Matt and Catey's wedding weekend

This past weekend Jay and I headed East to Durham, NC to see Jay's 1st cousin Matt get hitched!  We left on Friday morning at 5 and drove 13 hours and got there by dinner that night.  It was a LONG drive...however it was an uneventful and quiet drive.  When you are a mom of kids, you know how traveling with kids can be.  But there is something nice to be said when you can get in the car in a leisurely drive with your husband and there were no interruptions, no ABC CD's, no cups to fill up and not a kid snack to be had.  Just me and him...we got to talk, listen to music, stop when we wanted to and be quiet when we wanted to.  It was NICE.  

We even decided to stop in Knoxville for lunch at a place that was featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives called Pizza Palace.  It is 51 years old.

Jay and I shared these onion rings.  However, we could have shared them with the whole neighborhood ha!  And no, we did not eat all of these!

Then we split the pizza.  Guy Fieri says it is the best pizza he has ever had.  I don't know that I would go that far, but it was good.  A little on the greasy side but what can you expect out of pizza huh?  All their crust is made homemade daily.  It was a neat experience and right off the interstate too.

Friday night when we arrived we met all of our family for dinner and then went over to Jay's sister Nicole's house for coffee and to hang out with all the family.  

Saturday morning we met up with Jay's sister Kelly and her husband Andy and 2 girls to fish.  We were so wishing our kids were there with us!  Kaycee caught the only 2 fish of the day and a few turtles too!

Poor brim...he got hooked and didn't even get to eat his worm!

Then she caught a pretty good size bass...go Kaycee!

Andy helping the girls fish...

After fishing and lunch, we came back to Grandmother's house where we were staying to get ready for the wedding.  On our way to the wedding we drove through Duke (Jay's family are huge fans and his sisters Kelly and Nicole work at Duke).  Funny story when we drove up to the chapel for me to take a picture of it, this man in the yellow sweatshirt straightened up so I guess he would look good in the picture!  It was so funny.

Jay with his cousins (3 siblings from L to R Scott, Groom Matt, and Didi)...

 The wedding was beautiful and there were very neat touches that made it very special.

This was the back of the invitation..."tears of joy" with a kleenex attached.  Cute!

The wedding was outside (and quite chilly around 60 degrees) but it was beautiful!

 My niece Katie at the wedding....

Katie and Pop-Pop

Cousin Evie was in the wedding as one of the flower girls...she looked adorable!

Aunt Juju, Uncle Haha, Evie and Didi (family of the groom)

At weddings when the bride is walking down the aisle, I love to watch the groom.  Matt was holding in the tears!

Catey was an absolutely beautiful bride!  So classy and elegant!

Everyone was laughing here because they both had to lick the rings to get them to go on.  He did it first and it was funny but to see this elegant bride do it too was really funny!

Mr. and Mrs. Matt Bullard

Evie

The reception was amazing!  Before you walked in, they had these namecards where you find your name and it tells you what table you are sitting at.  

Everyone signed this for the bride and groom...

The wedding and the reception was at the Country Club and it was just beautiful!

Nonnie and Pop-Pop...

Me and my honey...

The reception...

At our table was all of Jay's sisters and their spouses. 

Nicole and her husband Craig.....

Of course us...

Kelly and her husband Andy and Katie....

And Aunt Jessie too...don't know how I missed her in the pics!

This was neat.  All of the music was picked out by Matt as a surprise to Catey...including the song he came out to ("Trouble" haha) and the song she walked down the aisle to....so sweet!  Then they had a copy of all the songs sitting at everyone's seat to take home.  We loved it!

She came in to the reception ready to CELEBRATE I tell ya!

The lovely bride and groom.  Aren't they adorable?!

All the family at dinner

(L to R)

Kelly, Andy and Katie

Nicole and Craig

Nonnie and Pop-Pop

Jessica

Me and Jay

Aunt Judy, Uncle Hudson and Didi

(not pictured Matt Catey, Scott and Emily, all the other kids, Grandmother and Pinto who couldn't make the drive from Mississippi and Grandmother Sheehy)

 After the reception Jay and I decided to go ahead and start our trek home and break it up a little bit coming home.  We drove a couple of hours and then stayed the night at a hotel and drove the rest of the way the next day.  I always love driving through the mountains...so pretty!  Excuse the bug marks on my front windshield!

While we were gone, Lolli kept the kids for us and they had a ball (so I hear).  Lolli took them to the park multiple times, to TWO neighborhood yard sales, a birthday party, a gotcha day party and much more.  No wonder they don't ever want to come home!!! Can I get an AMEN here?!  Here are two blog posts you can read here and here about all their fun.  Thank you Alli and Ashley for including my kids in your posts! :)  Even though we haven't met I feel like I know you and your children just from following your blogs!

It was a great weekend spent with family even though we did drive 1600 miles in 3 days!  Whew!

Oh and on a side note, after driving all day and then picking up the kids, we got home around 9:00 and I immediately bathed the kids, fed them and put them in bed.  About that time (literally 30 minutes after I walked in the door bags still unpacked) I got a call from my friend whose water had just broken and was in labor.  I was so excited to take pictures of the birth so at 10:30 I headed over to her house to pull an all nighter (well almost I did sleep a couple of hours).  But it was all worth it no doubt.  Post coming soon...I am waiting until Amy posts the pictures herself and then I will blog all about it!  It was one of the neatest experiences ever!