Wedding Weekend

The second week of March (the first full week, to be exact), we headed up to Utah for my baby sister's wedding.  We don't like prolonging our traveling any more than we have to, so we made minimal stops and pushed on through to get to Utah as soon as we could and enjoy our trip.  We made pretty darn good time, if I do say so myself.  The kids were really, really great in the car and the weather was near perfect, which is great for the end of winter.

We arrived in Logan around 6:00 p.m. Wednesday, March 6th.  We had to drive by the temple- isn't it gorgeous?  What a beautiful greeting into one of our favorite towns.

We stayed at my sister's house that night in Smithfield- she and her husband just recently bought a brand new house and this was my first time seeing it.  It was gorgeous and they were wonderful hosts.

My sweet nephew Jackson took a little while to warm up to me, but I loved every snuggle with that sweetie that I could get.

George and Catherine, the groom and bride to be came over after work.  We had them open our wedding gift a few days early so that they could just keep it at their apartment instead of hauling it to and back from the reception in Idaho.

The twins were very eager to help.

Thursday morning, the Andros family, and my dad, went up to Utah State's campus (our old romping grounds, pre-children) to walk around and of course hit the USU bookstore.  All of the kids got updated Aggie shirts and got to pick out one small toy.

We posed for some quick pics on campus.

Later that afternoon, the Blakeslee women went out to lunch together (can you say Cafe Rio?) and then went and got manicures and pedicures at the local beauty college.  My mom got a mani.

Amanda and I got pedi's

And the bride and Chloe got mani's too.

This was Chloe's first "professional" manicure and she loved it!  She went with blue nail polish (instead of purple, the wedding color), but oh well.  It still looked cute.

I have to admit, it wasn't the best pedicure I've ever gotten, but it was a lot of fun.

The next day, Friday, March 8th, was the wedding day.

We had a few minutes to spare after getting dressed and ready, so Carter and Mitchell took the time to have a quick wrestling match, fully dressed in their Sunday best.

Not sure who won, but Mitch is always glad for a wrestling buddy.

Leah was our sweetheart that week.  She was so friendly and sweet with everyone.  She was quite taken with Great-Grandma Dewsnup, who is always glad for a small child to cuddle with.

On our way to the Logan temple for the wedding, we dropped our kids off at my brother's girlfriend's apartment. She babysat all 9 grandkids during the wedding.  Courtney was so sweet to do that for us.

After the wedding, we picked up our kids and were back at the temple in time to see the newlyweds come out of the temple as husband and wife for the first time.

Aren't they a cute couple?

The kids acted like they had never seen Catherine before and smothered her in hugs.

The twins were wonderful to get in any picture they were asked, and even took requests on actions to be performed during the photos.

It was a fun photo shoot, but boy was it cold!  But it wasn't snowing and it was a really nice day for pictures otherwise.

Lexi made a new best friend- Steve's girlfriend Courtney.  She was such a sweetheart with all the kids all weekend.  We were so glad to finally meet her.

There were lots and lots of photos taken that day.

The entire Blakeslee family with the bride and groom.

The Blakeslee siblings

My favorite picture of the entire weekend- Neil surprised George with a big kiss.  He was totally not expecting it.  It was hilarious.  That's a face of pure shock.

After all the pictures, we met at a local church for the luncheon.  Cost Vida catered it and, well, it was delicious. 

The kids decorated the white board in the gym to congratulate the happy couple.

After the luncheon, we all helped clean up, especially this handsome husband of mine.  There's just something about a man pushing an industrial sized vacuum...

It was a wonderful day!

Everyone was exhausted though and slept great!

The next morning, we got up bright and early, packed up all our stuff, and headed to Burley, Idaho for the reception.

Saturday was a busy, busy day.  A crew helped set up for the reception at the church and the other half stayed at my parents house and helped get food ready for that night.

Chloe and cousins Jace and Paige were put to work making food for the reception.  They worked hard and did a great job.

Catherine had some friends over to do her hair before the reception.  She also had a friend that did her hair yesterday for the wedding and it looked gorgeous.  I had to do my own hair for my wedding- unheard of!  And I'm not even good at hair!

Before the reception, my parent's good neighbors/friends made the whole family a fabulous Dutch oven dinner.  It was so, so good.  This pregnant lady ate so much that she could barely move the rest of the night (and prayed she could keep it all down).

After dinner, we all did a mad scramble to get dressed and put the finishing touches on hair and makeup to get ready for round two of photos for the weekend.

Amanda and Jax

The gym looked beautiful all decorated.

There were extra lanterns left over, so my mom gave them to the kids to play with to keep themselves entertained until the reception started.  And boy, did they self-entertain with those.

Mitch and George were playing catch with a lantern and either Mitch was a bad throw, or George was a bad catch, but something went awry and the metal piece on the lantern hit George's forehead and scratched him.  We felt terrible that he had a huge red mark on his face for pictures.  George was so sweet about it though and wasn't mad at Mitch at all.

The gorgeous cake.

Cath and all the little girls

Two beauties

The whole family

Blakeslee siblings

Bride and groom with all the grandkids.  They could totally have 9 kids of their own, right??

My little family.  We clean up all right.

The three little boys had the job of being the present takers.  Mitchell was very excited about this assignment and took his job very seriously.  He'd run over to guests all over the gym and take their present from them.

Then he'd carry it over to the gift table.  I'd by lying if I said he didn't "drop" or set down heavy gifts a little too hard, but luckily everything was in one piece when gifts were opened later that night.

The reception line

Once the reception started, the rest of us "non line standers" had a great time sitting at a back table, eating our body weights in reception food and drink.

Chicken salad crossiant sandwhiches, cream cheese ham and pickle roll ups, dessert pizza, fruit, and frappe.  Yummy!

Mitch, waiting by the sign in table to take gifts.

At the end of the reception, Cath and George got to cut the cake.

Will the smash it in each other's faces??

Yes, yes they will.

A kiss will make it better though.

 My second favorite photo(s) of the weekend- with all the other food served at the reception, they decided not to serve wedding cake.  Only the smallest top layer of the cake was real.  Cath and George couldn't eat all of it and told the rest of us to help ourselves to it.  Amanda and Steve wasted no time with that and were over cutting cake within minutes.  They looked like a bride and groom themselves.

So funny!

If we thought Friday was exhausting, it was really nothing compared to Saturday.  Lexi fell asleep on my lap around 8:30 p.m. 

And Leah crashed on Ben's shoulder shortly after.

We put both girls down on the floor in a classroom so we could help clean up.  Leah woke up seconds later and was wide awake again, not wanting to be left in a dark room.  Lexi slept until we went home.

The kids were so excited and a little over anxious to help the happy couple open their gifts.

A quick sister picture before the night ended.

It wouldn't be a Blakeslee picture without a little 3 in the key and crazy eyes.

After gifts, Cath threw the bouquet to the two most eligible "bachelorettes."

Chloe caught it!  See how excited Grandma is on the stage?  I'll be excited too... in about 20 years! :)

Leah wanted to catch it too, so Cath threw it again.

Hooray!

George didn't have a garter to throw, so they grabbed a loofah from their stack of wedding gifts.

My nephew Jace caught it.  The 3 other boys wanted to catch it too, so George threw it 3 more times and let everyone have a turn.

After cleanup, we finally headed back to my parents house around 11:00 p.m.  The kids didn't get to bed until 11:30 or so.  I think everyone fell asleep within seconds- I know I did!

The next morning, with Daylight Savings time rearing it's ugly head and making it an even earlier morning for us, we headed back home to Seattle, all in one trip.  The kids were excellent travelers again and all took great naps in the car.  

We had such a great week and were so glad we could attend the wedding and show our love and support to a wonderful couple.  Congratulations George and Catherine!