My Best Friend's Wedding

Last weekend, Chris and I went to the wedding of my best friend since the fourth grade, Judy Hodes (Judy Mintz now!). I can't believe how many years have passed since we met, and now we're all grown up and married, sniffle! Seems like yesterday that we were making our California missions together at Old Orchard. Ahh, Old Orchard... I still remember that our mascot was an owl named Hooter. Then one day, his name was suddenly changed to Oscar (or something), with the explanation that "Hooter was not the name of the nineties." LOL. I'm not sure I understood what that meant back then.

On the other hand, I can't even remember what mission I chose, so I suppose on some level, it's believable that fourth grade was a long time ago (and maybe also educationally useless, ouch).

The ceremony and reception were held at a beautiful temple in Rancho Palos Verdes. This was the first time we went to a Jewish wedding too, and Chris got to wear a yarmulke -- cute no?

I also got to see my other high school buddies, Shar, Mel, and Sarah! Shar and Mel we see a couple times a year, but Sarah I literally haven't seen since we graduated from Hart, so it was fun to catch up.

We carpooled from SCV (yay environment) and initially joked about how we would have a great game of "what ever happened to..." during the drive, but as it turned out, we have no idea what happened to most people, so this game wasn't as promising as initially advertised. In two short years however, it'll be time for our 10-year reunion. Scary.

Anyways, here's Judy looking gorgeous on her throne!

Here's a few more pics if you're interested:
http://picasaweb.google.com/jenn.c.taylor/JudySWedding

Everything was so lovely and fun...and surprisingly rowdy! I can't tell whether the fun and rowdy bit is characteristic of every Jewish wedding, or if this is more a reflection of a party planned by Judy, but I am super-impressed that she organized everything herself! My wedding would have been a catastrophe if I hadn't had the help of my phenomenal wedding planners.

During the reception, Judy's dad re-introduced me to my fifth grade teacher, who to my horror, I didn't recognize on sight. My main memory of that class was that she made me be the "group leader" of my team's "covered wagon" as we planned our journey on the Oregon Trail. Being a totally shy Chinese girl who never said anything in class EVER, I was terrified. I also remember being very anal about making everyone bring enough casks of water.

Ironically, over the past few weeks, I've been floating the idea of leading a week-long backpacking trip through the Grand Canyon with any interested friends, but I had to be reminded by Chris that we would need to carry water (and water is heavy). Apparently I was smarter and more responsible in the fifth grade than I am now. Sigh.

After the wedding reception, we decided to drive straight home, which took something like seven hours, so it was like 4:30 a.m. by the time we made it back to Palo Alto. Just in time for a 10 a.m. meeting the next morning, two hectic days of work, and a three-day trip to Lake Tahoe with my team, yay!

Then the next day, Colette came to visit us, en route from Beijing to Philly, with great stories about watching the Olympics in China. What a fantastically fun couple of weeks, and a nice restful Labor Day weekend to top it off!