At Last - This wedding has finally come!

Wine and Roses, Lodi, California. July 20, 2002.

Kristine marries Gene . The wedding was beautiful.

All of the kids: Madison, Sydnee and Joshua were involved, as were cousins and friends children: Suzanne, Stuart, Jackie, Alex, Zander and Joey.

Jenni  and I were the bridesmaids, Keith and Mike were the groomsmen.

Alan gave away the bride, Richard walked Mom down the aisle. Joshua walked his grandmother, Karen, (Gene's mom).

It was an very beautiful wedding. About 145 of our nearest and dearest came to celebrate.  Kristine and Alan started off all of the gosh darn crying.  I was hoping to not cry at all - nope, it was like a flood of tears the entire time.  But she looked beautiful.  Gene very handsome and all of the kids were on their very best behavior.

A special thanks to Dave  for coming down from Redding to help get the backyard ready for the reception dinner.  It went over really well!

Also a special thanks to Deanna, Barbara and Jeanmarie for helping out with the special day.  These gals went through hell trying to put together the center pieces, (see pics), as they were so fragile they kept on breaking.  Poor Barb called me a couple of times unsure what to do. I told them to do whatever they thought would work.  They turned out beautiful. 

The day before the wedding, the girls went wine tasting in Lodi.  They ended up buying 5 cases, (about $600) of the Seven Deadly Zins.  It was fantastic wine.  At the party in Jeanmarie and George's suite after the reception, all drank our fair share of the 7 Deadly Zins.  The wine was so good, I didn't even notice that I was drunk.  Katie Brenner was pretty tanked too.  She some how convinced her Uncle George Bills to attempt a strip tease out on the patio. 

We were having such a good time carrying over from the reception, that we were getting a little louder and louder...(there was about 20 of us in the suite)..when this woman came marching in and all of us stopped and looked at her then each other, like "Do we know this gal and has she come to join the party?"  She say's to us, "You know, I'm sure the people upstairs would like to get some sleep.  I'm sure the noise is bothering them."  I piped in, "I am the people UPSTAIRS!"  Barb yells, "Yeah - she is the person upstairs!".  Then the gal says, " Well the people next door too."  I said, "Nah, that's Tina's room, my roommate - she's out like a light, otherwise she would have been over here."  Suffice to say the gal was a little put-out. : - )     Jenni and Troy Brown had the room diagnally from the party and Troy had thought he might come down and join us, but then he heard all the teenagers outside trying to coax George into the striptease and thought we sounded like a pack of wild banshees! : - )   They tried to go to bed, but they were so drunk they couldn't find the light switch, so they called down to the front desk to find out where it was, (on the opposite side of the room from the lamp - go figure..), and the front desk wanted to know if the party was too loud for them.  Jenni said "No, we think they're just fine!"  The front desk says, "Oh, you're apart of that wedding party aren't ya?"  Jenni said, "Yup, you betcha!".  So about 2am, we all decided it was time for bed. 

Go upstairs and my cousin Andy has made a bed for himself out of the Chaise. Jay passes out on one bed, Catherine passes out on the floor in her sleeping bag, so I got the other bed.  Don't know how that happened, and why Catherine didn't want to sleep with me, hmm, something about me kicking in the middle of the night! : - )~   Morning came quite quickly...after listening to Jay and Andy Buzz-Saw through the night.  Jay was REALLY hung-over...see picture of him desperately trying to focus with some AIR!

It really was a great time though!