A Very Utah Weekend

Jared, Me, Caitlin, Chris, Jordan, Tim

Last weekend, Jared and I made a quick trip to Utah for my brother Chris's wedding. I was hoping that this post would be my most visually appealing yet, showcasing my spazzy family outside the Salt Lake temple, the gorgeous copper dress I wore to their lovely greenhouse reception, mine and Jared's engagementversary overlooking Utah Valley on pi day, and video footage of the whole thing. I rented an excellent camera and a seriously gorgeous lens for the weekend (for my photographer friends, it was a 50mm 1.2L lens---I KNOW), but upon arriving home in Grenada, I was devastated to discover that the memory card I used all weekend had failed. 

I tried a variety of recovery options, called the camera rental place for advice, and even took the card to Jared's school's staff photographer for him to work on it. No luck. It's all gone for good. On the downside, soooo many good pictures and videos gone (thankfully I wasn't the official wedding photographer or videographer), including a video shoot of my friends Sally and Trent in their wedding clothes for my portfolio. On the upside, I'm really glad I learned this lesson before I start taking paying clients. From here on out I'll invest in quality cards and use a camera that can write to two cards at once, just in case. Have any of you had this happen to you before?

Despite the pictures being gone, I still wanna write a post about our weekend back home. I haven't journaled this yet, so it may be a long one. On Friday, Jared and I nearly cried when we went through a Wendy's drive-thru because, holy moly, America and value menus and convenience and CUSTOMER SERVICE. The girl at the window even smiled at us. Do you realize that customer service isn't a thing in many places outside the US? You'd think that having visited home so many times during our Grenada adventure we'd be over it by now, but we're not. And I hope we never are. 

That evening, Jared went night skiing with my brothers for Chris's bachelor party, and I went to Texas Roadhouse with my mom and grandma. Again, AMERICA. Mom was a bit on edge because our wait time was nearly an hour and the restaurant was pretty loud, but I was all smiles because our wait time was only an hour (that's like 10 minutes in island time) and my water glass was kept full the entire time and I can't even remember the last time I had a good steak before that day. And then that dry Utah air and vivid Utah sunset walking out? Oh gosh. I felt like a newborn baby, experiencing the world for the first time. 

Saturday was the wedding. The whole day felt like the Home Alone airport scene. Chris and my parents left early, so my brothers and Jared and I were in charge of just making it to the wedding on time and driving Omi (our grandma) there. Well, as we got in the car to leave in a very timely manner, it came out that Omi had forgotten her temple recommend. She lives about 15 minutes form my parents' house in the opposite direction of the Salt Lake temple, so we were going to be cutting it reallll close if we ran back to get it. My speed-demon brother Jordan was driving though and he took this as a personal challenge. We made it to the sealing room exactly three minutes before the wedding, even with Jordan being pulled over for a ticket a block before we got there.  All hail Jordan.

The wedding was lovely. My Uncle Al was able to do the sealing, and the weather outside was perfect for pictures. Chris looked so dapper with his scruff and his emerald green tie, and Caitlin was so pretty in her knee-length lacy white dress. Jordan, Tim, Jared, and I were alone in the party van for the drive home. We stopped at a Chick-fil-A (more weeping was involved because America and frozen lemonade and a girl taking our order while we waited in the drive-thru line because heaven forbid getting our food take us longer than 3 minutes!), and then sped on home because Jordan's ski rentals from the bachelor party were due back right then. 

Jare and I went along with him, hoping for some relaxing Jordan time, but we wound up taking several flustered-sounding calls from Chris and running last-minute reception errands. When we finally finished those we had about 3 minutes of time at home to change into our dinner/reception clothes and dash down to the reception center. The dinner/reception was held in a nursery. Everything was green and pretty. The food was excellent. We killed it with our toasts. And there were Italian sodas and cobblers served at the reception! Jordan's girlfriend Amanda met us there with supplies to decorate/suran wrap the getaway car. And then we embarrassed ourselves so hard in the flash mob dance that we had rehearsed like twice. We're so happy to have Caitlin in the family now! Yay for finally having a sister to offset all the testosterone at family functions.

The next day was our last one in Utah. It was filled with church and family time and watching old family home videos. It was really odd saying goodbye to everyone and all our things this time around, knowing we'll be back for good in just two months time. These past two years in Grenada have gone by entirely too fast and entirely too slow, all at the same time.