It's A Nice Day For A White Wedding

So this is a little overdue but it's been a pretty crazy week...

To sum it up real quick-like: I flew home to Canada for 3 days, flew back to France last Monday night, only to drive to Cannes Wednesday morning for match, came back to Albi Thursday afternoon and then drove 10 hrs on Friday to Terville (on the border of France and Luxembourg) for match yesterday. Belieeeve dat.

All in all, I calculated I travelled for a delightful total of 53 hours in the last 7 days - 71 hrs if you count the trip to Canada which technically took place a week and a half ago. I obviously had plenty of time for number crunching... Maybe a little too much if I'm adding stuff like this up but gotta keep the mind sharp in my advanced age. Needless to say I can't wait for our trip to Romania next week.

So why did I take a weekend trip home to the Motherland you ask? Well, I like to think I'm a high roller and I just like to take cross-Atlantic flights whenever I feel the urge to plant my feet back on North American soil, but we all know that's not even a little bit true. Actually it was THE family celebration of the year and my sister Sarah was getting hitched to the Aussie man in her life of 3-odd years. Note: nothing says class like referring to a wedding as "gettin' hitched" so I'll go ahead and avoid that for the rest of this post... Sorry 'bout that one.

Anyway, it was a pretty sweet trip and started off on the right foot, seeing as how The Sis didn't know I was making an appearance until I met her at the airport. This pretty well orchestrated surprise came to fruition 'cause my coach and president here said it was "absolutely not possible" for me to leave since we had a game last weekend and I couldn't miss it. Nevermind we were playing a team we'd beaten twice in pre-season without 2 of our best players (nevermind we also managed to lose last weekend to said team... but that's another story).

So after being denied repeatedly despite Sarah and I both asking a couple more times, the coach finally caved one day and out of the blue decided to let me go home for the festivities. I decided it would be more fun to surprise Sarah since she was pretty much sure I wouldn't be able to come at that point. Keeping the surprise under wraps proved to be tougher than I originally anticipated since my mom wasn't on board at first (she claimed "you'll have to OUTRIGHT LIE to her! You do what you want, but I won't do it!" ...Bahaha. I didn't really consider making a story up to keep the surprise alive as being on quiiiiite the same level of maliciousness as say, an "outright LIE" but hey. My morality is obviously questionable.) Luckily Helen came around but I had a few other close calls, such as one of the bridesmaids writing on Sarah's Facebook wall that she must be so excited that I was finally allowed to come. Or my mom telling Sarah that my boyfriend Phil was coming even though I wasn't... And then Phil telling Sarah the very same day that he wasn't coming. Or a couple weeks later my mom again making a reference to Phil's coming up for the wedding. Subtle things like that.

Anyway, I was on the same flight as my sister and brother-in-law from LA so Sarah thought she was picking them up and despite the above slip ups, I somehow managed to keep her in the dark. Her reaction was pretty classic as depicted in the video below... I should say, the purple witch hat Sarah's sporting was due to my family's weird tradition of dressing up in ridiculous costume to pick people up at the airport. That sort of explains it but don't ask me where that little pretty little piece of purple came from.

Phil flew in about an hour later from his corner of the world, as did Lies (another bridesmaid and Sarah's former teammate while they played together in Albi). It was so great to see Phil and the fam, and jet lag was only slightly kicking my trash at this point.

Thursday and Friday were spent hanging with aunts, uncles & cousins and getting ready for the reception as well as getting my dress altered which I had thereto for never tried on. Good thing I of course haven't gained a pound since moving to the land of rich foods... Luckily it worked out in the end and the seamstress worked a series of small miracles to save the day.

So Friday evening comes and the ceremony and reception are going off without a hitch until approximately 8:37 PM when the opening lines of ABBA's Dancing Queen blast over the sound system and the Meek children turn to each other with a horrified yet familiar look in their eyes. Our mother was about to be unleashed.

In another strange family tradition, Helen delights in succumbing to the urge to cut loose and either 1) Dance, or 2) Embarrass her children at any and all possible occasions. Preferably both at the same time. I won't go into details because it's both painful to conjure up the memory and I can't even begin to do the performance justice in words, but basically it was a medley of ABBA hits featuring a trio of 50+ year old women dancing their hearts out on-stage in custom-made coordinating outfits. I'm not sure what this had to do with marriage and celebrating the union of two lives, but who cares!

Lights? Dancing? A captive audience?! All the necessary components for my mom to shine were present and this was not an opportunity to be passed up. That's about all I want to say so I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves...

Before...

After...
I'm fairly certain you can figure out which one she is but just in case:
look for tassels and hair flying.

My oldest sister Heidi is a stylist in LA and somehow had a part in finding those lovely boots...

Throughout the number Sarah just kept saying "Whose parents do this. WHOSE PARENTS DO THIS!?", while I repeatedly asked myself if it was, hopefully, still possible my parents were just keeping secret that I was actually adopted into the family...

To all of you non-believers who weren't privy to the spectacle yourselves: trust me, I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried. In the Meek household, truth really is stranger than fiction. So that pretty much stands out as the highlight of the evening, but to be real, Sarah looked absolutely gorgeous and Chris cleaned up pretty well himself. The wedding was lovely and it was amazing to be there for their special day, especially when I could've been spending it alone in a faraway gym.

Helen's dancing may have briefly caused me to reconsider my decision to come but in the end it was all more than worth it. The only unnerving realization I made is that with my 3 older siblings married, that means I'm next. Whooooooa now. The only thing scarier than that is the thought of what type of shenanigans my mom will pull out at my reception...

I don't want to think about it, so back to the subject at hand.... Congrats Sarah & Chris. Love you guys!

More teeth Colette! More!