Wrexy’s boss and longtime friend, Travis, got married this past weekend in Cleburne, Texas. Wrex was the best man (awwww!) so obviously he had to be there.
The kids were desperate to go (who doesn’t love a good wedding?! Plus, they LOVE Travis and his new bride, Kasey) but I wasn’t so sure how I felt about taking care of three kids – one of which was barely a month old – by myself in triple digit heat 14 hours from home. Do ya blame me?!
We sucked it up, spent 3 days packing, 2 days driving and did the dang thing! So glad we did!
We drove to Booker, Texas the first day where the weather greeted us with a balmy 100 degrees. *ahem*
Later, we experienced a flash flood (not sure my shoes are dry yet) and the loudest thunder I’ve heard in my life – no joke!
Wrex visited at the plant a bit, showed off miss Sayble and the next morning we scurried farther east and made it (by the skin of our teeth) to the rehearsal dinner. Despite the high humidity (oh my poor hair) there was a breeze and some shade at the wedding venue. Jesus loves me…
The next morning, while Wrex and the groomsmen hung out with the groom, we ate a yummy breakfast, picked up some some snacks and glowsticks for the wedding and then hit the splash pad!
The splash pad was a genius idea, if I do say so myself. It cooled us off, was highly entertaining for $0 AND served as an easy pre-wedding bath for 2 of the 3 kiddos. Oh yes, they were clean…
Everyone napped good, except for mom who was busy ironing clothes and packing diaper bags and feeding babies and attempting to make my hair do something other than frizz…and then off to the wedding we went!
Daddy almost sweated to death in his tux but he made it! The kids had a ball dancing to the Hogg Maulies and running around and making new friends and we had a good time catching up with old friends while witnessing Travis and Kasey make their covenant with one other.
By 10:00, we were all hot, sweaty, TI-URD and oh so happy we made the trek.
As Wrexy said in his toast, here’s to a lifetime of marriage…and a pastel of little sheep showmen…to the bride and groom!
Love you guys!
****And for those of you at the wedding that asked for a copy of said toast, I’ve pasted it here…
Good evening. My name is Wrex Phipps and it’s my honor and privilege to be able toast the happy couple tonight. I promise not to take up too much of your time as I don’t want to embarrass Travis too much…I’d like to return to Colorado as a fully employed man this next week.
First of all, lets make sure we all know who Travis is as he seems to have quite a few different nick names: In his early years you might have know him as Floyd, then later on maybe Woodrow or Toothpick. Now, he answers to Babe or Rathead – but you’ll have to ask Kasey about that. Now, I mainly refer to him as Travis my boss and also one of my best friends.
Travis and I met in junior college 14 years ago. We were on the livestock and meats judging teams so we spent A LOT of time together. Now we work for the same company and we spend a lot of time on the phone together.
As you may know Travis is not an over communicator! Sometimes, he can even be a rather private person. Or maybe that’s just with me and I get that. Our relationship can be kind of hard to define at times. When we talk, sometimes it’s friend to friend. Sometimes it’s boss to employer and sometimes I have a tendency to over-share other people’s news. They don’t call me “Radio” back home for nothing.
So when he first started dating Kasey, I didn’t know anything about it. I had kinda suspected he might have a lady friend when he was a little more chipper and optimistic than usual on the phone.
Normally, it’s a “Hell-oh” or “Roger” or “Odie”…anybody that’s hung out with him or called him in the last 5 years knows what I’m talking about…but things had been a little different lately.
He seemed to laugh more and I didn’t seem to be getting in near as much trouble when my cows were high. Not that that happened very often……
And then one day, I got a text…and I knew for sure. I had sent him a message from the sale barn that morning saying: “About 250 head here. You thinking the same bid?” He wrote back and said yes, I wrote back and said ok….and he wrote back and said, “Love you, too” – with 2 exclamation points!
Now, for a minute there, I was a little taken aback. I thought, whoa……he just took our friendship to a whole new level. And then I realized – aha! There IS a girl!
Then “ol Radio” kicked in. I immediately took a screen shot and sent that message to my wife and about 7 of our closest college friends…and Travis’ boss… This was good stuff! On a lot of levels!
You see, my wife has known Travis as long as I have and he’s taken as good a care of her as he has of me. She’s always been a big fan of Trav’s and she repeatedly said that one day Travis would have the best, sweetest and cutest wife out of our little group of friends. So we had been praying that he would find just that. While I’m incredibly fond of my wife, I can equally say – “Well done, Rathead.”
Here’s to a lifetime of marriage…and a pastel of little sheep showmen… To the bride and groom!
