Weddings, Friends, and January
Monday 
just before lunchtime 
Mystie
One last holiday update before moving back into real life. :)
Saturday we drove to Moscow for the wedding of Lucas Swanson. As we approached Moscow and entered the town, even though it was an amazingly sunny day, our primary thought was “Oh, how good it is that this dreary place is no longer our home.” The church and the fellowship and primarily the singing was good, but Moscow is not the place for us. It might have been different if our first experience had been the newlywed apartment of our second year, but the drive into Moscow will forever be clouded by deja-vu depression upon the prospect of returning to the prison of a Wallace complex. It was amusing driving two and a half hours and having an afternoon to visit with a bunch of almost-Tri-City people (Sunnyside, Benton City, etc.). The Moscow Rices were there, though, and it was wonderful to see them again. Dave and Marji celebrated their own December 30th anniversary by attending the wedding. The boys did pretty well, although Hans kept asking when we were going to the wedding; he seemed to think that such a long drive and the anticipation of this new thing “wedding” had to be more than simply sitting through a church-like service with grapes instead of cookies afterwards. :) They certainly did eat their fill of grapes, though, while Mommy had grapes in a different form. Rev. Van Dyken officiated this first wedding held in the Logos Fieldhouse, and whoever decorated did an excellent job diminishing the fact that it was a gym. Christmas lights and candles can work wonders. Matt and I had one dance to loud big band (canned) music; we’re at about a 1 in 18 month rate right now, dancing at wedding receptions only. It’s enough to keep up the vestiges of those long-ago lessons, though. I do hope the rate increases, but first my brother and all his buddies need to find girls. :)
The real fun thing of the day was walking past the bathroom and noticing two almost-2-year-olds going in, one peachy and one chocolaty, my stomach did a funny flop and I thought, “Oh my goodness, if I have enough guts I can meet someone whose blog I read!” Sure enough, Melissa and her husband and girls were friends of the bride and in attendance. I did work up my courage and introduced myself and we had a good time getting to know one another briefly in real life, with our real, squirmy little ones crawling around on the floor at our feet. :) I can testify that her girls look the same, but even cuter, in real life; and they are quite the little talkers, too! :)
We came back that same evening in time for the boys to go to bed not much past their usual time and then Sunday evening our friends the Stewarts came over for enough appetizers to make a meal, board games, and a bottle of Kirsti’s Dad’s own sparkling wine. The kids all went down at bedtime and we were up closer to the new year than we thought we would be, but still made it to bed before midnight struck.
Now it’s the first day of the year, Matt’s last vacation day, and real life will soon be back upon us. Now comes January and February bleakness, softened by early dinners of hot soup and warm bread. Elly will be into the tax season routine, which means I will be seeing and talking to her more over the next few months, and that’s always enjoyable for me, even though for her it means she’s seeing her husband less. :)
I think I hear my charming husband making coffee…time to join him. :)
(MCL)
with 
(personal library)
Glad to see you’re mentally scheduling me in for the next few months! :-) I’ll have to make sure that we have hot soup and warm bread frequently - that sounds good. Also good to hear an account of Lucas’s wedding - thought about attending for about a minute or two, but the 12 hour round-trip with two little boys dissuaded us. I was glad to hear that Rev. VanDyken officiated. I’ll have to get my mom’s impression, as well. Mostly I was interested in your reaction to returning to Moscow! We went back a year and a half ago for a graduation and my feelings were definitely mixed. The weather was cold, windy, and rainy while we were there, and the placed managed to look dingier than I remembered. But I remember it as being an active, yet somewhat simpler time. It was nice to live so close to everything, too. I always have a rather pleasant nostalgic feeling about the Wallace complex, though - perhaps I was a really terrible room-mate?! :-) Feel free to call anytime! :-)
Of course you weren’t a terrible roommate! :) You, and your yellow dorm things, made the place more pleasant. No, it was coming through the concrete halls and up the unpleasant elevator and through the heavy, prison-like doors after being home that was icky. Perhaps you feel better about it because you took the six flights of stairs more often than I….and were engaged a longer time while there. :)