The Greenwoods: Day 3...FINALLY a swim and the BIG DAY!

Finally the wedding of these two wonderful people arrived! Jodi and Courtney were married on the garden terrace of a beautiful beachside hotel right by the ocean. It turned out to be a gorgeous sunny day....but the wedding had a few blips:( The day before it had only taken us about fifteen minutes to get there from the house we were staying at...but the day of the wedding we came to a sudden halt at the freeway exit. typical Cali traffic on a Saturday right? WRONG!!! We had given ourselves plenty of extra time to make in time for the pictures befiore the wedding- but this traffic was NOT moving! We weren't quite sure what the hold up was but eventually saw that the ONLY road leading down to the waterfront hotel was closed off that day! The five lanes of cars were merging into two lanes and being detoured another way! ARGH!

We proceeded ever so slowly getting to the detour where our GPS then recalculated an alternate route to get us there. Only to find that the new street it told us to turn down was also closed off! Now we were getting a little frustrated as the time was ticking away. By now we had missed the pictures and were wondering if we were even going to make it to the wedding on time! We finally stopped and asked a police officer if there was any way to get to the hotel and he quickly spatted out a number of directions of different roads to take. We explained the circumtances of being from out of town and that meant NOTHING to us and he just seemed to get angrier. I finally asked how far it was to the hotel and he said"Oh about a mile".....I instantly thought I can make it faster walking! And with his words I jumped out of the car in a madhouse of traffic, grabbed Jadyn who had meanwhile fallen asleep, Hannah grabbed the dresses, Macee grabbed the bags, and we began sprinting down the blocked off streets in 80 degree weather :)

Call me crazy, but I was desperate not to ruin this poor girls wedding by not having the flower girls there in time! After a while we noticed other people running the streets, many with luggage (the airport was right down the street too). Soon airline vans were coming by trying to pick us up to get to us to the airport, but when I told them I was trying to get to the hotel they just said sorry, closed their doors and drove off :( After MORE than a MILE the hotel was nowhere in sight and I was getting worried, when all of the sudden a bicycle taxi came by with a very friendly man from some other country...:) "LADIES!" he said, "get in, get in I will get you to the airport" like we hadn't heard that before! I explained where we were actually headed and he laughed at me and said "The hotel is three more miles that way- you will never make it with these children get in and I will take you" Great offer- onyl I had no money to pay the kind soul unless he took Debit or and out of state check! "Don't worry , someone at the wedding can pay for you and you pay them back!" he said. I thought for a moment and quickly threw the girls in the back of the buggy seat- literally. I was VERY DESPERATE at this point in time and he was right- we would have never made it on time.
Soooo we had a very bumpy, squishy, at times rather scary ride through the blocked off back roads and sidewalks taking out a few pedestrians here and there, and catching a ride on the back of another bicycle our driver held onto for a while because we were quite the load he had to pull! We finally arrived at the hotel and according to our kind driver we "arrived in style!" $40 later!!! Yes the innocent, frazzled, mother got taken for all she was worth by this taxi bike man but we got there with 15 minutes to turn the windblown, sweaty, also frazzled children into beautiful flower girls! :)
As we found our way to the waiting area with the rest of the bridal party, we learned that this darn water roadblock had caused a major raodblock in the wedding as two groomsmen were still missing, along with the pastor conducting the wedding, the cake hadn't arrived, and half the staff hosting the reception right after were MIA. I felt a little better then knowing it wasn't just us ruining the wedding :) With the help of the bridesmaids we quickly transformed the girls into darling flower girls and even had some time to catch our breaths. Long story short..well ok this story was long, but the wedding was an hour delayed but ended up being wonderful and all was well. I take that back, Jadyn got stage fright and ran back out once she hit the first isle of people, but Macee didn't miss a beat and kept going and was a star!! Props to my kiddos on their first debut as flower girls to total strangers in California!!

Aren't they cute!!!

Silly Jadyn couldn't quite pull it off...oh well she sitll looked adorable!

With the beautiful blushing bride:)

with the maid of honor, Stacey, who Macee adores and spent the whole night folllowing around. She even made her way to the wedding party table during the reception to hang out with the "Special people" :)

With the wonderful Groom, Courtney

Say Cheese! Good job girls!!

The reception was AMAZING! Fabulous gourmet dinner, awesome DJ, lots of fun dancing. The girls got their very own special kids platter with individual mini ketchup bottles (highlight of their night!! Jadyn wouldn't even open hers, she wanted me to put it in my purse to bring home!)