Worth it.

We had quite the busy weekend over here!  It started out with a super fun celebration of love at my cousin Sarah's wedding.  I loooove weddings.  There was something extra fun about this one, being with my entire family probably had something to do with it.  I felt surprisingly free and had so much fun gettin' down on the dance floor with my fam.

'zee children

The whole family. I think there was a miscommunication about if we were supposed to be blowing bubbles or not.  I also think I have a pretty intense bubble blowing stance.  Bend at the knees folks.  Bend at the knees!

My Mom and her sisters (Aunt Janet counts as a sister, right?) :)

On the dance floor. 

Grandma and Grandpa dancing!  I love how my Grandma is always out on the dance floor at weddings! 

Me: Lindsay, your hair looks awesome.  We need to take more pictures."  Lindsay: "I know!"Me: "Ok lets go out on the staircase and take some there."

Sugar. 

Causing mischief in the bathroom.  But that's another tale for another (less public) time, my friends.  Lets just say it has a little something to do with the "Fun Gene" (hahaha MOM).

Sisters

It was a great time and I am so bummed I can't find any pictures of the bride right now!  She was gorgeous, of course, and her dress looked like it was straight out of a fairy tale.

On Saturday, Josh and I had a long day on the East side of the state.  We stopped in Ann Arbor first to have lunch (and the most nutella-y nutella crepes I've ever had in my life) with Mike and Emily.  It's nice walking away from spending time with friends and saying things like, "I have a feeling those two are going to be life-long friends".  Making the time to stop in Ann Arbor to hang out with them?  It was totally worth it.

Because we are closing on our house (HOORAY!) on the 30th, we are in the process of transfering many of our belongings from our 3 bedroom 2 bathroom home in the country into a 1 bedroom 1 bathroom apartment in town. So it's no surprise that our next stop was Ikea. This move into a smaller abode is something that we are terribly excited for.  In the last couple of years, we have redefined our dream home from a big, typical, American home where all of our future children will have their own rooms to more of a "tiny home" approach.  I like the idea of having just enough space for what we need. Nothing more, nothing less.  So, this small apartment we are moving into feels like a more accurate reflection of how we actually want to live our lives.  As I am packing and discovering how many unnecessary belongings we have, I  have come to realize that our 1300 square foot home - small as it was- was too much for us.  I've realized that the 'size of our house' completely matches up with the 'size of my purse theory' which is: whatever the size of my purse, I will fill it.  If I have a tiny purse, I carry just what I need and nothing more.  If I have a big purse, I carry just what I need... plus a book and a brush and a kitten and.... all sorts of unnecessary belongings.  This theory is why I no longer carry big purses.  Well, it turns out the very same thing happened with our house. We had so much space that we just... filled it.  If we had had a smaller space we would have gotten rid of more stuff before now.  Our house wasn't messy or cluttered, but our closets are full of stuff that should have gone to Goodwill a long, long time ago.  

On top of the freedom of downsizing,  our new home is in town, and being in town is nothing short of o-mazing.  (...there's a difference between a-mazing and o-mazing, if you are catching my drift ::wink wink::)  Last night was our first night in our apartment and do you know what I did this morning?  I walked to work.  I even stopped at the coffee shop on the way, beaming like a kindergardener on my first day of school.  Telling everyone in the shop (because I happened to know all three of them), "Why yes, I am walking to work today!".  Even with the coffee shop stop, it took less time to walk than it used to take driving in.  It was thrilling!

Anyway, back to our weekend.  Josh was sooooo so excited for Ikea.  All week last week I heard, "I can't wait for Ikea"/ "I am so excited to go to Ikea"/ "I wish we could go to Ikea tonight but you're right, it makes more sense to go on Saturday".  All week, my friends.  It was adorable.  We went in with a few things in mind and only spent two hours shopping which is quite impressive when you look at the gargantuan size of a store like that.  Ikea is HUGE.  and inspirational.  and it takes a lot of self control to not go crazy with "ohhhhhh we need that!"'s 

Once we were done shopping, we started driving up to the teeny tiny town in Metamora.  It was an hour and a half north of Ikea, and another two hours from home.  The reason we were heading up there was to see my little sister practice a beautiful course for her horse show that was going to take place the next day.  As I was driving, Josh fell asleep and I was getting so tired I literally had to slap myself across the face to try to stay awake.  I started thinking things like, "This is so far out of the way.  I wonder if it was really worth it to come up here..."

As we pulled up to the farm, Katie was running her horse in circles in a field just to the right of the road.  I could tell she had seen our car approaching based on the glowing smile on her face that I could see all the way from the road.  It took about .002 seconds after seeing that joy and excitement to think,

"This was totally worth it."

Out of all of the roles in my life (wife, daughter, friend)... big sister has to be one of the best.  This weekend was busy, but it was rich and full because of all of the beautiful people that I got to spend time with.  I hope I never forget that friends and family are always worth extra effort, time, and energy.

I hope your weekend was just as lovely as ours!