Wedding Season

Our journey down to Cedar City began early Friday morning with a baby who was not too excited to be confined to a car seat.

After several hours of kicking and screaming, we finally made it. Jeff took the opportunity to have a skilled professional give him his now traditional summer buzz.

While Jeff was losing his hair, Mary, Laura and I were preparing a bridal shower for Bryan's soon-to-be wife, Celeste. I made the invitations and then we had a good time getting creative with the French theme.

Here's Celeste with her mom.

Some of the food. It was a windy day so we had a hard time keeping everything in its place.

The presents.

Mary, Grandma Edwards and Aunt Shirley.

Laura, Cassie, Becky and Celeste. (Don't you love those brightly colored chairs in the pictures?)

We played a few bridal games. These two were some stiff competition.

Then I quizzed Celeste to see if she could guess how Bryan answered a few questions. We were all in shock as she correctly answered basically every question when some of us who have been married for several years couldn't even have completed the challenge.

Then we ate Laura's delicious chicken salad that I have been craving every day since the shower. We also had a fruit salad, rolls and lots of little desserts -- including some peanut butter bars I made that barely survived the drive across Utah. They were ugly, but they were good!

Here's Celeste ready to open presents and eager to hear all of our marriage advice.

Here's Aunt Louise and Laura.

What's a bridal shower without bows knotted up in the bride's hair?

It was a perfect bridal shower. It was nice to sit around and chat with a bunch of girls, but before long we were surrounded by kids and men again. After the guests left, we got out the questions we had asked Celeste at the shower and we quizzed the husbands and wives. We were so caught up in the game that we didn't realize Eli was grabbing a little snack from one of David's plants:

That kid!

The next day we woke up and went straight to the temple to see Jeff's friend Will get married. Best day of my life! Will and I have a long-running joke that Jeff loves Will more than Jeff loves me. I knew the only way I could get between them was to get Will married off.

So you can imagine how I kind of felt like it was my wedding day, too, because my Jeffy was finally all mine! Yay for Will and Diana! It was a beautiful wedding.

When we got home from the day's festivities, we found all the grandkids huddled around Grandma and Grandpa Excell's fun new popcorn machine. I warned them that Grandpa Thomas is notorious for being the popcorn grandpa. Sorry dad, it looks like you might have to up your game if you want to hold your title.

The drive home was significantly more pleasant than the drive there. Whew.