Kim & Brian's Wedding Weekend, Part IV - Party Time!

I'm totally gonna use this picture more often than I should. Even though it looks like I haven't slept for weeks - I guess I always have that look - I like the microphone and tux look for me. It can work for almost anything!

Ok, enough about that, back to our story, wait, no, first...Yes, I'm a known slacker/procrastinator. It's taken me WAYYYYY too long to write about this wedding. It's been almost a month and a half now. I'm sure I've forgotten more than I should have, so anyone reading this, feel free to add to it by

adding it as a comment.

Now back to our story...So after all that, it was finally time for the reception. Again, the wedding party was kinda winging our entrance. We had no idea what we were supposed to be doing, where we were supposed to be going. I guess it all works out in situations like these. At the last minute we were told to make a U-shape around the dance floor for Kim & Brian's first dance. Ooops. We just kinda stood in a line against the stage by the band. It worked out ok I think. It was a little late, ok, it was during the dance but I had the idea to hold up signs to judge them during the dance (think Olympics) since the Cooper's are such a competitive family...it would've been funny. Oh well. They danced, you could tell that Brian was jogging his memory trying to think of what the next step was!

Next came some speeches. In a shocking turn of events, my mom actually was spotted with a microphone in her hand (I tried, but couldn't find any photographic proof) and said a couple of words. I think anyone that knows my mom was shocked...but it was nice. My dad may not have appreciated it though. It completely ruined his speech. He had all these things written down of what to say and wound up ripping up his speech (literally) and starting from scratch. Betsy (maid of honor) and Andy (Best man) gave their speeches. Then I had to poke in there, I don't think they remembered that I was planning on speaking, but I got in there in time. After all, I had been thinking of what to say for a couple of months by then! A couple of drinks helped my cause too! I really had been clueless on what I was gonna say. I started thinking about it after Liz's wedding when Rob, Danny and ummmm, uhhhhh, oh yeah, Jon had awesome speeches. And yes, I'll come clean, I really did go blank on Jon's name during my speech! I thought I played it off well though :) I knew I had to start things out with something of a mini sportscenter score update, so I happily announced that FSU beat Maryland (which I think is when Brian's Miami friend reminded me that Miami beat FSU, again, Kim's friend Lauren is the only non-obnoxious Miami fan there is). Some other important scores from the families of importance were that Kansas beat Iowa State...by a lot. And Missouri beat Kansas State, which was good and bad apparently. And that ended the fun part of the speech for me! So a couple nights before the wedding I was laying in bed at about 2am and I was finally coming up with some good ideas on what to say. It reminded me of Mitch Hedberg's quote, "I sit at my hotel at night, I think of something that's funny, then I go get a pen and I write it down. Or if the pen's too far away, I have to convince myself that what I thought of ain't funny." It totally applied to my situation. It was pitch black, it was 2am and I had to decide if this stuff was worth writing down. But these days, who uses pens? I got my laptop and starting typing. I thought a couple of my favorite quotes were worthy....first, "Don't ever take anything I say seriously...unless I say it twice...Don't ever take anything I say seriously...unless I say it twice." (which I later remembered was from a neighbor of ours in Roanoke, Mrs. Kempster). and my other favorite quote that Grandpa used to tell me when fighting with Bubbie..."Stay Single". Then I bragged about Kim being the smart one, finally realizing that maybe Grandpa was kidding. She really is the smart one though, technically she's my younger sister, but I completely look up to her. Hell, I'm something of an accountant and she still does my taxes! I've come to her for help when I bought my condo, anything resume related, and any time I need advice. She really is basically my big sister that I technically don't have. Not to let Brian feel left out, I made sure to thank him for introducing me to my new shaving cream of choice, and that I was excited to get the chance to take some pictures with Wilt Chamberlain. I've never had a brother, and I think Kim did a pretty damn good job at finding me one.

That was the gist of the speech, or at least what I think I remember from it! I had to include that so that some of my friends who weren't there can get this one chance to see my cheesy side (why is cheesy a bad thing? I love cheese!)

The rest of the time was just a big party, dancing (yes, I danced...seriously! Kim threatened me if I didn't) lots of drinking - by the way, how great is my Bubbie??? 80+ years old, and still can act like she's my age. She did several shots with us (there's pictures somewhere in one of these blogs), and even had one of Brian's friends asking for a dance!

It really was a fun time, it was great meeting the Cooper side of what is now our family. It was great catching up with people I hadn't seen in years and hanging out with Kim & Brian's friends.

As if I haven't put enough on here, below are some more random pictures from the weekend.

Oh, and I have a request of Kim & Brian...who are currently on their honeymoon in Hawaii. Write about it!!!! I know you guys have been surfing and wandering through jungles so far. I'm very jealous!

Kim & Brian's Wedding Weekend, Part 1 - The Days Before

I don't think its really sunk in yet. It doesn't exactly roll off my tongue just yet, but its true...I now have a brother-in-law. For one day anyways...I was a BLOG (get it? Ok, Brother in Law Of the Groom) Oh come on, thats funny!!!!

Anyways, it was an awesome weekend, and I will now tell you all about, so hope you brought your reading glasses, and maybe some coffee...if you're into that sort of thing. Actually I'm gonna split this up into a couple of blogs, just so no one gets scared away from seeing an obnoxiously long blog! So here comes Part 1...

The weekend got started in typical fashion...my flight was delayed. I met my cousin Alyssa who had a layover in ATL. Her flight was an hour after mine. I tried to work it out to where we could get on the same flight, but Delta wouldn't have it. Oh well. I got into DC and was just gonna wait on her. My parents and Kim met me at the airport and wouldn't you know it...my suitcase was actually one of the first ones out! Figures...since I was in no rush. Alyssa got in about an hour later, in between, to kill time, my dad learned all about how Segway's worked from a cop in the airport riding around on one. Finally, Alyssa showed up - apparently her bags arrived on my flight, good thing they couldn't work that deal out for people! My parents then finally dropped us off at Kim's condo. Kim had me draw a couple of stick figures on two separate pieces of paper, but wouldn't tell me why. Alyssa didn't like my first attempt so she drew the 2nd one. Meanwhile, I made Brian watch the end of the Oregon-Arizona game, where #2 Oregon lost to unranked Arizona, which is good for his and my adopted Jayhawks. We were all pretty exhausted, so it was bed time.

Friday morning, Kim and my parents met up with Brian and his parents and the rabbi who was to marry them. I got to sleep in :) When they were done me and my dad left for our day of tourism. We were hoping to go see the Air and Space Museum along with getting a tour of the capitol, but ran out of time. We also had to pickup my tux, and that took way too long, so we only had time to go to the capitol tour. My cousin Rob works for Congressman Michael Honda (CA). We missed out on meeting him, but were told that he gets a kick out of people taking pictures from his chair. So...we did just that. Then we got a tour of the Capitol from a co-worker of Rob's. It got off to a bad start when Alyssa got caught with mace. Apparently they don't want you bringing mace on tours of the capitol. They were very against us just throwing it away, so Rob had to bring it back to his office. Finally the tour started and I've gotta admit...it was pretty boring. Our tour guide was pretty much worthless. To her credit, there were almost 20 of us on the tour, when I think they're used to groups of about 5-10. And even Rob admitted that she wasn't very helpful. The only fun part was this one room which was built in such a way where, at one spot on the floor, if you speak into the floor, you can hear that person in another spot on the floor across the room. That's kinda hard to explain, but thats the best I got. There were lots of statues all over the place - Samuel Adams for example. I enjoy his beer, so I took a picture pretending to be drinking a beer. I only mention that because its hard to tell what the hell I'm doing in that picture (below). The fun part was trying to emulate the poses of some of the statues, also seen below - from left to right - Beer Man Samuel Adams, General U.S. Grant, and Robert M. La Follette, whose name, ironically rhymes with toilet, which is where I believe this guy was sitting when they made this statue.

My cousin Liz's wedding weekend

Ok, after I typed the title I started thinking about My Cousin Vinny - the movie. No reason, I'm guessing you can say My Cousin - fill in the blank - and it'd make me think of that movie. Its a good one! I digress.

So, this past Saturday, the first of the Zaikov cousins got married. Ok, technically she's never been a Zaikov, but i'm not sure how else to label us, so I just went for it. It was up north in Cape Cod and it was a really nice weekend. It was especially nice to get away from the 100+ degree weather we'd been dealing with in Atlanta! I flew up to Boston at 7am on Saturday morning (ughhh, waking up at 4:30 is NOT for me!). I was so tired that i remember flying over Cape Cod and thinking hmmmm, thats Long Island I think? i don't function when i'm tired!!! My sister and her fiance - who will now be known as "Brian" flew up an hour before me, rented a car, found me and we drove from Boston to Cape Cod. Traffic was pretty miserable, as it was all weekend. We finally made it to the hotel. First thing we needed was a beer...then lunch...then a nap. Then a few of my a-little-too-young-cousins got the idea to play drinking games. So, we went out, bought beer...plastic cups...and, of course...ping pong balls :) Thats right, we played flip-cup first. Got my dad in on that! He struggled at first...but came back strong in game 2. Next we played Beer Pong. I'd never actually played before. I teamed up with my cousin Ashley and we pretty much dominated that. The best was getting my grandmother - Bubbie involved. That to me was the highlight of the weekend!

Saturday night was the rehearsal dinner. Anything with free drinks is good as far as I'm concerned. There's a picture from that night on the right (Alyssa, Kim, Bubbie, Liz, Ashley). Towards the end of the night, a somewhat obnoxious guy was trying to get some of my not-officially-21-years-old cousins (although their ID's say otherwise) to go to a bar. They did...with Bubbie. Sorry I missed that, but I was pretty much exhausted at that point - and had to go back to the hotel. So I did, just hung out at the hotel. Found my cousin Rob hanging outside his room with a friend, so I hung out with them as people started coming back to the hotel, they joined us. Nothing too exciting.

Sunday morning was the wedding. Just off the beach. It was hot. Not Paris Hilton hot, temperature hot, although not Atlanta-hot. But when I'm wearing a suit, its easy for it to be too hot out. Anyways, everyone that was supposed to say "I do", did...so thats always a good thing. After the ceremony we went into a large tented area for finger food and drink. I was almost surprised with myself when I just ordered an ice water. But it wasn't even noon yet and it was HOT still. A bunch of us gathered around a table, we were about to take a picture when someones beer got knocked over and spilled all over the back of Bubbie's dress. She's a good sport though...cleaned herself off and still had a great time...not to mention she smelled good the rest of the day :)

For some reason bunch of us decided it'd be fun to wear sunglasses and pose with ancient hebrew gang signals. Not bad, huh? I dare anyone to find a cooler grandmother!


The wedding reception was fun, I felt really bad for my cousin Josh who had a really bad virus of some sort all day Sunday. He was miserable. (He's the one in that last picture with his sister Alyssa bugging him) I didn't really drink, but I did force myself to dance. Hell, its a bunch of jews, how ridiculous could I possibly look? And actually the correct answer to that would would be one Harry Pierson. (Sorry, I probably shouldn't go there, but anyone who was there saw it). When it was time to cut the cake, the band played "Pour Some Sugar On Me" (Def Leppard) so that was fun! After the reception, Liz and Greg got on board a little boat and literally sailed off into the sunset. We didn't get a chance to write on the boats' windshield or attach coke cans to it.

Sunday night, Alyssa and Ashley REALLY wanted to have a barbecue. It was starting to get close to the time where it gets dark, but they still REALLY wanted this. They went out shopping, got enough stuff to feed about 16 of us. But the charcoal we got just wouldnt light! Even with pretty much a whole bottle of lighter fluid! Hayden (another cousin) wound up getting ANOTHER bottle of lighter fluid. In the meantime, we were trying anything we could think of to get the charcoal burning. We lit the bag from the charcoal...that wasn't even easy to light. But it didn't work either. We finally went into the woods and broke off a couple of branches from some trees. That finally got things going and about 3 hours after we began...we finally were able to eat. Afterwards we just kinda hung out and were looking for some shooting stars. I actually found a couple. Its amazing how many stars you can see when you're in the middle of nowhere!

So that was pretty much it, Monday morning, me, Kim and Brian left Cape Cod and headed to Boston to, amongst other things, took a tour of Fenway Park. There will most certainly be a new blog about that! It was really pretty cool!