Catch-up, Part 2

Following Colleen's wedding in St. George we drove up to a nice wedding luncheon in Kanaarville. From there we drove up to Saratoga Springs (just north of Provo, Utah) to stay the night with my Dad's cousins, Lewis & Karen Church. Aubree had a really hard time understanding that we were going to stay at the "Church's house", not at the church. She kept asking, "why are we sleeping at church?" Finally we decided to just say, "we're staying at the people's house." This drive was probably the worst leg of our entire trip. Bryce screamed for at least two hours straight. The drive should've been about 3 hours, but stretched much longer because of numerous children-related pit stops. Ugh. By the time we arrived at the "people's house" we were all tired, hungry, and grouchy.

Thankfully, Lewis and Karen were so amazing that within minutes of arriving at their home all past tensions were erased. They were fantastically hospitable and soon Aubree and Bryce were sleeping peacefully. Despite being exhausted, I did have a little trouble getting Aubree to go to sleep because the Church's have lots and lots of grandkids and thus had tons of extremely appealing toys with which Aubree really wanted to play. I promised that she could play with them in the morning and when she woke up, that's exactly what she did! She had so much fun playing, that she cried and cried when we had to leave. Here's a short video of Aubree playing and bossing around her dad and her uncle Ian. I think the princess crown was fitting.

Saturday proved to be a very, very long and fun and busy day. After leaving the Church's, we went down to visit my sister, Kira and her brand new baby Kylee (born 8/19/08). Kylee is super cute and Kira is a great mom. She's definitely a lot more laid back than I was when Aubree was first born, but she's also a lot more easy-going in general. We didn't get to stay long and soon headed out to meet with some of Mark's family - Kevin & Katie, and Amy. We had a fun lunch together at Cafe Rio (one of the restaurants I really miss from my time in Provo). Again, our time was much too short and soon we needed to be at Andrew's home to help set up for the garden wedding reception planned for that evening. Poor Aubree was exhausted by this point so we tried to set up a little bed outside for her to rest while we set up, but as you might suspect, that didn't work out too well. She did get her second wind and, fueled by lots of candy, cake, and ice-cream (oops - we didn't plan well for any dinner), partied well into the evening at the reception.
Colleen's reception was beautiful. It was small and intimate and the weather was gorgeous. I kept thinking, "this would never work in Florida in August; notwithstanding the oppressive heat, we'd all be eaten alive by bugs and mosquitos!" I'm always happy to leave Florida in August. Bryce slept through most of the evening and we all had a good time visiting with friends and family.