So much to tell... an intense and long "weekend." Started out with the Friday night drive down, Lucas + 6 hours in the car = Plane ticket next time. Too much unhappiness. Saturday, my cousins wedding. A CRAZY day. Drove from my parents house to pick up my brother in Northridge (which involved me ringing the doorbell obnoxiously at his neighbor's house- oops wrong house). From there to Rachel's parents house to drop off her sister (which we picked up from LAX) and have Rachel fitted for her dress for her sis' wedding. Rushing from there to the wedding which started at 2pm, we showed up at 2:30pm which was no big deal because apparently the actual ceremony didn't start until 3:15pm (good tactic for our family). Lucas was a complete mess beginning to end. Turns out the bag pipe guy that played for an hour straight pretty much did him in, and there was no escaping him. Like some bad horror film. We stayed only until 8pm which was not nearly enough time to hang out with my cousins, but entirely too much time for Rachel to be stuck with our screaming child. From there we stayed the night at Rachel's parents house. Left the next morning for my parents house and the birthday party. Lots of fun sent the pictures via my cell phone in the previous blogs. It was a 4 time celebration- my brother and I (as always) my cousin Josh, and my brother's girlfriend's boy (get that?). I loved it. At one point there were 4 laptops going in the living room- geek fest! The online gift list worked like a charm- got mostly money to buy everything I want on it! So I will have the NBA pass, the new game, the new star wars movie, and money for the mp3 player! I love it. I did get some actual gifts- my brother broke the bank and bought me a box of El Rey Del Mundos (what we are smoking in the photo below). Lucas bought me the Star Wars trilogy on DVD which was fitting because he and I watched it together when he was first born and keeping me up all night. Monday morning we headed out to Hemet for the funeral. The viewing was that night. I have sadly been to enough now that it no longer freaks me out. I actually enjoy being able to see the person one last time for closure. Seems freakish, since most folks hate that sort of thing but I will never forget kissing my grandma goodbye on the cheek- perhaps the most healing thing. It seemed to have the same effect on Rachel as well. She was a little freaked about having to go to it, but really thought it was a good thing in the end. If I had a camera and was bold enough to use it, the photo of the night would have been when Rachel's dad took his two grandchildren (Lucas being one of them) to say goodbye to his dad. The juxtaposition of two such lively and happy babies next to their passed on great grandfather showed the amazing power of life. That was a tough night for many. We left early to put the kids to bed. We all hung out (I, Rachel her brother and sister and sister-in-law) in the hotel room for awhile while we locked the kids into the other room to sleep for a few hours. It was kind of funny when their aunts pulled up and we told them we were going to have dinner and left the kids in the room- they were relieved to know we meant we ordered pizza and were not actually abandoning our children. The next morning (my actual birthday) I was awoken by Lucas at 4am. (speak of the devil he is waking up right now). I will have to continue this later...