Turkeys and Otters

This past weekend was probably the best Thanksgiving weekend I’ve ever had. We spent Thanksgiving Day with Shawn’s parents, and Chris’s girlfriend and I were in charge of bringing most of the food. This was my first time to “be allowed” to contribute to Thanksgiving, and I was so excited to try out a couple of recipes. My food turned out fabulous, Jennifer’s food was fabulous, and Renea’s food was fabulous. It was honestly the first time I liked everything that was served.

After we stuffed ourselves silly and emptied a bottle or two of wine, we left Gabe with them and prepared for our weekend of wedding fun.

I started the weekend by playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution, a game I hadn’t finished yet due to other review deadlines. On Friday I packed up to spend the remainder of the weekend in West End. My best friend, Christi, was getting married, and I was a bridesmaid (secretly, I called myself the matron of honor). The wedding was to take place in quite possibly the most fun place in Dallas: the Dallas World Aquarium.

In essence, I got to visit the Aquarium twice. We had to go over there for the rehearsal, and while we were waiting for people to set up, I ran around to look some of the exhibits. How often do I get to go to the Aquarium for free? Okay, well, I have been there for free two other times when I visited the venue with Christi, but it doesn’t mean I’m not going to take advantage of other times. Since the wedding was there as well, and the exhibits were open during the reception, of course I took advantage of that too. I even got to see my favorite exhibit ever: the river otters. They were actually awake and I got to see them play a little bit before I had to go back to the wedding. They were about to cut cake, and I never pass up cake.

The cake cutting was by the manatee tank, which was several additional levels of awesome in of itself. I spent the rest of the night on the dance floor, as I am quite apt to do at weddings, even at weddings where I hardly know anyone.

By all accounts, the wedding was an absolute blast. One thing that surprised me the most was that I cried when I saw Christi walk down the aisle and then Dustin’s face when he saw her. After I recessed down the aisle and was hidden in the back, I started to bawl. I was just so happy for her that she found such a great guy. I blame it one hundred percent on hormones and my changed meds. And I’m sticking to that story.

Hate to say it, but future Thanksgivings have a pretty high bar to meet in terms of greatness. The only way to fix it may be to visit the Aquarium every Thanksgiving. That way, I’ll have turkeys and otters every year. Excellent.