What a Week!

Okay people, I know that most of my posts are insanely long. Well this one will beat all. It took me two and a half hours to just download all these pictures (I think the reason for that was that I decided I would real all your blogs while I waited for my pictures to download and I got very distracted :). Anyway, I am really sorry. Just humor me. There are some treasures in here. Not to mention this is my journal so I have no where else to put all this stuff. If you don't feel like reading or looking pass right on by. I enjoyed looking at these pictures enough for all of us.

We had so much fun this last week. David's little brother Michael got married this last weekend. August 16. The whole family came (accept Tanya who was having a blast in France, and Hans who was TDY). We decided to make this our summer vacation. We had SOOOOOOO much fun. We got to Logan (Utah) early Wednesday afternoon. We got to our hotel and found out our two rooms were right next door to David's little sister Laurel and her 4 kids. If you as Ben, he will tell you that was his favorite part of the whole trip. We would leave the doors open a little and they would all run back and forth between the two rooms. they couldn't get enough of each other. Later that afternoon we met up with John and Heidi and went to the Logan Zoo. It is a very pretty, very small zoo. It was great. The weather was beautiful. There is a huge park right outside the zoo that the kids went to a couple of times during the trip. We hung out there that first afternoon.




On bottom from left to right: Ben, Braden, Joelle, Emma. On top: Jake, Sydney, Morgan

After the park we all went grocery shopping and then we went with Laurel, her kids, Nana and Papa to Olive Garden. This was Emma's favorite meal the whole trip. Thank you Nana and Papa for such a fun night! Left to Right: Gavin, Jacob, Ben, Savannah, Tristen(in back), Makayla, Joelle and Emma.

The next morning, right after breakfast, we took the kids swimming (they would not stop asking the previous day so we thought we would get it over with early).

That afternoon the boys had a bachelor party doing exactly what Michael would choose to do. Fishing. John and Michael each caught something. Good job guys :).

On Friday we all went bowling. It does not get better than that.

It was Jacobs first time bowling. He loved it. For the next two days any time we were going anywhere he would ask if we were going bowling. Poor kid, it was just that once:).

Here are all the boy cousins.......
... and all the girl cousins.

Left to Right: Michael (the groom), Mike (Papa), David, John. (Michael is youngest, John is oldest)

These are Michael's new in laws. They were a fun group of guys.

David thought it would be fun to go see the Gossner milk plant (for those of you who have heard of the shelf stable milk you will know what I'm talking about).
There was NOT much to see. Oh well. We got some good milk for the kids to drink that week.
On the day of the wedding David and his brother John got up at 5:00 in the morning to get in one more fishing trip. John gave David a bunch of tips that morning and David was able to catch 4 fish. Thank you John. It was his best fishing trip ever.

My sister in law Amy helped me make these floweres for the wedding. Each of my girls had one and they were each a little different. I loved it. By the way, Katie's got lost somewhere with her pretty little black headband if anyone has seen it :). I really did have fun with these flowers. And here if proof that I can do my girls hair when I put my mind to it.
Have you ever seen a cuter duo. I love a man with a baby girl.


Katie's dress was my favorite. Of course I wasn't thinking about the fact that I was taking a one year old to the temple in a halter top dress..... but boy was she cute. She got a little sunburned which mad me feel really bad. Then at the reception she was really cold. I was standing by Joelle when I noticed it. I said "Katie, I am so sorry you are so cold." Joelle said "uh, yeah mom, she has no sleves, she's unmodest." I felf a teeny bit guilty at that point. But ohwell, she as a cute one year old baby. I love the dress.

These two were hilarious. They are both three and were ready to get their groove on at the reception. They were the most fun to watch.

This was the beginning of the reception. Doesn't he look happy! I just realized that I have no picture from the temple. David has some on his blog if any one wants to see them. They are really good. Michael and JaNae are a beautiful couple.

She was such a beautiful bride. They were so fun to take pictures of. I think we had more fun than they did.
These three were ready for the bouquet to be thrown. David has all the pictures of that too. If he dosn't blog them, I will. Not that you all want to see even more pictures of this, but I loved it.
Their first dance. They definately had the moves :).

They danced with the little kids more than eachother. It was realy sweet.
Papa and Joelle, what a cute couple.
At one point he was dancing with all three girls.... What a guy!
Joelle caught the bouquet (or should I say...... kind of - and I mean kind of - ripped it out of Makayla's hands). She had been trying to catch that thing for the last 3 weddings. Way to go Joelle.
On Sunday we all checked out of the hotel (accept for Nana and Papa), and went to Bear lake. We stoped at a little pizza place a couple miles away from the lake. This picture does not do justice. I can't even describe how big this pizza really is. We are talking huge. It was by far the biggest pizza I have ever seen. Anyway..... Pizza anyone??

Of course the lake was everyone one of my kid's favorite part of the trip.

David doing what David does best...... pictures.

Nana and Papa and all the grandkids. So fun.

That afternoon we went to stay at a ski resort in park city (David got a screaming deal). This might very well have been my favorite part of the trip. This picture dosn't even describe how wonderful that bed was. You can't see the bathtub either but it was the biggest one I have ever seen. My kids got in together (all 5 of them) and still had room to pretend they were swimming. I could have gotten in there with them if I had wanted to (not that I would want to), there was that much room.
This place was bigger than our first house (no kidding - it was around 1200sq. feet). Awesome.

It had a luandry room! Thank heaven! I needed one so bad! It was so nice to come home with all clean clothes.
This was the kids room. They too thought it was the best bed ever.

On Monday we went to the Hogle Zoo in Salt lake. We had been there when Joelle was a baby. It is a really great zoo. We totally recomend it to anyone.
When we got there we realized that Katie didn't have a hat and she was still a little pink from the wedding on Saturday so David gave her one of his extra bandanas. I loved it. I thought (once again) that they were the cutest little couple.

We rented this stroller thing thank goodness. It made it so much easier with all of our stuff. The kids loved it. You can't really tell in this picture, but I am headed up a very steep hill with these guys. It was a pain, but I made it.
Katie was so tuckered out. She feel asleep at the very end, in the gift shop.
When we got back to the resort, we had dinner and then went swimming. This place had the best pool ever. It was huge! There were 7 of these little hot tubs situated all over. It was so great. Most of the time it was just us in our own little hot tub. Although Joelle, Emma and Ben rarely left the pool. Katie and Jake prefered the hot tub.

The morning we were leaving we went to the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. The kids had been asking since they saw the sign the first day. I have the best chocolated dipped pretzel ever. What would we do without chocolate.
Have you ever seen so many caramel apples at one time.

Then we drove down to salt lake. We had time to kill so we went to the conference center and took a tour. That building is amazing. It felt like being in a temple. Awsome!

This is the few from the gardens on top. There is 4 acres of space up there and 3/4 of it is garden. IncredibleThen we went to temple square and the tabenacle. Our kids actually enjoyed all this stuff. We had some good talks about Joseph and Pioneers and revelation.... everything.

Joelle loved the purple ceiling.
We went to luch at a wendys by the airport. The girls thought it was so funny that they had to give you a token to go to the bathroom. I got the token and was taking them to the bathroom. I was so focused on trying to figure out how to get the door open that I didn't even know what I was doing till I heard the girls say "Uh mom -click, I open the door- that is the mens room." I freaked out. They were totally laughing at me. Needless to say, I closed the door and went and got another token. Seriously, what is wrong with me.
Even after such a long week they were all so happy. This is how they occupied themselves while we checked in at the airport.

Thank you for reading my ramblings and checking out all the pictures. David will be posting some great wedding pictures too. So keep watching :)