We took a little trip, a.k.a. Maggie's wedding and Kathi's broken ankle

You probably noticed a lapse here in blogland.  Well, it was for a really good cause.  My niece, Maggie, got married on July 3rd in Green Bay, Wisconsin, - a very long road trip from Fort Worth. Maggie was radiant!  She looked like Audrey Hepburn in the vintage dress her sister, Kate, found for her in Minneapolis.  Kate designed the headdress out of fabric leftover when the dress was re-styled.  In fact, this is the third headdress.  The dress shop did the first one, and it didn't suit her, so Kate created one for her sister; the dog ate that one!  Third time is the charm.

Here is Maggie with two of her four beautiful bridesmaids, Brooke and Natalia.  Natalia sure loves her ink, and the strapless dress provided a terrific canvas for it.  Of course, for the Catholic ceremony, the girls all wore matching shawls for a more demure look (and I'm certain Natalia wore shoes lol).

The matron of honor, Kate, joins the trio.  The attendants wore matching necklaces, and the blue dresses were like $30 at Target. Just shows you can have an absolutely gorgeous wedding party without breaking the bank.  Maggie's shoes were an awesome bright red.  She was so happy she was practically bouncing in them.

After the ceremony, Maggie and Kate's Uncle Rick drove the new Mr. and Mrs. Pickering to the reception in his shiny red Mustang convertible.

Instead of wedding cake, there was pie... really good pie too!  The bride and groom fed each other a slice at their sweetheart's table.  It was a terrific wedding, held at the very interesting National Train Museum in Green Bay.  That black thing behind the bride and groom is a giant locomotive on permanent exhibit in the museum field house.

It was a wonderful wedding, perfect in every detail save one.  The bride's Godmother, Kathi, who made it to all three wedding showers, broke her ankle in Chicago playing golf six days before the wedding, and was unable to attend.  In an odd turn of events, I was in a bathroom in a rest area in southern Illinois when Kathi called me from the ambulance.  (I had to put down the phone so I could zip.)  We were supposed to spend the night at Kathi's house, only she was on her way to the hospital!

 on ice before surgery

We raced to her bedside (Illinois has never seemed so long) and we got there in the late afternoon.  All of her local friends were out of town for the holidays, so we were really glad we could be there for her.  The ankle needed surgery, which didn't happen until the next day.  The surgery was delayed over an hour, so I distracted her with the 20 or so Dear Jane blocks I've made since we saw her last at Christmas.  Kathi is an enthusiastic new quilter so that (and the morphine) did seem to help.

after surgery

The surgery was a big success, thank God, and I was able to keep my Mom and sister (the bride's Mom) posted on every new ankle development (and I got lots of hand work done - more on that later).  We ended up spending an extra night in Chicago in Kathi's two story townhouse.  With her permission, we pulled her sewing machine, ironing board, and supplies up from the basement, and set up a nice little sewing nook in her dining room.  I tried to think of everything she might need, since her townhouse has only spiral staircases that are crutch-unfriendly to say the least.

Kathi went straight to rehab, but when she gets home she'll be living on her first floor for the next month, until she gets a walking cast.  Until then she cannot put any weight at all on her ankle.  She will probably have become an expert quilter by then.

So anyway, the good, the bad, and the rearranged are behind us. Anyway, I'm back.  Oh yeah, and I may have purchased a few more batiks  ***blushes*** More on that later.