James and Shauri's wedding, Part I

I have no idea how many parts this will be, but I think if I don't start writing things down now I'll never get around to it.

James is Mark's next-older brother.  I first met him shortly after Mark and I started dating, and the first thing I thought about him was that I thought he was super-cute.  He's the random skinny blond-haired, blue-eyed kid in the family.  He hardly looks like his siblings, but he looks EXACTLY like his parents.  It's kind of like how my sister, Marissa, and I don't look very much alike (until we smile together) because we've inherited opposite traits from our parents. :)

James is really smart and speaks about a bajillion languages (okay, maybe it's just Portuguese, Arabic, and Spanish, but it SEEMS like a lot), plays the guitar and had his own band in high school and used his college money to make a CD, currently works for the foreign service and is going to Baghdad with his wife in September, travels like crazy, and writes poetry.

Last February, I met Shauri when we visited James in Matamoros.  She happened to be going to Mexico city and had a layover of sorts in Brownsville/Matamoros.  I don't exactly know how to describe this, but ... she's sort of the person I imagined myself becoming.  She served a Spanish-speaking mission in Anaheim and somehow managed to graduate from school without getting married and landed herself an awesome job that lets her travel ALL OVER THE PLACE.

Instead of graduating and traveling the world, I got married my freshman year and had my first kid shortly after graduating (or, at least, when I *should've* graduated if they hadn't cancelled all of my finance electives TWICE.)  Often times, life doesn't turn out how you envisioned it.

Anyway.  Shauri was amazing and awesome and slightly intimidating to me because I barely knew her and already idolized her.  James talked to Mark once and was like, "Should I pursue it?" and Mark was like HECK YES DO IT MAN.  Now I'm thrilled to have one of my idols in the family.  Don't let her know. ;)  I guess I'm also a little sad because now I KNOW I'm not the coolest daughter-in-law anymore. ;) ;) ;)




Okay.  So James lived in Matamoros, then went to Washington, DC to study more Arabic before going off to Baghdad.  Shauri lives in Ann Arbor, MI, in James' sister's ward.  She gets to travel all over the place because she kind of does video PR stuff for companies.  It sounds like most of her family lives in Ann Arbor, too.  So, of course, between James' family living on the west coast, Shauri's family living in Michigan, and James living in Washington DC, Shauri opts to get married in ... Rhode Island.  Makes perfect sense, no?

Mark's family goes to the Oregon coast every summer.  Larry (Mark's dad) has gone in on a house with some of his siblings, so we all stay at the "coast house" every summer.  Apparently, Shauri's family went to Rhode Island a lot when she was younger because her grandpa grew up there.  Or something.  So it's a gorgeous place and would be an AWESOME cool place to have a wedding.  They went all out and out of their way to make the wedding an awesome experience for all of us.  It was like a destination wedding ... a nice change from your stereotypical Mormon wedding.

*whistles innocently and looks away* Who, me?


Awesome fact #1: Kids under 2 fly free, and Carmen turned 2 the Wednesday after we returned from Rhode Island.  Thank you, James and Shauri, for choosing the first weekend in May so we could save $400+ on airline tickets. ;)

I was a little nervous about the toddler-on-a-plane thing, but Carmen and I have traveled together a LOT.  We've driven to Seattle several times and Mom's purchased plane tickets for us so we can visit her.  Plus, this time, we had Mark with us so hopefully the two of us would be able to entertain her enough on the flight.

Our flight to Rhode Island had two parts - first a short flight to Phoenix, then a long flight the rest of the way.  Our first flight was pretty empty, so we actually had a whole row of 3 seats to ourselves.  Carmen did a *fabulous* job entertaining herself and charmed the pants off everyone in the plane.  It's fun to have people compliment your kid after you land.  "Awww, you're such a cute little girl, you were so good on the plane!" to which Carmen nonchalantly goes, "Yeah." and elicits more coos from people.  Hahahahahahaha.

Our second flight was completely full, and we were lucky to sit next to a woman who said, "I remember what it's like to fly with a toddler." and, "You can sit by me as long as you bring her with you!" and would occasionally ask us if we needed to get up and walk around or go to the bathroom.  Carmen fell asleep on Mark's chest for a while and it was a lovely 6-hour flight.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

My parents tried matching their arrival time to ours, since we rented a car together.  We got off the plane and saw them standing next to the gate entrance, and for a while it felt like we were in some kind of pre-9/11 time warp.

Don't you miss being able to see your loved ones right at the gate?

Things went smoothly with retrieving our luggage and finding the car rental place, even though the car rental place was like ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE AIRPORT.  We took a bajillion moving platforms across the airport and finally made it.  Dad was smart enough to grab us one of those Smart Cartes, because otherwise ... there's no way we could've figured out how to get our luggage out.  Whoever invented the wheel was a genius.

Random side note: There was a guy with two kids who was also going to the car rental place, and he was wearing his kid's little backpack that was shaped like a Storm Trooper head.  I wanted to tell him "Happy Star Wars Day" (it was May 4th) but he looked kind of cranky and I didn't want to annoy him.

ANYWHO.  All of our luggage fit perfectly (and barely!) into the back of the SUV we rented and I wanted to be a good person and return the Smart Carte.  Dad wanted to leave it in the parking lot and let the airport people take care of it.  I took it back inside and got a lucky quarter from the cart return (hooray!) and on my way out, I passed by a lady who was on our flight.  She stopped me to tell me she thought my daughter was an absolute doll and I thanked her.

Seriously, it felt so good.  It was a nice vacation.  I'm so happy.

I think it makes a big difference when we leave on time, get there on time, and get enough sleep.  The beginning of a vacation is the easiest part. :D

We managed to find our hotel and got in touch with Mark's parents (who were staying in Boston that night because they wanted to revisit their old stomping grounds at Harvard) for what we would be doing on Thursday.  More about that next time, in Part II!!

My Best Friend's Wedding, Part I

Last weekend, my best friend from school (Renai) got married.  She lives in Arizona, and I thought, "You know what?  It's really not that far away, it's the perfect time of year to visit, and I haven't been there in a long time.  What better excuse to visit Arizona than my friend's wedding?"  So I filled out the RSVP card and said I was coming.  She seemed pretty thrilled that I was going to come!  Apparently, one of her OTHER best childhood friends (from New Jersey) was coming out, too!  "How awesome is it that my best friend from Arizona and my best friend from New Jersey are going to be at my wedding!" she gushed.

On Wednesday evening, we drove down to Richfield to stay with my grandparents.  It would cut off about 2.5 hours from the total length of the trip, and it's always nice to stop and visit with family for a while.

Kids get restless after spending long periods of time in the car, so we took a few breaks at rest stops to change diapers, eat snacks, and run around.

For the record, scorpions are arachnids, not insects.

She's just so cute ... I can't resist!

We got to Phoenix early Thursday evening, and I took the opportunity to go by the house I lived in until I was 8.

We used to have bunch of cacti and stuff in the front yard.  It looks a lot like the last time we came by (about 8 years ago) ... I'm disappointed they haven't gotten around to landscaping the front yard.  It looks terrible.  But they DID put a pool and a hot tub in the backyard.  I wanted to peek over the fence to get a good look at the yard, but there were a few ladies in the hot tub out back and that would've been awkward ... "Um, hi, I lived here 15 years ago and I just wanted to see what you've done with the place!  Don't mind me ... can we steal some of your neighbors' lemons, too?"

After making that quick trip down memory lane, we went to Ahwatukee and had dinner at my friend Carmen's house.  Yes, that is the Carmen my little Carmen is named after.  We met her sweet boyfriend, James, and her scaredy rottweiler puppy, Eza.  (I'll refer to my friend Carmen as either Big Carmen or CJ from now on ...)  Carmen was so excited to meet them both she learned a bunch of new words quickly.

CJ had fun playing with Carmen.  She and her mom (Gina) showered Carmen with gifts - clothes, a bead necklace CJ made when she was little, and a pink Beanie Baby bear.  Gina tried offering Carmen TWO Beanie Babies, but Carmen soundly rejected one.  (Like, smacked it onto the floor saying, "No!")  Carmen's favorite activity was bouncing down the stairs with Big Carmen.



Soon, it was time for bed so we went to Jeanni's house, where our family was going to sleep.  Jeanni was my piano teacher and Beehive leader when I was 8-13.  She's pretty much one of my other favorite people in the world ... but Mark won't let me name a kid Jeanni.  Yet.

I had baked a big batch of tasty oatmeal chocolate chip butterscotch cookies (with coconut, too!) to give as a gift to Jeanni when we arrived.  The bag of cookies made it the whole trip and Mark and I enjoyed snacking on them ... then something must've happened on that final stretch to Phoenix, because when we got to Jeanni's house the cookies were totally smashed up.

Mark walked into the house with the bag of mooshed cookies and said, "Hey, was I supposed to give these to Jeanni?" and she was standing right there in front of him.  I was thinking, "Oh, great presentation there, Marky." and Jeanni looked at him, looked at the bag of cookies, and totally cracked up.  She graciously accepted our offering and went into the kitchen to get some milk.  "Brian," she called to her husband, "Would you like some incredibly tasty cookie crumbs?"  We still managed to find several intact cookies!!!

Speaking of that particular batch of cookies ... when I was making the final pan of cookies, I turned off the oven when the cookies were almost done and forgot to take the pan out of the oven.  They weren't really burned, but they were incredibly crunchy.  Want to know something I learned from this experience?  FEED THEM TO BABIES.  They'll be highly entertained because they're getting cookies, but it will take them forever to eat each cookie because they're so hard!  Our trip to Phoenix was made a lot easier because Carmen was kept quiet in the back seat with her crunchy cookies. ;)

Or, just don't overcook your cookies in the first place.
You know.  Lemons, lemonade.

Recipe for Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies:
2 c butter
2 c sugar
2 c brown sugar
--cream ingredients together--
4 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla
--cream ingredients together--
4 1/2 c flour
4 1/2 c oatmeal
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
--mix ingredients together--
12 oz chocolate chips (if you want butterscotch, make it half and half)
(If you want coconut too, you can put in about 1/2 c coconut flakes.  I didn't measure it ... I just added the stuff that was left over from making coconut shrimp the week before.  hahaha.)

Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes, like you do with just about every other cookie recipe.

I decided to invent this recipe because I bought butterscotch chips at Winco and didn't have the right ingredients for magic cookie bars.

Tomorrow, I'll talk about the wedding and how much I love Renai's new husband!