Current mood:	excited
Current music:	Third Day

Another one takes the plunge
This past weekend, one of my best friends, a woman I've known since the eighth grade, got married to a great guy.  If you've looked at my Facebook profile lately and perused the pictures I posted, you'll know that Roxy (lilrox16) got married on Saturday, on a snowy, blustery day at Camp Ripley Chapel in LF.  The weather may have been crappy, but the wedding was absolutely beautiful.  Throughout the wedding, memories of my friendship with Roxanne flashed through my mind--meeting her in Mr. Hanowski's social studies class, watching her perform at high school speech meet finals, the countless plays we were in together, choir concerts, prom, graduation, weekends when she and Mary would come visit me in Morris while I was attending college out there.  What a friendship we've had!  Reliving those memories made it hard for me to believe that she was getting married.  It's weird to think about--you're friends getting married, that is--but that's life.  We all grow up and enter into new life experiences.  Congratulations, Roxanne!  I know your marriage to Jake will be strong and wonderful.  And I hope you two have lots of kids!

Highlights from the wedding:
-Roxanne's dress was gorgeous--long, flowing, a bit sparkly, and lacy.  The veil was also long and lacy.
-The wedding ceremony (duh!).  I liked that when Roxy and Jake kissed each other for the first time as a married couple, they rushed each other so furiously that the Jaws of Life couldn't tear them apart.
-During the dinner, Beth (one of the bridesmaids) and I kept clinking our glasses to make the happy couple kiss.  At the end of dinner, Jake came over to us and asked, "Alright, which one of you is on the automatic timer?"
-Roxy's brothers performed the beautiful instrumental tune they played for the couple's first dance together.  If I get married, I should ask them to play at my wedding dance.
-For the Father/Daughter Dance, Roxy and her dad danced to, I kid you not, "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy."  Gary Block, the DJ, commented at the end of it that that was the best Father/Daughter Dance he'd ever seen.  They certainly had a lot of fun out on the dance floor.

Tomorrow, I leave for a long weekend trip to Spokane to visit my friend, Ryan.  We're running the 32nd annual Bloomsday Run, and going to Idaho on Saturday to attend the church he's been attending the past few months, but other than that, other events for the weekend are tentative.  We might check out a sushi place, a bar named The Viking, and go salsa dancing (you know me--I love to dance, and tore up the dance floor at Roxy's wedding).  I'll update with the highlights of the weekend upon my return.

For the past couple weeks, any weeknight excursions involved seeing films at the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival.  Mark and I saw three films: the Danish film Clash of Egos, the Czech film Empties, and the Israeli film Jellyfish.  We liked Clash of Egos the best--its storyline was the most entertaining of the trio.  Luckily, some of the films that we didn't see during the festival will be shown at some of the independent theaters in the Cities in the coming weeks.  I'm looking forward to seeing The Unknown Woman and Then She Found Me.  Oooh... I should convince Maggie to see the latter with me.  She loves Colin Firth. :)

Spokane, here I come!