A Weekend of Mixed Emotion

Oh boy was it a crazy weekend! The best part about it is that two of our best friends are married! Somewhat unfortunately, though, the weekend consisted of so much more than just the excitement of the marriage of friends. Frustration, anger, tears, worry, and confusion also hung over our weekend in Fernie. That, in itself, was frustrating because we were SO HAPPY for our friends and wanted to be able to show that(especially being that Duane was on stage as best man)! All of the action started Friday morning in Calgary when I went to the bank with a couple cheques to deposit. I had been called to babysit for a quick one-hour stint, so I figured I'd quickly head to the bank and get that done before we left town. I went and entered my info, and right away the machine rejected my card and told me to contact a bank employee. So I tried again. Once again, it told me that my account was inaccessable. I thought maybe it was just that specific machine, so I went to the other one. Needless to say, that one didn't work either...and I tried IT twice too! I was irritated, but I didn't think much of it, and I had to get to the kids. The rest of the day went along as planned; babysat, went to the mall in the quickest search EVER for a dress, went home, packed, and left for our weekend in Fernie.
Things in Fernie started out well. We got into town just after our proposed time, but in enough time for dinner with LOTS of family and friends of the Glover and Hendrickson families, and then it was off to the rehearsal. I could go into a whole lot of detail and describe my whole weekend, but I'll just leave it to say that everything was going according to plan, until JUST before the ceremony was supposed to start.
Megan and Aaron had their photos done before the ceremony since it was scheduled for 5PM. I thought it was a great idea, as it would give everyone a chance to get the jitters out and be more relaxed for the ceremony. It worked very well, and the guys got some GREAT footage. Duane was definitely multi-tasking that day! He played best man, photographer, and MC! Anyway, the last venue that they wanted to shoot at was an old wood garage, and we told everyone to meet us there(as we were in 4 different vehicles driving around town). Kevan, Duane, Jenna, Leah, and myself all made it there, and we sat and waited for the van carrying Megan and Aaron. While we waited, I dumped camera cards onto the laptop in the back of the car, and Kevan and Duane took a few shots by the garage. We waited and waited and couldn't figure out what was taking the van so long to arrive; it was actually getting frustrating because time was ticking! At some point Duane realized that they had left their reflector at our very first venue almost 2 hours before, so he put his camera on the grass next to Kevan and let him know it was there, then took off in Kevan's car to go get the reflector. Kevan then told Jenna and Leah that they should just go back to the house to freshen up since we had run out of time waiting. So they left. Meanwhile, I'm dumping cards, Kevan is pacing, and Duane's on his way back from retrieval. Kevan told me I should just go to the house, too, and when Duane got back they'd come up to the house together. I passed Duane on the way, and communicated that Kevan was waiting for him. We all ended up at the house eventually; the bride and groom DID show up later, and I guess they had to make a stop-off at the hotel for something and that's why they weren't there on time. Anyway, we all freshened up, ate some food, prayed and then took off for the church. At some point between prayer and leaving for the church, Duane and Kevan realized that they didn't have one of the cameras! It had been approximately 3o minutes since we'd left the site. I don't think I've seen anyone move as quickly as Kevan did when they realized they'd left it on the side of the road! I didn't actually even know what was going on until I saw Kevan screaming down the road in his car. I asked Duane what was up and he told me. We left pretty quickly too. No kidding. That's like $3000 worth of gear that was just left, totally accidentally, out on the side of the road! We got there shortly after Kevan, and I knew as we pulled up that the camera was gone. He looked REALLY defeated and his shoulders were slumped. Actually, he looked mad and like he had NO IDEA what to do. Duane and I hopped out to look, but of course we didn't see it either. I started going to neighbours houses to ask if anyone had seen anything. Nobody had. Those guys were SO upset. And rightfully so. At this point, though, there wasn't really anything they could do except go to the church and use what they had. Kevan was just trying to get his head in the game and get focused on what he'd have to do, Duane and I took off to get to the church on time, and just as Kevan pulled around the corner onto the main road, a cop noticed that he didn't have his seatbelt on and pulled him over! We actually saw the whole thing because the cop was facing the other way and pulled a u-turn and flicked on his lights. We knew he was going after Kevan, and so did Kevan. When the officer asked Kevan how his day was going, Kevan explained the situation, and the officer had NO COMPASSION! Like, no comment AT ALL. He let Kevan explain, and then just said "license please"...just like that. No emotion. I understand that they have to do what they have to do, but seriously, why do you have to be a jerk at the same time?! Poor Kevan. What a way to add to the day! All Kevan had was the zoom lens, as the wide-angle was on the stolen camera. Initially, Kevan's dad was going to use the zoom and shoot from the back of the church and Kevan was going to use the wide angle at the front. Things changed, so Kevan roamed at the back, while his dad hung out up front with his camera. It was quite confusing and frustrating all at the same time. I wished I could do something...so I prayed. It was all I could do. I didn't really pay much attention, unfortunately, to the ceremony as I was just so stressed and spent the whole time reading Bible verses that were lining the church, and praying.
To make a long story short....(if that's possible)part way through the service, one of the neighbours we had asked about the camera showed up at the church with the camera! Praise the Lord! Her basement tenant had picked it up, and when he returned home and started chatting with his landlady about randomly finding a camera out back, she got excited and quickly drove over to the church to return it. Wow, what a relief. And what a mix of emotions.
On Sunday night when we returned home, there was a message on the phone for me to call Royal Bank Security as soon as possible, as they had detected fraud activity on my account. Oh boy. That would explain why I wasn't able to access my account on Friday morning! It turns out that all of the fraud activity happened BEFORE 9 in the morning when I was there at the bank, because they told me the date they had put the hold on my account and it just happened to be Friday morning. Ridiculous. We did have a significant amount of money stolen, unfortunately, but it was a lot less than what COULD HAVE been stolen. There were 4 attempts to steal money, but after the first successful attempt, RBC noticed "abnormal activity", and put a hold on my account until they could talk to me about it. Talk about quick action on the bank's part! I was quite impressed. When I talked to them on Monday they told me that as soon as they notice something out of character of the cardholder(me), they'll hold the account until they make sure it was them or not. It wasn't. I spent a good part of my day dealing with the bak security over the phone as well as at the bank. I've recently had the money returned, as the investigation department did determine it was fraud, and I have a new bank card with a new SECRET PIN number :) I still haven't quite figured out how someone got my banking information, and I probably won't ever know. But I do know that I will be SO much more careful when using my debit card, and I WON'T be using it in any ATMs other than at the Royal Bank itself. The frustrating part about all of this is that I don't think I had used my card in a good 6 months before all of this, and I just happened to decide to go to an ATM to grab some money for a carwash, of all things. Oh well. At least we got our money back! But what a crazy weekend!
~K~