Aaron and Tracy's Wedding: The Aftermath

So my wedding blog, much like a real wedding, did not go quite as planned. Time,access to computers and exhaustion were major factors. But whatever, the wedding went off as planned, no one got hurt, no property damage. In the spirit of Pulp Fiction, The Usual Suspects, and Memento I'll fill in the details. They won't be in order but it should all make sense in the end.

Let's start with the drive back since the memories are fresh and raw, much like our asses from sitting in the car all day long. Thanks to Bernadette doing all of the packing and making of food the night before with little... with no help from her husband, we were able to leave Mom and Jerry's without fuss at about 9am. We had to stop at a wedding store to drop off a piece of Tracy's dress (I don't know what it was, it was white, poufy and seemed to be full of metal hoops) because they were heading off for the honeymoon that day and had forgotten it at Mom's. Then we stopped to visit Dad followed by a quick stop at Tim Horton's and we were off. 11am. Not bad.


The drive from Kamloops to the toll booths was pretty uneventful. The kids were watching movies, we got to listen to music, everybody's happy. Until I missed the turn off for the rest stop after the toll booths, that's when things started going downhill. Bern really needed to stop. Now the town of Hope is not really that far away from the toll booths, but when you need to pee... when you know your angry spouse needs to pee, it's a long way.

July 27th, guess I should finish this. Still recovering from our holiday. Ok, so we leave Hope after gassing up cheap, bladders are empty, everything's good. The kids have been watching DVD's for hours and it's coming up on Liam's nap time so we decide it's movie off time. The boys were not impressed with this decision at all and vocalized their disapproval in a kind of wailing song that sounded like a mixture of middle eastern ululation and a cat in heat. Liam took all the high notes and Connor, with the larger lung capacity, provided the wavering background. It was quite lovely. And frustrating for them since instead of annoying their parents into putting the movie back on we were just amused and joined in.

Yes, all fun and games until traffic suddenly stopped. A truck had crashed somewhere up ahead and had blocked both west bound lanes. According to the radio traffic was being rerouted back to Hope to Highway 7 on the other side of the river. Great. I'm not sure how long we sat in that freakin line up but I'm sure we could have been back home by the time we started moving again. There was opportunity to drive across the meridian to the east bound lanes, but it was rainy and muddy and all the extra traffic that had already been diverted made it too dangerous to try. Unless, of course, you're an idiot with a pick-up or an SUV. Ultimately the laugh was on them though. An hour or so later we heard that there had been an accident on Highway 7 which had stopped traffic. By the time we made it to the accident scene they had dragged the truck off the road. Sucka's.

So we get through that and all is good until we hit construction on Highway 10 which is apparently being renovated by hand, Roman-style. Or maybe it's just me. AND THEN we get to the Massey Tunnel. I could never live in Surrey, Delta, Tsawwassen, where ever if I had to go through that flippin tunnel everyday. I would have to buy a gun. Bern and I had a long discussion on how best to deal with the morons that use the lanes that have been closed to cut in front of everybody else. She thought their cars should be vapourized. Not bad, but too quick. My idea was some type of giant spring board that would shoot their cars into the air and off into the farm fields along side the highway. Not only would this be entertaining for everybody in line, the offending drivers would have a few seconds to ponder their stupidity before hitting the ground. Then they could be vapourized.

Anyway, loooooooong story short, seven hours after our trip home started (a 4 hour drive) we finally got home. I didn't even get into the leaky diapers. Not that getting home meant we could relax. First (IF YOU ARE CHAD'S FAMILY, DON'T READ THIS)we had to erect a level 4 decontamination zone around the car to protect the house from animal hair. We each had to strip and were individually sprayed down with disinfectant by men in pressurized suits. Then every article of clothing, whether worn or not, pillow cases, even Liam's stuffed puppy went straight into the washer. Maybe I'm exaggerating because of my allergies, but I don't think so. Then Bern had to drive off to Safeway so we could eat.

But hey, it was a great wedding. Congratulations Aaron and Tracy.