In the middle of August, we packed up and headed down to Indiana. Every semester, Chris has teaching duties and student duties. During the summer, he only teaches, and since the class is condensed "practicals week" and "finals week" happen the same week, making for one crazy week. This summer that crazy week fell right before his sister, Jenny, got married. So me and the kids packed up and headed down to Indiana a week early, giving mama some help, letting Carly get a whole lot of playing in, and giving daddy space to finish everything he needed to. It was nuts for him. He literally got done Thursday evening, hopped a bus to Detroit, jumped on a plane to Chicago, and made it late that night for the wedding Friday morning.
Me and the kids, however, had a nice week, full of pedicures and manicures, shopping and playing, campfires and s'moreos.
The wedding weekend was a little wild with the twins. It was a lot of traveling for a couple of babies who really don't like their carseats. We went a few hours up, an hour over, an hour down . . . Chicago is spread out. We stayed the night in a hotel, they got passed around a lot, and off the vague little schedule they had begun to thrive on. They did great for what we put them through, but remind me never to have baby twins during a family wedding again. Carly? Couldn't have had more fun. She is always up for a party.
Friday morning we headed to the Chicago LDS Temple for the sealing. It was a really beautiful, breezy day, not typical for Chicago in August. Carly was incredibly excited to see the temple. We pulled in and she exclaimed, "I love the temple!" We headed inside and told her she was going to stay out and play with some family, and she DID NOT like that. She started crying and said, "But I want to go inside the temple, too!" How do you say no to that? So I took her in to the front lobby. I showed her pictures of the Savior, she saw the people dressed in white, and her eyes grew wide at the sight of the beautiful chandelier. It is amazing that even a little child knows the temple is a sacred place, just by entering its lobby.
It was a beautiful sealing. Really beautiful. The sealer said words I really needed to hear and taught me a lot. And it wasn't my sealing! Its nice how that works.
[third wheel . . . she didn't get that she wasn't needed for every picture.]
[one amazing self-take. we love to see the temple.]
After the temple, we headed to Aurelio's for a fabulous luncheon of Chicago-style pizza. We get Aurelio's whenever we visit Chris's grandma in Chicago, so it was a nice choice on the luncheon. Especially since Chris and I got stuck at the temple grounds meeting the needs of the babies and showed up way late, so other people were done eating and ready to take our kids while I ate my body weight in GF pizza. We headed back to Indiana after the luncheon, in what was perhaps the longest 2 hour drive in the history of the world. Chicago suburb 5:00 traffic plus screaming babies equals one crazy party. We nearly left John on the side of the road. But he looks so dang cute in that bow tie, how could we?
Saturday evening they had a ring ceremony and then the reception. That afternoon Carly went with grandma to help finish decorating and reportedly had the time of her life. That night we got all dolled up in our purple and gray and headed to the "big wedding party!", as Carly called it.
[Carly watching the first dance.]
[dancing with new uncle Christian. she is a big fan.]
[dance the night away.]
Everything looked really beautiful. There was dancing, a photo booth, yummy food, and lots of people who wanted to hold my babies and entertain my 3-year-old. It was a nice night, where we kept the kids out too late but didn't care too much. Even this old mom and dad stole a dance to our song:
It was a wild weekend, but it was a perfect weekend.
We love Jenny and Christian and couldn't be happier for them.
Life is hard with our crazy crew, but it only takes a weekend full of family fun and a visit to the House of the Lord to remind me why I do this.
2 comments:
Looks like a fun time! The weather that week was fantastic, but now we're back to the heat :(
ok, I am obsessed with your little boy!! Maybe all of your kids for that matter! :) Such a cute family!
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