This past weekend we celebrated my niece’s wedding in New Jersey. We wound up packing a lot in! I am kind of tired this Monday for many reasons.
Friday night we took the four big kids out to dinner at a favorite Italian place. Then I went in the hot tub with my daughter for about 30 minutes before the 11-year-old and my husband came to join us. I am so grateful she is willing to hang out with me.
On Saturday we left around 10:30 a.m. to drive to a welcome brunch in Princeton at Prospect House, which is the faculty club at the university. When I was an undergrad, you could only really go in there with a professor’s invitation. So it was not a frequent occurrence and it always feels like a little treat. (My sister-in-law, mom of the bride, teaches at the university.)
(I had the boys all wear khakis and polos. The 16-year-old wound up borrowing pants from the 19-year-old, and the 11-year-old realized his pants didn’t fit and took a pair that the 16-year-old had been planning to wear that were too small. Four boys creates quite a revolving door of dress clothes!)
Then from there we decided to make a trip into NYC to go to the American Museum of Natural History. It was a mildly stressful trip in (traffic, and trying to triage routes to make our reservation time). Then when we got there, the kids were not exactly over-the-top well behaved. But we did manage to see the dinosaur skeletons, and the giant whale. I was surprised to see a huge crowd of people sitting under the whale, and then I saw that there was a screen set up to show the FIFA game — a giant museum-hosted watch party! How fun.
We walked for a while in Central Park afterwards, then got back in the car to head back to New Jersey. We went to a pre-wedding reception up in Branchburg. My little guys played chess and other such things with the flower girls. The rest of us chatted…and caught the end of the seemingly endless Norway/England game. Then we drove the 90 minutes home. I think we had worn out the little guy with the long day and the walking in NYC though, as about 30 minutes from home that night he woke up in the car and started screaming. Not a great end to the day! And then we got home to find that our power was out from a storm. And was still out as of Monday mid-day. We have a partial house generator, which runs some of the AC, some lights, the fridge and stove and microwave, and the wi-fi. But not ideal.
Sunday morning was more relaxed (albeit with limited power) — the little guy did get a last minute playdate with a friend from camp. Then we all got dressed up to drive to the wedding at the Ryland Inn in northern NJ. The little boys both wore black pants and dress blue shirts and ties and they were so cute. The older kids cleaned up nice too and I just wish we had more pictures of all of us like that! (Or that I was cleared to show pictures but…trust me. I wish my kids dressed up more often!)
The Ryland Inn is a great venue for weddings — they have quite the operation going (multiple weddings per weekend). The ceremony was lovely. Then the couple was introduced as “Mr. and Dr. [Last Name]” which always has a fun ring to it. Then they totally filled us up with food. Many appetizers before the big seated dinner. And they had a kids meal so no problem there. And s’mores outside on a fire. My kids danced quite a bit and the 6-year-old had some serious moves. I mean like attempted break dancing on the floor. It was really funny.
We got home at 11 p.m. and I went immediately to sleep as I had to be up for a train in the morning. Alas, that train was delayed! I feel like I’ve been having some bad luck with transit lately…
Keeping growing boys in dress clothes feels like an exercise in futility. My boys needed a jacket and tie for our Mother’s Day outing this year (those were the restaurant’s rules, not mine). My 18 yo dealt with this by making a trip to the thrift store and I have to say I am glad one kid’s dress clothes are not really my problem any more (I mean I still paid for them). Pretty sure my younger two haven’t had dress shoes that fit in months…sigh.
@Gillian – kid #4 (boy #3) wound up in sneakers at the wedding because the dress shoes that I were told were fine were not fine. Oh well! Kid #1 ate at a fancy restaurant in the UK where a jacket was required and this was a source of much worry but I told him that if a restaurant were serious about a dress code they would have loaner jackets. And they did! My husband wound up in a loaner jacket at a restaurant where we went right after we got engaged because I guess he didn’t think about that!