Girls Trip! Part 3

The original reason for the Girls' trip was to go to my sister's friend's wedding.

As it turned out, the wedding also happened to be my grandparents' 60th Wedding Anniversary!

It was perfect!

My cousin and my mom's siblings decided to have a little family party to celebrate!

It was SO much fun!

I got to visit with a lot of my cousins that I don't often get to see,

we had a great time eating, playing telephone, playing mafia, and catching up!

4 Generations! I figured we needed an updated one since the best of the last ones we took Sweet Girl's hand is covering her face!

 After church the next day we headed back to my parent's house.

Then we drove the rest of the way to our homes on Monday.

But first, we stopped at Grandpa's station to see him and his big trucks!

 The girls had SO much fun!

Sweet Girl loved driving the truck

and almost had a heart attack when Grandpa turned on the fire hose!

She sure loves water!

 Then Pa let her spray the hose! This picture makes it look like she was totally cool about the whole experience, but she was ecstatic! And kept asking for "more wader?!" Pa also helped her slide around in the water and she loved that too! She kept running back and forth from the "ducks" to the "wader"! If they had had birds, she would have been set for life, it was basically all her favorites in one place!

 I sat in the back with the girls for a little bit during the drive home because they were getting a little restless and we didn't want to stop again. At one point both girls were pulling my braids! Lol! Little Goof Balls!

It was a really fun week,

but it was also really nice to be home and be with my Sweet Husband again!

My Sister's Wedding

The weekend of Martin Luther King Day was pretty busy for us, but very exciting! My sister got married to her best friend! They met on their missions, they served in the same place and were friends on their missions, they came home and dated other people. A year after my sister came home they started dating, fell in love, got engaged, and then got married (obviously..lol!).

We drove to my parent's home Wednesday night, we drove the rest of the way Thursday. We helped set up the reception a little bit, and then we drove to my Sweet Husband's brother's home. We had a wonderful meal with him and his family and my Sweet Husband's youngest brother. It was fun to see them and to see the kids play together! I love to see cousins play together, I always loved playing with my cousins and now it's fun to see our Sweet Girl loving her cousins!

 As we were driving to my aunt and uncle's home where we were going to stay for the night, my Sweet Husband and I stopped for some yummy ice cream! Sweet Girl was asleep in her car seat, so we just sat in the car and enjoyed our ice cream and visiting together. I love being with him! After we were SUPER stuffed with yummy food (from before) and ice cream we drove the rest of the way to my aunt's house. They moved into a new house recently, so it was fun to see their new home. We talked for a little bit and then went to bed because we had a very busy day ahead of us.

We woke up, got ready, and headed to the temple. It had snowed an inch or so during the night, but the roads were pretty clear and we made it safely to the temple. We dropped Sweet Girl off with my cousins and headed to the sealing. It was beautiful! The sealer was really funny! I loved one of the stories that he told, so I'll share it!

He said that when President Spencer W. Kimball was the prophet, he (the sealer) and his wife were invited to a dinner party with President Kimball and his wife. The sealer and his wife were invited to eat at the table with President and Sister Kimball. President Kimball told everyone at the table that his wife always makes sure that his shirt is ironed, his shoes are shined, etc. He said, "She's always riding me." About that time another person at the table said that they had just gone to their friends' 60th wedding anniversary party and they were told there that that couple had never had an argument in their entire 60 years of marriage. The sealer said that President Kimball leaned over and said, "they must have had a pretty dull marriage!" Lol! The sealer said that he wasn't telling them that they should just try to pick fights, but that having differences of opinion and working through those is a good thing in marriage!

After the sealing, we headed outside for pictures. It was SO COLD! I'm talking my feet were numb by the time we were able to leave! Lol! But it's okay. My sister and her new husband took more pictures, and while they did that, my Sweet Husband, Sweet Girl, my sweet new sister-in-law, and her sweet daughter drove to my grandparent's home not far from the temple and visited with them until we needed to leave for the luncheon. I was also able to finally give my grandmother the home videos I'd converted to DVDs that I promised her FOREVER ago (more on that later)!
(PS I got most of these pictures from my sister's blog, they were taken by Debby Leavitt Photography, some were taken by my sister's sweet mother-in-law, and some were taken by me or with my camera)

The luncheon was delicious, we ate until we were stuffed again! Then my Sweet Husband and I left to go see the new Provo City Center Temple, we weren't able to get tickets, so we decided we were just going to walk around and see the beautiful temple. It holds a pretty dear place in our hearts since we went to stake conferences in the Provo Tabernacle (what it was originally) while we were at BYU. We'd planned on taking Sweet Girl with us, but she had her own idea, she wanted to stay with Grandma and Grandpa, and my parents were sweet and said she could! So we drove down and parked and then noticed signs for the tour. We thought, we might as well see how long the standby line was, we didn't have a ton of time, but we checked and there was ONE person ahead of us! So we were able to take a tour of the beautiful temple! I love the temple! It was so neat to be in two temples of the Lord in ONE day! Before the tour, we watched a video about temples, in the video Elder Jeffrey R. Holland said that heaven wouldn't be heaven to him without his wife and his family! I completely agree! Heaven would not be heaven to me without my Sweet Husband, Sweet Girl, and our family! What a blessing it is that families can be together forever!

After the temple, we ran a few errands and then went to the reception. It was beautiful! It was also fun to catch up with my cousins and my best friend from college came too! After the reception, my sweet sister-in-law and I took the girls to the hotel so they could get to bed, and everyone else cleaned up the reception, bless them! 

Sweet Girl was so silly and insisted on being with my parents or with my sister in the line most of the night!

Before the guests arrived to the luncheon

With my sweet maternal grandparents!

The next morning we headed to my parent's home. When we got there we started setting up for the reception that night. It was also beautiful, but pretty chilly since it was outside. We had a great time eating pizzas and visiting with everyone!

Helping get the tables to set up at the Saturday reception

The trend of being in the line continued at the second reception as well!

 Our side (minus our missionary brother)

 chatting with cousins at the reception!

As you can see, it was a wonderful but crazy weekend! Thankfully, Sunday and Monday were very relaxing, which was very much needed!

Fabric Shopping

I have two siblings getting married in the next couple months.

For one of the weddings I'm supposed to wear a cream dress,

after looking online and in a few stores for a little bit I decided I'd rather just make a dress.

Plus, it's always fun to have a project 

(never mind the fact that at the time I already had two other projects going).

We were at my sweet in-laws' house for the weekend, 

so we decided to make a trip to the fashion district to look for fabric!

Plus, Sweet Girl and my Handsome Husband had never been!

My Sweet Mother-in-law kindly drove us there and spent the day with us!

If you've never been, it is pretty awesome! As you can see from the pictures they have rolls and rolls and rolls of fabric as far as you can see... pretty much anyways. I wanted to take a picture of one shop, they had rolls of fabric from floor to ceiling! It takes a little time to look at everything, but luckily each shop pretty much has a certain kind of fabric, so if it's not what you are looking for you can just move on to the next one.

They also have lace, buttons, ribbons, zippers... it's a sewer's dreamland! Lol!

But seriously.

We found what we needed and ended up getting a few other things my sister needed for the wedding too! It was a lot fun!

Hellos and Goodbyes

While I was pregnant someone in our ward came up to me and said,

"Now that you'll have a baby maybe you guys won't travel so much"

...or something along those lines.

I thought to myself, I don't see why we won't be able to travel with a baby,

plus all of our family, except one of my sisters and her husband, live out of town.

And I'm happy to announce that that person was wrong.

We still travel,

while it may take a little more planning and a lot more stuff,

we still travel.

And have since our sweet girl was a week old!

After my family left we took our sweet girl down to meet her Grandpa C and Grammy (one of her great grandmothers).

Grammy sure loved her!

 I think it's safe to say she has both Grandpas wrapped around her finger.

Somehow I never posted a picture of my sister with her,

she stayed with us for a week and took many awesome pictures of our sweet girl and she took our family pictures too.

While we were visiting Grandma and Grandpa C we got introduce her to some of her cousins.

(I love the smile on my sweet husband's face when he looks at our sweet girl)

 And one of her aunts and one of her uncles

The next weekend we traveled up to my parent's house and introduced her to her Great Grandma L 

 and Great Grandpa L.

And lots of her cousins and great aunts and great uncles

Side note: While we were there last weekend I took her over to see my Grandpa again (Grandma was out of town) and we visited for a while and then I needed to get in the shower so I could go get my hair cut and I told my Grandpa this and he said, "so are you saying you are going to take her from me?" I said, "I can leave her with you if you want while I shower. Or I can take her." He said, "I'll keep her." Grandpa loves babies and he taught all his sons to love babies!

  This past weekend was pretty awesome!

And VERY busy!

Our sweet girl got to meet her Great Grandma B and Great Grandpa B.

Four Generations

 Great Grandma and Great Grandpa,

 Great Grandpa B kept saying, "She's so gorgeous!"

It was so sweet!

We got travel up to visit my mom's side of the family and also got to go to one of my best friend's weddings! I was a bridesmaid... lol mostly just in pictures because of our crazy weekend.

This is what was on the agenda for the weekend:

It started on Wednesday

--we traveled to my parent's house (5 hours without baby, 7 with)

--Thursday, the men folk went deer hunting

the women folk headed up to Grandma and Grandpa B's for visiting and the wedding (5 hours without baby, about 7 with)

--Friday-for us-more visiting, shopping, and my mom, sweet girl, and I went to my friend's wedding dinner.

It was super yummy!

--Saturday- met up with my brother, went to my friend's sealing (it was beautiful and she was gorgeous!), visited my in-laws and introduced them to our sweet girl, went and had pictures taken for the wedding, drove back down to my parent's house, met back up with the rest of the men.

--Sunday, went to my baby brother's farewell

See, crazy, but OH so good!

The gorgeous bride and I

 Showing our sweet girl off to her aunt and uncles 

(see the uncle in the picture on the wall, he was there too, but had just been on a plane and had been hacked on the whole way home, so he was a little worried about holding the baby)

  My baby brother saying goodbye to our sweet girl for two years!

He's going to be a great missionary!

It's pretty crazy that he's a missionary, when I left home for college he was EIGHT years old!

Eight folks, had just gotten baptized!

How is he old enough for a mission?!

PS, sorry for the not so great photo, at 4 am you don't really think straight.

 We leave early in the morning on Monday rather than fighting Sunday traffic,

it's SO much better!

Rather than 8+ hours for a 5 hour trip, it's 5... what a concept!