Aunt Ney and Aunt Kim's Big Day

Last Saturday was a big day for Aunt Ney and Aunt Kim, and hence for our entire family. Hallie's lovely aunts, and patron saints, saviors, and medical transport team, decided to tie the knot. Happily, Renee works in New Jersey, one of the few states that currently has legal civil unions for same-sex partners, and so we all tooled out to lovely Haddonfield a week and a half ago and visited the very friendly folks in the Municipal Building who were happy to get the ball rolling. While I was the official witness they provided, Hallie did a good job of corroborating my testimony with a few "ahs" and "gahs" and a couple of quick games of peekaboo with the administrators who filled out the form. For this she was duly rewarded with a few nice-sized licks of whipped cream from Renee's venti mocha frappuccino (or whatever it was that Neystice ordered).

A week later, we all gathered in a lovely garden in Haddonfield for the casual but festive occasion:




The wedding party itself was quite small and consisted of me, Sharon, the officiant (Trisha) and her partner (Trish), and, of course, our little ringbearer, Miss Hallie Rose.




Here are the beautiful rings:



Aunt Kim fashioned a little bag for Hallie to hold them in:



Here's Hallie posing with Aunt Neystice:


And with Aunt Kim:


And here's Hallie annointing the glass that her aunts would later break:


This is a nice picture of Ney and Kim as they take their vows:



And here they are putting the rings on each other's fingers:






And, finally, breaking the glass (this wasn't easy in sandals, but between Renee and Kim, they got the job done. They'll keep the pieces in a lovely glass vessel as a momento).



After the ceremony, we all went out for a lovely lunch (all of us ate except Hallie, who played with toys, watched the ceiling fan, and fussed a bit until I took her out for a several block stroll through downtown Collingswood). Amazingly enough, even though she's not been eating really well and we cut out the 4 am bottle, she still put on a ton of weight this past week and was 20 lbs. 13 ounces at her last feeding clinic appointment on Wednesday. I'm not sure how she manages it, but her weight is great and she's at the 10th-25th percentil for her ACTUAl age. Yay, Hallie!