There's something extremely out-of-body about watching your baby brother get married. This is my latest personal epiphany and I thought I would share it. I have just returned from a great wedding, that of my brother, Aaron, and his new wife Kelly. It was a blast. Dan and I actually kept saying to each other how much fun it was to be at a wedding, but not be the people actually getting married. You can do so much more talking that way! We had a great time, but the whole night I kept looking across the room and seeing Aaron all decked out in his Marine dress blues with this beautiful woman in a beautiful white dress at his side and thinking "That just can NOT be my brother." I know he's an adult. But you see, in my mind, he's still five years old. Thoughts like this make me proud that I only cried during the ceremony and managed not to sob on anyone at the reception, thanks largely to a great band, an open bar, and the presence of my stalwart friends Autumn, Robin, Lindsay, and Lindsay's boyfriend Chris, who helped me eat drink and be merry with the best of them. Here are a few pictures from the wedding. May the Lord's face shine upon Aaron and Kelly Rice! We love you both.

The bride and groom:

The very tired but happy bride and groom immediately after the ceremony:

Let the party begin:

They even let old married people dance at weddings!

At the end of the night, after the bride and groom had left, my sisters and I were the last people on the dance floor. May we dance at their weddings one day ... in the very very distant future. They're 15 and 17. Autumn gets credit for taking this picture of us getting down with our bad selves. Thanks, Autumn.

Today is my birthday, but I got started celebrating a little early. Last night, Dan and I went to the home of our dear friends Sam and Shanelle, where we were treated to one of Shanelle's gourmet meals. The woman made appetizers, salads, an entree, a side and rolls just for us. And she has two kids under the age of three who she put to bed before we got there! As if all that weren't enough, Shanelle made this two-layer chocolate with butter cream filling cake with pink roses on it just for me! Admire it:

Here is a photo of Wonder Woman Shanelle.

And this is me trying to cut the cake without making its layers collapse. Sam, Shanelle's husband, who is pictured here, and Dan, my husband, who is taking the photo, were no help at all.

We now have the remains of the cake in our kitchen, and Dan and I are taking turns eating it straight out of the Tupperware container we brought it home in. Some of us (I'm not naming names) are not even using a fork. But it's OK, because it's my birthday. Right?

I was archiving some old photos on our computer tonight and I came across this one from a year ago when Mom, Hannah and Audrey came and visited us. We went to Santa Fe and Mom took this photo of the girls and I with a statue of a donkey that is kind of randomly situated on one of the streets .. I'm sure there is some significance to the donkey, but I don't know what it is. I didn't have a blog this time last year, so I never got to really share it. Hope y'all enjoy it. And best of luck to Hannah, who starts college this week at Mississippi State University.

At long last, here are some of the photos I took when we were in Mississippi in December. I didn't take as many as I should have, due to my general inability to muster the motivation to get off the couch, but there are a few good ones.

I don't know why so many of our good photos come from the Semi-Annual Rice Family Poker Showdown. Gambling just seems to bring out the best in us. Maybe it's the money. Speaking of the money, we got up to $50 this year:

If you look closely at this photo, you'll see Ryan putting a chokehold on Audrey. As the game progressed and she started wiping the floor with him, I'm sure he wished he'd kept it going until she lost consciousness.

But before that happened, Ryan was having a pretty good run. He started referring to his stack of chips worth 500 as "The Green Tsunami." This is him demonstrating how the wave works.

The problem with the tournament is that we always seem to start it late, and when there are about 10 people playing, this tends to make the game wear on until the wee hours of the morning. Thus, Audrey is wearing her bathrobe in this shot, because she really just wanted to go to bed. But instead, she was taking Ryan's chips. Clearly, he was feeling less cocky by this time.

But later in the night, the dealer, Dan, got a little sleepy, and the final hand that would have settled the match between Ryan and Audrey may or may not have been misread. Since Dan had already picked up the cards, we really didn't know who had won. So Ryan and Audrey split the pot and share the title for now. Next time, we will bring in a professional dealer.

Another highlight of the evening was that Mom decided to join us, learning to play poker pretty much as the game went along. This resulted in some great poker lingo usage from Mom, such as "I'm going to stay out," instead of "I fold." She was really doing well by the time she was eliminated, and she spent the rest of the night studying the list of pokre hands that Dan made up for her. Next time, I'm sure she'll beat us all.

Other highlights included Aaron buying me a cigar that I tried to enjoy outside on the deck for about 30 seconds before I remembered what a wuss I am, Dan getting beaten out when high school girls were still very much in the game, and Hannah's boyfriend Daniel and Audrey's boyfriend Cade joining in the fun. And, even though Dad says it wouldn't be fair to us for him to play, since the game would be over so fast, he did grill us some great steaks before we got started.

If you're in the neighborhood this summer, feel free to reserve your seat in the best poker game ever. We only charge a $50 fee for non blood relatives.