wedding guests, first birthday, and a big mistake

As promised, here are some pictures from the Boy's first birthday. Pooh bear cakes are delicious when they're in season, and fresh baked by a wonderful 'Ama (see below).
We had a really good visit with D's parents, here sister, and all our nieces and nephews. (so.....many.....babies.....). Had time to stop by and see some cute kitties, and lunch with a really good friend, although we could have used more time.
We actually cut our trip back to sunny Alberta short in the planning, so we wound up missing some people that we really wished we could have seen. Sorry 'bout that, folks -- we'll try really hard next time to see you before the new baby makes an appearance.
The problem with these lightning-fast trips back home is that we're almost always totally exhausted the entire time we're there. Which is what leads me to that dumb mistake that I was mentioning earlier.
We always make a point of seeing the Boy's godparents when
we're back home. They live in High River, which is about 30 minutes from Vulcan, where my mom lives. In fact, they're more like an extra set of parents to us both -- they've known me since I was knee high to a short sheep, and D since we met.
Anyways, their daughter, whom we adore, was getting married in
Okotoks, which is again about 30 minutes north of High River. So we drove out for the wedding, spoke briefly with a few people, and since there was almost three hours before the reception, we then skeedaddled back to Vulcan.
On the way back home the Boy had a substantial poo-related incident, which involved pulling the van over to the side of the road and scrubbing for about twenty minutes. Anyways, add up the time, and by the time we pulled into the driveway at 'Ama's we only had about forty minutes to turn around and go back to High River. The Boy was running a fever, and D was exhausted. 'Ama offered to babysit, but we decided, with reservations, that going to the reception was not feasible.
Now, I know that this sounds totally fine, but those of you who know me also know that I take commitments very seriously -- I've been to events on two hours' sleep out of 48, when the need has arisen, without complaint. D's just as indominable.
So we decided to go back to High River Sunday morning, to drop off our wedding gift and to have a visit with our friends. But they had a tremendous number of relatives coming and going, so we stayed a little while, but had to be back in Vulcan for the Boy's birthday party. The long short of it is, we feel horrible, because we missed seeing people that we love dearly, but worse -- we feel like we hurt them, and treated them badly by not taking the time to visit.
So here, if you're reading this, are my profounded apologies. Our family -- blood or not, you know who you are -- means more to us than anything else in the world, and we hope that you can forgive us. We're ashamed that we did not make the time to visit, to tell you that we love you, and miss you.
May God be with you all.