A Beautiful Wedding Weekend

We had a small tiny break from our beach trip before we left for Utah. I love doing things as a family and having Abi be able to have new experiences. On the day we left all day she kept saying, "I go foo-flane (airplane) today!"  She still somtimes will say that. I love seeing her face as we walked into the airport. There is so much hustle and bustle and so many things to see and look at. She was a little wild on the flights, and always in constant motion, but even though it was exhausting it was still fun. That's probably because Jeff was such a great help. I would not have wanted to do it by myself.

We got there Friday morning at 1:30, and then spent the day getting ready for the reception. Then Saturday was the big day! The weather was so beautiful, and the temple was very pretty. It was at the Oquirr Mountain Temple, which is very tall and beacon-like, at least to me. It was a wonderful sealing with some really funny moments that I'm sure Natalie and Joseph will never forget.

So there are lots of great pictures. The weather was bright and perfect, and everything was so green and beautful. The colors were vibrant and fun, and it was so great to see my parents and my brother and his wife. It was great for Abi to get to know them better. I loved seeing Abi sit on my brother's lap, and now that we're home I love hearing her say their names and get excited when she sees the pictures and recognizes them.

Abi was classy at the reception. She dripped juice down the front of her dress and ate 800 pieces of chocolate, and wouldn't keep her hair bow in, and took off her shoes, and tried on everyone else shoes, and generally couldn't be contained or persauded to do anything. At one point she rolled this enormous red exercise ball out of the house, and down the porch stairs into the middle of the beautiful reception and just went crazy rolling and jumping around on the ball, for oh.... a good 20 minutes or so. As good parents, we did absolutely nothing, well I guess we took a picture. We were so exhausted by this point, the strength we could muster was to eat another piece of cheesecake.

We tried to have Abi play where all the kids were playing, but it just didn't last.

Abi loved Natalie's wedding shoes. They are pretty awesome shoes. I could never walk in them for more than 5 minutes. I don't know how she did it all day. They are also the reason she looks like she is 3 inches taller than me, and also taller than my Mom.

The reception really was beautifully put together. At the exit there was a photo booth, which was so fun. Abi absolutely loved it. She loves hats and shoes, and glasses, and dressing up in general. A funny story, while we were setting up, one of the balloons by the photo booth started to lose air, and my Mom caught the leak, and so someone asked her to hold it while they got some tape. So I stayed and talked to my Mom, while the person went to go get tape to patch up this balloon. We waited for 5 plus minutes, until finally my Mom had me send for tape. The person had totally forgotten and if I wasn't there, who knows how long she would have stood there, holding her finger over that balloon. What a sweet person my mom is.

Abi and my newly married sister. Once again with the shoes.

So at one point we were eating lunch, and I was talking about how Abi loves Elmo, and how we are going to do an Elmo party for her birthday, and all of the sudden there she is, in an Elmo costume.... and of course trying on someone's shoes. She was in heaven, and she wore it for hours. In fact, she fell asleep with it on.

Also on our trip to Utah we were able to visit Jeff's sister Kari and Abi got see her cousins. We went to Oquirr Lake Park, on Sunday and enjoyed the beautiful park there. While there Abi had to go potty, and the bathrooms were locked, so we found a little crack in a dock on the lake and convinced her that it was a potty. It worked! And then we discovered that the while the girl's bathroom was locked, the men's had been unlocked the whole time!

We also got a chance to drive down to BYU and explored campus. Jeff got to donate blood, and I got to do some service in the Center for Service and Learning, while Abi slept on their couch. We got a kid's meal at the creamery and cookies and cream milk, my favorite.

It was a wonderful and fun exhausting trip. On our last day, we lost our camera, sunglasses, and Abi dropped her phone in the toilet, and I left my purse at the house right before leaving to go to the airport. We just needed to get home, we were so tired! Luckily, everything was recovered and repaired and back to normal.