It's finally official, my baby sister (in-law) is finally married! She had a beautiful day to celebrate the happy occasion. And while we are so happy for both her and Nate, it turned into a long day for our little boys.
We started the morning around 6 am, getting up, showered, dressed and such. The boys were granted a little bit longer reprieve from the early morning rush. But we all managed to get dressed, eat breakfast and be out the door by 8:00. We were thinking about making a couple quick stops along the way but thought better of it and headed straight for Uncle Dan's and Aunt Monica's house in Bountiful. The boys watched a movie as we drove.
We managed to find the house without too much difficulty, only 4 wrong turns. We arrived shortly after the Boel's and our boys were sooo excited to see their cousins again. They all quickly congregated in front of the massive TV so they could watch their (the Boel's) 2 new movies that they had received for Christmas, Wall-E and Kung Fu Panda. The Petersen's showed up shortly after that and were gracious enough to watch the crew while we went to the temple for the wedding.
Everyone made it to the temple in time for the ceremony, although Jared and Tosha certainly cut it close, just beating the happy couple by 2 minutes! Kaylynn and Nate looked quite nervous, with smiles bigger than I've ever seen before. Their sealer was quite an amazing man and he took the time to explain the importance of the marriage covenants to Nate and Kaylynn. And although everyone else in the room that day was married, I think everyone learned something new! It was really quite amazing.Finally the moment of anticipation had arrived. Nate and Kaylynn already had a little practice saying their lines so that they would be ready at the appropriate moment. Then the sealer started the ceremony. "Nate, do you take this woman to be your wife," the sealer starts. "YES!" blurts our Nate, in a tone loud enough for everyone to hear. The line was right but the timing was not. It was such a beautiful display of excitement and anticipation that it left no doubt that he's in love with Kaylynn. However, the timing caused the entire room to start laughing. That is the first time I can remember laughing out loud in the temple. The rest of the ceremony proceeded in a calm and dignified manner, appropriate for the temple.
With no little children around the picture procession began in spite of the cold a freezing temperatures. As the age of the digital camera evolves, it has caused a most unusual situation. I think there may have been more cameras than people! In any case, we joined the wedding processions (there were 3 different weddings trying to take pictures around the temple while we were there).
After pictures we headed back to the Petersen's house to claim our children and head to Grantsville. It was a short enough ride (only about 45 minutes) so we didn't bother to put on a 4th movie for our children to watch. Once in Grantsville we headed to the chapel for lunch and to begin the reception set-up.
The kids weren't much into setting up so they ran laps around the church. It was a clever church official who designed the modern LDS chapel in an oval, much like a race track. The kids thought it was great and began several forms of tag, hide and seek, keep away, and who knows what else. In an effort to calm to raging herd, the TV and VCR were found and another movie was started. By this time in the day the movie concept was worn out. It might have worked if we could have come up with several "new" movies that the kids hadn't already seen. So the TV played and so did the kids.
Despite the kids exuberance the reception was coordinated and before we knew it dinner was served, cleared and the guests started arriving. We quickly dressed our kids appropriately and tried, in vain, to corral them in the primary room.
Before the clothes got destroyed, soiled or in some other way messed up, we captured the beautiful bride and got a picture with nearly all the cousins.
