The third and final installment of our action packed trip to the UT!

The big day arrived on Friday and we were all very excited, especially Fiona. She had been looking forward to the wedding for weeks because she knew that was the day she got to wear her new yellow wedding dress and fancy wedding shoes. We subjected both girls to a shower (which they hate, but you can't be all sticky and grubby on wedding day!) and then put them back into their pyjamas (they still had to eat lunch, and it was pizza...).

We headed over to the wedding location, a very pretty historic farm by the mountains. After lunch we got the girls dressed and had Fiona practice her flower girl duties a few times, then other people began arriving and we were ready to begin! Fiona's cousin Emily accompanied her down the aisle, and many petals were dropped along the way, then in came the bride. I'm going to have to steal some pictures from other people here because Ben was working the video camera and I had my hands full of Adele so we didn't get any pictures of the ceremony. So you'll just have to take my word that it went something like this...

It won't let me embed it, so you'll just have to click. It's worth it. Trust me.

Here are some pilfered pictures too...

Beautiful couple...

(Photo by Mike)

Adele had a good time making faces at people sitting behind us...

(Photo by Mike)

The ceremony was really nice, and the Bishop who performed it gave some good advice to the newlyweds. Luckily it was also pretty short because Fiona really wanted to go and pick up the rose petals she'd scattered on the way in; after all, we had picked them up after our practices! We got her to hold off until the ceremony was done, then she insisted that Andrew should help her pick them all up. It was cute.

After that we got to congratulate the new Mr. and Mrs.

Photographs were taken and we hung out for a while and had Adele take a nap before the reception started. The dinner was delicious and then there was a program with speeches, songs and a funny video. I hear the program was great, but both girls were having a hard time sitting still so we took a break outside and I missed it...

After that it was time for.... cake! Oh, the cake. I have never seen so many delicious cakes. Fiona wanted to try all of them, which was fine with me because I got to finish off all the cake she didn't eat. YUM! Then later there was some dancing, which is always fun. Fiona had so much fun dancing with Emily and Adele endured dancing with me though by then she was very tired.

First dance as husband and wife...

Everyone dancing!

(Photo by Mike)

We saw off the bride and groom and then headed home. Both girls fell fast asleep in the car and went straight to bed. We headed sadly back to Minneapolis early the next morning, waving goodbye to the mountains as we went. The girls did great on the plane there and back though, so who knows, maybe we'll have another exciting vacation sooner rather than later!

Congratulations Laurie and Nate! Looking forward to seeing you both next month!

The second installment of our action packed trip to the UT!

If you missed the first installment you can check it out here!

Some of us woke up bright and early on Thursday morning, and the rest of us pried our eyelids open with a groan because wouldn't you guess it, no one under five likes to sleep at night on vacation. Grrr.

Still, morning it was and going we were getting! We packed up and headed out to see some mountains! First stop was Bridal Veil Falls. According to my source of all information, Wikipedia, Bridal Veil Falls is a 607-foot-tall double cataract waterfall in the south end of Provo Canyon in Utah. I love waterfalls, and this one was very impressive!

We settled by the little lake at the bottom of the falls and ate our picnic lunch.

Then the bravest among us paddled around in the lake. I say bravest because although it was a hot day, the water in there was absolutely FREEZING. I guess the water comes from snow melting on the mountain because it was so cold that you could only have your feet in it for a few seconds before feeling intense pain. If you're an adult, anyway. The kids that were splashing around in it didn't seem that concerned.

Fiona was reluctant to have her toes in for very long...

The Tennant kids endured the icy waters to have a photo-op on the falls.

And Adele took a nap for the most part. Yep, not sleeping at night really tuckers you out during the day!

Our next stop was Sundance! Yep, like the film festival. Apparently Sundance is owned by Robert Redford and is primarily a ski resort, but also has the Sundance Film Festival and Sundance Institute. Sundance is on Mount Timpanogos, which is 11,749 feet high, and the resort has a restaurant at 8,250 feet. In the summer the chairlifts are open for people to ride on to see the view from higher up, so that's what we did! Check out this link (yes, it's wikipedia again) to see some panoramas of the view and the mountain. The lift takes you up to 7,100 feet and although there is a lot of mountain left further up, the views from there are spectacular.

The ride up was a little nerve wracking, but the ride back down was very pleasant after Adele stopped screaming and went to sleep. Sorry, other chairlift riders...

(Credit to Cathy for that photo, stolen from her blog.)

We finished the day with delicious ice cream from an ice cream place that Cathy and Erik would eat at when they were in school at BYU. We were lucky to have our very own live in tour guide for this trip who took us to such awesome places! Thanks Cathy!

The first installment of our action packed trip to the UT!

Well, we're back from our trip to Utah for Ben's sister Laurie's wedding. The tales of our adventures there will come in a few separate posts - here is day 1!

We had a really great time. From the minute our plane landed we just went, went, went, and saw and did a lot of really fun things in the one and a half non-wedding days we spent there. Fiona has started using the expression "holy cow!" (I really don't know who she got that one from!) and that pretty much sums up a lot of the things we saw and did. I've never been to Utah before and although I know people ski there I was unprepared for the incredible mountains that are everywhere you look!

We arrived around 1:30pm on Wednesday and went straight from the airport to the This is the Place Heritage Park.

The park has a lot of history of the first Utah Mormon settlers (who were led west by Brigham Young, who declared "this is the place" when he spied the Salt Lake Valley) and is a really fun step back in time to Pioneer days. There are little houses and stores where you meet and talk to people dressed as Pioneers who tell you about blacksmithing or leatherworking, or some other pioneer-y thing, and you get to have a go at making something using pioneer time tools. Here are some pictures of the things we did there...

Horse riding...

Candle making... (Andrew had made one earlier in the day, so this was old news for him ;-)

Walking on stilts...

Fiona learns an important skill... pioneer laundry!

Mountains!

Hoop and stick games!

Crawling around on the ground!

We visited this house - it was very cute! Then we read the sign outside. A Scottish immigrant lived here with his wife and NINE children. That's crazy.

We would have stayed longer but they closed, so we moved on to other things! We continued our history themed day and next up was... Temple Square!

Temple Square is the world headquarters of the LDS Church, and has all kinds of interesting things to look at. The Temple itself is a beautiful building that took 40 years to build. Here we are posing by it (sorry there's a tree in the way!).

We were given a tour of different buildings, including the Tabernacle where the world famous Mormon Tabernacle Choir practices and sings. We also had a picture taken by the Christus statue, a replica of a famous statue which lives in Copenhagen. The room it lives in is painted with a the night sky and is full of constellations and planets, and is really strikingly beautiful.

After that we were completely exhausted, so we called it a day. More fun was to be had the next day, so we needed to get home to sleep. Stay tuned for our day 2 adventures!

Action Packed Weekend

This weekend it was really hot and really really humid, so everything we did seemed like it took a lot more energy than it normally would. We ended up doing a lot of things though, and had a fun weekend!

On Saturday we got out relatively early and headed over to St. Paul with our friends Gena, Aubrey, and Tanya to check out Highland Fest. I was hoping for more Highland Cows, but it turns out it's not that kind of Highland; that's just what the neighborhood is called.

They had some fair rides in a muddy field, so they were definitely channeling Scotland on some level, and not only that - there were a large number of deep fried foods, but with the added Minnesotan touch of being frequently served on a stick.

Fiona went on a truck ride with Daddy...

We did NOT go on the ferris wheel, aka spinning death circle.

Ben chose deep fried pickles (apparently these are called frickes)...

Fiona chose Fries and ketchup...

Tanya and Gena had cheese curds, and I had one of these...

YUMMY!

After that it was getting really hot so we headed back home for naps.

That evening Ben and I went downtown with our friend Mandy to see Tim Minchin. He's a British-Australian comedian who plays the piano and sings funny songs and does some stand-up in between. Here are some links to my favourites. This one is his best song (I think), though not his funniest. GO. WATCH IT. Here's an incredibly high quality picture to prove I was there...

The show was fantastic and hilarious, and we had a really great time.

Today it was even hotter than hot, and in between getting lots of productive stuff done Fiona and Adele ran around in the sprinkler to cool off. They love this so much, which must just be one of those weird kid things because I hate being sprayed with water, no matter how hot it is outside!

Thirsty? No problem!

Goofball...

Tomorrow it's going to be as hot as the surface of the sun, so we're going swimming early in the day with our friends, and then in the afternoon we'll be marinating in pools of our own sweat.

Another catch up.

Well, more weeks have gone by and I'm behind on the news again. Part of my problem is that I'm too easily distracted. I sat down tonight to write this and instead ended up reading this funny thing first. There is never a shortage of funny things to read on the internets. In fact, I just went looking for another funny thing as an illustration, and I kept finding more funny things and had to stop because I need to just get this done!

Anyway, since last time we had the 4th of July, which was fun. The weekend began with an emergency visit to the vet to see if the cat food can Brodie ate 2 weeks earlier was lodged somewhere unpleasant because he was not eating and was having some pretty horrifying digestive issues. Luckily it was not, and he's much better now.

On Saturday we joined some friends on their camping trip and had a lovely time with them. Fiona and Ben would like to go camping, but I am afraid of bears* and being stuck with two children who refuse to go to sleep, so I've been the naysayer so far. We had a really lovely time though, and plan to camp for real in a tent or some kind of rustic structure some time soon.

* I'm kidding. Mostly...

Fiona has discovered a serious love of hammocks!

We spent the 4th with Ben's family swimming at Grandma and Grandpa's house and then went to Cathy and Erik's house to eat food cooked on a grill, as is the tradition, and had a nice time hanging out with everyone.

We had some fun playdates including this awesome concert that we went to. Fiona had fun dancing around!

We had a really lovely day swimming and playing at the park, and a fun playdate today. I feel so lucky that the girls have friends that they've known for pretty much as long as they can remember and they have parents that are so awesome. I hope we are able to keep in touch and keep hanging out as they all get older.

Fiona and Adele went to their cousin Andrew's birthday party. He was 8 this year which means that it's been 8 years (as of the 4th of July) since Ben and I met. Crazy. His party was at the same bouncy castle place as last year, though this year Fiona was super excited to get right in there and play. Here she is sliding with Emily.

Next week we're heading to Utah for Ben's sister's wedding, and hopefully I'll post some exciting stories about what we're doing out there sooner rather than later.