Murphy's Wedding

I don't think I quite got around to posting about my brother-in-law James' wedding last month.  I blame it on the fact that writing things in Notepad on the netbook make me feel like I've done my due diligence. ;)

I haven't edited it at all in the past month, so maybe it's not well-written and maybe there are holes in it, but we all know that no matter how long we procrastinate, we usually end up never getting around to it if it's not at the top of the priority list.  And since we're moving in a few weeks and I want to spend time with friends and play with Carmen, blogging is one of those things that is just not going to get done, or it's one of those, "Just spit everything out and get it over with" sorts of things.  So I'm sorry this isn't going to be very eloquent or entertaining ... just my initial thoughts on life's fun events. :)

My sister-in-law wrote another post about the wedding here:
http://potatogirl-in-michigan.blogspot.com/2011/05/james-shauri-wedding-movie-night.html

Here's what I wrote last month.  Maybe I'll add a few of the pictures we managed to take.

Remember how I said my brother-in-law was getting married in Boston this year?  I've been really impressed by all the work my now-sister-in-law put into everything.  She wanted to get married in Newport, Rhode Island (it's where her family took a lot of summer vacations ... her grandfather grew up there or something.) and NOBODY LIVES THERE so we were all a little nervous about everything working out.

But it was absolutely lovely.

On Friday night, they rented out this little theatre and had a night full of entertainment and silly videos.  There were different categories of videos with four or five videos in each category and we got to vote for our favorites.

And you need some self-deprecating honesty ...


A few highlights from the night:
-Some of James' friends read "James' journal" which was supposedly part of WikiLeaks.  (Clever.)  They had James down to a T ... the sensitive guitar guy who had trouble finding the right girl. ;)  Some day I'll try to get the full text, but there were several times where they read, "I played my guitar for a bunch of people.  All the girls fell in love with me, and all the guys were jealous." and, "There's not enough stress in my mother's life, so I'm going to go to Syria!!" and, "There's not enough stress in my mother's life, so I'm going to stamp passports in Matamoros, where there are drug lords and gang firefights!"  James and his wife are shipping out to Baghdad, Iraq this fall.  Yep.  He's an exciting guy.  It was hilarious.

-Nate, James' older brother, did a karaoke performance with himself.  In his video, Nate said he has a fond memory of singing Les Mis karaoke with James back in the day.  He wanted to reenact it.  Then it showed a close-up of his face and he started singing the Valjean/Javier confrontation: "Valjean, at last, we see each other plain ..." THEN the REAL Nate came out on stage with a microphone and started singing Valjean's part!  IT WAS SO COOL WATCHING NATE SING WITH HIMSELF.  Everyone was screaming and cheering and it was AWESOME.

-Mark and our nephews, Eli and Adam, sang "We Are the Pirates Who Don't Do Anything."  Eli and Adam did typical little boy stuff (like dropping the music, fighting over some of the props, etc.) and it was just delightful.

-There was a video called "How Shauri met James" and showed an elementary school-age girl stealing a baby out of a stroller.  Shauri is about 7 years older than James. ;)  Ben and Karen are 8 years apart (I think?) and they make our 5 years' difference look small.  Nate could marry any girl over 20 and I don't think any of us would blink.  LOL.

-There were a bunch of things involving Baghdad.  They did some kind of "Cat in the Hat in Baghdad", speculated on how well Shauri could pull off a burka, had Shauri hire someone to marry James in her place in Iraq and he ended up marrying Osama bin Laden (so outdated! it's like they made this movie BEFORE last week!)

-Another category was mockumentaries.  There was an, "I'm sorry we couldn't make it to your wedding" video from these people who live in Australia.  It said, "Sydney is kind of far from Boston" and showed this globe map and drew this long dotted line from Sydney to Boston, Indiana Jones-style.  My favorite mockumentary was "Come to Boise! from the Boise Chamber of Commerce" and this couple had their young daughter talk about all the wonderful things there are to do in Boise, now that all of the cool places have left.  "Boise is the city of trees!  Look at all the trees!  One, two, three, four ... FOUR TREES!"  "Boise is rich in history.  This Little Caesar's has been here SINCE THE NINETIES!" and then she's in the backyard and she goes, "I'm sure this rock has been here for a VERY LONG TIME!"

-"Really, this is just a popularity contest, but vote anyway!" they said.  "Whoever wins gets the satisfaction of knowing they're awesome!"

There was a tie for best mockumentary, so the next day at the wedding reception each group had a minute to convince us that their video was best.  The Boise people did some kind of funky dance around the room and we all clapped and cheered and screamed.  I can't remember what the other guys said, but they trashed Boise a lot (it's too easy!) ... but the problem is, HALF OF US ARE FROM BOISE AND/OR LOVE BOISE ... so the Boiseans won.  "Boise sucks!" the losers retorted.

I think I love Shauri's friends and family.




Okay, so here's the drama part.  Everything took place in Newport except for the wedding itself, because the nearest temple is in Boston.  We all drove to Boston for the sealing and most people had a hard time tracking down the temple because the address is weird.  I couldn't find it on Mom's GPS and Dad couldn't find it on his phone's GPS, so we called the temple and they gave us a second address to try.  It worked.

So we all got to the temple and waited for the bride to arrive.  And waited.  And waited.  Apparently, her limo driver got lost and James spent a lot of time outside on the phone trying to get her to the temple.  We didn't mind the wait ... it was fun chatting in the waiting room.  We had SO much fun we kept getting noisy and the temple workers had to come in and remind us to use our quiet temple voices. ;)

After the bride arrived, we discovered the wedding license had been left behind in Newport.  An hour and a half away.  Several phone calls were made and they managed to fax a copy of the license to the temple.

Two hours later, James and Shauri were able to be sealed.  The ceremony was beautiful and simple, and the sealer (who I think was the temple president or something?) told some wonderful stories and shared his great humor with us.  "Who can I trust to hold on to the marriage license?  ... I keep telling them in Salt Lake that they need to get rid of the Murphy's licenses."  Lots of people love James and Shauri - half of the people in the sealing room were standing, and there were more people sitting down than there were chairs.  It was a really, really sweet experience.

Shauri's not my daughter and James isn't even my brother, but I bawled through the whole ceremony.

Finally!

Then it started to rain.

Luckily, they had access to a large Boston Red Sox umbrella!!  I mean, obviously. ;)

Part of the "theme" of the wedding was, "Sometimes love takes an unnaturally long time."  Everything was pulled off so well, that of COURSE everything not under your control (like the temple address and limo drivers getting lost) will go wrong.  Murphy's Law.  I don't think anybody really minded, and we can all laugh at this sweet story.  So what if everything else during the day got delayed and shortened and wasn't exactly how Shauri had planned it?  Not her fault.  And really, it makes for a great story.



I love you.

Welcome to our crazy family. ;)



More pictures and stories to follow ... about the things we did around James and Shauri's fun activities!  (From here on out, they are to be called by their celebrity nickname, "Shames.")

My Carmen is engaged!!!

My Carmen is engaged! Well, not the little Carmen who is mine in the genetic sense, but my big Carmen after whom my little Carmen was named!  We met up with her briefly this past January when Renai was getting married, and Carmen had been dating this nice guy named James for a while.  He's going to be a nuclear engineer for the navy (!) and she says they'll probably get married some time next year.

In Texas.

Woot.

CJ (what I called her when we were growing up) moved to Phoenix from Texas some time in elementary school.  I can't remember if she had lived in Dallas or what, but it was one of those places where they've all got hillbilly accents. ;)

I was kind of a dork in elementary school (who wasn't?) and had a hard time making friends.  One day in sixth grade, a new girl was entering our Honors Lit class and I overheard another girl from our class (Carrie Rice, your name will forever live in infamy in my family) saying things to the new girl like, "Oh, that's Kamis.  She's weird, she's a b*tch, nobody likes her, don't bother talking to her."  WHAT KIND OF SIXTH GRADER TALKS LIKE THAT?!  I was thinking, "Oh, how great, another person I barely know gossiping about me right in front of me.  I used to think you were cute, too."  The next thing I know, the new girl is turning to me and saying, "Hey, Kamis!" and we've pretty much been best friends ever since.

We played Donkey Kong and The Sims together, and swam and played make-believe on some big plot of land her stepdad owned, and went to the Renaissance Fair and basically had a fabulous friendship together.  That's why I named my firstborn after her ... she was the most fun, amazing friend I've ever had.  No drama.  No fights.  No nothin'.  Just plain awesomeness.  In fact, one day my mom pulled me aside and said, "I really like your friend CJ.  You are always so happy and so nice to your siblings after you play with her."  I feel so lucky to have her as a friend!!

So yeah.  I'm very excited for her.  Too bad there are no navy posts in Texas.

Some time, after I finish my Disneyland story, I will write a post about some of the people I secretly adore.  There are lots of them. :)  I guess this also means I need to go back and see if I managed to write anything about Renai's wedding and hanging out with CJ in January ...

Random Acts

So, I pretty much have the coolest husband in the world.  I have a strong desire to give and to serve, but there's also this stingy thorn in me that makes me think, "Okay, what is the cheapest way I can help this person out?"

On our honeymoon, we had stopped in Brigham City to eat some food and put gas in our car.  On the way to the freeway, we saw this guy holding up a cardboard sign that said, "BOISE" and just as we were passing him, I thought, "Oh, we're driving to Boise right now!  We could totally pick him up!"  Apparently, Mark had the same thought, because instead of getting on the freeway, he made a U-turn and asked if I would be okay with picking the stranger up.  Of course it was contingent on how comfortable we felt with him once he got in the car ...

Turns out he was on his way to Boise to see his girlfriend (or fiancee, I can't remember).  He didn't have a car and she was up there and they'd just had a fight or something and that morning they had been talking on the phone and he told her he was going to find a way to go see her.  I don't exactly remember the whole story (it was 5 years ago!) but he thought he was being terribly romantic and was really excited that someone had stopped to give him a ride.  It was an enjoyable trip.

A few years later, on our way back from one of our annual trips to the Oregon Coast with Mark's family, we saw another guy on the side of the road.  He had a big suitcase tied to a board with wheels and a dog.  Don't ask me how we managed to fit him into our 2-door Honda Civic ... but somehow we managed it.  I remember cutting my hand on a nail that was sticking out of the board (glad I was up-to-date on my tetanus shots! ha ha ha!) and he was kind of a crazy conspiracy theorist.  He was a car repairman who had lived all over the country and had just finished living in Hawaii.  "It was time for a change of pace, something new.  So I want to go to Idaho Falls."  Really?  After Hawaii, Idaho Falls is where it's at?  O.o;

So we dropped him and his dog off at some gas station in Idaho Falls and he merrily went on his way.  After that, we kind of agreed we weren't going to pick up hitchhikers again.  I was pregnant.

Last month, we went house-hunting in Austin.  A girl at one of the apartment complexes recommended we eat dinner at a place called Chuy's, where they have great Tex-Mex food.  I'm not exactly sure what "Tex-Mex" is, because it seems to me like it's more like real Mexican food than the "Mexican" food found in other places in the US ... Wikipedia doesn't help me too much.  Apparently the other Mexican food is "New Mexican" food, which explains why the Mexican food I grew up with ion Arizona seemed different from what I found in Matamoros/Cabo/Puerto Vallarta/Mazatlan, and why "Tex-Mex" felt more like Mexican food than what I thought was Mexican food ... for some reason, I grew up thinking "Tex-Mex" was Taco Bell compared to real Mexican food.

I still can't figure out whether Tex-Mex or New-Mex is more Mexican.  I LIKE BOTH.

Anywho.  Chuy's was really tasty and I was super-excited that we had a bunch of leftovers to take home.  On our way back to the freeway, we passed a hungry homeless guy with a sign.  I don't make a habit of carrying cash on me because credit cards are more secure and do a better job at recording my spending habits.  Anyway.  I happened to have a $5 and Mark suggested we give the guy our leftovers, too.  I knew he was right, but in the back of my mind, I was thinking, "siiiiigh!  I was so looking forward to eating my leftovers, too!  Why can't we give him something off the dollar menu at Wendy's or something?!"  The guy's eyes lit up and he blessed us when we gave him the money and the food.

We are so fortunate.

And, finally, last week we went to Disneyland for my birthday (still promise a post full of drama, intrigue, and car trouble!  or at least one of the three!)  On Saturday morning, we went to Subway to buy some sandwiches to eat for lunch.  Disneyland is awesome in the fact that they let you bring in food and don't force you to buy theirs. :)  Anyway.  I met a nice skinny homeless black guy while crossing the street who asked where I was from.  "Does it snow in Utah?  They say if you can't handle the cold you shouldn't move up north.  I wouldn't be able to handle it, considering what I've got." and he smiled and waved towards the scraggly sweatshirt he was wearing.  He wished me a nice day and we parted ways.

Inside Subway, I looked at the menu, thinking, "I know I like both turkey and ham sandwiches, and the ham sandwich is one of their $5 footlongs, so I'll save a buck and get a ham sandwich."  Mark and Carolyn were a little behind me and when Mark walked in, he said, "Let's get a turkey sub for the guy I saw you talking to at the light.  He just started talking to me and said he'd really like a turkey sandwich."  I kind of tried to get Mark to give him the ham sandwich instead (because I wanted a turkey sandwich, too, and had already ordered the ham sandwich!) and realized it was a really silly argument ... so we got the guy a footlong turkey sub and went on our way.

Anywho.  I'm thankful to have such a generous husband who makes me laugh at myself when I have petty thoughts like, "Aw, but ... leftovers!!!" and "but I want the turkey sub!"  Really, it means so much more to them than it does to me.  There is so much we can do to bless the lives of others.  Sometimes it's something personal like service, and other times it's something material like food.  We have much to spare.

Happy Birthday to Me!

We went to Disneyland for my birthday.  Our vacation was an unexpected adventure, which I will write about later (what is it with life and not having time to type?!), but anyway ... we got home and I noticed a big package on our doorstep.  Mom said she'd mailed me a birthday present, so I assumed the package was from her.

I went into the backyard to quickly water our garden before going to bed, and I heard this mysterious ripping noise coming from inside the house.

"Mark!  Don't open my birthday present!" I shouted.

"What?  How do you know it's your birthday present?"

"Because Mom said she sent me one.  Does it have my name on it, and is it from my mother?"

There was a slight pause, then a sheepish, "Um, yes."

"Okay. THEN STOP OPENING MY BIRTHDAY PRESENT.  Thank you."



Hahahaha.  I love my hubby.

And don't tell anyone ....... but I open his mail, too. ;)

Looking forward to Texas

I promise to have a real blog update some time soon, but I somehow managed to accidentally delete all the pictures from Carmen's birthday party and I've been too embarrassed to post since then.  I've also been busy doing things like apartment-huntinrg in Austin, playing lots of video games, watching Sadie, planning vacations, etc.  I have another blog I write in that's more like a personal journal in which I ramble about my life and thoughts and opinions and stuff, so this blog kind of gets last priority.

Anyway, in case you haven't heard, in May, Mark got a job offer in Austin!  They originally wanted him to start June 6 (haha, no way!) and we managed to get them to push back his start date to July 11th.  We went apartment hunting over Memorial Day weekend and found a great two-bedroom apartment to live in.  It's about 1.3 miles from Mark's work, about a mile and a half to the gym, and about 2 miles to go to Mark's work via the gym.  Score!  It's also a mile from the mall and across the street from the backside of Wal-Mart.  Could life get any better?  Maybe only if Costco were next to the mall. ;)

After going to James' wedding in Rhode Island last month, I've decided I could never live out East.  It never really occurred to me before that there could be a place I wouldn't enjoy living.  But I guess I truly am a Westerner.  Out East, it's too flat and there's too much traffic and the people are rude and the culture is different and they don't drink tap water ... but their accents are awesome!  There's a lot of neat history.  It's a fine place for a vacation.  But I no longer wish to live in Boston or Baltimore or Washington, DC.  I like it here, with the mountains and the wide open spaces and the genuinely friendly and easy-going people (who may or may not drive like retards, but hey!) and the non-accents.  I was once told that people from Colorado don't have identifiable accents and that tends to be what the national newscasters sound like.  SWEET.

But when we were in Austin, there were some definite accents going on.  It's not as bad as what I hear out of people from eastern Texas ... I guess it's because they're close to Louisiana and Mississippi and those other Southern places where they've got REAL strong Southern accents.  So cute, but ... yikes!  What if my kids grow up with Southern accents?!  Would that be better than a Utah Valley accent?  Anyway.  I've been having Carmen practice saying "y'all" and I've been trying to get myself to replace "you guys" with "y'all" in my head so I sound less out of place. ;)

We also almost moved to Austin instead of Seattle when I was a junior in high school.  How different life might've been ...

A few things that make me really excited about moving to Austin:
-I've always been a t-shirt and jeans kind of girl.  Now I will never feel under dressed around my friends!  But I wear flip-flops, not cowboy boots ... hopefully that will be okay. ;)

-I love the genuinely friendly "I just met you but we're gonna be real friendly and pretend we're already friends" attitude everyone has.  It's like I'm surrounded by a bunch of people a bit like me!

-I can finally admit I like some country music without shame!!
Mom and Dad like to tell the following story:
When my little brother Logan was a baby, he would turn the radio knob until it was just off a rock station and you could hear the beat through the static.  When I was a baby, I'd always turn the knob to country.  My parents were convinced I was either a) not theirs, or b) genetically mutated.  My self-proclaimed childhood theme song was "She's A Wild One" by Faith Hill ... you know, the one that goes, When she was 3 years old on her daddy's knee/He said, You can be anything you wanna be/She's a wild one runnin' free.

-I still think the accents are adorable.

-FRONTAGE ROADS

Things that scare me:
-I keep feeling like we're going to end up staying and my kids will grow up Texan.
-It's far away from my family (in Seattle).  It's far away from EVERYTHING.
-I grew up in Phoenix, where it is also hot ... but dry.  Will I be able to handle the humidity?  The epic hair battle continues.

Speaking of hair, I've been growing it out for a while and now it's about halfway down my back!  I love it!!