My younger sister Maggie got married a few weeks ago and I'm so happy I got to be there to witness it! Claire and I flew out together and Bobby, Franny, and Sophie spent the weekend with Wes and Jen (Bobby's brother and family) in Kansas City. That was Bobby's brilliant idea. The girls were so happy about seeing their cousins that it softened the blow when they heard they wouldn't be able to come and meet baby Aubrey or their new uncle Ryan, not to mention Warner, Hannah, Grandpa, and all their aunts and uncle Richard. I'm grateful Bobby was able to get a day and a half off to stay with the girls so I could go.
Maggie's mother-in-law Karen and our family friend Suzy teamed up to plan an absolutely beautiful reception. I just can't believe their generosity and kindness. It was a beautiful day. There were lots of people who made the day so wonderful. I am so grateful and I know it meant a lot to Maggie. My sister Julia did a lot for Maggie, too. I missed the wedding shower she did, but I heard it was beautiful. I wished that there was more I could do from out here. I was able to put together this video for the reception. And I will preemptively answer your question: yes, I took that out for the actual reception. I made this version to make my family laugh and this is the only one I loaded on youtube.
Claire and I flew out on Thursday night. Claire is a super easy baby. She's just pretty chill all the time. Not so much on an airplane, though. Poor kid. I'm sure it was her ears that were bothering her. The first flight was three hours long and I spent an hour of that standing up in the back of the plane. When it was time for me to sit, I thought for sure she would start screaming again, but instead she started laughing. At me, at the person next to me, and the person next to him... and then at the woman sitting behind me, and then the man sitting in front of me. It was so cute. I always sit next to the nicest people on planes. We had a layover and on my second flight I sat next to a really nice man from Laguna Beach. He asked what my husband does and then he told me his friend plays a doctor on TV, but he doesn't know anything about medicine. I said, "Oh really, what show?" He said, "ER. [something... blahh] John Stamos." I said, "wait, your friend works with John Stamos or your friend IS John Stamos." He said, "My friend is John Stamos." I immediately forgave the name-dropping and started freaking out. I told him how much I loved Full House growing up. I grew up in a really nice neighborhood in a gated community and I told him about how one time growing up one of our neighbors told us that John Stamos was in the neighborhood. We got on our bikes and rode to wear we were told he would be and saw a beautiful red convertible. We hung out there ALL DAY waiting for him to come out. We never saw him. I wanted to tell him the story of how Bobby signed Julia's sign-in book at her wedding "John Stamos" as a joke. It was hilarious. But you kind of had to be there.
Friday was spent helping for a little while at Suzy's, playing with babies, shopping for thank you gifts at Anthropologie, and picking out junk food for Maggie to take with her after the reception. That night we drove down to Richard and Kristy's house in San Diego and we all crashed there. Maggie asked me to be her escort at the temple- it was such an honor to be there. It's hard for me to express what it felt like to be there in the temple with everyone in my family apart from Bobby (who was back here with the girls) and Annie (who is only 17). It made me feel very close to them and close to my mother. Also, it was nice to see Maggie with her Ryan. When she left us that morning to drive to the temple (my Dad and Claire and I followed behind her), she seemed stressed and worried. I caught up with her in the waiting room 10 minutes after she got there and she seemed like a different person. She was calm and happy and smiling, once she saw Ryan I'm sure. I haven't really gotten enough of a chance to know Ryan- he's kind of quiet around my family. Maybe it's because we're all so darn loud. But I am really excited to have him in our family. He totally gets Maggie. You know how you want your sibling's spouses to love all the things you love about them? Well, I can tell that Ryan does. I can tell when he laughs at her jokes and by the posts he writes on facebook about her. They are very much in love and I'm so happy for them.
After the temple we had pictures and Ryan's aunt, Janet who was my girls camp leader back in Huntington Beach (small Mormon world), brought everyone chocolate chip cookies! Claire got to meet her aunt Gayle, aunt Cindy, and posed for this cute picture with her cousin Aubrey. It's so nice to have Warner cousins now.
Then we went out to eat at Pick-up-stix and a little place called Croutons. Maggie was holding one of the babies and she knocked a sprite on her wedding dress. (Thank goodness it wasn't a root beer.) So she changed into this 'lil wayne t-shirt. You gotta love Maggie. And I love this picture of Claire with her grandpa. It's about time they met.
After that we made the drive back to Corona and gave all the babies a chance to nap before the reception. Here's a cute picture of Claire with her cousins Warner and Hannah.
The reception was at our dear family friend Suzy's house. It was beautiful. She and Karen did an amazing job putting it together. There was an ice cream fountain and a taco bar. A taco bar! I thought that was the coolest thing ever. Those tacos were delicious!
My cousin Scotty and his wife Mickell were down from Utah on family vacation, and they surprised us by showing up at the reception! I hadn't seen them for such a long time and it was the best surprise that they came!! It was so much fun to spend time with extended family, and to see old friends from Huntington Beach like Chris King, Mel and Susan Markham, Kristen Curtis, the Fongs... and so many others!! I was so grateful to them for coming out and supporting our family!
It was such a beautiful wedding and I am so happy I could be there. Maggie looked beautiful and I'm so happy for her and Ryan.
Here is Franny giving Liz a little hug.
We were going to head over to the reception to eat dinner, but we decided since we didn't have Claire with us (she was home with a sitter), it might be fun to go out to eat without having to entertain a rowdy baby. So we all went out to eat together at Colton's before heading to the reception.
