A Day to Remember

Oh Connie's wedding.  Ooooooohhhhh Connie's wedding!  Excuse me, Connie and Dustin's wedding.  Guess it kinda takes two....

To sum it up it was absolutely perfectly pleasantly lovely. 

We all had been looking forward to the big day, but the girls were especially excited to be honorary members of the wedding party, aka flower girls. 

Here's the backdrop.  Take note there is not a soul in sight.  No one wanted to step foot outside until absolutely necessary seeing as though they just might melt into a heaping puddle.  It. Was. HOT.  Beautiful nonetheless! 

The afternoon started of with a brief rehearsal, then family gathered for a pre-wedding luncheon.  Maybe I should have remembered BEFORE the massive helping of amazing dutch oven potatoes that I still had to squeeze into my wedding attire for the ceremony.  Shucks.  Then the moment we all were waiting for-- the wedding party ready to march!  Yes, real flowers for the girls to throw!  A little girls' heaven!  With the exception of Miss Kylie, who decided she would keep each and every last petal to herself.  Ha!

Ty, being the lone nephew old enough to walk, had the distinction of being the ring bearer.  He loved it!  Here's a closer look at his little responsibility:

The ceremony was beautiful, performed by Dad Israelsen.  Here is the Ty Man in action.  He took this role very seriously and performed with precision!

Mr. and Mrs. Eastman!  YAY!

Connie and her flower girls.  They all looked so incredibly darling.  And the bride- oh my word.  She was stunning.  She looked like she walked right out of a magazine.  So beautiful!

The wedding would have most certainly fallen to pieces if it weren't for this handsome lil' dude (wink, wink):

This little lady decided she wasn't too big on the whole celebration bit.  But she looks like such a cute little lemon custard wrapped in an orange peel!  Needless to say, she had a nap.  Whew for us.

At first glance, you might think Ty is going in for a choke-hold:

Have no fear!  This mini Casanova is simply going in for a smooch! 

...Again, and again, and again...they thought it was hilarious!  It didn't help that the rest of us standing around were laughing at them too.  There must have just been a lot of love in the air.  I love the neck hold.  He's so suave!  I can't WAIT to hear what these two have to say about this when they're teenagers. 

The rest of the evening was spent keeping the kids from getting entirely drenched in this:

We were only somewhat successful.  Even Lexi woke up and joined in the fun:

At last the seemingly never-ending line died down and the happy couple were ready to be on their way via a tunnel of sparklers.  Here is Kenna getting ready to bid the bride and groom farewell:

So fun!


Some people throw flowers at weddings.  Us?  Well, we like to throw our kids.

But no need to worry, there was no harm done:

Sorta.

All in all it was a PERFECT day!  Thank you Connie and Dustin for letting us be part of your amazing day.  We are so happy for you!!

And just in case you haven't seen quite enough pictures to do your ol' ticker some good, here are a few more from the reception in Woodruff the following evening:

Yep.  Proud mama right here. 

Summer...in a nutshell

So school starts in less than 2 weeks.  Yep.  Summer is just about over.  That means I have nearly a whole summer's worth of blogging to do.

On your mark....

....get set....

...GO!

Our Mr. Ty Man turned the big THREE!  Hooray for Ty!  I won't lie, we didn't do much.  But he loved being told all day long it was his birthday and being the special dude of the house.  Now he just likes to continue it on and say everything is for his birthday.  Here he is with some gifts.  And of course I didn't even take a picture of the little t-ball set we gave him until about a week later...just scroll down:

We just extended the celebrations into the following day for Jacob.  Happy 33rd Jacob!  And once again, my mad photo-taking skills failed me because this is the one and only picture I got for Jacob's big day:

A sweet little note from Kenna that says, "Thank you Dad.  Dad thank you so much for doing work for us.  You're the best dad ever.  Love, Kenna."  Pretty darn sweet!  Just for the record, I DID hang some streamers, I DID hang up some balloons, I DID put out a fun little birthday tablecloth, and I DID make a nice big birthday dinner.  I did NOT take a picture.  Eh.  Just use your imagination for a visual.

We have had a handful of afternoons running through the sprinklers.  Here is one early evening while out getting wet.  Even Lexi got to join in on this one:

We ventured out to the 4th of July parade:

And I finally got a pic of Ty with his t-ball set:

We took a little road trip up to Nephi for the Ute Stampede Rodeo.  Here we are checking out the rides before the rodeo started:

Lexi just got to ride the stroller.  But she seems ok with it!  (For a few minutes, anyway).

My two handsome cowboys:

One of my favorite things about this parade is when the Amerian flag comes in via parachute.  Love it!

Then a crew of men in their military fatigues rush in to pick it up:

It gets me teary-eyed every time:

And hey, look at that!  We got to have Aunt Marlene come with us!  It made the night:

Yee Haw!  Let the games begin!

A man named "The One-Armed Bandit" performed.  I have seen him before and love to watch him.  Yes, that is a one-armed man standing on top of his horse.  Said horse is on top of the trailer.  Not to mention prior to standing on his horse, he herded two full size buffalo up on top of the trailer as well.  So amazing!  

We went into the rodeo knowing we were toting along a one-year-old, so it was no surprise she didn't quite make it through the whole thing.  But, we got to see most of the exciting stuff and called it a night.  Hope we can make it again next year!

That should catch us up a little bit anyway.  Up next:  Connie's wedding!

The Last of Catalina

All good things must come to an end.  The same held true for our Catalina trip.  We are down to our last full day on the island.

Here we are getting ready to take a golf cart tour of Avalon:

We took a pretty good climb up the mountain to get some great views of the water and island below.  Waaaaaay down in the water are crazy people who get their kicks out of gliding high in the air in a parachute behind a boat.  Some people have serious thrill issues.  Then again, perhaps there are those out there who think that people like me have serious lack-of-thrill issues.  Guess I have to see both sides!

Another shot looking down:

Lexi loves a good ride!

Later that afternoon we went out on a semi-submersible ride to get a look under all that beautiful blue water.  While we were waiting to get on board, Ty was getting a little too friendly with Bridgy.  Oh boy, we are in for trouble!

Well hello?!  Doesn't everyone do the limbo while waiting in line?

In we go!  Let the voyage begin:

Below deck:

A look at the underside of Catalina:

So fun!

As we were coming back into the pier, all the passengers got to come up and ride up on top of the sub:

This fella here has the right idea:

And of course for our final night of the trip we had to head out to find some souvenirs:

The rest of the night was spent lamenting as we packed up all our stuff to head out early the next morning.

Here we are getting ready to board the Catalina Express to head back to the mainland:

So sad to say goodbye to everyone!  We had such a great time!  Here we are on the way back where a certain member of the family didn't tolerate the waves so much.  Don't worry Jake, we won't hold it against you.

Keeping Lexi entertained sometimes proves to be a bit of a challenge, but we made it through relatively unscathed:

We made it safely back to the car then hit the road for our 7+ hour ride home.  We loved every second of our trip!  The only bad part was trying to get back in the swing of things again....you know, the whole "needing a vacation from your vacation" deal.  Thanks again Bowers family for a perfectly perfect trip!