My Sister's Wedding!

My one and only little sister finally got married on Sunday, September 20, 2009. It was a lot of work for a lot of people involved (my mom made every single dress, the best man's vest and the groom's vest and tie; my mom and I also made three little butterfly wings for the flower girls; my mom, me and my sister made several bows for decorations; the bride (my sister) made jewelry for every one of the girls in the wedding and bracelets for every little girl who was in her new extended family; the bridesmaid's and bride made their own bouquets and made all the corsages for the men; my mom and I made 214 cupcakes for the Utah reception; Dan made a slide show of all of the pictures taken at the actual wedding for the Utah reception; we all decorated and undecorated the wedding site; and decorated and undecorated the Utah reception site). It was very stressful at times, and also very fun at times. Everything turned out beautifully. The dresses were beautiful and the flower girls looked so adorable walking down the aisle with their little wings bouncing behind them. Thomas was the ring bearer (oh yeah, my mom made his vest and the ring pillow too) and he was just the most adorable little ring bearer I have ever seen. He was so handsome and well composed. He made me very proud.

It took 9 1/2 hours to get to the Denver area where my sister lives. The kids were great for the drive. About half way through my mom hooked up the portable dvd player and we let the kids watch a couple movies. My mom got this shot of them watching the first movie.


This picture is of Jacyn using the air pump to pump up the air mattress that the kids slept on at my sister's house.


The day before the wedding half of the people in town for the wedding went golfing and the other half went to a place called the Butterfly Pavilion. It was really cool. Here are a few pictures from there.

This picture is of a bird eating tarantula. It was really big, like the size of my hand. Thomas had read about these spiders, but this was the first time any of us had ever seen one in person.

They had this other tarantula that they would let people hold. Thomas was really excited to be able to hold the tarantula. Jacyn wanted to hold it too, but I guess you had to be at least 3 years old to hold it.

There are lots of pictures of butterflies, and I only posted the best pictures. They were just all so beautiful, that I had to take tons of pictures.

This butterfly landed on my sister's hand. It was really cool, I just wish it had opened it's wings, it was bright turquoise inside.

Where they had the butterflies was really humid and tropical, so they had a lot of really pretty flowers there too. I'll just bore you with the two best pictures that I took of the flowers.

After leaving the area with the butterflies we entered a place that had a bunch of fun things for the kids to do, like a little zipline and information about butterflies and their life spans.

The day of the wedding started out very very windy and then there was a little rain here and there. The wedding was happening at at Country Club in the mountains of Colorado, so the weather was a little concerning. Then right before the ceremony started the windy/rainy weather paused and it was only a bit cool. There was a rainbow off on the horizon right behind my sister and her groom the entire ceremony, it was so beautiful. My dress was the most, I guess I could say, revealing of all the dresses, and I wasn't even cold. I think it had something to do with my little heater inside my uterus, and my emotions. I think I cried about the entire time. The moment I saw my sister walking down the aisle with our Dad I started crying. She was so incredibly beautiful and so happy. There was actually a point during the ceremony when I was crying and Dan looked up at me and I saw a huge tear at the corner of his eye. It was such a beautiful ceremony and so unique. My sister and her now husband are into kayaking and her husband works for a water conservancy organization called American Whitewater, so the entire ceremony was riddled with whitewater references, and at times was very funny. Their cake looked like mountains with a river running down it and the bride and groom were sitting on the edge with a kayak above and below them.

My sister's wedding ring was made to look like a mountain range in Colorado where they met with both of their birth stones set at the bottom of the mountain representing them, a diamond at the top to reference the moon, and smaller diamonds above that to represent the stars. She had the same person who made my ring make her ring. She had her husband's ring engraved with the same mountain range and their birthstones set in it to represent them at the bottom of the mountain range. The coolest thing about his ring is that it is made out of titanium and when our jeweler/master engraver told anyone of his colleagues that he was engraving the ring and setting stones in it they said he was crazy, that it couldn't be done. Well, he did it, and now my new brother-in-law has the only titanium ring, possibly in the entire world, that is engraved and has stones set in it.

Here's a picture of my sister and Jacyn before the ceremony. Then my sister, Jacyn and Letty.

The kids had so much fun dancing at the reception after the ceremony.

This is Letty and her new "cousin" Addy. They were best pals the entire weekend.

This is how Jacyn spent the entire reception.

This is my little brother Tyler.

My mom after the ceremony.

The day after the ceremony the weather really changed and it was only about 54 degrees. There was snow covering all of the mountains and most likely covering the wedding site. How lucky were we. The girls and I drove to Utah that day through snow storm after snow storm before hitting the border of Colorado and Utah. Dan and Thomas went with my sister, her new husband and a bunch of other people to go on an overnight river rafting trip down Westwater. This was Thomas' first time being on a river raft and apparently it freaked him out a little bit, but when you ask him about it now he thinks it was pretty cool. Apparently it is a tradition of my sister's whitewater group to paint everyone's toenails on one of the nights of their river trips, so Thomas and Dan came home with their nails all painted crazy. It's pretty funny to see Dan walking around in his flip flops with painted toe nails, it makes me laugh every time I see it.

Dan's toenails.

Thomas' toenails. Ignore the dirty feet please.

It took my mom and I two days to get the cupcakes made and decorated. I'm sure we could have done it all in one day, but with my kids and everything else it just made sense to break it up into two separate days.

Here's Letty's face while she was helping us make cupcakes. She liked licking the cake beaters, if you can't tell.

I found out about a circus parade that was happening downtown on Thursday afternoon, so we took the kids. It was pretty cool. Letty was a little disappointed that it was so short and not like a "normal" parade, but I really only took them to see the elephants, because when do you ever get to see elephants walking down the street?

And then the motorcycle cops had these clown noses on, it was hilarious.

The reception was the Friday following the ceremony, so we got to spend almost a week at my parent's house. Here's a few pictures from the reception in Utah. I didn't get many pictures, I was too busy mingling with my family.

In all, the kids were out of school for a week and a half and Dan was off work for 9 days. Those 9 days sure didn't feel like a vacation, but it was totally worth it. But I have to say, I am so glad that it's over. That was just way too much stress on my pregnant mind and body and after three days of being back home I still feel exhausted. I went to my 21 week doctor appointment on Monday and my midwife said that I looked tired. I am tired. I'm hoping to get back some energy soon though.