Mucky Declarations

My mom insisted that I post a part 2, so here goes. Then came Friday, the test of everyone's patience. This was decorating day. Now, as I said, Val's family (and Val is no exception) is very big on first impressions. They like to have everything just so before anyone views them. Val felt this way about the decorations in the chapel as well. This was a small bit of a problem, as it would also have been quite rude to have my family sit in the hotel all day. So a fair compromise was established: my family worked on stuff downstairs in the reception area, with the occasional guidance of Val, Tracy, or I, while Val concentrated on the chapel upstairs. I think she eventually realised that my family was not going to think any less of her for not having everything perfect from the start, and everyone ended up helping everywhere. It was a bit of a trial of patience for my family, as they were pretty much stuck in the small church for about seven hours, with no place really to go. There were also plenty of difficulties sending people back and forth for various tasks, due to our lack of vehicles. Everything eventually came together, however, and the entire church looked beautiful, despite it's inherant quaint-ness. There was also much tension on Val's side of the family in looking forward to that evening, when we expected my groomsmen, as well as several more members of my family to arrive. The concept of that in itself was not scary so much as the sheer logistics of fitting thirty or so people into one house that normally houses two. But most of my extended family decided to turn in for the night at their respective hotels. So, this turned the business of the evening, at least on my part, to the bachelor party. Included in this crazy business was my little bro, and best man, JJ, Beth's fiancee Tim, my two roommates Nathan and Trevor, and myself. The first item that needed to be taken care of was the groom's cake, which later was affectionately dubbed the "man cake" (picture of final product in part 1). There is video of this event, which I may try to get posted up as a link sometime. Many interesting events ensued surrounding this endeavor, as you had three engineers, a 15 year old, and a ministry student trying to make a simple cake. We initially had the idea of sculpting the thing into the shape of a guitar, which, as you may have noticed, did not work. We committed many cooking fo-pahs, such as forgetting to grease the cake dish, causing the cake to be in many pieces under that smoothly decorated exterior. It also did not help that we were under a time limit, as the only place at our disposal to cook was Tracy's house, where the bride was spending the night, and I was not allowed to see her after midnight as per superstition. We also had been quite ill prepared for the entire event, and had none of the appropriate materials, which incited many borrowings from the Hargis kitchen, as well as a ramshackle trip to the backwards walmart of Fulton, MO, which, despite being a supercenter, closes at 11pm. The cake was eventually finished, with much amusement from the remnants of our audience, which were our cameraman Dale, my bride, two of her sisters, and a close friend of the family Gale, who ended up being an invaluable asset throughout the next day. The strawberry daquiries were already starting up, so I knew it would be an interesting night for my wife-to-be. I had yet to know what plans my groomsmen had put together for my last night as a single man. But I soon found out....nothing. They had nothing at all. We went back to the hotel, and sat there for an hour or so waiting for an idea to arise. Eventually, I insisted that we go drive around Fulton to find something, anything, to do. It was pathetic. The town really did shut down at about 11. There was nothing open but the Post Office, a local bar that, due to fear of typical small town mentality, we did not enter. We did end up traversing Westminster campus, which has many cool buildings, which Trevor, being an architectural engineer, enjoyed immensely. I'm not sure about the rest of our crew. After that short outing, and traversing the rest of the small town in search of something at least slightly noteworthy, we returned to the hotel, and looked to the gas station across the street for our final hope of salvation from sheer insignificance. We roamed the isles looking for anything to amuse or entertain on the final night of my bachelorhood. We looked in awe down the alcohol isle, but as I had already crossed this threshold with my first and only bottle of beer and sip of whiskey with Trevor a few nights before, as well as the minor and the pastor-to-be in our midst, we declined. Trevor was enamored with the cigars that were later down the isle. Feeling the need for some excitement in the evening, I offered to share a smoke with him if he felt so inclined. Now, I have never been one for participation in really any sort of "pleasurable" substance other than caffiene, although that I do not think that partaking of these things in and of themselves is wrong. All of this is to say that this was something that I had never done before, and had no idea what to expect, especially as I had been at least mildly disgusted at introducing any sort of non-nutritious foreign substance into my body for most of my life. I ended up smoking about three fourths of the cigar that night, with little ill effects. It was not as bad as I thought it would be, although I still do not think that I could make it a consistent part of my life. I did feel that it was allowable, as cigars are usually a substance of celebration, which was certainly in order. Following the smoke (of which Nathan has pictures of), we retired for the evening. I did not sleep well, as I was in a strange bed, with another person (who was male :S), I smelt of smoke, and was but a few hours from accomplishing one of my life goals, as well as taking on a world of commitment and responsibility to a level that I was sure I had no idea the extent of. But in the end, sleep won over for at least a few hours. and I shall once again put off the rest for another volume.