Wedding Trip

My little sister Marah was getting married in Mesa, Arizona on June 22nd and I was making the cake.  Which meant we all got to go to Arizona for a week!  Hooray!

Let us not speak of the horrid flights that got us there.  Like the one that was delayed leaving BWI, only to finally board and find out that we had AC problems, delaying us longer.

Or the one where we missed our connection from Albuquerque to Tucson thanks to said delays and were instead put on a flight from Albuquerque to Vegas, where we would catch a flight to Tucson.  

Which is the equivalent of going from New York to D.C. by way of Chicago.

Or the one where the flight from Vegas was late (which it always, always, always is), meaning that this picture was taken at approximately midnight Eastern time:

Possibly, he was a little giddy.  

Possibly.

By the time we made it to my parents' house it was 3:00 am our time.  Thank you, Southwest.  I am just pleased that our kids were amazingly cooperative during the whole ordeal.  Of course, Catherine did have a screaming bout on one of the last flights, but I didn't care.  I frankly felt like screaming myself.

We recovered quickly and got to spend our time enjoying the Arizona summer. 

 I'll take 110 and dry over 98 and humid any day.

Swimming in Grandma's pool

Making the wedding cake:

Seth, Marah, Stephen (the groom!), and Catherine.

Oh, and me.

Two days before the wedding we drove up to Mesa to go through the temple with Marah.

I'd never been inside the Mesa temple before--it's beautiful.

Marah was more nervous about her endowment than her wedding day, but she seemed to survive just fine.

    

Bride, Groom, and Favorite Sister-in-Law (right, Stephen?)

And no, we didn't coordinate our outfits.  

We're just awesome like that.

By happy coincidence, Jon's sister Mary & her family were in the Mesa area for an internship this summer.  Since we were staying in Mesa the night before the wedding, we spent the afternoon and evening with them.

Mary took us to this awesome pool where the kids had a blast.  

I took zero pictures of said pool.

In fact, this is the only picture I took:

Catherine & Andrew, the twin cousins

Lovely, huh?

We had a great time visiting the Bears and eating their delicious food before heading back to our hotel room.

There is nothing quite as awesome as sharing a hotel room with a one-year-old.

Good thing she's cute.