Shane Gets Married

“The family is ordained of God. Marriage between man and woman is essential to His eternal plan … Happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities.”

– The Family: A Proclamation to the World

It has taken me a couple weeks to get to this post, but here is a little about the adventures we had on our trip to Utah for Shane (my little brother) and Amber’s wedding.

We headed for Utah Thursday morning and decided to take a bit more scenic route since we didn’t need to be to Ogden until later that afternoon. It was just a small detour off the freeway, on to the old highway, where we got to see waterfalls, canyons, and lots of birds. (Don’t pretend like you didn’t like bird watching in Mr. Gates class in high school, if only I had my field guide so I knew what the birds actually were.)

The best part of this little scenic trip was that we got to stop and have lunch with one of my bffs . The day before we left I was chatting with her on FB and found out she moved and that our little scenic drive we had planned took us right through the little town she moved to. Lucky, right?

Cutest Girl in the World

So on Thursday night, the family went to the Brigham City Temple with Amber for her endowment. In this post I might use some jargon that may be unfamiliar, so check out this link for a little more info about LDS temples, and what happens there. Other than doing baptisms, most LDS members attend the temple for the first time just prior to getting married in the temple or leaving to serve a mission. Courtney was kind enough to watch Sammy and Ashley’s girls for us while we went. Thanks Court, love you.

Since the wedding was not until Saturday morning, we had time to kill on Friday so we headed south to Provo to visit Drew’s little brother, Eric, and take a look around our old stomping ground.  We toured the new Heritage Halls at BYU where Eric is an RA, went to eat at Brick Oven, drove past our old apartment and let Sammy play at the park we went to almost every day when we lived there. On our way to Provo, we stopped at Drew’s old work so he could say hi to his friends there too. 

There aren't a lot of things I miss about living in Utah, but these mountains sure are beautiful.

My mom’s cousin was out of town for the weekend and was kind enough to let Mom, Dad, Shane, Courtney, Drew, Sammy, my second mom from Prineville, and I crash at her place in Kaysville.  It was fun staying up Saturday night reminiscing with Sue about all our good times in Prineville. Oh how I miss all you Prineville peeps. 

I guess this brings us to Saturday. Shane and Amber’s sealing was at 9:30 a.m., which meant we were up early getting ready and headed to the Bountiful, Utah Temple. The ceremony was beautiful. The sealer gave them, and the rest of us there, some great advice. There probably aren’t many things in this world more awesome than witnessing a couple be sealed for time and all eternity, and seeing a new little family formed.

 

Drew and I got to go help setup for the reception while everyone else finished taking pictures at the temple. It was great being able to see so many friends and family come to support Shane and Amber, especially seeing friends from Prineville. 

Eating the cake is definitely one of our favorite parts about weddings, so we were pretty excited when they decided to cut the cake and serve it. They did the traditional cutting of the cake and smashing it in each other’s faces, but the funny part was that it scared Sammy half to death. She started screaming when she saw Shane and Amber “get all dirty.” It was pretty funny. She talked about it for days, and even made up a song about it. It is the only song she has ever made up, but it went like this: “Cake Song, Cake song, Shane and Amber get all dirty, cake song.” It was pretty cute listening to her sing it. 

Saturday night Boise State had a football game, so we left the reception a little early and headed home to catch it. For months, Drew hasn’t been able to figure out why anyone would schedule a wedding on the opening weekend of college football season, and had to make sure we didn’t miss the game.

Since Sammy didn’t get a nap with all the day’s festivities, she fell asleep after just five minutes in the car. She only slept for about an hour but then listened to Pink Floyd on her head phones the rest of the way home.

Food, Drink, Book, Baby, and Pink Floyd was all it took to keep this girl happy for another five and a half hour car ride home.