OK.  I am going to try to break the last week into a few posts to better organize things.  Settle in folks!

Thursday:  

So Thursday was spent running around like chickens with our heads cut off.  I had about a gazillion errands to run while Dave was at work.  We got home and had to load the car (due to the wonderful monsoons that prevented us from packing up the night before) and swing by the nursing home to bid farewell to my grandparents.   We were tired and sweaty to say the least at 5:30pm when we finally hit the road for Chicago.  The van doesn't have working a/c anymore, but the weather was cool which was certainly welcome and relieving.  Bruce called to check in when we were about two hours outside of Chicago and impressed me with his various plans for how to deal with Kelsey and my mother.  It was awesome.  We arrived at the Intercontinental at O'Hare around 12am and got to sleep around 2am after wrapping presents and getting things in order for the next day.

Friday:

We ordered room service for breakfast, set up all the shit for the welcome bags that we had to put together for out-of-town family and friends, and had about 10 phone calls from family, The Drake, and our coordinator.  My parents showed up around 9am to start the welcome bags and we let the hotel to distribute them downtown around 11am.  Got downtown, got said bags distributed to various hotels, and I went to check in at The Drake while Dave drove out to Niles to pick up our rentals from Hall's and have lunch with the groomsmen.  I went to lunch at the hotel's restaurant with my folks to celebrate my dad's birthday after checking into my AMAZING suite for the weekend.  Then I went to get my hair styled for the bachelorette party while the boys (dave and the groomsmen) took my wedding dress and veil to the cleaner's next to the hotel to get steamed.  I got back, ran into the Samuels on my way to the room which was awesome and met up with two of the boys who came to my room because it was significantly better than theirs to hang out in.  Laura arrived soon after that and then Bruce knocked at the door which was wonderful.  I can't even describe how good it was to see him amidst the chaos of everything.  Like a breath of fresh air.  Then I got ready for the evening and we all headed to the BBQ together.  The BBQ at Bob's was really fun and full of delicious Chicago hot dogs.  It was sort of divided between family and bridal party/ friends but that was OK.  I had an absolutely wonderful time.  Kelsey had died the back of her hair this turquoise color which we all, particularly Bruce, became fixated with.  She didn't say one word to me or Dave all night and was apparently rather rude to Bruce when he introduced himself to her which added a sense of awkwardness to the whole evening.  Bruce heard her asking Emma if she was going to the bachelorette party, apparently because she was feeling left out and thought everyone was going but her.  Whatever.  To be clear, if Emma had been of age, Emma would have been invited.  Around 9pm we headed out to the bachelorette festivities.  First stop was a bar to get liquored up - I did 3 shots of vodka in a row (literally, shot, shot, shot) amongst other things and donned my official bachelorette attire - a sash that was puffy-painted with flowers, rhinestones and a huge "Samy's Slut" written across it, a "bride-to-be" pin and a very glittery "BACHELORETTE" tiara.  Very tasteful.  We also had penis straws for our drinks.  From there we went to the best drag show in the city which was AMAZING.  I was so happy - I love drag shows.  I was VERY tipsy by then and kept knocking back the drinks.  I also received my gifts which included fuzzy red handcuffs and a gift certificate to Victoria's Secret.  Either on the way to the drag show or on the way out I pointed at some other bachelorette on the sidewalk who was dressed up in a very unfortunate pink boa and tiara and said "that girl looks TRAGIC!" at the top of my lungs which caused Bruce and myself to laugh hysterically.  I was so drunk that I forgot that Cianan was meeting up with us for the night and all of the sudden in the midst of watching the show he appeared in front of me and gave me a big hug.  It was my favorite moment of the night.  I was SOOOO happy to see him - I can't even describe it.  So the drag show was amazing and from there we went to a couple more bars, one of which this guy continually referred to me as "princess" at and bought me a whiskey sour.  I remember dancing, I remember drinking, I remember a random Bulgarian that my now cousin hooked up with and a random Nigerian who tried to take us to a liquor store.  I remember Cianan walking me down the sidewalk by my arm and then by the shoulders.  It was seriously one of the best nights of my life - pure fun.  We got back to the Drake at like 3am and busted in on the boys.  Dave had intended to send champagne to our room but we got back too late to do so - he fucking rocks though for the thought.  They had all gotten Subway sandwiches and were munching on them - we were all put out that they hadn't gotten us anything.  We sat talking with them in their room for a while and then headed to bed.  Bruce made me drink this horrible Vitamin C packed thing before going to bed which I shudder just thinking about.

Saturday:

Woke up relatively early to get ready for the bridal luncheon.  Bruce was sick as a dog but made a miraculous recovery around 11am.  It was raining and shitty outside and the street that the restaurant was on was closed due to some sort of street festival or something.  So getting to the actual restaurant was a bit precarious.  But once there it as absolutely beautiful - there were lots of flowers and DIVINE food and good company.  I was sad because I didn't have more time to spend there - the rehearsal was at 2:30 so we had to get a move on.  The rehearsal went very well, but sort of made the whole wedding thing much more real.  After the rehearsal my crew and I dashed out to get our nails done which was incredibly fun and relaxing and after that we headed back to the Drake to get ready for the rehearsal dinner.  The rehearsal dinner was probably one of the best parts of the entire weekend - it was gorgeous (the rain had stopped by then and the room we were in had huge windows that looked out onto the park) and there was just a good vibe all around.  Dinner was good and after that we did a photo slideshow that Dave's folks put together (Bruce has decided that we are going to have gorgeous children based on the photos) and then the toasts began.  Brian's toast was extremely moving - he was really choked up during the entire thing, and said all these incredibly wonderful things about me (as Bruce said, he basically wrote me a letter of recommendation) and told all these adorable stories about Dave and how they always called him "Tiger."  It was very powerful and Dave and I and our friends sobbed through it.  Then my dad gave his toast which inevitably turned into a sermon, but was lovely and my favorite parts talked about how humble and good Dave is and how we both are giving our lives to serve the disenfranchised (which made both Bruce and I about fall apart).  It was wonderful - as my aunt Kate said "there was so much love in the room" - it was just incredibly intense and emotionally amazing.  I've been to a lot of rehearsal dinners, and I've truly never seen anything like it.  After dinner we went to Dave's grandparents room where they gave us this gorgeous set of silver candlesticks and the tears started all over again.  And then it was back to my suite where everyone had corralled to party - lots of alcohol and lots of good conversation.  Bruce and Jim worked on their toasts for Sunday and I finally kicked everyone out around 12am so that we could go to bed.  What happened instead was that Bruce and I stayed up till about 4:30am gossiping and catching up.  We used Cianan as our code name for those we were gossiping about which was hilarious and confusing.  It'd be like "Cianan was so completely amazing tonight (real Cianan) and Cianan was so unpleasant (code Cianan)."  LOL.  I'm really glad we had that time - it was one of those "I can sleep later" moments.  

To be continued ...