You Wouldn't Believe If Unless You Were There

Ok, so last weekend was my brother's wedding in Ventura, CA. Everything was great, I drove up on Thursday afternoon, saw my dad and stepmom for the first time in over a year, got to hang out with relatives and friends that I don't get to see and of course welcomed a new member to the Mazzonne family. It was certainly good times. But, before we could get to this (that is cake cutting by the way...) we had to have a little party, a small dinner and go through some not-so-perfect moments...so here goes.

Thursday night was the bachelorette party...we had an absolute blast at a country bar in Thousand Oaks...and it was a cowgirl theme!

My sister-in-law had some of the best cowgirls friends ever!



The next evening was a bit more subdued...there was some eating, drinking, gift giving and of course crying...(just the moms though when they got their gifts)


Mostly though it was just a time for family like my brother and his "brothers" these guys have been friends well, pretty much forever...


Well, so far that is a pretty normal wedding weekend...but Saturday morning is where it really gets exciting...Nichole and Alex wanted some pictures on the beach with the entire wedding party, so we got dressed in our favorite blue jeans and a great white t-shirt (think every Gap commercial you've ever seen) and we headed to the pier. There were some cute life-guard-y pics, some water-splash-y pics and even some football pics...and the loss of a toenail due to a sneaky hidden rock
...poor Matty Mo.

After the toenail we thought that there was no way it could get worse...we were wrong. Well, maybe worse isn't the right word. It got weirder. We were walking down the beach and someone saw a pigeon in the water. It had a broken wing and couldn't fly - therefore it was drowning (no I don't have pictures of this you sick, sick people) Well, good old Jimmy C ran straight into the ocean and saved that poor little pigeon. He placed it safely on dry sand, certainly far enough from the tide. Nope, little pigeon, you are not going to drown today, no siree...get pecked to death and ripped apart by seagulls - maybe - but not drowned. And in fact that is exactly happened...we tried to shoo the seagulls away but we had more photos to take and then there was still the "updo" portion of the day so we were not able to properly care for our new pigeon...and he didn't make it.

After that trauma and an afternoon filled with hair appointments and other photo opportunities we were all ready for the wedding...it really was beautiful (I couldn't get any pictures of the ceremony however, cause I was kinda busy being a bridesmaid...) so you will just have to take my word for it - ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL!!! And the reception was pretty good too!

-- Kelly ( :

It Should Have Been Just Another Day

I remember...I was getting new tires on my Explorer that day, because I was worried about the Firestone ones exploding...I bet some people wished that was their biggest worry that day.

I was sitting in Big Boy's restaurant, reading a book cause I didn't want to sit at the Ford dealership for two hours. There were some retirees having what was certainly a weekly ritual...they were talking about random things over coffee and eggs. One of their friends came in and said that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. I remember thinking that he most certainly must have meant just the radio tower on top of the building...and that maybe it was a helicopter instead. Nobody else had heard anything at that point though, but he seemed to think it was more important that people were acknowledging...he sure was right about that. I figured taht whatever was going on would probably be on the news, so I paid my bill and went back to the dealership because I remembered that they had a television in the waiting area. I walked into the waiting lounge and I thought that they were having some sort of meeting. What I saw next changed this country forever. It wasn't just the radio tower and it certainly wasn't a helicopter. Surprisingly, they finished working on my tires. I went to work, where we watched more of the unfolding terror, but really everyone wanted to be at home with their loved ones, so we cancelled the few appointments that didn't already call to cancel and closed the salon early that day. I spent the rest of the day watching every news channel possible with my mother - we kept changing the channel hoping to get more information than the last channel had given us. We cried. A lot. I remember after that day we had a "contest" at work. It was for our customers. They could purchase raffle tickets for like $5 or something and all the money that we collected would go to help out in the rebuilding afterwards. The customer would "win" a free haircut or something like that...it was a cheesy contest, but so many people wanted to do something that they bought the tickets. I know that there is so much more to remember from that day...and so much that we will never forget. I know this is how I would rather remember NYC.


My brother flew to California today - from Florida. I knew that he would be fine, but there was a small part of me that was really worried about him flying on the fifth anniversary of the worst terrorist attack this country has ever seen. He said he figured it was probably the safest day to fly...he's probably right.

So, if you have an open mind and you are okay with knowing that our government isn't the squeakest clean government out there you should check out "Loose Change". It really gives you a new perspective.