Love, Life, and Lessons with the Kinzenbaws: Wedding/Mini Vacation to Minneapolis!

What a fun weekend we had in Minneapolis for my beautiful cousin Emily's wedding. We were so happy when she called this past spring to ask Evan and Alea to be the ringbearer and flower girl in her wedding. It made me feel kind of old that she was even getting married though and that I had children old enough to participate! She has always been little Emmy to me. :) Never the less, we told her positively yes, we couldn't wait to be a part of her big day. So, last Thursday, it was off to Minnesota we went. We hit up the Mall of America before we even went to the hotel because they offer a great twilight deal of $20 per child for unlimited rides in the indoor amusement park. My children are pretty much OBSESSED with rides so this was a given. Thankfully, my parents were along to help us take them on all the rides and give us little breaks so we could sneak in some shopping and dinner. My kids didn't even ask for anything to eat until 7 pm they were having so much fun. After we peeled them off the rides around 7:45, we headed to the hotel and we all hit the hay. We stayed at a Grandstay Suites in St. Louis Park. I would HIGHLY recommend it. Great rooms/yummy breakfast/nice pool and workout area/wonderful service/close to lots of stuff/, just overall awesome! Every room was a suite too, which if you have ever traveled with young children, it is almost a necessity...Friday we woke up and unfortunately Ev was pretty sick and suffered his first asthma attack-it scared me. I have never seen an attack before. He was yelling "I can't breathe", crying unconsollably, and just couldn't calm down. We quickly did a double dose of his breathing treatment though and I could slowly feel him relax. Thank the Lord. We relaxed for a little while then as he felt better, we decided some fresh air would do him some good, so we headed to Como Zoo-a free zoo in St. Paul. It was awesome. They even had polar bears and it was small and easy to see everything in about an hour. Perfect for what we needed.
Ok, back to the wedding. Rehearsal was at 5 on Friday night. I was pretty nervoud about what Alea would do. And I had every right to be! She crawled, walked backwards, and sprinted down the aisle. OHhhh boy...and Evan was yelling at her the whole time to do it right. What had we gotten ourselves into??? We could only hope and pray they would pull it together for the real thing. Saturday came and my sweet hubs swam in the pool all morning and got them nice and tired so they would take a good nap before the wedding and so I could sneak in a trip to IKEA with my mom and Aunt Janie. Love that store!
2:30 came quickly as that was our assigned time to be there for pictures. Again, nervous about Alea-she is a very sweet little girl but is very strong willed and does what she wants to do! And once again, she frowned, glared, and cried during the pictures...not one single smile...all while Ev is posing perfectly. HA! Those pics will be fun to look back on. As the wedding started, I was all poised to take pictures, but only got one of them as I had to put the camera down to tell Ev to let go of Alea-which he did, and they ended up both calmly walking down the aisle. So sweet. Evan was so proud of how he did. The wedding was beautiful and I couldn't be happier for my cuz and her hubby. They are a match made in heaven and I could just feel the love and happiness between them.
The reception was seriously amazing-so elegant and in a very hip spot in Minneapolis-The Profile Event Center. It was kind of like a night club and my kids loved all the lights bouncing around and dancing to the music. I loved every second even though it did get difficult as the night wore on-we didn't want to leave the fun party, but as it neared 10 pm, my kids were on the verge of a complete meltdown. All you parents know what I am talking about.
Anyways, enjoy some pics below and congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Derrick and Emily Grams. May God bless you with a lifetime of love and happiness together. And just remember, love is a choice! You are not always going to FEEL like loving each other (I know from experience :) ), but believe me, CHOOSE to love, you will be glad you did.