who wants to see a well designed macaroon?

if only i was this creative. images pilfered from anagrama. worth checking out.

things i should have already posted about: part 1 - my sister's wedding

*pause* instead of waiting in the torrential downpour outside the temple we waltzed over to the lion house for the luncheon. an hour early. my great-uncle ken is one of my favorite relatives. he went exploring and discovered an employee folding napkins in a back room. naturally he volunteered lou and kate to help him out by telling them they got extra rolls at lunch. which may have been a lie.

jess and ryan's wedding was so pretty. it started with a beautiful sealing at the salt lake temple. when we went to take pictures outside it felt like a small hurricane moved through (no one should ever get married in march). never fear, we all came out unscathed and jess and ry still looked like models. one thing i realized going through these photos is how awful i am at getting pictures of important people. you know, the bride, the groom, their parents, relatives that fly from clear across the country...

the reception was gorgeous. her colors were black and white, and the arrangements had lots of bright green. the crepe bar was delicious. the candy tables had mini gummy penguins! and my favorite part of weddings is getting to talk and talk with people i don't get to see often enough.

and now we need to work on finding someone for lou...

a little pick me up

my sister jen is serving a mission in argentina. we miss her, a lot.

i love reading her emails. she is hilarious. sometime i will post some of her best quotes.

she had a rough time this past week, but she shared something i thought was worth passing along. when she was struggling, she opened up her mtc journal and remembered when elder holland had come and spoken to them. this is what he said:

"This is God's eternal truth. I have not given my life to a fairy tale. This is not a cunningly devised fable! This is God's eternal truth."

because out of everything, that's all that matters. sometimes we doubt. sad things happen, hard things happen, and most of the time we have no clue what's going to happen. but there is a plan for us. and it is real. and it makes everything worth it.

hey! i got a hole in one!

we talked lyns into letting us borrow lukey and ethan for a sleepover on thursday night. i'm not sure who was more excited about it, lukey and ethan or mike. we took them to the glorious wonders of trafalga, the creamery, and then introduced them to the 90's via netflix: jumanji, the three ninjas, and batman. they are such fun and easy kids! and pretty funny too. it almost made us reconsider our "let's wait ten years to have kids plan" (just kidding dad - it's really only five). best quotes of the night:

lukey: "i never been golfing before. but i beat mario golf. so i'm gonna be good."

    ethan: "i got a hole in one!" lukey: "me too!" ethan: "no lukey, you got a hole in three."

    we love our nephews.

it's like putting butter on bacon

one of the best things about marriage is learning to love new things together.
like reese's puffs.

why eat them only for breakfast, lunch, and dinner? why not cover them in melted butter and marshmallows and call them dessert too?

don't judge now, just think about it.

tired of hearing about invitations yet?

my friend lexi is getting married in a month and is having a par-tay for her reception. completely carnival-inspired. cotton candy, photo booths, the works. she was brave enough to let me have creative liberty which i will forever love her for.  i am so anxious to post the photos, but i don't want to steal her thunder, so here's a little tiny preview...

oh, billy boy

tonight mike and i re-discovered our good friend billy blanks.
it was awesome. thank you, youtube.

st. thomas

we were lucky enough to spend a week on st. thomas with angie, klane, and annie (thanks to angie's very gracious parents who let her use a week of their timeshare). it was the most beautiful vacation. my snorkeling skills improved significantly (if you ever see mike he loves telling the story of me attempting to snorkel in cancun. complete with actions.) mike and klane bought a really nasty local drink. angie took a lot of lovely pictures. and annie got really tan :) angie did an amazing job of documenting the trip on their blog thosehardings.com so if you are curious about the day to day activities and want to see a photo of the best coconut ice cream in the known world along with a poker game played by the light of a glow stick, check it out. {all photos were also pillaged from her because she is talented}

favorite part of the trip: swimming by ourselves at mermaids chair with pelicans dive-bombing all around us

least favorite part of the trip: spending the night on the floor of the dallas airport. we were delayed an hour and a half circling dallas and then landing briefly in oklahoma city due to rain. by the time we arrived in dallas we had missed our connecting flight and the terminal was closed. and by closed i mean deserted. at 7:30 at night. we finally found an employee to talk to, even though she looked like she was 14. she politely informed us that we had been rebooked for the following morning at 8 and delta would not provide hotel vouchers because it was due to weather. of course. so we called the very reputable hotel 8 down the road to come pick us up. the girl on the phone said we had just missed the courtesy van and to go wait outside for it to swing by again. so we waited for their phantom van. for an hour.

{tangent: there were a bunch of other people waiting for hotel vans too. an older lady who waited with us for awhile asked us where we were headed. we told her hotel 8. and then she scooted slowly away from us. the hyatt picked her up. go figure.}

we tried calling hotel 8 several times and were transferred, transferred, transferred, and... put on hold for twenty minutes. i think the hotel 8 girl lied to us. i doubt they shelled out the cash for a courtesy van. because they are cheap, like us. so at 11 we decided to just spend the night in the terminal. we hauled everything back into the empty terminal since the main part of the airport was locked up. we briefly considered sleeping on the baggage claim but abandoned it for the much more appealing concrete floor. it was freezing. mike grabbed t-shirts from his bag and draped them over us. and we settled in under the florescent lights and elevator music, which was interrupted every thirty minutes by blasting announcements: IF YOU ARE TRAVELING WITH AN INFANT CHECK YOUR TICKET FOR THE PHRASE INFANT IN ARMS... IF YOU ARE PLANNING ON TAKING AEROSOL OR LIQUID IN YOUR CARRYON IT MUST BE SEALED IN A ONE GALLON ZIPLOC BAG... ARE YOU A MEMBER OF THE DELTA SKYMILE CLUB? oh man. each time we would sort of drift off the announcements would start and jerk us awake. it sounded like a bullhorn right in your face. and then the cleaning crews descended upon us. whenever one of them walked by i glared at them with my bloodshot eyes from under our t-shirt blanket. and they laughed at us. i probably would have too.

best night ever.

but, we did arrive 4 hours early at the terminal for our flight.

book club

i gauge the success of a vacation by one thing: how many books i am able to read. last year's trip to new york was epic. i think i read eight books that week. {amongst other things mind you, i don't just sit around all day} this year's trip to st. thomas was equally successful. i didn't quite hit eight, but what can you do? i really loved the help. all of the books were intriguing / intense / insightful, but that was the one that got me through the most wretched night of sleeping on the floor of the dallas airport. so it holds a special place in my heart. read any of these? care to discuss? i always love a good book re-hash.