oelp both of us cut costs.
We left Lethbridge Thursday morning at 9:30am and arrived in Grande Prairie at 9:30pm. We made a couple of stops in Airdrie and Whitecourt to eat lunch and supper. But poor Kymberly was miserable for the last 2 or 3 hours of the trip. she screamed for a good 2 hours, making our long trip feel even longer. We were very grateful for the DVD player that kept the older girls busy. And even more glad that we had arrived at the hotel to put kids to bed. Friday was a busy day for Daniel, he was out and about doing "Best Man" duties, but the girls and I just hung out at the hotel and played at the pool on and off all day. It was great, after all that driving it was nice to just hang out and enjoy the cool water.
They wrestled with him, danced with him, gave him a head massage and a special kind of facial. Finally it was time for the guys to go get ready and me and the girls once again headed to the pool before having a bath and getting ourselves all pretty. The wedding was at 2pm, we arrived at the church early so that we would be close to the front. The girls weren't ready to sit still just yet so we went to stand in the lobby while the guests were arriving. Then I saw this man that had a very long bushy beard and look very much like my uncle Gene (who lives in Grande Prairie and whom I haven't seen in about 15yrs), but why would my uncle Gene be at this wedding? So when there was no one at the guest book and went and looked to see if his name was there, and sure enough there it was "Gene Forsyth". Weird! I don't know my uncle Gene very well. Like I said I haven't seen him in about 15 years, and only a handful of times that I can remember before that. Because of the distance he has had with the family and becuase I really don't know anything about him, I have always assumed that he wasn't a social guy and that he just kept to himself, so I wasn't really sure what I would say to him or if I would at all.
As I walked out of the church I saw Gene standing in the shade of a tree and as I approached him he just said casually, "It's nice to get this coat off and stand in the shade". I smiled and said "uncle Gene?". He looked at me with a confused look on his face, so I said "I'm Rex's daughter Mandy" and that just about gave him a heart attack. His eyes went wide and he put his hand to his chest and gasped, "oh my, what are you doing here?". I explained how my husband was the best man and that we had both gone to high school with the groom. So I asked how he was connected, He sold a parcel of land to the Brides parents and they are now neighbours, and basically family. He told me that if he would have known we were coming we could have stayed at his ranch. Silly me for not thinking of calling up my uncle that I don't really know and asking if we could stay at his place...just didn't cross my mind. But as we talked I realized that he was nothing like I thought he would be. He was a Forsyth through and through, humble, social, friendly and very kind. He invited us out to his ranch so that the girls could see his horses. I wasn't sure when we could fit it in and the girls were getting restless standing in the sun, so we said that we would talk about it more at the reception. I left the church dumbfounded at the coincidental reunion.
The Reception was at 6pm, so we had some down time at the hotel. I made everybody nap...which ended up being a small disaster. When I woke the girls to get ready to go to the reception, all three of them were screaming at the top of their lungs, I was able to settle both Tansley and Kymberly, but there was nothing I could do for Kathryn, who just kept making things worse for herself. I arrived at the Elks Hall with a pleasant Kymberly and screaming hysterical Kathryn and a crying Tansley simply because Kathryn was screaming. I left Kathryn and Tansley in the running van and went in to see if Daniel was around to give me some assistance, but he hadn't arrived yet. So I just stood outside in the shade and waited for him to arrive to try to calm the storm. When he finally arrive he was able to quite the storm but not completely end it. I'll take what I can get. So we entered the reception a little frazzled and just sat where we could, not paying attention to who was around. When it was time to eat, Gene's table was one of the first to be called to dish up, he brought his table sign over to our table and said that now we could go dish up to eat. He'd obviously seen the chaos that I was going through. After dinner and all the formalities were over the Dance started. I took that opportunity to go sit and talk with Gene. And it worked out that there was a family get together and the Brides parents place on Sunday afternoon that we were supposed to be out. It was decided that we would come out an hour early and go first to Uncle Gene's place and see the horses and then head over to the dinner. The girls had a blast at the dance, they danced with both Uncle Travis and Uncle Craig. They of course danced with daddy and they danced with Debbie's(The Bride) nephews(who were teenagers). We all had a great time and I finally took the kids back to the hotel at about 10pm. Kathryn went to bed excited about going to see the horses the next day.
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