Wispy

It's no longer a surprise that I seem to be out of town non-stop for weddings/receptions. Not that I'm complaining, because I LOVE weddings/receptions. On Saturday Holly got married in Snowflake. We rode up with my mom and Lily first thing Saturday morning. We went straight to my Aunt Jana's to help, although nearly everything had been done. Tangent: We were looking for the sugar and my mom asked me where I'd put the sugar if I was Aunt Jana. I told her if I was Aunt Jana, I wouldn't eat sugar. If you know how healthy my Aunt Jana eats, you'd laugh too. After we chopped strawberries, we got lunch and then got ready.

I went with Lily to wait outside the temple. The weather was absolutely gorgeous. Seriously, there was no wind, something that very rarely happens there. We all decided that Holly must just be extra special for such miraculous weather. Pictures while waiting for the happy little couple... Wow, really, there are trees that change colors in Arizona.Lovely ladies.Lovely Temple. For some reason, the Snowflake Temple doesn't look very grand to me from far away, but every time I'm up close and personal with it, I am awed by how simply beautiful it is. I love the windows. Definitely my favorite detail.Ankle crossing.Shawna, Mad White Woman and Michelle. Tangent: Shawna's hair used to be much lighter and SO many people have assumed that her and I are sisters. We're cousins and her and Michelle are sisters.Holly looked beautiful (Anthony is in this picture, he's just behind her fluffy dress). While they were taking pictures, we had our own fun photo shoot, jumping. Then Kara, Stephenie, Sarah and I tried to jump off the ledge, but we all just looked like we were falling. And maybe some of us did fall when we hit the ground.(PS Jason and Clara were home taking a nap. I decided not having them at the Temple was worth having a happier baby at the dinner and reception.) Fun, fun girls they are. After jumping, I put my shoes on and started to walk away, but realized (after far too long) that there was a slight problem. If only I could remember which shoe goes on which foot...We had to run back to my Aunt Jana's to get some stuff for the reception before the dinner. So we did. Why, you ask, is there a lame picture of a crow on your blog? Well, let me tell you. It's so I can tell you what we saw and you can imagine it easily. As we were driving down the dirt road, we saw a crow, on top of a wooden fence post, devouring a mangled rabbit. We tried to get a picture, but the bird flew away, so here he is, up, up and away.We went back to the Church for the dinner. Between dinner and the reception, the kids got to play with playdough in the "kid room". Some people just think of the greatest ideas. Clara meant business.And then there is the reception. It was all set up, so Cindy, Lori, my mom and I just had to prep and set up the food and then keep everything moving. They had peanut butter bars, brownies (with and without nuts), Zebras (aka Hello Dolly's), four kinds of cookies and sundaes with every topping you could imagine (Butterfingers, oreos, fresh strawberries, fresh raspberries, caramel, hot fudge, nuts, M&M's and Reese's pieces).
And then there were the mints. But these were not any ordinary mints. Mixed with the Junior Mints were "premium" mint M&M's (the shiny ones). I wish I would have got the memo on these things because they are awesome. YUM.Sarah, just hanging out. Braden, did your mom or dad teach you that trick?

H: Anna, look, I'm eating healthy! (As she shows me her ice cream topped with fresh strawberries).

C: .... (must've been some good ice cream)

J: Look how stinking cute I am in my bow tie.

Clara didn't recognize the girls from KS right away, but once she did, she couldn't get enough of Sarah. Kind of like when we're in the office. Good thing Sarah likes her, otherwise we'd have a serious problem.

Clara and I dancing... allow me to introduce to you, wispy. That's right, that lovely patch of hair encroaching on my forehead. Not sure why, but all day, my left horn decided to do that. It's cute, trust me.

P: I have the biggest brown eyes you've ever seen and my cheeks couldn't be more inviting. So just take a picture.

Cousin love.

Cindy and my mom. Happy (and good) little helpers. I helped when I didn't have Clara. Jason came and said he would scoop ice cream so I could socialize and watch Clara so he didn't have to.

C: I said, GIVE ME A COOKIE!

I'm not sure if Jason wore this black shirt so we could match... identically. Or if he did it to make me mad (it's not my favorite shirt).

Certainly it wasn't a near 30 year old father of two that hid a pile of Hershey Kisses underneath the cloth on the table. And definitely not one I'm related to.

As the reception was coming to an end, I was dreading the clean up. My feet hurt, I was running on five hours of sleep and I just felt exhausted. To my pleasant surprise, it only took about an hour. So many people helped so it was down in no time.

Sunday we ate breakfast and then headed home. Michelle's a great hostess. Tangent: Her pantry made me want to live in our house in Utah so I too can have an awesome pantry in the basement. One of my favorite parts of the weekend was getting to spend so much time with my mom. We visited all the way up and all the way home. We visited while we went and got lunch. We visited while we cut strawberries. We visited while we got everything reaady to set up for the reception. And my favorite picture was of me and my mom. The sun was so bright so I told her and Lily to keep their eyes closed and then open them when I said three. On cue, my mom opened her eyes about twice the normal size. The picture is hilarious, but she asked that I not share it. I told her I wouldn't put it on my blog, but that it'd be the first page, full-size, on her Mother's day book next year. :)

We got home at Noon. I was thinking about just missing Sacrament Meeting and then I realized that would be silly. Why miss the most important meeting? Especially since we had 30 minutes to get ready (none of us had showered... and one of us never did, sorry). We were late, but we made it before the sacrament. After I did Singing Time in Nursery, I went to RS and just left Clara in Nursery. It's been so long since I've done that. The teacher in there held her and after a bit, she calmed down. Ahh, the start of a new phase, hopefully.

I have a lot of {heavy} things on my mind. But I have been trying to counteract it all with some thankful thoughts from my weekend...

I'm thankful that I got to go to Snowflake for Holly's big day.
I'm thankful for good cousins.
I'm thankful for beautiful trees that make me happy.
I'm thankful for people that listen to me whine and complain.
I'm thankful the two policeman were talking to each other when we came up over the hill going 85 MPH. The driver of our vehicle will remain anonymous.
I'm thankful that Jason has a job. Losing 20% of his hours/pay is better than 100%.
I'm thankful for Clara. Have you hung out with her lately? She's pretty awesome and keeps me smiling. More on her later.