Hurricane Magnets

Being a Houston, TX native, I'm no stranger to tropical storms or hurricanes. I've "hunkered down" with the best of them, gone without power for over a week, and survived gale force winds. It's more of an annoyance to most Texans, not a natural disaster. When we decided to move to the DC area, I was excited about two things: having 4 full seasons and being free of hurricanes.

HA! 

If you've been a blog follower, you remember the Thundersnow and Hurriquake disasters of 2011. After that, I thought SURELY we've put this Mother Nature business behind us.

Well, some red headed wedding crasher named Debby had a different idea.

Meet Debby. 

Our Seaside, FL weekend for Simpson and Zack's wedding started out perfectly. We landed in Ft. Walton Beach on Thursday afternoon, picked up the rental car, and bee-lined for the first Whataburger we could find {duh}.

For you non-Southerners, this is the closest to {food} heaven you'll get.
Unfortunately, there's not one near me :-/

We met up with my in-laws at the beach house and had these lovely gift boxes waiting on us from the Fletchers.

So cute!

Then we kicked off the festivities by... well... kicking off the festivities. True to Smith form, we sat on the beach front balcony and did our part for the environment by "recycling"... 

Fast Forward to Friday morning, we popped up bright & early at noon and were excited to squeeze in some beach time. We slathered on sun screen, dressed up my niece as *cute* a possible, and got the camera ready to capture some of Mary Kathryn's first beach experiences. 

Like most un-invited guests, the wedding crashing wench Debby also photo bombed my beach house pic.

Still, not bad, eh?

My SIL Karah has some fantastic pictures of all of us on the beach. But again, thanks to Debby, our play time was cut short since the current was so strong and the waves were insanely high. We had a very brief {and partly scary} beach experience with MK, but I did manage to snap an adorable pic of our little mermaid.

 We headed back up to the house and had playtime on the porch.

Friday night, we gussied up and headed to the rehearsal dinner at Cafe 30A. The dinner was amazing!!

Me and hubbs

The OG Mr. and Mrs. Smith with Zeke's Aunt Alma

Part of the Fletcher cousin gang 

Groom love

Bride Love 

Late nite white tee and jean short love.
{Zeke and Druncle Fred}

Fast forward again to Saturday evening...

Mr. and Mrs. Hutto!

Shades

My 2nd favorite part: the raw bar. Nom nom nom.

1st favorite part: QT with the family

The remainder of the night consisted of... well... I'm not sure. But I know he had a fan-freaking-tastic time. Great party, Simpson and Zack!

Sunday, we slept in again. And here's why:

Depressing gray skies, non stop rain, and 10 ft. swells.

The only redeeming quality of the day was the food we ate. We went to lunch at Market Cafe with Zeke's fam before they headed home...

Blackened Grouper and Fried Shrip. MmmmMMMmm.

For dinner, we went to Chuck and Debbie's house a few blocks away. But wait- Debbie is no to be confused with Debby. One is my Aunt, one is a hurricane. {We did have some good laughs from the irony, though}. One of the perks of being related to the parents of the bride is having leftover wedding food dinner.  Lobster risotto and lamb? Again? Yes, please.

Monday was the same... drizzly and windy... until we had to leave {go figure}. We met Zeke's cousin Chase and his GF for lunch, then the clouds parted and we had nothing but sunshine for the hour long trip back to the airport. Grrrrrrr. I was tempted to lay by the windows in our terminal so I could have SOME kind of tan after 5 days at the beach.

Overall, the weekend was great despite the rain storms. The wedding was a BLAST and everything was perfect... the couple, the church, the service, the venue, the band, the party. We wish the same perfection to them in their new journey as a married couple :)

And since it's officially after midnight on the East Coast, I would like to wish my husband a very happy 32nd birthday! I love you and can't wait for this week's festivities'! XOXOXOXO