His Best Friend's Wedding

Will's best friend from university got married earlier this month. It was out in Utah, but we developed a brilliant plan to be able to attend. We flew out from Dulles on a Wednesday, the wedding was on Friday, and we set out on a cross-country road trip to Virginia with the newlyweds on Saturday morning. They had their honeymoon and a ring ceremony with Matt's family here in Virginia.

It was a lovely wedding. Caitie's dress was stunning. The temple and ring ceremony/reception venue were beautiful. The food was excellent. And the bride and groom were just so happy!

We were all staying at Matt's apartment in the days leading up to the wedding.
Dan and Will reeeeeally love Matt. Can you tell?

Two college buddies pondered their post-university futures many years ago.
Now, two married buddies ponder their post-wedding eternities.

Will's sweet action shot of the garter toss

Theme Song: Better With You, Five Times August

Summer Photos

Will is working full time for the summer and I'm applying for jobs for next school year. Things aren't exactly exciting every minute of every day. Here are a few pictures, from when I actually remember to pull out my phone...

The last two potatoes we had before we moved to Virginia

Our first place in VA--the attic

Will barely clears the ceiling. Oh, and he has a beard all the time now. All the time.

At the new place, we're on the second story. This lizard climbed up to say hi.

Rock Band with our Nephews

Down in Colonial Beach last weekend, they were having Jet Ski racing dockside.

Theme Song: Those Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Summer, Nat King Cole

Of Sand and Sealing

LA County

Saturday morning we left Burbank for the LA temple. And missed the 8:30 session by minutes. We thought it was at 9:00. Instead, we walked around the grounds a bit before attending the temple. We also got to go to a sealing, and Will even saw a stake president from his mission who now works at the temple.

Brooke + Brad

After the temple we headed down to Santa Monica Pier

The Edge of Santa Monica Pier

How we found a space with no people to take pictures, I will never know.

The Pacific. I haven't seen you in years.

Touching the Ocean. It's been so long :)

Before we headed up to the Palmdale area for the rest of our stay, we had to pick up our completely redone transmission to put back in our car. Over $1000. NBD

The beautiful 2011 Jetta we drove from Vegas and on our first days in California

Theme Song: All I Wanna Do, Sheryl Crow

What Happens in Mesquite...

Our car occasionally has issues.

Like, this one time we came out of our apartment to go to church...and were late because a flat tire forced us to walk.

Or that other time the headlight burned out (and Emily dropped the brand new bulb on the way out of the shop...yeah...)

But our recent trip to California takes the cake. We had planned a lovely little vacation just before July 4th to go back and visit Will's mission and get a few things worked on for the car (alignment, brake pads).

The first few hours were excellent. Will driving, me reading, and a stop at the St. George Temple.

After a stop in Mesquite for gas we switched drivers: my turn. 15 miles outside of Mesquite I was in the left lane being tailgated by a white SUV so I decided to speed up to finish passing the car in the right lane. But I kept going slower and slower......and slower...... Soon I'm going 10 mph and I finally am able to pull off onto the right shoulder. Let the car rest. Try again. 10 mph. Switch drivers. Will goes 12 mph. Different (but not really). Time to call a tow truck.

Calling the Tow Truck, Insurance Agent, and our various Saviors

The ...beautiful... landscape we were trapped in

Luckily we were sitting on the side of the road in 113 degree heat waiting an hour and a half for a confused tow truck driver. That's the Old Spanish Trail out there. Is that Dominguez and Escalante?!

Sitting in the air-conditioned cab of the tow truck as the car gets loaded

On our way back to lovely, lovely Mesquite

Finally we were dropped off in the Mesquite Walmart parking lot. Friends from Will's mission were heading from Palmdale, CA to Mesquite, NV to pick up the car and tow it home to start working on whatever had gone wrong (that's a ten hour trip people. driving through the night). We spent the next few hours in Mesquite until friends heading to California from Utah, a few hours behind us, arrived, willing to give us a ride.

We were about to load our suitcases into the back of their car when Will decided he wanted to move the car into the direct line of a Walmart security camera. The engine turned over just fine and there was no resistance, so, what the heck. Will took off at over 40 mph in the parking lot (don't try that at home kids). We decided to try driving to Vegas with the other car following behind in case we broke down again.

One stressful hour later, we were checking into our hotel. The car was picked up in Vegas, shaving two hours off of the trip made on our behalf to come pick up the car. Safe and air conditioned and grateful for good friends, we spent Thursday night in Vegas, as originally planned.

 Bidding a not-so-fond farewell to our car outside our hotel

 Theme Song: That's Life, Michael Bublé

Temple Trip

There are a lot of temples in the West, and since Will and I plan on eventually being permanent East Coasters, we have decided to visit as many as possible during our last year of living in Utah. Our temple visits so far:

Washington, DC Temple

Salt Lake City, UT Temple

Mount Timpanogos, UT Temple

Funny story. This picture is not actually from the time we attended the Mount Timpanogos temple, but the time we rushed there to barely make it to the last session of the night, only to discover that it was closed for repairs. Yeah... The day we actually attended this temple, it was so windy that although we took pictures, I cannot bear to put those images of my hair on the internet.

Theme Song: I Love to See the Temple, Janice Kapp Perry