monkeymom's Diaryland Diary
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In which I lose my son but gain two daughters.
Got back from the wedding trip last night and we were glad to be home. Rachel flew home on Thursday, so after she slept for 12 hours, she picked up Buffy from "camp", baked a quiche, and made some fudge before she went to work at 7.
We got home about 7:30 and were happy to find food and our dog. The dog was happy to see her daddy!
The trip out was fun - we looked at the changing scenery (antelopes!) and listened to The Half-blood Prince on CDs, and I had knitting, so it didn't seem long at all, and was actually very pleasant, except for some scary moments when Kim was driving on the highway through Nebraska, surrounded by big trucks.
We arrived at the hotel in SLC and took a walk around Temple Square -across the street- and as we walked back to the hotel, Rich's parents were just getting out of a taxi in front of the building. It was late by then, so we all just went to our rooms and to bed. We had a view of the lit-up temple spires from our room!
Tuesday I woke up early and had to wait for everyone else to get up so I could go find some breakfast. The hotel had a very nice breakfast buffet but no Diet Pepsi!
We toured the conference center and went up to the observation deck at the church office building before Rachel arrived at the hotel, and had time for a nap! Of course you know that Monkeys Never Sleep, so I watched TV and knitted while other people napped. When Rachel got there, we drove to Provo to meet up with Scott and Carolyn.
We saw their apartment and met Carolyn's friend Katie who had come from out of town for the wedding, and we went to a very good sandwich place for lunch. After that, Scott and Carolyn still had errands to do, so we took some of Scott's things with us and planned to meet at the hotel in SLC later. We also took Katie, so that she wouldn't have to do boring errands with them. She could do boring sight-seeing with us!
Inger called us when we got back to the hotel and wanted to meet for dinner. She had just flown in from Michigan, and was starving. Someone at her hotel gave her directions to a Japanese restaurant, so we set off walking to meet her. We walked and walked and walked, just like the pioneers, and met up with her in front of a cool, funky, mall! The Japanese restaurant was crowded and had a long wait, but there was a Carribean restaurant nearby, so we ate there and it was very good and different!
Inger and I both needed something to read, and Kim and Katie love bookstores, so we all went to a B&N to shop. It was about 10 when we started walking back to the hotel, and we had planned to take the Trolley back to the hotel, but while we were in the bookstore, Scott called and said he and Carolyn were at the hotel and would walk down to the mall to meet us, so that meant we had to walk back so we could find them. Darn!
We walked and walked, and watched for S&C, but never saw them. We all sat down in the nice airconditioned lobby to wait for them, but then through the lobby window, we saw Rachel and her date crossing the street toward the hotel, so we all piled into an elevator so they wouldn't think we were stalking them! Scott and Carolyn walked in just then so we pulled them into the elevator with us!
Back in our room, the kids starting playing cards and the room was crowded and a mess, so Rich went to the desk and got another room for us and we moved down the hall for the night. It was quiet and a lot less messy than our former room, which was full of luggage and kids! We were on the other side of the hall, though, so we lost our view of the temple spires! (We moved back into the room with the kids the next day.)
In the morning we met Sarah and Chris for breakfast - they had arrived late the night before, having had a delay in leaving because of the weather, and then another delay when a bag was temporarily lost.
Carolyn had to go with her mom to get beautified for the wedding, so Scott, Rachel, Rich and Chris went to tour Temple Square, while Sarah, Kim and I met up with Diana's parents at the hotel. We had a nice visit with them and then they went to rest up before the wedding. Diana arrived after that and we arranged to meet Inger, Jeanette and Kate for lunch.
We asked the desk clerk for directions to the restaurent and then started off, walking, to meet Inger and the girls there. Rachel, Katie, Diana, Sarah and I walked and walked and walked and found the restaurant, but the desk clerk was completely retarded, because he sent us walking for blocks, and when we got there, we could see that it was actually quite close to our hotel. We had just gotten there by way of the pyramids. Idiot.
Lunch was great - the food was good and we had fun together. We wanted to look for a yarn shop, but after lunch there wasn't time! We had to get back to the hotel and dress for the wedding!
The wedding was lovely, except for the waiting, and then there was the part where we had to stand around in the hot sun for pictures. That makes two hot summer weddings I've attended this year. The next one I'm going to is in September, and I hope it's cooler, but with my luck there will be a freak heat-wave in Ohio this fall.
After pictures by the temple, we walked, (and have I mentioned how much my feet hurt?) down the street to the reception. It was in a historic house, so all of the guests were spread out through the rooms, and that made it a little hard to see the people I was looking for. It was great to see friends and relatives that I hadn't seen in a long time, including some friends from Illinois and Michigan who had made the long trip, too!
Dinner was outdoors and it was very lovely, and thankfully, had cooled down by the time we went out to eat. Scott and Carolyn exchanged rings and said some very sweet things to each other, so we were all choked up.
The dinner was good, but Rich and I were at the head table and didn't have anyone to talk to but each other. We did have a nearby baby to play with when he started fussing because it was late and he was tired, so we asked to hold him. He was darling, and had a very pleasant personality!
After the baby's parents took him home to bed, we got up and talked to people and watched the dancing. The DJ was as good as Carolyn's mother had hoped, and our kids were all up dancing as long as he played.
Then someone started passing out little bottles of bubbles to blow and we went out front to see the wedding couple off in a horse-drawn carriage.
My feet were killing me, and I wasn't the only one with my shoes off by then! We had to walk back to the hotel, and when we got there, Rachel ran a tub of hot water and I sat on the edge of the tub with her and Kim so we could wash our filthy feet. That hot water felt so good!
We said goodbye to Katie (our new daughter) that night, as she was leaving early in the morning. We were all so tired that we went right to bed when she left.
We had breakfast with Sarah and Chris in the morning before we left. They were staying for a few more days to visit with his brother, who works at Snowbird. Rich's parents were flying back to Michigan early, so we didn't see them before they left, and Inger and Jeanette were also leaving early. We found out later that they were on the same flight and sat near each other. Rachel had a flight back to Illinois in the afternoon, but she wanted to go to the temple before she left, so she packed her bag and went to the temple. We were on the road out of town by 10 a.m., but Rich was dying to see the Salt Lake, so we had to spend an hour driving out there to look at it. It's not really a tourist attraction; it's not pretty and it doesn't smell so good, so I didn't even get out of the car.
Why is it that the drive home seems longer than the drive to get to your destination? It wasn't a bad trip home, though, and we did get the power cord for Rich's laptop back when we stayed overnight at the same hotel in Nebraska that we stayed at on the way to Utah.
8:16 a.m. - 2006-07-01
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