Hermsen Wedding Weekend

The Hansen Family traveled to Dubuque, Iowa this past weekend to help our friends, Adam & Renee, celebrate their wedding! 

| Our travels started Friday morning about 10:30.  We had to be in Dubuque for Graden to attend the wedding rehearsal that started at 5:15 so we were on a tight schedule!  Hunter had football practice until 10:00 ... so we couldn't leave sooner than we did!  I made pancakes for breakfast for the family before we hit the road so we wouldn't have to stop to eat, plus had plenty of drinks and snacks on hand!

| Amazingly ... we arrived in Dubuque at 4:45!  We dropped Graden off at the church while the kids and I went back to the hotel to get checked in and unpacked.  After rehearsal, we enjoyed a really nice dinner at Catfish Charlies - Graden had ribs and I had a nice sirloin.  Of course, we coupled our wonderful meals with a few adult beverages!    We headed back to the hotel about 9:30 that evening ... well, I should say we aimed for the hotel but ended up at the sports bar across from the hotel. 

| The next day was a fun one!  We spent a leisurely morning getting ready for the wedding - which was at 1:30 that afternoon.  My best friend, Jennifer, and her lil' guy, John, drove from Cedar Rapids that morning and met us at the hotel to get ready with us.  Graden, who was a groomsman in the wedding, headed out with the wedding party about 10:30 while the rest of us got ready to head out for lunch prior to the wedding. 

| Jen and I and the kids found a Mexican restaurant close by and enjoyed a margarita (of course!) then headed to the local WalMart to kill some time.

Me and my long time bestie, Jennifer

| The wedding started on time and was a beautiful ceremony!  After the traditional Catholic ceremony, the wedding party drove around town in a Party Bus while the wedding guests headed to the Grand Harbor Resort for Cocktail Hour.  Well, most of the wedding guests did .... we, however used this downtime to head to our room and take a little nap.

Mr. & Mrs. Adam & Renee Hermsen

| We headed down to the reception (which was located right next to the hotel we were staying at) about 5:45 and waited for the wedding party to arrive!  Renee was one of the most beautiful brides I have ever seen! She looked like she had just walked out of a photo shoot!  She is one of those women who you'd love to hate because she is so beautiful and adorable, but she is such a sweet person!  Adam isn't too hard to look at, either .

| The wedding reception lasted until 11pm, then we headed back to the sports bar we visited the night before.  We quenched our thirst until about 1am then headed back to the hotel for some zzzz's.  It was a fun night!

Wedding wishes to Mr.and Mrs.Hermsen: To many happy & fun years! ♥ The Hansens

| The next morning Dayne and I went to the waterpark that was located inside the hotel/resort.  It was pretty lame for her to be there with just boring ol' Mom, so we were back at the hotel room by 10am.  We cleaned up, got packed up and headed out for lunch.  We stopped by the Aswegan's hotel to say goodbye to them .... but ended up having breakfast at their hotel and then headed to the Mississippi River Aquarium and Museum for a while.

Hunter & Dayne with John

| About 2:30 we hit the road and headed toward Waterloo so we could join Donna, Gretchen and the kids for dinner.  As we got loaded into the truck to head home, TJ and Kylie got in the Suburban and "refused' to get out .... saying they were going home with us!  We bounced around the idea (they were planning to come to Lee's Summit the coming weekend for the Cubs vs. Royals game) and they ended up coming home with us!  I thought it'd be good for Gretchen to have a little break from the kids and it'd be great for all the cousins to get some much needed bonding time together as well!  They all miss each other very much!

Kylie, TJ's & Dayne enjoying the summa-summa-summatime heat!

| On our way out of town we stopped by Dad's house as a surprise visit for Father's Day ... but weren't able to stay long since it was already almost 8pm and we still had a 5 hour drive home. |Bleh!|

| On the way home we ran into some pretty severe weather ... listening to the radio we heard that a tornado had touched down about 16 miles from where we were.  Yipes!  The storm was traveling northeast and we were traveling southwest ... so Graden told Hunter to "hurry up!"!

| Sunday night was a loooong night ... we didn't get home until almost 1am.  Needless to say we all slept good that night!

| Long weekend, but good memories spent with friends and family!