Kari's Wedding

June 29th-July 2nd

It was so neat to be there for Kari's wedding. It made me think way back to when Shell got married, and even back to when I got married. We travelled to Missouri for Shell, they travelled to Utah for me, and now we were in New York for Kari. It is interesting what people you stay friends with, even after being friends isn't 'convenient.' I'm so glad I have such amazing friends.

We had the opportunity to stay with Sarah and her family.

Can I just tell you how much I have missed Kari's family?! Its funny, because when I met Kari in college, I really enjoyed being friends with her from the get-go. But our personalities are super different, and I didn't feel like I really understood the way she did things. ...until I met her family.  COMPLETELY different from my family, let me tell you! Her family is like Loving Chaos. Love is pelted at you from all angles, and my knee jerk reaction when I first met them was to duck to avoid being splatted. Since then, I have learned to just embrace it, and it is such a fun, crazy atmosphere to be a part of, and I LOVE it! I especially love Wayne and Gail. You will not find a more spry, fun-loving couple on this side of Jupiter. I love them to death! ...no matter how often I have to shave my legs to be accepted into their presence.

Anyway! Back to staying with Sarah's family. The twins kindly let us stay in their room. We got to hang out with Nathan the most, and he is so fun! We went on a bike ride and he gave us a guided tour of the school parks.

This is how much Riley liked this sweet kid biking contraption:

Overjoyed at the new experience

He got really good at entertaining Riley, and she really enjoyed being around him. Riley instantly fell in love with their dogs, and they were kind enough to tolerate a ignorant baby determined to touch them every waking moment.

During the night... well, this is how it went.

MY bed.

A picture is worth 1000 words, so I will leave it at that.

Thankfully, Aaron was kind enough to indulge us with garbage plates, so Chris was able to sample his first one! They are amazing, and every time I go back to upstate New York, I have to get one! So good!

Dan is awesome! Chris and I liked him as soon as we got to yell at him from the backseat of a van as he drove us to dinner. Down to earth, talented, fun and awesome advice on how to teach kids (which I am totally going to use as soon as I am asked to sub for Primary again!) It will be fun to see where her and Kari go in life.

During the sealing and reception, my overall takeaway feeling was that it was fun to see Kari be herself. She kindly made time to have dinner with us, and I saw her here and there. But she was understandably very busy with wedding things (I guess weddings are busy? ;) ). However, what I did see of her was a lot of fun.

I'm glad she found someone as wonderful as Dan, and that she didn't change to 'make things work.' She is her normal, crazy, goofy, wonderful self, and I enjoyed watching her do the typical wedding things, but with a definite Kari-Style.

Buffalo airport is officially our favorite airport the moment we spotted the kids play area. Genius!!

Riley really was miraculously well behaved during the marathon flights. Here is us entertaining her with our phone cameras and blinding her with airplane passenger lights. Whatever works, right?