Get Me to the Church on time!!

Or in this case, the temple!!! So as many know and some don't know my little brother, Shaun, married his long time girlfriend (4 years), Cat (short for Catherine), on April 11th 2009 (yes. Over Easter weekend). I am now officially the only one in my family of marriageable age (Brendon is on a mission so that doesn't count, and Nana hasn't been to school yet and is still 17, so she doesn't count) that isn't married. I asked my mom what she would do after she planned Nana's wedding (because she is soo used to planning weddings and she won't have any to plan after Nana) and she said "Plan yours!" Sad day for me!! I'm not bitter or sad at all. I actually think it's hillarious!!!

Anywho, I took off a week and a day of work since it takes one whole day to drive down there and the rest of my family was going to be there at least for half the week and drove down on Saturday all by myself. I took my sister Mindy's car as she was going to Disneyland for a week with my brother Chad and his family and they were going to drive their car home on Sunday (the day of easter), so I took their car with them. My brother, Kelby, his wife, Amber-Rose, and daughter, Mikkelle, let me stay with them in their spare bedroom. My parents stayed there a few nights as did my sister Cara and her husband John. We did some major house hopping between their house, my brother Chad's house, and my grandparents house!! It was kind of fun!! I spent the week sleeping, watching movies, watchings conference (general conference was the week before the wedding), shopping, getting my hair done, reading Brisinger (book number 3 in the Earagon series if anyone knows it), and playing games!! It was a blast!!

Friday night before Shaun's wedding we got together as an entire family (except Brendon who is on his mission) and had a mini bachelor party for my brother. Nothing gross. We just played games and went around the room and told why Shaun would make a great husband and father. It was fun to be together as an entire family again since it has been 2 years since that has happened!!

The next day was the actual wedding. They got sealed in the Salt Lake Temple (since Cat served her mission on Temple Square) and the sealing was done my Elder L. Tom Perry. He is a very large man in person. He did the sealing because he served in the stake presidency with my grandpa in Sacramento years ago and before Brendon went into the MTC, my parents visited him in his office. When he found out that Shaun and Cat were gettting married in Salt Lake he insisted on doing the sealing!! It was amazing!! He is gentle giant and really funny!! He had some amazing insights on marriage and what it entails and how to make it work. I wish I had had a pen and paper to write them down. Cat's family didn't know that he was doing the sealing so they were pleasantly surpised when he walked in the room. Cat was beaming the whole time and my brother had his cute little Shauny grin on (for those of you who know him pretty well, you know what I mean)!! They looked soo happy and it was a beautiful ceremony!!

Afterwards we took the traditional pictures and I got put in charge of Shaun's new video camera to take video of all the proceedings. I also got his camera so I was way busy with that!! Thus I did not get ANY pictures with my own camera. I did have fun though with cousins and taking random video.

After pictures it was off to Chuck-o-rama for a brunch. Everyone made it except for Shaun and
Cat. They were having a good old time taking pictures and showed up for the last half hour that we were there. They were totally in their own world.

That night the reception was at a reception hall. They decided to rent one out as it was easier than making our family get all the decorations and stress over decorating a church in a place that no one was familiar with!! We did bring some of our own decorations anyway and it turned out B-E-A-UTIFUL, but once again, I had Shaun's video camera so didn't get any pictures of my own. I had fun though seeing and talking to cousins and friends (especially ones from Maryland) I haven't seen in FORVEVER, dancing my guts out, and video taping random people. Our family was asked specifically by Shaun and Cat to do a little performance. If anyone knows Cat, you will know that her favorite youtube video is Vitas Opera #2 (if you haven't seen it, you need to go watch it. It's crazy!!) so we really wanted to do that. But we figured that no one else would get it besides our family and Cat, so we did a mini skit of Shaun and Cat's 4 year rocky relationship (Chad was Shaun and Nana was Cat. It was HILLARIOUS!!) and then made up different words to The Little Mermaid's Kiss the Girls. Cat and Shaun were rolling. I'm not sure that anyone else got it, but we had fun and so did Shaun and Cat. Afterwards they left for their honeymoon to go to Mexico, only after my brother Kelby stole Shaun's keys and made him chase him. It was good times.

That night our family stayed up until 3 am playing card games. Chad was in rare form and even little Mikkelle stayed up and was absolutely hillarious because she was acting like she was drunk cause she was soo tired!! My family is hillarious for anyone who knows them, so we had a pretty good time.

About 2 weeks later, we had an open house in Elk Grove California for all our friends who couldn't make it!! Too bad it was the same night as my old roommates reception and she is part of a family that has like 10 brothers and sisters in the Elk Grove area, so not as many people came as expected, but it was still fun. We got to decorate the church this time and although it was fairly simple it was still beautiful. My sister, Mindy, and I did Cat's hair for the reception. It looked gorgeous. I mainly hung out with my friend James, who was nice enough to come and was the only one from my YSA ward to come, and Nana and her friends. I did visit with more family as well. This time I got to take pictures as I was NOT in charge of Shaun's video camera. It turned out great. It was less formal than a reception, so not too much stress!! We opened Shaun and Cat's wedding gifts that night as an end to the evening.

Overall the wedding was fun and we now have a fun new member to our ever growing family!! Yipee!!

Colorado Rockies and In the Buff!!

In February of this year, my brother, his wife, and 3 little boys took a trip to Colorado. My brother graduated from Colorado University in Boulder Colorado in like 2000 or something like that. Anywho, while he attended school there he was in an acapella group called In the Buff. They were named this because the school mascot was a buffalo. They didn't actually sing in the buff (although the guys at the concert said they would if they got enough money for it!! Hehehe). Well, this group has a reunion every 5 years, or something like that, and this year was the 15th Anniversary. My brother decided to go, but wanted to bring his family. They had lots of parties and dinners at night so he couldn't go with his wife and leave his 2 young children at the hotel alone. Thus, they paid for me to fly out to Utah and drive to Colorado with them to babysit their kids. And I was GLAD to do it!! I love vacations!! Too bad it was snowy and freezing there, but well worth the trip.

(The view of Bolder from the mountains)

(more pretty Boulder)

(And even more Boulder)

(The boys in the hotel room)

We had fun doing lots of planned and unplanned activities. We got to hear Chad sing his solo (Mony Mony) in the archway (an outdoor walk way with great acoustics) with his old group and a bunch of other songs. We were just grateful that they didn't strip down during one of their songs which Beth said they did. Yikes. The other members had fun partying until 4 am everyday right outside our hotel room!! It was fun for us!! Luckily, the boys slept through everything!! We took tours of Boulder and went to the library and other fun places. We ate a fabulous Mexican place (you'll have to ask Chad the name of it, but it tasted soo good) and watched Chad play in a football game with the other In the Buff boys in which he sprained his ankle or foot or something. It's the Hutchings curse. And we got to go swimming in an indoor pool (which was quite an adventure for me as I forgot my suit and didn't have money to buy a new one, so I bought shorts and went swimming in shorts and a white t-shirt. It was very interesting!!). We jammed our days with fun things to do!!

(McCoy and I watching Chad play football. I had to hold his hands down cause he kept trying to take my hat off his head)

(The indoor swimming complex)

The highlight of the trip was the concert that was put on by this years In the Buff crew which involved having all of the members who came for the reunion coming up and singing some old songs with them. Chad was having a blast!! The best part of the concert was the contest I got to be in. They had me and 2 other guys from the audience come up and have a race. We had to run from one end of the stage to the other and be the first to finish a caramel covered apple to win a free In the Buff t-shirt. Well I ran my little heart out and took a big bite of the apple to only find out that it was a caramel covered onion. I told the this with my mouth full of onion and then continued to eat the onion thinking I had to finish it to get the t-shirt. The members of In the Buff started laughing and said I didn't have to finish it, so then I had to spit it out into a napkin!! It was disgusting, but I was comic relief for everyone!! And I did get my t-shirt!! So although I think it made me sick the next day, I am glad I did it.

(The whole gang singing. Chad is in the front row, right hand side wearing the red shirt)(Chad's in the red shirt. Sorry it's soo blurry)(Chad singing his guts out)

Yep!! On the ride home I was sick the whole time (I think the car ride is like 12 hours or something). I woke up that morning with diarrhea and feeling nauseous, but I thought it would go away, but it didn't!! I took some pepto bismal early in the morning and continued to feel nauseous the whole trip, having to have Chad pull over multiple times thinking I was going to barf (which I never did). It wasn't until we stopped for dinner that I barfed up all the pepto bismal (cause I didn't have anything else in my stomach to barf up). I actually barfed it up in a cup in the car. Not my finest moment. I was sitting next to Kayden when it happened and he didn't say a word. I felt better after that. Not nauseous, but not well, just stable. When we got back to Chad's house I felt really hot, so I took some aspirin thinking I had a fever and that did the trick. I felt completely okay the next day!!

(My last day with the boys and after getting over being sick. Their true characters come out in pictures)

So, except for the day of misery, my 4 day trip to Colorado was a BLAST and unforgettable!!

Holiday #3 Catch Up!!

Happy 4th of July!!! I know, I know!! I am going to be playing the catch up game FOREVER it seems like!! But better late than never I always say!!

My Independence Day was kind of sporadic!! I spent the morning up at YW's camp (they don't call it girl's camp anymore because we are supposed to focus on the fact that they are Young Women, not girls) packing up and riding home on the bus. I got home around 12:30 and went home to unpack and get ready for the day. Dad worked at the fair all day so he wasn't with us until the way late festivities.

At about 5:30 we picked up Nana and headed over to Mindy's for hamburgers, potato salad (which mom left at home and had to go back with Nana to pick up), watermelon, corn on the cob and yummy cake!! Mmmm, Mmmm!! Most of the food was prepared by Mindy and Jas!! We had homemade ice cream later that actually worked!! Surprise, Surprise!! Can you tell my family likes to eat on holidays!!! We can't help loving food!!
After dinner we went swimming (well, Nana, Jason, and I went swimming) and hot tubbing for about an hour!! I HAD to take a shower after that cause I still smelled like camp and now I was chlorinated and it was the first time I could take a shower in a week without getting dirty as soon as I stepped out!! It felt great!!We then walked down to the corner of the street to watch the fireworks from Cal Expo (i.e. the fairgrounds. Mindy and Jason live close enough we could see them). We decided to do this rather than try to battle all the traffic. We did have some tall evergreens in our way, but we still got to see the majority of the fireworks and really enjoyed them!!After that we did our own fireworks we bought. Mindy and Jason were really tired so went to bed, but Shaun, Cat, Nana, Mom, Dad (who came over after work) and I had a BLAST (haha. Get it. Blast!!) setting off fireworks!! Cat did a firework dance, and Shaun and Nana took turns leaping over the fireworks.
We all decided to be illegal too and hold the big fireworks in our hands and shoot them out!! Nana even got daring enough to put one up to her mouth.!! Then we did our traditional sparklers although we miss the old metal ones as they last longer, light easier, are brighter and don't burn you!!! We had a great time doing them though!!!We finished off the night with our traditional watching of Independence Day (the one with Will Smith in it). What can I say. We have a movie with every holiday as well. You can definitely tell where our priorities lie. With food and movies!! Hehehehe!! It was a relaxing and fun filled day!!

Holiday #2 Catch Up

Happy Easter Everyone!!! I'll post more later about Shaun's wedding as it happened over Easter weekend, but for right now, I'll just post about actual Easter!! And what a good Easter it was!!(Chad, Dan, Dacie, Cara and Ryland dying eggs)

(Ryland, Beth, and Kayden dying eggs)

(Colton, Sterling, Chad, and Boston dying eggs)

Since it was Shaun's wedding the ENTIRE family (minus Brendon who was on his mission and Shaun and Cat who were on their honeymoon) were there. That meant we had 2 nieces and 6 nephews to celebrate with!! It's always more fun when kids are around. We did eggs on Saturday night with all the kids at Chad and Beth's house. Boy did the parents go all out!! We had tie dyed eggs, crayons, shrink wrap, stamps, paint, outfits, cars for the eggs, you name it!! The kids LOVED it!! I decided to do a few eggs of my own as did Cara and Breanna. We were the only adults to do them!!

We all went to our separate churches in the morning (I was with Kelby and Amber-Rose and mom and dad were with Grandma and Grandpa, i think, and the rest with Chad and Beth and family) and then met up afterward family fun!!

Nana and I still got Easter Baskets (the benefits of being single. I still get treats from mom and dad) and we had an absolute FEAST for dinner with ham and everything. Then it was off to the Easter Egg hunts.(Get Ready. Get Set.....)

(GO!!!)

(Look at all my Candy BooBoo!)(Hey! Mine's empty!)(Chocolate! Chocolate! Where's the Chocolate?!)
Anyone who knows our family knows that we do 2 Easter egg hunts. One with chocolate eggs and robin eggs inside, and the real Easter eggs outside. We mainly let the kids do the hunting, but again, being the only 2 singles, Nana and I went on the hunt. We got to get the higher up chocolate eggs. I eventually gave mine to all the kids, but it was still fun to search for them. Then it was outside to our perspective areas to search for our eggs. The little kids had it easy in the back yard, but Nana had the side of the house, I had the garage and Cara had the front yard, so we had a little tougher time. But that's what you get for being older, right? We eventually found them all and had a blast doing it.(Colton the tight rope walker)

(Um. My eggs seem to be lost!)

(I'm thinking. I'm thinking. I'm thinking)

(I found 2! Yay!)

(I can't even reach that high. How am I supposed to get my egg?)

The rest of the day was spent bouncing on the trampoline with the kids and playing games as a family (you should see my sister's video of Nana and I playing crack the egg on the tramp!! It's great!!)!! I love spending time with my family!! They are hilarious and always make me feel good and wanted!! Happy Easter to all!!(Boston, Mikkelle, Kelby and Dacie all bouncing away!)

(Boston, Kayden Kelby, Mikkelle and mystery guy jumping to their hearts content!)

(Happy Easter! Love BooBoo and Dacie!)