In short, the trip went better than we had any right to expect. Better than we'd hoped for, even. Penny was just fantastic. I lost track of the number of times she was complimented on her behavior.

On the way to Chicago, Penny was a little grumpy about being confined to our laps for the whole trip - she wanted to get down and run around. But after about half an hour, she resigned herself to just sitting on my lap and changing position every few minutes. We were hoping she'd sleep, and she did... After the plane landed, as we were taxiing from the runway to the terminal.

She wasn't quite as good on the way back to Richmond, as she stayed squirmy the whole time and had a crying jag about halfway through the trip. But it only lasted about five minutes, and she calmed down after we gave her a bottle of water, so we suspect that one of the tubes in her ears had gotten clogged and that the pressure was bothering her. And she slept for the first half hour or so, so I guess it averages out.

I was very dubious about the schedule while we were there - most wedding events aren't really scheduled to cater to small children. Penny was up for hours past her bedtime for three of the four nights, without even mentioning the time change.

But she was so happy and cheerful about it, even when it was obvious that she was dragging with exhaustion, that she won everyone's hearts.

We arrived late Thursday afternoon, and found Matt's dad and his brother loitering at Grandma and Grandpa's house, waiting to greet (and in Evan's case, meet) Penny. Oh, and us, of course. Penny was dubious about all the strange people, but she fell instantly in love with Sheba, Uncle Dave's sweet, fat Rottweiler that he leaves with Grandma and Grandpa during the day.

Penny would start out petting Sheba the way we showed her, gentle and slow, but as her excitement mounted, her little arms would start flailing faster and faster, and she would shriek happily. Sheba's experience with small children is a bit limited, and Penny's flailing and shrieking made her a bit nervous. It was worth the trip, really, just to watch our 26-pound baby chasing around a dog that probably quadrupled her weight.

Friday, we drove over to meet Jill at her school (she's a principal for the first time this year, and from all indications, loving it). She showed us around, and Penny was a huge hit with all the staff and teachers. There was cake and chocolate in the staff room, and Penny ate two whole miniature Hershey bars and a slice of cake. That's my girl.

I wish I'd had my camera out on the drive, though. On the way to Jill's school, there's this stretch of road with a little bridge over a creek. It's picturesque - but narrow. So narrow that there's a stop sign on either side of the bridge with an admonishment that traffic coming from opposite directions should take turns. I found it very funny, and we crossed it several times.

Friday night was the rehearsal (which we didn't have to attend, but did, just so we could find the church on a dry run) and the rehearsal dinner. The rehearsal dinner was at a Mexican restaurant - the place was packed and noisy and we didn't even sit down until nearly 8:00, already well past Penny's bedtime... But she was super-good. Cute and friendly and laughing. She did get under some waiters' feet when we let her out of her high chair, but she didn't get at all fussy until after we'd all eaten. So we packed her up and headed back to Grandma and Grandpa's a little early, but not obnoxiously so.

Saturday, of course, was Evan and Aimee's big day. Penny was so adorable in her little velvet-and-gauze dress. And since she'd been up at 5:15 despite her late bedtime, she caught a nap in the car on the way to the church.

That was the last nap she got. I managed to keep her still during the wedding through the processional and the opening prayer, but then had to take her out to the lobby to run around. Luckily, though, the lobby and the sanctuary were separated by large windows, so I still got to see most of the wedding while keeping an eye on Penny.

After the wedding came the pictures. (From time to time, I've regretted not having a professional photographer for our wedding. And then I attend a wedding with one, and I remember why we skipped it. The wedding was over at 3:30. The reception wasn't scheduled to start until 6 or 6:30. The photographer used up all the intervening time. And then some.)

While waiting for our turn to be in pictures, Penny amused herself by trying to make a break for the Great Outdoors (it must have been about a hundred times that she ran on her chubby little legs straight out the door, only to be scooped up and brought back inside by Matt or Matt's dad). She consented to stay inside when Jill brought out some bubbles, though.

But we finally made it over to the reception. We had to hang out in the lobby for an hour or so while they finished prepping the room for us - but that was okay, because the wedding party had gone over to some park for still more pictures. And the location had a hallway of nothing but mirrors. Penny was fascinated.

Then she sat on my lap at the bar and let Jill and Rachael feed her chips of ice for a good while.

Finally, the wedding party arrived. They let us into the room we were supposed to be in, and opened the bar, and there was an hour or so of socializing and chat.

(The photographer, rather than walking around taking candid or semi-candid shots of the guests, set up a formal photo station at the back of the room, which I thought was really peculiar, but maybe it's what Evan and Aimee wanted. I dunno.)

Penny did break down into a fuss shortly before dinner. We tried to give her a bottle of juice, but she would take two sucks and thrust it angrily away, so we decided she was just very tired. I tried taking her out into the much-quieter lobby and rocking her on my lap, in the hope that she would fall asleep, but no dice.

Finally, I got the catering manager to get me some milk, wondering if Penny just didn't like the juice. I gave her that, and she did the same thing - pushing the bottle away after a couple of sucks - and it was about then that I noticed that no milk was spilling. The hole in the nipple was clogged. I cleared it, and Penny grabbed at the bottle like it was her only hope of salvation and sucked it clean dry.

And after that, she was as happy and cute a baby as anyone could hope for, despite being tired right down to her little bones. The DJ gave her a balloon to play with that was her Favorite Toy Ever for pretty much the rest of the trip, and she toddled happily around the room with it while Matt and I took turns following her at a discreet distance.

So once we'd solved the Case of the Mistaken Fuss, the reception went very well. Evan and Aimee seemed very happy together, even if Aimee kept breaking down into tears. (She's a crier. She was crying as she came down the aisle at the church.) But she seemed charmed all to pieces by Penny, so she's got my approval, for what it's worth.

Evan and Aimee

The photographer finally sealed my dislike of him irrevokably, though. At one point, Penny wandered toward the photography station, fascinated by all the equipment. "Are you going to be a photographer when you grow up?" I asked her.

"Oh, no!" the photographer exclaimed. "Is hard! Too much! Too hard for a girl!"

Thud.

We stuck around for a little dancing - I danced with Penny, and Matt took some pictures, but he took them with the table camera and not either of our digitals, so I don't have that to show anyone, alas. And then we went back to Grandma and Grandpa's, and crashed hard. Penny was so tired that she was asleep almost before we'd left the parking lot.

Sunday we floated around aimlessly for most of the day. Grandma and Grandpa took us to a local pancake/waffle house for breakfast. They make this sort of apple-pie-pancake thing that I couldn't believe Matt ate the whole thing... I had a belgian waffle with bits of bacon broken up into it that reminded me strongly of my breakfast cookies. YUM!

(And I'll have you know, at 8:30, while Matt was getting dressed before breakfast, Grandma Brooks wanted to know what I wanted to eat to "tide me over." That's just one of many examples I could offer.)

Uncle Dave and Cousin Eric (or else it's Erik; I'm not sure) came over for a visit, and Matt and I each got a short ride on Uncle Dave's Harley. Whoo! Just call me Motorcycle Mama! (That's Grandma Brooks' joke.) I wish I'd gotten a picture of that, too, but Matt was inside changing Penny's diaper when I got my ride.

Then we went over to Bob and Deb's new house for dinner. (Bob and Deb being Matt's dad and stepmom.) Penny was nearly as fascinated by Pepper (Deb's dog) as she was by Sheba, but Pepper is a smallish dog without much tolerance for strangers of any sort, so she didn't get to play with Pepper much.

Deb's grandmother is living with them, and I was a little concerned about how she'd take our presence, as she has Alzheimer's. But Granny adored Penny more or less instantly, the more so since we managed to get Penny to do her "blow a kiss" trick for her. And the Alzheimer's didn't show up too badly until fairly late in the evening, when she asked Deb where her (deceased) husband was. And then, when Matt and Penny and I got ready to leave, she thought Bob and Deb were going to come with us, leaving Granny all alone in the house.

But it apparently made Granny's day, to get to see a little baby running around, so that's neat.

And we left Monday, after many hugs and kisses and pictures and extra hugs and reassuring Grandma that we had plenty to eat on the plane.

And then we came home.

It was a good trip, but Penny's internal clock had her up at 5:15 or 5:30 every morning, no matter how late we went to bed. She wasn't up as late as I feared last night - she went to bed only about an hour later than her usual bedtime - but Matt and I had to stay up to finish the laundry, so we'd have something to wear to work today.

None of us wanted to get up this morning. Not even Penny - Matt woke her up around 6:30, after I'd gotten out of the shower.

It was great to see everyone, and it'll be good to see them all again next month when we're up for Rachael's wedding, but next time I might arrange for an extra day off to recover.

--Liz