Troy & Rachel's Place: Weddings and Open Houses

Unlike my globetrotting siblings-in-law, Rachel and I are usually content to stay within the vicinity of our house most of the time. This summer has seen us travel across the state to various weddings and open houses. I haven't wrote about them mainly since the pictures have been sitting on my camera or my home computer for the last few weeks. The purchase of a Sony Flash Drive this weekend has made it easy to transfer pictures to and from home, so I'm ready to start the updates in whatever the literary equivalent of a montage is. (Mini rambling: As mentioned I now own a 2GB flash drive small enough to fit in my pocket. In fact, it's smaller than a pocket knife I own. For someone that grew up with 5 1/4" floppy disks with less than 100 KB, that's pretty astounding. Yes, I'm getting old.)

May 26 - Susan King and Chris Thorpe wedding.

Rachel and I headed down to Bloomington for the nuptials of our friends Susan and Chris. Susan met Chris on a vacation in Jamaica. Just thought you needed to know that for some reason.

Since we were going to Bedford the next day, Rachel and I decided to stay the night in Bloomington. I found there are relatively few choices for hotels for such a big city (West Lafayette/Lafayette has many more places to stay; again, just so you know). I made reservations for a non-smoking room (seriously, hotels still have smoking rooms in Southern Indiana?) at the not-at-all-luxurious Super 8. Luxury didn't matter since we mainly just needed a place to sleep. However, upon opening the door to our room, I rush of tobacco odor flooded our senses. We gave the room about 30 seconds with the door closed and then rushed down to the front desk to request a non-smoking room. Unfortunately, there were no non-smoking rooms left so the manager upgraded us to a "suite". Now, the jacuzzi tub was a nice touch, I must admit. However, calling this a "suite" is an understatement. Basically the room was the exact size as the rest, it just had the aforementioned jacuzzi. So, everything worked out fine there.

The wedding went on as planned with just a few showers before and afterwards. The wedding was at a chapel next to the Union building in the heart of IU's campus. In case you haven't been there, IU had the oak/birch/willow/dogwood version of Johnny Appleseed sprinkle tree seeds all over the campus. Everything seems to be covered in foliage. Maybe IU should be the Sycamores instead of ISU. Being a graduate of the much less tree lined campus of Purdue University, I'm not a fan of the jungle that is IU's campus. Someone remarked to me that I "had to" admit that IU's campus was better than Purdue's. Oops. Wrong person to say that too. Purdue may have made some bad choices in designing their campus (lack of parking, dorms 500 miles from civilization, "Indian burial grounds"), but at least they understand the word moderation when it comes to landscaping.

Anyway, the wedding was fine. I'd write more, but this is a blog about me and, well, it wasn't my wedding. The reception was fine although I must be the only person over 21 that doesn't drink. This was a wedding made up of mostly people from our church, and still nearly everyone was drinking. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with that and people were definitely drinking in moderation, but I always feel odd to be the only one NOT drinking. Of course, I seemed to be the only one not making a salad and not partaking in the cheese course as well, so maybe I'm just odd.

May 27 - Kate Hawkins open house.

Rachel and I moved on from Bloomington down to Bedford to celebrate her cousin Kate graduating from high school. Kate will be moving on to the tree lined campus of IU. Apparently my marrying into the family did nothing to change her allegiances in colleges. Again, everything went well. They had a nice spread of food and snacks which is always appreciated. Congratulations to Kate and, despite my teasing of college choices, good luck at IU.

June 2 - Tiara Clerk open house.

Onto Brazil for my cousin Tiara's open house to celebrate her graduation from high school. Again, proving that I am the black sheep of the family, Tiara will be moving on to IU. Apparently Tiara and Kate didn't aspire to graduate from Purdue and take a job where they would have time to write blogs all day. Oh well. Best of luck to Tiara as well.

Oh, and to all you guys at IU: Kate and Tiara are both taken (as last I checked; high school relationships aren't exactly chiseled in stone) so please stay away from my underage cousins. They'll be spending too much time studying anyway. Just like I was. Ummm, mostly.