Plz pray for me, Althanas.

[Skie and Avery]

I'm going to be away from the site/the internet in general until Tuesday. My itty bitty baby sister is getting married tomorrow and I'm hauling the toddler halfway 'cross country for this shindig. I use the word shindig authentically. The wedding is taking place at a barn used for auctioning horses in the local community of under 800 people, half of whom I imagine will be at this thing considering all the volunteer hours my sister puts in around town and with the school sports teams.

I need y'all. I need y'all badly. Please send good thoughts. The toddler and I have a 3 hour layover making for roughly 10 hours of airplane/airport time. I'm going to have to have a pat down since I can't take my insulin pump through an x-ray and people in uniform touching me can trigger panic attacks, and let's just say that not only am I the most liberal family member I have, I'm the only liberal family member that isn't a government conspiracy theorist (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c6HsiixFS8).

Pray for an open bar, lovelies. <3

EDIT TO ADD: I won't have my laptop, so I won't be on site, but if anyone needs to get in touch with me, I'll have my phone so Skype, Facebook messenger, and texting are all options. If you need and don't have any of the relevant information for that, Zook can supply it!

[Flamebird]

Toddlers in long rides can be "fun," I have younger siblings and cousins to know. I'm praying for you! Despite the circumstances, I hope you have fun at the wedding.

[Luned]

Good luck!

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

I will sacrifice a sheep to the deity of open bars for you.

Godspeed.

[Elthas_Belthasar]

Stay safe out there Manda, and have a good time. Also be certain you take yo meds! :D

[Gnarl & Root]

Have a nice time Manda!

[redford]

I will pray

[Philomel]

I will get everyone to pray at my bible study group tonight (Yes, I go to one of those).

[Rayse Valentino]

I don't believe in anything religious so I can't pray for you, but I can remind you of the fact that air travel is statistically safer than car travel.

[Skie and Avery]

I return!

The trip was pretty great, despite my worries. My sister's wedding was an experience, and I will share more about that in a minute. No panic attacks, no arguing politics, and I got lots of time with my siblings as well as the kids I used to nanny from the time they were toddlers to when they were 7 and 8, and now they're surly 6' tall teenagers and I did a lot of hugging and exclaiming of "mah babies!" TTnTT

The wedding: The wedding was at a barn that the local community uses to auction horses every Saturday. My sister's colors were blue and yellow, with sunflowers everywhere. She had a camo sash around her dress, and all the invitations and such were camo, too. The wedding altar was hay bales, a steer skull, shotguns, and saddles. In the bleachers were everyone was sitting, they had saddle bags and iron crosses placed here and there. The wedding march was a fiddle version. Here is a video. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8wmwujeMv4) I teased her a lot about her redneck wedding, as did her dad and our other sister looked at the shotguns and asked if there was a baby (there is not, ha ha), but she looked so super happy. I didn't get to spend as much time as I would have wanted with her that day since we all nearly died of heat stroke from being inside a closed barn in the middle of July in Oklahoma.

The next two days were filled up seeing cousins, and a trip to the zoo with my sisters, nephew, neices, and Lore. Our flights out to Oklahoma weren't all that bad, a few fits. Coming home was another story. 4 days of no routine, no naps, being surrounded by strangers, and 10 hours of airports and flights made for an asshole toddler. Lorelai swung wildly between being really cute and really awful, I pulled my back trying to haul her out of her seat when we landed back in Richmond, and was in tears by the time I'd gotten her out of the terminal to Zook. We got home and Lorelai and I slept for about 6 hours until Zook's mom came and got her to take her over to their house and then I laid in bed and wished I was dead and then passed out for some unknown amount of time again. Ha ha.

PICTURES:

My baby sister and our grandmother
https://41.media.tumblr.com/be68d277a693792f6e38668a2035968e/tumblr_nrhf9mi9qS1qkw6iao3_1280.jpg

The altar
https://36.media.tumblr.com/cf53aaf7c06bf7667bebc81bf2e3c0b5/tumblr_nrhf9mi9qS1qkw6iao5_1280.jpg

https://40.media.tumblr.com/ce942bee9c9770bb2bdbd087133726b7/tumblr_nrhf9mi9qS1qkw6iao4_1280.jpg

We spent a lot of time on my stepdad and his wife's back porch (she's a master gardener, if you can't tell from this tiny slice of their porch)
https://36.media.tumblr.com/75d4b93467d54df3fb0a5eff7cca0477/tumblr_nrhf9mi9qS1qkw6iao6_1280.jpg

Oklahoma: home <3
http://41.media.tumblr.com/da11ea90c6dab2bd66d5f17d49bb195c/tumblr_nragvghNkx1qkw6iao1_1280.jpg

My dad sang me songs
http://40.media.tumblr.com/899df115f82dba033b6e66fa90e2b59b/tumblr_nrc9h2BuoG1qkw6iao1_1280.jpg

Zoo selfies
http://40.media.tumblr.com/efdfddc7a55b27853982c148c7818e16/tumblr_nre06cmNkU1qkw6iao1_1280.jpg