Team Amell: October 2010

Last weekend, my mom, Gretchen and I took a short trip up the road to Hendersonville, NC. The original purpose of the trip was for Gretchen to attend a friend's wedding.....(a'hum, which we will get to later...). So instead of her going alone, we decided to make a weekend out of it and no, Mim wasn't left out....she just chose to spend her weekend elsewhere! The night before, J had a huge game that I just was NOT going to miss, so we got up early Saturday morning and made our way up the mountain. We arrived pretty early, for us anyway and made our way to the cute little town of Hendersonville. Upon checking into the hotel, I asked the guy how far we were from SJEC (church) and he responds, "oh, just 4 miles from here; you will pass it on your way into town." "Great", I replied; thinking now that we knew just where it was that she and Mom were going (I was not attending the wedding) so it wouldn't take long to get there. So, we get downtown, make our way through all of the little stores and have a great lunch. Hendersonville is such a great "dog town." Everyone had one and they were welcome in all of the stores and outside, of course, at all of the little bistros. So after a while, we make our way back to the hotel for them to get ready for the wedding, all the while thinking we would leave at 4:30 to attend the 5:00 wedding with plenty of time to spare, right? (WRONG) I pull up into the chuch, thinking, first, that "yall are WAAAY overdressed for this, and second, that it's not a very young crowd attending this (young couple's) wedding. I then proceed to ask a nice man if there was a wedding here.............his response, (with a sweet smile), "no, I don't believe so."........HMM, I ponder. Well, this was the correct name of the church, right, Gretchen? "Yes, but I lost the invitation.".... Nice. So we are sitting in the parking lot of a church with no one to call but the bride because Gret didn't know many people going, and certainly the bride wasn't going to answer her phone 20 minutes before her own wedding. So, I (the one NOT attending the wedding, mind you) start looking up "other" SJE Churches in the area. Oh wait, there's ANOTHER SJEC 40 miles from here. Um, it's 4:45 at this point.......also known as 15 minutes before it starts. *NEWS FLASH* - this math is not adding up!!! Long story short, we get to the church AS people are walking out. I tell Gret, just go to the reception, the bride will never know that you weren't in the church. She replies, "yes, lets just do that." So, here I sit, in the car while they go in. Yes, I'm the creepy guest just sitting in her car, while everyone walks by me, heading into the reception. The funny part is that I could see them sitting under the tent and was giving quite a few hand motions as I was listening to the game on the radio in the car, telling them to hurry up and get me to a tv. A few minutes later, here they come. We bolt, the bride still hadn't made it to the reception, but I was now a happy girl, on my way to the bar for a beer and a ballgame! Lesson learned this weekend, don't leave Gretchen in charge of getting you ANYWHERE and avoid verbal fights in a bar with a fat woman who knows NOTHING about football and to top it off.....is a Tennessee fan. GREAT WEEKEND