Adiel and I did a joint effort of making the dough (me), rolling it out (him), braiding it (me) and maknig the fancy woven round ones (both of us). Aren’t they gorgeous? The R”H ones have sugar on top instead of sesame seeds!
After:
The house smelled so good!!
For Bubby’s birthday, we took this pic. How cute?!
Remember that yummy video a few months back of Daddy making Shaina giggle on the bed? Here is part II, same two people, same bed a few months and a bunch of pounds later.
What is Daddy doing to make her laugh so??
Well the following morning (or for you guys a week later 
), most of the clan woke up refreshed and rested after a great night sleep on the Radisson beds. I say most cuz little Shaina managed to wake up not once but twice in the night so a couple of us were still bleary eyes. But what mattered the most is that Aharon felt great and was wide awake and pumped! He met a ton of guys who had come in from the LES at the 9:00 boat shul minyan, everyone wanted to daven with him so they wouldn’t have to say tachanun.
Back in the hotel, the girls were in for a treat. SR had asked me if there was a pool and I said yes. So she packed the kids bathing suits and we all went down to the pool and spa! The girls wore cover ups and had a blast splashing around in the empty pool. I dipped my feet in the pool and than hot tub. It was so cool cuz noone else was there until a lady came in but still no men so we had the place almost to ourselves. I think the kids will remember that as one of the funner points on the trip even though it was such a ‘by the way’ thing.
Then we ate breakfast and made a few trips back and forth to the hall cuz there were a lot of us that needed to be there at different times. I got my hair and make-up done and also managed to get a manicure. When SR finished her shaitel and makeup, we went to the other room and did a shtick of a calendar counting down to the wedding. We put in different dates with different jokes about Chanie and Aharon and our family. Then we got dressed and felt like princesses all dolled up and than time for family pictures. You saw some of the on ofoto or facebook, I can’t wait to see the real ones! Of course Shaina refused to smile but she still looked very yummy in her little green dress and headband.
And all of a sudden — it was time for the chasunah!
We got back to Mincha at the Boat Shul around 8. The second car with Aharon K, Mommy and Moshe pulled up 10 minutes later. Aharon and SR were lost with their kids. Poor them. Also, I realized the diaper bag with all the diapers was in the hotel (Frank and Aunt Sarah had so nicely delivered it to the hotel beforehand). Poor Shaina was in the same diaper since Niagara and was screaming the whole way back. Sooo, being the desperate Mom that I was, I saw some baby toys outside on the yard near the boat shul and I knocked on the door and asked if they had a diaper Shaina’s size. They were so nice about it, let me in, gave me some pull ups that were just fine and even let me use her changing table. Their name was Brickman and they were very nice about the whole thing.
At about 8:40 the men were all done with Mincha and Aharon’s car was still lost. We were all quite tired and hungry and headed down the block (though the GPS sent us a bit out of our way) to the Chicken Nest. They didn’t have room for us yet so we chilled out inside and outside as they waited for room for a table of 11 and we waited for the poor last car. We debated just getting takeout and going to the hotel but Mommy wanted us to eat as a family. she was so worried about the lost car and saying tehillim (her tehillim always works). We all felt so bad for poor Aharon who must have been exhausted, and did he need this the day before his wedding?!
B”H at about 9:40, the car showed up and the table was ready for us, almost at the same time. It felt so good to sit down as 
a family in front of a set table with bread and menus. The waitress asked ‘How was your day?’ and we all burst out laughing. Then she’s like ‘what can I get you’ and Aharon pipes up ‘an advil?’ There was a lot of family laughing and joking going on as the tension melted away and we finally spent time together and enjoyed some delicious, fresh, fleishig food. The service was great and the food came out pretty quickly. Somehow or another, there were 5 vegetable soups brought out instead of 2 but we all managed to finish it. In general, the food got passed around and shared and at the end there was not a crumb left in the house. Definitely a good idea to stay and eat, we all felt a lot better with full tummies.
The men went to Daven Maariv at 10:30 and SR, her 4 kids and I all squished into Mommy’s car so we didn’t have to wait around. Sleeping Shaina stayed to daven with Daddy.
At about 10:50, after, bh, a very straight
ride, we saw a welcome sight: our hotel, the Raddison East! And what a hotel it was. Of course, I was the one who booked them and the rooms really worked out nicely in the end. They had all our luggage ready and helped us up to the four rooms near each other. There was also a beautiful surprise fruit package that was not for our family from the Kallah, but special for me and Adiel from an annonymous friend. We unpacked and settled in, greatful to finally be on beds and excited about the following day. After all the excitement and running around, we had to remind ourselves: AHaron was getting married tomorrow!
BTW, pictures have already been posted on my Facebook account and on my ofoto page http://www.kodakgallery.com/elibap/main/aharons_wedding?UV=847889148351_445622758605. It’s just a pain to post them here so I’m not going to post too many, if any at all.
Anyway, we get to Toronto about 7:50. About 45 minutes late. Ordinarily, it wouldn’t be so bad but the thing is there is only ONE minyan for Shacharis in Downtown Toronto which had started 15 minutes before. So the decision was made to send the men uptown in a cab to the Boat Shul to daven Shacharis. The Boat Shul is like a minyan factory which has many minyanim during the day. The thing is that shul is a good half hour away, or more with traffic. So that really threw our plans for a loop.
Anyway,back to the bus station; we got off tired but happy to be there and were met by our wonderful and hospitable Aunt Chanie who lives nearby. She also had her husband and coworkers with two cars. We threw everything in cuz we were blocking traffic and flew to her apartmetnt in a very nice building on the 19th floor. She actually rented a second, furninshed apartment for the stay (our and an aunt and uncle coming in later). She had prepared a gorgeous spread of bagels and bread with cream cheese and cereal with milk, coffee and fruit. Really amazing hachnosos orchim, my uncle Frank Jessie and Aunt Sarah (who had gotten there previously) had gone uptown to buy the groceries the day before.
So we ate and drank and freshened up. We were all kind of tired and we tried to relax a little. Problem is everything took a long time and by now, the rental cars that I had reserved downtown were long expired. So I went to Aunt Chanie’s apartmnet and did my magic on the internet, and found a pretty cheap place not far from the boat shul that had two cars available. And they pick up people! So I reserved the cars and sent the driver to the boat shul. Problem is the men didn’t know to expect them because noone had told them. After a bunch of confusion and waiting on both ends, we finally connected the rental car driver with the men and they went to pick up two cars. Problem is my BIL, Aharon only had one piece of Photo ID and this place needed two so in the end, Adiel and Aharon the chosson (who barely slept the day before) were drivers and they were finally on their way home. We’re talking like 11:30 already when we thought we’d be on our way at 8:30.
Back in the apartment, we were struggling to keep the little Kosters occupied. With a little help from Aunt Sarah who took them for a walk and an unnamed black box, they were kept out of trouble. Now, we had to find a third car downtown except there were NONE. Call after call and nothing available. It was getting very FRUSTRATING! And that coupled with little sleep, babysitting the nieces and nephews and seeing the day just waste away put me into a little bit of a bad mood. I gave up on making any more calls. Lo and Behold, Mommy takes over and the first number she calls, Enterprise, has a car available. They are a block and a half away and will even allow the return to be in Thornhill, our final destination! That was good news, especially now that the car rental wasn’t till 12:30, it really gave us more time to return it on Friday instead of the original 8:30 that we thought it would be.
So Mommy gets that car, Aharon K becomes the second driver, the men finally get home (one car got lost along the way), park in the spots that Aunt Chanie had reserved and come upstairs for a quick bite. At this point, Yitzy our cousin had joined us. And finally, finally at about 1:30 we were all ready to go to Niagara. Only about 5 hours later than we had thought. There was some thought to just cancel Niagara and do something local, but we decided to do it anyway. Also SR was flying in to Buffalo and landing about 3:30 and needed to be picked up. So we scrambled into 3 cars (the big Koster girls came with us and we played GHOST and Geography the whole time) and drove to the falls. Adiel stopped along the way for a 10 minute power nap and I got a soda and card for a cell phone that one of the H.com members so nicely lent to us.
We get to Niagara, look at the Falls and walk around a bit. We want to do something as a family, but the car with Aharon and Aharon K went to pick SR and that took a long time dealing with the border and all. They finally came as we were going on to the Maid of the Mist but the two Aharons had to park the car so they ‘missed the boat’ and went on the next one. We snapped pics and then hurried back. We wanted to get back to Toronto in time for Mincha (shkiya was like 8:10 or something) and it was already 6:30.
TBC