I Married My Wife's Sister! (True Statement)

I Married My Wife's Sister!

(True Statement)

Okay, I know the title sounds a bit like some incestuous "Sister Wives" spin-off, but it is a true statement. My wife has twin sisters, and the bride here is Andrea. She and her fiance Kyle got the idea, for some reason, that I would be a good person to officiate their marriage. 

Now, if you think this is going to be some sappy wedding post with a bunch of pretty pictures of the beautiful bride and the rest of the wedding party...NOPE. She had her day. This is all about me! 

  
It started out with this puzzle. Andrea was visiting us and she asked me to put a puzzle together on the kitchen table. I finished it and she said "What do you think?" I didn't get it at first. I thought she was trying out some clever way of sending out invitations. I was supportive though - "It's kind of cool I guess."  Ohhhhhhh - I get it. 

I went to my office that night and Googled how to become an ordained minister. It's shockingly easy - too easy really. There are tons of "churches" that will ordain you. You just answer a few questions and pay them. I chose the Universal Life Church. Their ordained members include Richard Branson, Conan O'Brian, The Rock, Paul McCartney, and Lady Gaga to name a few....and now me. I emerged that same evening to announce that I was now a man of the cloth and would be happy to marry them.

There were some procedural hurdles though. The wedding was going to be in Minnesota and every state and even county has different things you need to do to perform a service there. I took care of all of that over the next few weeks.

My wife and daughter were also in the wedding, albeit in minor and non-critical roles as I continuously pointed out. 

They did a lot of the pictures before the service, including this standard Minnesota lakeside wedding dock pic. I think that's a good idea as it frees you up after the ceremony. I wasn't needed for any of this so I just hung out. We had done a really basic walk-through at rehearsal the day before and I had a pretty good idea of what I was going to say so my job didn't start until game time.

When it was time to go, Kyle and I took our positions and waited for everyone to join us. As the officiant, you don't even have to march.

You may have surmised by now that it was raining. Andrea and Kyle decided not to let it bother them and that was a great call. We had tons of umbrellas for everyone and other than some wet seats it was fine. For my part I added a few reasons why you would want rain on your wedding day to the ceremony to open up... 

#3 - The flowers should last longer.
#6 - I suppose if you have seasonal allergies they shouldn't be a problem.

  
I gave the ceremony a lot of thought...although I'll admit that I sort of wrote it out the night before the wedding - but that's how I do a lot of things. Andrea and Kyle had given me some guidance on how they wanted certain things to go like the vows and a specific reading and a blessing, but they pretty much left it up to me as to the tone and content of the service. I decided to go with lighthearted and fun! 

To each their own, but I'm not a fan of serious weddings. If your wedding is serious, what kind of life are you going to have? 

I wasn't 100% sure how it would play out, but this picture kind of sums it up. Andrea and Ari are clearly amused. My wife is like "Yep, he just said that", and the rest of the bridesmaids, who I didn't know, were not sure if it was okay to laugh or not. 

There were serious moments, but I spaced them and tried to keep them lighthearted as well. 

Turns out there are only a couple of requirements to make a marriage ceremony legal. There's the Declaration of Intent - that's the "I do, I do" part. and then there's the Pronouncement. We covered it all.

I took a few liberties with what I wrote in my binder as simply "Pontificate". I talked about why we have weddings anyway:

"If you think about it, the whole thing is kind of weird, right? I mean, you're being married by your brother-in-law, who clearly has no idea what he's doing. I've never seen your hair like that, and if I'm being honest a couple of these guys (pointing to the groomsman) look kind if sketchy to me."

I also followed protocol and gave them some words of advice, which they hopefully ignored.

Finally, I checked the box by pronouncing them husband and wife followed by:

"Kyle, you may kiss my sister."

Success! 

After the ceremony there were the obligatory family photos that couldn't be done prior. 

My job wasn't done with the ceremony though. The wedding party took a pair of boats out on Gull Lake for a spin while the guests enjoyed a cocktail hour on the patio. I was tasked with driving one of the boats. There's a whole story that goes back years on this one but I won't get into it here. 

The rest of the evening was dinner and reception type stuff. As the minister, I was asked to say a prayer before dinner. I'm not a particularly religious person, but I respect everyone's beliefs and I always took any parts of the event that were religious very seriously. 

Toasting at the reception was not a requirement for the officiant, but it was for my wife. Her father passed away before her other sister Ari got married and Branelle has taken it upon herself to fill the rather large void he left by bringing humor to the reception - something he did at our wedding and would have undoubtedly done at both of the twins big days. 

We decided to present them with a number of very personal and thoughtful gifts and we kind of tag-teamed the toast.

When Branelle first met Kyle he had a Pontiac with a Pontiac sticker over the windshield. This made quite an impression on her for some reason. I asked her what she thought about the boy when she got home and she said something like "he seemed nice enough, but he had a Pontiac sticker on his windshield." He drives a Ford now.

Speaking of what he drives, I encouraged him to take control over his garage early in the marriage, before Andrea filled it up with some re-purposing hobby or something like that.

We wanted to include their puppy Denali in our toast, and Branelle loves Christmas sweaters, so....

Andrea works for Anderson Windows, and Kyle works for 3M. We have built an entire guest house since they've been there, but did we ever get any kind of window discount or even a free post-it note? No. So Nel thought we should give them a 10% off coupon for Pella Windows and some Gorilla glue.

Speaking of Nel, I usually tell her not to try to be funny, but she was great here. 

For years, Andrea (and Ari for that matter) have insisted that I am not qualified to drive their boat in Round Lake. I mean, it's called Round Lake - the lake is round...what are you going to hit? Anyway, I wanted to spare Kyle the same indignation so I gave him an Admiral's kit.

My favorite gift, and I'm sure their's too, was this snow shovel to remind Kyle that he's part of the family now and if he ever needs help with anything he can just give me a call and I'll be there....unless it's cold or there's snow involved...or I'm busy that day or....well, he can call and we'll see.

After all of the fun and shenanigan's, there was one last official duty to perform and that was signing the marriage license. My work here was complete. I did have to mail it in to make it official but I took care of that....eventually....I think. Well, I'm pretty sure they're married.

The rest of the evening was celebrating and dancing, which I did not take part in. My daughter though....she danced all night until she literally collapsed on the dance floor. My mom came with us to Minnesota to help out with the children and we really appreciated it. She kept Brooks during and after the ceremony and was undoubtedly waiting for Samantha to join them for bed but she partied into the wee hours of the night.

Samantha really enjoyed the wedding, as did everyone else I think. Shockingly, I haven't been asked to officiate anything else since. I'm going to assume that's because everyone thinks I would be too expensive. 

In all seriousness, it was a great wedding and it was a pleasure to be a part of it. Andrea and Kyle declined my offer to provide pre-marital counseling, which would have saved them $75 off their marriage license in the state of Minnesota....and maybe their marriage. Well, they have my number.

The fun continues around our house as I get to say things like "As a man of the cloth..." and watch my mom shake her head and Branelle say things like "Oh boy". 

1998 Mercedes Benz ML 320

1998 Mercedes Benz ML 320

Now that I'm finally done with my travel posts from Europe I can get back to the annoying task of trying to complete my vehicle blog catalog. I'm going to lead with what I usually finish with and just tell you to avoid these old MLs like the plague. 

I bought this high mileage ML 320 thinking I was getting a pretty good deal (by the way - it was 2002 when I bought it). What I got was a truck that needed some serious mechanical attention and took me forever to get rid of.

It was filthy when I got it - an indication that it hadn't been taken care of well - but it cleaned up pretty good. I had to replace a few parts here and there, but nothing major....until the transfer case went out. 

It really wasn't a bad truck to drive. It was all-wheel-drive and ran pretty well. The 320 meant it was a 6-cylinder and it was underpowered. The 430 is probably a better option and the ML55 would have to have been a monster and the only one worth looking at today. I didn't use it as a utility vehicle often because the center rear seat was broken and wouldn't fold down. When I decided to get rid of it I could not sell it so I ended up owner financing for a local guy in an effort to recover as much of my money as possible. That was a terrible mistake. Every time I've tried to help somebody out over the years it hasn't worked out for me. This was no exception.

Europe 2019: Final Wrap Up

Europe 2019

Final Wrap Up

I'm finally finishing up with this series from our fall trip to Northern Europe. After returning to Copenhagen on the Getaway we headed straight to the airport and flew back to Frankfurt for a day before heading home the next morning. 

Samantha is a great traveler - she always has been. She exceeded my expectations for this trip and probably earned herself a seat on the next adventure (her little brother I'm not quite there with yet). There were moments - she was four - but the good far outweighed the bad. Bringing her was a big part of this trip and impacted the planning a lot but it didn't diminish my enjoyment at all, and in some ways it probably enhanced it. She wasn't staying out until 2am (although I'm not sure Branelle would do that with me anymore either), but getting to see her excitement as we exposed her to new things made me happy.   

I think Nana had a good time as well. The same things I was doing with my daughter she was getting to do with hers. I think she enjoyed getting to travel with Nel and experience new places and things with both her and Samantha....and putting up with me was just a minor imposition. She hung in there too on some exhausting days, better than me sometimes.

I enjoyed the trip as well. I've been wanting to visit the Scandinavian countries for some time and I'm glad I did. It's definitely worth the trip. If someone was going to Europe for the first time I would probably recommend a Mediterranean destination like Italy or Spain, but if you've already done that you should try Northern Europe. It's not quite as pretty and it's more expensive, but still a great place to visit.

A final meal in Germany.

Some final thoughts on the NCL Getaway:

We enjoyed our cruise a lot, especially Samantha. As always, there are things that could be better (and worse) so here are my thoughts on the Getaway.

The Good

• The crew were outstanding. Everyone from the waiters to the Cruise Director were friendly and accommodating and I never had a bad experience with anyone.
• The ship itself is very nice. It's laid out well and clean and comfortable. It was a great place to be and as a floating hotel room I give it high marks.
• Embarkation and Debarkation were perfect and getting on and off the ship at port was a breeze as well. We only stood in one line the entire time and that was coming back from Berlin because everyone showed up at exactly the same time. We had NCL transfer us to the airport after the cruise and I thought that went really well also.
• Splash Academy was great. I've already covered it, but they did a great job and Samantha wants to go back. 

Some of the crew welcoming guests back to the ship in Sweden.

The Bad

• The photography setup on NCL is idiotic. I don't mind them taking pictures of me - they have a job to do and they're friendly so I pose whenever they ask. At the end of the cruise I would gladly pay an exorbitant amount for digital copies of all the pictures they took of me as I've done on Celebrity every time. NCL won't do that. They want to sell you packages and frames and whatever else but they won't just sell you your pictures. It's worse than that really - they come around at dinner (as they do on every cruise line) and take pictures but they don't keep them for you to view later, they come back while you're still eating trying to hard sell you printed copies with the threat that they're going to throw them away at the end of dinner. We bought zero pictures from NCL on the entire cruise out of principle. Photography has to be a huge moneymaker for cruise lines. Learn from Celebrity and give guests an option to go home with all their photos digitally...which costs you almost nothing. 

The So-So

• The food. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great. The buffet was actually pretty good, but the dining rooms weren't any better than the buffet and we actually started to prefer the buffet just for the options. That shouldn't happen. We only tried one specialty restaurant and it was just okay as well. Perhaps others were better. I haven't been on a lot of cruises, but the food has been a highlight on others. It was a disappointment here.
• The cabin was alright. Most cruise cabins are alright. It was a little tight to be honest and our balcony was tiny. I guess we could step up to a suite if we want space. NCL does this thing where you can bid what you would pay for a nicer room and they let you know about a week out if you got it. I took a chance and booked a balcony cabin but bid (a lot) on a suite in the front of the ship but didn't get it.

So that's it. We had a great trip. I think everyone was ready to get home after three weeks abroad (we have a son so there was that). Samantha's ready to go again. 

Here's a bonus tip. If you need currency before a trip abroad, you can go on Wells Fargo's website (if you bank with them) and put in what you need and they'll mail it to you. I needed Euros, Rubles, and Danish Krona and they just sent it to the house in a FedEx envelope. If you come back with any you can just deposit it and it goes back into your account. Easy.

Another tip - talk to people. I'm not really a big fan of meeting new people. It's a mistake on my part to be private like that. When I'm forced to socialize I always enjoy getting to know people and learning about them. Cruise ships can be as social or private as you want I suppose. My wife is more social than I am (although she disagrees - she confuses my ability to be social with my desire to do so). She drags me out of my comfort zone on occasion. I'm glad she does. We met a lot of new folks on this cruise. Richard and Craig were on their honeymoon and Emily (who is going to be joining Branelle's running team for the Texas Independence Relay this year) and Kala are cousins who travel the world together frequently. I enjoyed hearing about their lives and getting to know them and others on the ship.  

So that's it. We sail off into the sunset until our next adventure. We travel a lot, and I was asked by some friends at dinner the other night where we were going next. We don't have any plans at the moment. Brooks is still too young (and too a lot of things really) for me to want to take him overseas. Samantha is good. We'll see what comes up and roll with it. It's good to have something planned on the horizon to look forward to, but it's also hard to plan life that far ahead. 

For now, Bon Voyage.