Allie's married, and I'm worn out from a busy weekend in Utah

It's Monday, and I somehow feel like I didn't get a 3 day weekend, but my schedule says differently. It's because most of it was spent out of state. Allie, my sister-in-law, was married over the weekend in the Salt Lake Temple. Before I get into more details about that, the actual weekend started 2 days before.

I took the Light Rail from 9 Mile Station on Thursday, so Heather could pick me up directly from work and not have to worry about my car getting broken into at the light rail station while we were gone (as if there was anything left in there to begin with). My day at work went pretty smooth, and I waited for Heather late that afternoon to begin our journey.

Caleb slept for the first couple of hours on our trip. I was riding shotgun until we got to Glenwood Springs. Heather's 7 months pregnant and was feeling hot the entire trip. As we were driving through the mountains of Vail, CO and the temperature dipped into the low 30s, I was starting to get chilly while Heather had the air blowing, so I turned on the heater ever so slightly. Apparently, slightly was too much, because Heather was too hot, and we went back and forth on the temperature for a good 30 minutes. It was amusing. I couldn't imagine being in her shoes and feeling like that all the time.

I took over on the trip at Glenwood Springs. We stopped at Grizzly Creek, home of many whitewater rafting trips as a teenager on the Colorado River. Caleb was infatuated with a large diesel train across the river rolling by. He's so cute when he wakes up from naps nowadays. Just as pleasant as ever.

Stopped by in Grand Junction for dinner. Wendy's was the destination. We drove down Horizon Drive to see if there was any park we could sit in. We found a local church that had a mowed lawn. The wind was really cold and we didn't realize that until we got out of the car and started freezing.

Caleb was watching movies and we got through both Toy Story Movies in this trip. We got into Provo around 12 am. Russ and Denise had been there all week, Denise working on pre-wedding finishing touches and Russ laboring to finish the house Joce, Scott, and Brett bought with them back in February. The carpet and hardwood floors were in place in the basement as the bathrooms were closer to be complete. What a long day. It's good to be in bed!

Friday I spent the majority of the day with Geoff. I finally got to meet his fiancee Jessie. She's awesome! I am so excited to get to know her over the next several years. I honestly have never seen Geoff in love like this. It's a great thing when you can find the right person. Geoff and I hung out the University Mall that morning. I saw the infamous Randy Voss at the mall and did my best to avoid him. Fortunately I was successful, but of all places you would run into the guy. He happened to be Utah the same weekend I was!

I also took the time to visit an Apple Computer store called Simply Mac. I found out they have a store in Colorado Springs. It looks like I'll be making a visit down there this week some time. I am in desperate need to replace this old Sony Lappy that I've been lugging around for a couple years.

Heather, Russ, Scott, Joce, and myself hustled to the Mt. Timpanogos Temple in American Fork. We got there 10 minutes before the beginning of the session. Denise was this close to having a heart attack. The traffic on I-15 was incredibly slow as people had to stop and see why highway patrol officers were pulling people over. Gotta love curiosity slowdown!

The session went well and we found ourselves on the end of our first full day. Allie stayed with us in the house the night before. We all got up early that morning to drop Caleb off at Danielle's house and then back up the freeway to SLC for the wedding breakfast. We got to see the majority of the McNeill and Gibb families. Allie and Heather's grandfather Boyd Gibb and his wife Joann were able to make it as well. The sealing was at 2:20 so after the breakfast we spent some time and Chris and Dave Bradford's beautiful house in East Salt Lake.

We got back in time for the sealing and then it was pictures and we were on our way back to Spanish Fork for the second time that day to pick up Caleb. Apparently, he did a couple of numbers in his pants while Danielle was watching him. She took it in stride, and was really good about watching him. We greatly appreciated it.

Allie's reception went very smoothly. Caleb, Scott and I spent the majority of the evening hanging out as Joce and Heather stood in line for the reception. Caleb was kind of grouchy until he got tons of punch and wedding cake in his system. I visited with nearly every member of Heather's extended family, in spite of Caleb wanting to run all over the Reception house. Allie and Jonathan got a ride on a horse and buggy, and Heather, Caleb and I did as well. We left around 10 that night and went to bed around 1 am.

Sunday morning rolled around, and we got our stuff together and headed out that morning around 11. Heather and I had some nice conversations as Caleb slept through most of the drive to Grand Junction. Then it was 3 hours of movies until he fell asleep again. He is really good on these long drives. I feel bad for the guy sometimes because he's strapped in there with nothing to do.

Overall we had a great trip. I'm very happy for Allie and that she found the love of her life in Jonathan. He's a great complement to her in terms of their personalities and is an honorable person. See you soon for the next blog post.