Of course this week was largely wedding-centered. But I'm going to go in chronological order, so wedding stuff is last. Tough. :)
Kessa had an art camp this week. So instead of one 1-hour art class, she had three 2+ hour art classes. They tie dyed shirts then turned those into bags. They water colored a large piece of paper, cut them into triangles and glued them onto poster board in modern-art fashion. They let paint drip down a poster board to look like colored rain, but in the middle it stopped where they had a cutout of a dancing elephant holding an umbrella. It was really all very cute.
Tuesday morning the Harris' invited us to go to the splash pad at Thanksgiving Point with them. In an attempt to make Kessa more responsible, we've been giving her one chore every day that has to be done before she can play with friends or have screen time or ride her bike. Tuesday's chore is emptying all the small garbages into a big garbage can. It's easy, but she hates it. So when they invited us an hour before we'd have to leave so we could get back in time to go visiting teaching, I was skeptical if it would happen. Especially as Kessa was still in bed. So I went in, woke her up, explained the situation, and placed the responsibility squarely on her shoulders. We've been doing this every day and she'd already missed a trip to Farm Country with the same friends, so she knew the consequences of not being fast. She managed to do it! Barely, but she did it. Then we got there and the line was huge. I'm talking at least an hour just to get in. Problem is, the splash pad is part of the new children's museum, which is super busy during the day during the summer. Bummer. We didn't have time for that because we needed to go visiting teaching, so instead we went back to Melanie's and turned on a sprinkler. Abby played in it. The rest of the kids played a safe distance away. Silly kids.
Tuesday night a former co-worker of BJ's came to dinner with his wife. (That feels like a very awkwardly worded sentence.) After dinner we did games. They introduced us to a new game called Citadels. I really like it! I may have to add it to my wish list...
Wednesday I came downstairs to find this note:
Translation: Hi Mommy and Daddy. Audrey at 6:00. Go to Audrey's house. The #s are tic tac toe boards, so we can play it lots. The person at the bottom is Audrey's mom, Melanie, holding her purse. She has a heart on her chest and the # over it is a cage to keep her heart from coming out. She didn't finish, but the circle next to the purse was going to be Audrey's brother, Reddick.
So that night, a little after 6:00, we took a walk to the Harris's and stayed longer than we anticipated, making me late for a RS activity. But it turned out ok. We were tying quilts for the Humanitarian Center and it was so much fun. I like how tying quilts is mindless, so a bunch of women can sit around, doing something productive, and feel justified about talking for an hour or two. It's like a perfect girls' night! In RS today someone even asked if we could get more quilts and do it again. I'm down with that.
Thursday evening was Nick and Chelsea's dinner up in Bountiful. It was a great dinner. The food was delicious. My girls, especially Abby, spent most of their time running around the tables and sitting up with Nick and Chelsea. We tried to take Abby, but Chelsea insisted that she was fine. So we let her stay. Chelsea's family has a tradition of "roasting" the bride and groom. So all of Chelsea's siblings got up and gave them little presents, all making a good-natured jibe at Chelsea. For example, one gave Nick earplugs because she and her sisters can get laughing really, really loudly. (Humorously, Teresa gave Chelsea earplugs because Nick and your family can also get really, really loud. Hah! Guess the two families work well together.) That was really fun. I didn't get the email about it, and wasn't planning on saying anything, but then Chelsea's bro-in-law and future bro-in-law both got up, so I did some quick thinking and came up with a story. But BJ missed the part about giving a gift, so I did, too. And Shawn's was a lot of stories with props, but no gifts. Only Resa had a gift. But we still did the "roast." It was a cute and fun tradition.
We didn't leave there until well after bedtime and we had to be back to Bountiful by 8:30 the next morning, so instead of going clear back to Lehi, we stayed at my aunt's house in Salt Lake. We all slept in one room. It wasn't too bad, but it did turn out to be a long night. Peter woke up 2-3 times to eat. Kessa woke up desperately needing to go potty, and had an accident on the way. As we were coming back in, Abby wandered out, upset because she had a big pee pee in her diaper and needed a new diaper. [sigh] But we managed. We even got up and going early enough to leave by 7:30!
As we got into the car I had a horrifying realization—my purse, with my temple recommend, was at home in our other car. We didn't have enough time to go home and get back to the temple before the session started. I started to call Resa to see if she could rush down and get it for me, but then we realized that our garage code thingy is broken, so she would have no way in. I really just didn't have a recommend. Jessa, I cried. It was heart breaking. I called my bishop and he didn't answer his phone. But before we got there he called back and said he'd keep his phone nearby. That was a relief. When I got there, though, I was still nervous, especially when I had to write down my stake president's name on their request slip. Did they have to call both of them? What if my stake president didn't answer? And then they took about 10 minutes to come back and let me in. Ugh. So not cool. Lesson learned. But it all worked out! And thankfully we did get there so early, because it gave time for all of this to play out without feeling too rushed.
The ceremony was beautiful. I've been endowed almost 8 years now, but this is only my 2nd sealing (not counting my own), so I don't have a lot to compare it to, but I learned a lot from it for my own marriage, and I spent most of it all teary eyed. The room was packed; the big sealing room was still occupied, so we got put in a smaller one. We were literally sitting 3 people to 2 chairs. Uncle Richard ended up sitting on the windowsill. No joke. And once we thought we were packed to capacity, Bonnie showed up in her wheelchair. Hah! But we managed to fit everyone.
Then we got back and Aunt Grace was at a hair appointment. Kessa was very disappointed, so we told her to draw a card for her. She drew a picture of the wedding. Translation: "Married together. I love the temple." Awww. You can see the steeple with Angel Moroni on top. Then Chelsea and Nick, complete with wedding dress and veil, and suit, respectively. The lines below them are the stairs of the temple and the squares with grids are the windows with the pretty designs in them. IT IS SO STINKING CUTE! She drew another one for you, though the people are more scribble than anything in yours. Theoretically we're mailing it to you. But I'm not sure where she put it... hopefully it comes.
The reception wasn't until that evening, so we took the break in between to make sure Abby especially got a nap. We went into the room at one point to get something and found her at the foot of the bed, buried in a pile of blankets and pillows. Adorable.
Then we went up to the reception. The girls were flower girls and oh my goodness, their outfits were adorable. Of course they loved them. A lot.
Abby is magnetically drawn to water. There's a picture above at the temple of her playing in the water, too. So when we got to the reception and there was a stream, she was there in a heartbeat. And then was very upset when I wouldn't let her play in it. But we hadn't even done pictures yet! Finally about halfway through the reception when she was just a Miss Crankypants, I caved and let her go at it. She laid on that bridge and would put grass and dirt in the water. She pulled up handfuls of the grass right there. I didn't care; it would grow back. Eventually she started putting her head into it. And, of course, she was so cute that the only consequence was that everyone oohed and awwwed about how gosh darn cute it was. I had to agree. But her pure white dress was not so white by the end... yay for washing machines!
And then as we were packing up to leave the reception, Peter exploded out of his diaper again, this time on BJ. Go figure. At least he was kind enough to wait until the very end of both events...
And now to move past the wedding onto random pictures.
Kessa reading a book to Peter. She really, really loves him.
Our flowering, non-fruiting, plum trees out front once again gave us mini plums the size of cherries. They are, once again, delicious.
And the garden is producing, too! This cabbage was ginormous. The picture doesn't do it justice. I left the paper towels for perspective. But that thing was probably the size of my head. I chopped up that one and one more, not quite as big, and made peppered cabbage and canned it. Generally you get 4-5 pints per head. I got 7 quarts (which is the equivalent of 14 pints)! So the two combined were about the sizes of 3 average heads! Amazing!
Kessa wanted to stay in the cart while we shopped. So I buried her. She loved it.
She also discovered a new way to ride the exercise bike.
One Kessa-ism
Kessa: "Daddy, would you get off the computer? Mommy needs to do her brains!" (Translation: She wants me to exercise my brain on Lumosity, a website that has you play games that work your memory, flexibility, speed, etc. It's supposed to be a really good way to work your brain and I tell Kessa it's my brain exercises and that I need to do it daily.)
And... that's all for today, since you're online. [hugs!]
~ Tianna and Co.
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