. Every other airport I've been to has had shops - DFW has Armani and an Apple Store, SFO has a Sephora, LAX and even Burbank have stores with some form of entertainment. Eppley had one and I mean one food restaurant inside the terminal but like 5 before you get to security and one place to buy any kind of drink or souvenir's. I highly recommend not going 3 hours before your flight unless you want to nap; because that's all there is to do!
We made it home in time to see Shaun White get the gold and then I was ready for bed and asked Jason to take us home. I wish I had taken more pictures but I was just so unbelievably sick for the first half of the trip and then busy for the rest of it.
Have you ever gone back "home" after a long time away?
What's the longest you've gone without seeing a family member?
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