my bro got married

Three weeks ago, my brother and Emily got married in Lawrence! We had a bit of a rough start driving out. We had to leave early on Friday to get there in time for the rehearsal. It had snowed the night before (which made it a crazy night to be getting a pedicure...walking around in flip flops with my pants rolled up, brrrr). We actually left on time to make it to the rehearsal with more than an hour to spare, but luck was not on our side. There was a wreck on our first highway, so that slowed us down. Wet stuff was coming down and the defroster couldn't keep up, and it was also freezing onto the windshield wipers, so we had to stop and scrape that off a couple of times so we could actually see. Then there was a crazy wreck on I-70 that shut down the interstate in both directions for a loooong time. I had never seen such a terrible looking wreck before. Something like 11 semis and 1 SUV were involved. The wreck was actually in the west-bound lanes, and they didn't open those back up until 5 that evening. I mean, seriously, check this out: click here. I can't believe only one person was injured.

But anyway. So we were late. And we missed the rehearsal, sad. But we did not miss the rehearsal dinner with amazing BBQ and mom's homemade pies (with peaches that I helped pick and put up this summer)!

Early on Saturday, we girls headed to the church to start getting our hair did.

You can't see it, but that Starbucks cup has a really sweet note written on it from Mark to Emily, aw.

And there was some eating of some yummy Druber's doughnuts, mmm. A guy who was our neighbor growing up and one of Mark's groomsmen brought a box of them to Lawrence for us.

The wedding was beautiful. Brian and I got to walk down the aisle together. We did not have our arms linked incorrectly like I did at prom once. I did almost forget to always keep my body facing the bride, but I remedied that quickly. And probably no one really noticed, but now anyone who reads this and watches the video will be looking for it.

After the wedding, the wedding party hopped on a party bus with this sign and drove to photo locations in Lawrence. It was freezing but fun.

The reception was a huge party! The food was delicious! The candy bar was fun! The open bar was appreciated! And mostly I got to see a ton of my family and family friends, which I loved!

Here is a picture of my hair from the very end of the night. It was really cool but apparently was looking kind of rough by this point. :)

ranked book list {take 2}

Original post here.

1. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
2. Columbine by Dave Cullen
3. Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
4. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo trilogy, with the first being my favorite, followed in order by the other two...but why read just the first one and not know how it ends? (unless, of course, we are talking about the Twilight series...) by Stieg Larsson
5. The Hunger Games trilogy, with the first definitely being my favorite, followed in order by the other two, by Suzanne Collins
6. Marley & Me by John Grogan
7. Julie and Julia by Julie Powell 
8. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

Speak. I read this book because some of my students were reading it in their freshman English class, they were struggling, and I am always in the market for material being handed to me for my sessions. :) But, oh geez, I need to read some more mediocre books to push this one down on the list. The story is decent, and the subject matter is really important, so I am glad the teacher assigned it, but I thought the writing was horrible! And not subtle! At all. It definitely felt like the author tried way too hard to write with figurative language, and it just didn't work. Sorry to keep harping on Twilight, but reading this reminded me of its terrible writing. I maybe wouldn't have mentioned it, but I just looked up this book on Amazon for the link, and the movie version came up as well. Who plays the leading character? Kristen Stewart. I know I am judging a dvd by its cover here, but I just don't know that I could handle sitting through all of that.

ranked book list

Oftentimes, I am at a loss for how to pick the next book to read. So while this project won't help me in my quest, maybe it will benefit others who find themselves in a similar position. My posting is kind of spotty, so maybe I won't keep this up, but I thought I would keep a running, ranked list of books I've read recently. When I finish one, I'll repost the entire list with the newly added one highlighted somehow. And maybe it will help me in my search for the next book to read -- perhaps it will spur on commenters to leave suggestions for me!

1. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
2. Columbine by Dave Cullen
3. Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
4. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo trilogy, with the first being my favorite, followed in order by the other two...but why read just the first one and not know how it ends? (unless, of course, we are talking about the Twilight series...) by Stieg Larsson
5. The Hunger Games trilogy, with the first definitely being my favorite, followed in order by the other two, by Suzanne Collins
6. Marley & Me by John Grogan
7. Julie and Julia by Julie Powell