Yesterday was a government holiday (thanks Columbus!), which meant no work for me and a three-day weekend of which I took full advantage. I haven’t had a weekend as good as this one in a long time. In short summary before I get into the details:
- I love haunted houses.
- I love Minute Maid Park with the roof closed.
- I love cheering loud enough to shake the entire building.
- I love weddings.
- I love wedding receptions.
- I love dancing.
- I love forcing guys who don’t like to dance to dance.
- I love discovering that a guy who says he doesn’t know how to dance actually does — and better than me.
- I love getting the ultimate shoot-the-moon hand in hearts.
- I love the boot game.
- I love Carlos Beltran.
- I love the Astros going to the NLCS.
Onward to the details…
It started with a slow, relaxing Friday night. I stayed at home alone watching movies, which turned out to be a good move — saving my energy for the next 48 hours during which I was alone only to sleep just enough to allow myself to continue to function!
Things got off to a great start on Saturday when Jason and I headed down to Minute Maid Park bright and early for the noon game. We had to wait in an annoyingly long line at the clubhouse store, but I finally left just before first pitch with a new Astros jersey. I promised the team I’d buy one if they won the Wild Card, so I had to make good on it. Chris was in town and sitting with us as usual, and Ron and Edgar were a couple sections over. I have never heard a baseball stadium as loud as Minute Maid was on Saturday — we wondered why they didn’t open the roof, but later realized that having the roof closed only helped to make the atmosphere inside more electric. Good move, Astros grounds staff.
The Astros won the game 8-5 and we left the park feeling really good about their chances for Sunday. We weren’t sure we would make the game Sunday because they still hadn’t announced the time — noon if either the Yankees or Cardinals lost, but 6:30 otherwise. Noon we could make, 6:30 we couldn’t because of Edgar and Betsy’s wedding. Thankfully the Dodgers beat the Cardinals, and Sunday’s game was set for noon.
From the game, I went to the mall and found a new dress to wear to the wedding. Ok, actually I found a new dress, and three new skirts. I have no idea where I’m going to wear all these skirts, but I liked them all! What’s a girl to do?
From the mall I went to BJ’s to celebrate Curt’s 27th birthday. After that we decided to forget about laser tag and go to the haunted house in Kemah instead. At least three people in the group (Nick, Jo, and Debbie) had never been to a haunted house before, which was just sad and…sad. As haunted houses go, I was actually pretty impressed with Kemah’s. A good mix of gruesome scenes with plenty of people popping out at you in scary costumes. I love it when people pop out at you — I always scream, then laugh. It’s great. I also had a bit of fun with Jo, hiding in a corner and waiting until she caught up to me to jump out at her. Sorry Jo! 🙂
From Kemah I headed over to Boondoggle’s where the boys were all reliving the previous night’s bachelor party. I didn’t realize it was going to be the entire group of guys there, but it was fun anyway. I don’t know how I do it, but I have a strong tendancy to end up as the only girl in large groups of guys. It’s fun though.
I made it home Saturday night by 1:00 or so, in time to crash for 8 hours before getting up to prepare for both an Astros game and a wedding! Jason and I hopped in my car decked out in Astros gear with our wedding clothes carefully laid in the backseat. The game was a nailbiter, and we were not happy when we had to leave after the top of the 9th. (The wedding was at 4:30; we left the ballpark at 3:20.) We heard the end of the game in the car and would have been in a bad mood for the rest of the night if not for Betsy and Edgar and their awesome, awesome wedding.
Jason and I drove straight from the park to the wedding and changed clothes in the bathroom. We got a few weird looks walking in wearing pants and t-shirts, but most of our friends knew where we’d been, and we changed quickly! The wedding ceremony was short and sweet, but lovely. Stephanie, Hilary and Trish looked great in their bridesmaid dresses, Betsy was gorgeous, and even Edgar, Ron, and Chris cleaned up well for their roles as groom and groomsmen. 🙂
After the ceremony we headed inside for the reception. There was a fountain of chocolate, which, when paired with the candle at our table, allowed us to make s’mores! There was a keg of Shiner and lots of wine. There was polka music for the Wisconsonites (Betsy’s side), salsa and meringue for the Colombian-Americans (Edgar’s side), and plenty of other music for the rest of us. And did I mention there was a fountain of chocolate??
I did a lot of dancing, as I usually do at weddings. I danced with Chris and spun him around in his chair till he was dizzy. I forced Jason to dance with me after promising that if he did, I’d stop harassing him. Phil and I tore up the dance floor on song after song and he even serenaded me. Woo woo!
I even got Ignacio to dance with me for two songs, which I thought would be impressive on my part, but it turns out that he’s a big liar and that he does, in fact, know how to dance. Beautifully. And better than me. For the record, it’s slightly embarassing to spend a lot of time telling someone you’re going to make them dance with you while they protest saying they don’t know how…and then it turns out that they do know how. But Nacho, I forgive you. 😉
The reception wound down around 9:00, but we all followed the keg to Chip’s place for the “wedding after-party.” I played hearts for a while and won (I had the lowest score when poor Chris hit 100 points), and had the best hand ever to shoot the moon — 10, jack, queen, king and ace of clubs, king and ace of hearts, king and ace of diamonds, and ace of spaces. I won every single trick in that round, it was awesome! When the hearts game finished, I played pinball for a while and then decided to join Kevin, Chip, Kylie, Trish and Nacho for the boot game.
Apparently the boot game is from a specific bar in Madison (Wisconsin). It involves filling a boot with beer, and passing it around the table, never letting it touch the table until it’s empty. You don’t want to drink so much that you get sick, but you also don’t want to leave so little in the boot that the next person can finish it — or you lose that round (which at the bar means you have to buy the next boot, but at Chip’s meant that you had to dance and be given a nickname). Simple, and fairly pointless, as most drinking games are…but fun. The six of us went through 7 one-liter boots, and needless to say, finished off the keg. Each person ended up finishing off the boot at one point or another, and we didn’t leave Chip’s until 4 a.m. at which point sober Jason, Chris, and Ian were kind enough to drive the rest of us home. Much fun was had by all.
After only 3 hours of sleep (I didn’t get into bed until almost 5 a.m.), I woke up and felt surprisingly good! I tried tracking down Ignacio but he was dead to the world, so I headed over to South Shore for the breakfast Edgar and Betsy were having for everybody before people left town. It was then that I realized I hadn’t eaten anything meaningful since lunch the day before, except some things dipped in the chocolate fountain (chocolate fountain!!). I was starved.
From breakfast, Chris and Ian and I headed to Starbucks (three hours of sleep means you need lots of caffeine), and then found Nacho alive, if not well. Ian had to head to the airport, but Chris and Nacho and I had lunch on the patio at Mediterraneo’s before heading to Betsy and Edgar’s to pick up Trish, whose flight was leaving at the same time as Chris’s. I drove them both all the way to IAH with Nacho along for the ride. We’d forgotten that most people did have to work yesterday and we were momentarily stuck in sucky rush hour traffic, but luckily the two of us got to take the HOV lane on the way back to Clear Lake. Smooth sailing, baby.
We didn’t get back to my apartment until 5:30, at which point Ignacio crashed on my couch amidst my fuzzy pillows and Mexico blanket while I took a much-wanted, and possibly much-needed, shower. I had to wake Nacho up a little before 7 so we could go back to Betsy and Edgar’s to watch the Astros-Braves game on Chris’s hi-def, widescreen TV (the TV is on loan while Chris is at Stanford for the year). It was a nailbiter for the first 6 innings, but the Astros exploded in the 7th and 8th to win big and advance to the National League Championship Series — the team’s first postseason series win in franchise history! WOOOOOOHOOOOOO! Bring on the Cardinals! I’d never cheered against the Braves in my life before this past week, but it turned out well enough in the end. Go ‘Stros!
God I hope Drayton McLane resigns Carlos Beltran next year.
So that was my incredibly busy and incredibly fun weekend. This coming weekend promises to be great as well — Katie and Joel are officially coming to visit, and will be here late Friday, and then I’ll be going to NLCS games Saturday, Sunday, and likely Monday as well.
My fingers are tired, that’s enough writing for today.
