Lake Geneva, Wisconsin was last weekend’s destination. We attended the wedding of Alex’s cousin Bryan and his now wife, Sarah, where Alex was honored to stand up as Bryan’s best man. After a very early flight on Friday morning and a quick layover in Chicago we landed in Milwaukee just before 2:00 in the afternoon, which gave us just enough time to check in to our hotel, get changed and for Alex to head to the rehearsal.
The wedding took place at the Grand Geneva Resort, which, fun fact, was built as a Playboy Club by Hugh Hefner in the 1960s. Now it’s a family-friendly resort, complete with a ski “mountain” and a nightclub that also hosts random Playboy events and rockstars, such as Def Leppard, as it did this weekend. The resort was great – we really enjoyed our stay there.
Once we got settled Alex headed down to the rehearsal while I met up with Alex’s family. It was so nice to get caught up with his extended and immediate family. Shortly thereafter we all piled into a few adorable trolleys that had been commissioned as our transportation for the evening down to the town of Lake Geneva. We were hopping on a boat cruise for the rehearsal dinner.
We set sail for a mid-evening sunset cruise on one of Lake Geneva’s famous mail delivery boats. Bryan and Sarah arranged a bar, of course, and Gino’s East pizza. If you’ve ever been to Chicago you understand the importance of deep-dish pizza. Gino’s makes some darn good deep-dish! It had been a while since I had indulged, but it was worth the wait.
Since Alex’s parents have a lake home on Lake Delavan, which is right next to Lake Geneva, I have spent quite a bit of time in the area and had been to Lake Geneva recently, but never out on the lake. There’s an adorable downtown with restaurants and shops that is right along the water’s edge. The lake itself is huge. I don’t know accurate statistics, so “huge” is going to have to do it. It’s not like a great lake, just a really big lake. The homes, mostly vacation homes, are incredibly beautiful and tasteful and include the Wrigley family estate {think Wrigley Field}, among other notable Chicago families. I had a great time just looking at all of the homes, not to mention meeting some of Bryan and Sarah’s friends and catching up with Alex’s family.
Friday came and went. Then the wedding day was here! With Alex being the best man I knew he would have a lot of responsibilities that day so I planned accordingly and was content to go park myself in a chair by the pool. Alex and I ordered room service for breakfast so that he could work on a computer project for Bryan and put his best man speech together. Gotta love last minute preparations!
Once he was all done it was time for him to get into his tux and head down to take pictures with the rest of the groomsmen. I took that as my cue to head to the pool! I thoroughly enjoyed a couple hours to myself with my Kindle {I was reading Unbroken by Laura Hildebrant, which I later finished and loved!}, umbrella drink and gigantic salad.
Fast forward a few hours and it was wedding time! The weather had been partly cloudy all day and depending on which weather forecast you looked at it was calling for a chance of rain or storms. Neither of which was good for an outdoor wedding… Thankfully the weather held off and actually was quite gorgeous, albeit a bit warm, and the outdoor wedding went off without a hitch! We had an awesome time celebrating the marriage of Bryan and Sarah and are so thankful that they’re in our lives. Stay tuned for a special post just about the wedding!
It’s always amazing how quickly weddings are just over. There is so much planning and anticipation and then the day comes and ends before you can hardly bat an eye. I remember that feeling from my own wedding, but this one seemed to come and go extra fast! We had a great time but were also looking forward to some down time with Alex’s family at their lake home the next day. We were able to make it over there around 11:00 and spent the rest of the day eating, hanging out, playing bags, going for a boat ride/out on the waverunner and doing more eating and drinking.
Mid-afternoon my college roommate Julie and her fiancee, Ryan, stopped over from their home in Madison. I hadn’t seen Julie since last fall and it had been since our wedding since I saw {and met} Ryan, so it was so good to catch up with them. Julie and I studied abroad together in Spain, which is how we became such good friends, then we lived together in an apartment our senior year. Now Julie is working on her PhD at the University of Madison while planning her 2015 wedding.
We had such a great day in Lake Delavan and loved catching up with everyone, including Alex’s parents, his sister and our brother in-law. I just hope we can see Julie and Ryan again before their wedding next fall!
The next day Alina and Alberto left very early to head into Chicago. They both just moved to Illinois from New York after spending close to two months in Italy/Europe this summer after their wedding. Alberto stayed in Italy with his family for an extra two weeks while Alina came back early to start her new job. It will be SO nice to have them in Illinois. We rarely saw Alina and Alberto when they were living in New York because it is really hard to do a coast to coast trip. We’re looking forward to the close proximity of the two of them, and also we are happy for Stan and Donna that they’re closeby.
Monday was another great day of R&R. We took the waverunner out and sat by the pool. It was quite nice if I do say so myself!
Our flight back to Seattle was scheduled through Milwaukee because it’s closer to Lake Geneva and Lake Delavan, so we thought it would be easier than flying into Chicago, even though we selected a flight that had a layover in Chicago. Once we landed at O’Hare on the way to the wedding we realized how dumb it was to fly into Milwaukee and fly through O’Hare. It was literally a 15 minute flight from O’Hare to Milwaukee. Our layover between flights was longer than the time we were on the plane. It took longer for us to board the plane than it did for us to fly between airports. Oye. So, mid-afternoon on Monday, Stan drove us an hour east to the Milwaukee airport for our 6:30 flight.
The flight was on-time. Until it wasn’t. Once we arrived and settled in at the gate we were informed that the flight had been filled with too much fuel in Chicago, where it was coming from, and they would have to burn it off before they could fly it to Milwaukee. Long story short, the plane was an hour and a half late and we missed our connecting flight in Chicago to Seattle. That meant that Stan came to O’Hare to pick us up at 9:15 p.m. and took us back to their home in Batavia. And yes, it also meant that he got to wake up at 5:00 a.m. to take us back to O’Hare the next morning for our 8:20 flight.
To put this in perspective, Stan drove us one hour east to Milwaukee, then at least two hours southwest {probably more like three hours, given that it was during Chicago and Milwaukee’s rushhour}, passing O’Hare to Batavia. He unpacked from his weekend at the lake then turned around and drove 45 minutes east to O’Hare, picked us up and drove 45 minutes west to Batavia. Stan really is the man!!
Oh the joys of flying! We’re home now and couldn’t be happier….