Phase One: Biloxi

The first portion of our trip was to the coast of Mississippi for my step-second-cousin's wedding, of which I was the officiant. We did the drive down in 2 parts, since my shingles were still really bad at that point and I tired easily. We made it to Biloxi late Thursday night, May 7th.

This is our friend Polly, who road tripped with us:

Another satisfied customer at Rendezvous in Memphis:

On Friday, we walked up and down the beach and drove around to see the damage. Here we are enjoying the warm sunshine:

This is me looking to the future:

When we realized we were in Gulfport, we called my longtime friend Laura, and had a wonderful visit with her and her baby, Gus. Here, I think Gus is sad that we were going to have to leave. That or he was sad he was faced away from his quilt. That is probably more accurate.

We loved Gus and wanted to take him home with us. He and Fuzzy became BFFs.

After seeing Laura, we met up with Chad and Elizabeth and hung out for a while, before heading back to the beach for some Jet Skiing. I hadn't jetskied in about 10 years, the last time being when Erica, Andrew and I went to Florida to visit Topher back when he lived there. Fuzzy had never been, so it was an adventure! We don't have any photos of that, but I am so glad we went--it was so much fun!

I was a damn idiot that day and only put sunscreen on my right arm to protect my tattoo, and I didn't put any on the other side. Yep, you guessed it--I got an awful sunburn on my other side, which was super painful and looked a mess. And I had the perfect outfit, too! Note the tan, er, "burn" lines.

I have never seen a more relaxed couple before a wedding than Chad and Elizabeth. I think I was more nervous than she was!

I didn't want to ruin all the wedding photos, so I ended up wearing a shawl. Here I am with the happy couple. Look at how gorgeous Elizabeth is!!

The wedding was short and sweet and very them. I got a lot of wonderful compliments after the ceremony from both sides of the family, so that was good. I hope the newlyweds are happy with it. We watched the video later, and I could have talked a little slower, but ah well. They can always watch the footage in slow motion.

It was a lot of fun relaxing at the casino, eating good food and catching up with friends and family I hadn't seen in years. Lovely. The day after the wedding, we hopped in the car and headed north to South Carolina.