Bir-Cay-Ding, Part 3

Here is the third and final installment of the fabulous Bir-Cay-Ding. YAY!

(I would have gotten to this sooner, but we've continued to be busy.  I really will post about those things, too.  Remember: good things come to those who wait.)

So, the wedding.  First of all, I just want to mention that I'm so glad that Chris and Lexi got married, because Chris is a super awesome guy.  I can tell they fit each other really well.

July 30: pre-wedding
While we were getting ready after our horse ride and ski lift ride, Lex and her cute/awesome/amazing bridesmaids and Chris and his groomsmen were out gallivanting through the woods getting their pictures taken.

Then we got to join in the picture fun.  Lexi's wedding colors were a true orange and royal purple.  I was out with my mom shopping the week before, and we found these awesome orange ties, so we got them for my three boys and Pete to wear.  And Ivy was a flower girl for Lexi's wedding, so she had a way cute orange dress that my mom had made.  I completed the orange ensemble with a sweater and a white flowery skirt.  Which, I just realized, I don't have any pictures of myself.  I really need to hand the camera over to Pete every once in a while.

Here's Brock:

And Troy:

And Jakob:

Here's Ivy, holding Lexi's wedding bouquet.  Ivy was being shy at first about pictures, but then later on warmed up about it.

And here are my handsome boys.  I love how they all match, even Pete.

Here are Lex and Chris, ready to do the Toyota jump.  (Or is it Ford?  I really can't remember.)  Lex looks like she's getting ready to jump into some cold water or something.

The ceremony
I think I already mentioned that Lex and Chris chose Grand Targhee as their wedding site.  Lex really wanted an outdoor wedding.  Even though it was bright and sunny and warm earlier in the day, at about 3-ish it started getting cloudy and started sprinkling.  Then it started raining pretty hard for about 20 minutes or so, right before the ceremony was about to start.  There was a tiny little room just inside, and we asked if she wanted to set up in there, but Lex, being the weather girl she is (or something), said to wait just about 15 minutes.

And about 15 minutes later, it stopped raining.  Perfect!  It was a little cool out, so my kids were cold, but it was the perfect temperature for the adults.  It stayed rain-free the whole ceremony (it started getting windy near the end, but not too bad), and as soon as it was over, it started raining again.

Then the aisle walking began.  My parents led out, because my dad officiated!  Cool, huh?  He had been a bishop a while back at Ricks (which is now BYU-Idaho), and they checked the laws for Wyoming about marrying people, and it was totally okay.  Which, by the way, my dad ROCKED it.  I've always admired his teaching/speaking/officiating skills.

Lexi's friend Mark Doubleday, who is an EXTREMELY talented musician and composer, played his cello for the ceremony.  He's the one that helped Lex help me and Pete when we rapped at our ward talent show.  Let me find the link....okay, it's here.  And that's my cute uncle Kurt holding the umbrella for him.  Kurt also helped wipe down chairs after the rain for people to sit on.  He's such a great guy.

After the bridesmaids and groomsmen walked down the aisle, it was the flower girls' turn.  I really didn't know if Ivy was going to do her part.  In these kind of performance situations, she will either ham it up, or freak out and cry and scream or run away.  I really had no idea.  Chris' cousins, Maria and Julianna, were the other two flower girls.  The older girl, Maria, who is 8-ish, started to explain to Ivy what to do.  And Ivy got all excited about it.  So I sat down, but was at the end, in case I had to jump up and rescue Ivy.

But man.  She started throwing the flower petals on the ground.  And when she decided to do it, she was going to THROW the CRAP out of the FLOWER PETALS, DANGIT!  Maria had to kind of drag her down the aisle (they were both holding one of the baskets), and Ivy threw and threw and threw.  She had a blast.  And they were all just so stinking cute.

(That's a better shot of the dresses my mom made.  Cute, huh?)

And there's the beautiful bride, with Gramps.  My grandpa rocks, end of story.  His jacket was super sweet that day, too.  It was blue, and made of...suede?  It was really soft.  I asked him about it, and he said it was really really old.  But it was beautiful and in great shape for how old it was.  He's such a cute guy.

The flower girls stood there during the ceremony most of the time.  Ivy ran to my mom after a while, and I think Julianna jumped ship, too.  It's hard to see in this picture, but Ivy gets this confused look on her face.  She had it on during the whole ceremony.

There was a part during the ceremony where Lex and Chris read their individual vows to each other.  I got all teary when Chris read his to Lex.  (Um, and I just realized that blogger erased a bunch of what I had written right here.  Stupid blogger.  But let me sum up: Chris talked about how they met and how he knew they would be together.  Lex talked about how excited she is to start their life together.)

(Yeah, I probably just totally botched that up.  Lex, I hope you and Chris have your real vows somewhere.  I KNOW they are more eloquent than the craptastic summary I just wrote above.)

Like I said before, my dad did an amazing job.  Near the end, he read an Apache blessing of sorts.  I really liked it, so I found it on the internet.  For your reading pleasure:

Now you will feel no rain,
For each of you will be shelter to the other.
Now you will feel no cold,
For each of you will be warmth to the other.
Now there is no more loneliness,
For each of you will be companion to the other.
Now you are two bodies,
But there is one life before you.
Go now to your dwelling place,
To enter into the days of your togetherness.
And may your days be good and long upon the earth.

It was just a beautiful ceremony. I cried, and laughed, and got chills...it was just so wonderful.  I'm so glad I got to go and see it.

Oh, and after Chris kissed the bride, he dipped her, and kissed her again.  Lexi's face right before the dip was so funny-her eyes got really big, and had a look of "don't drop me!"  It was funny.

Party time
Like I said, I was warm enough, but it was a bit chilly for my kids.  After the ceremony, everyone headed over to the tent they had set up, where we would eat dinner.  I ran and got jackets for my kids (because even though we were mostly encased, the cold air was still coming in).

Here's Lexi.  Doesn't she just look so beautiful and so happy?  Which, she had her makeup lady come up to the resort, and got her makeup airbrushed on.  Sweat free, smudge free, tear-proof...she's a thinker.

They had toasts, where the Best Man and the Maid of Honor gave little speeches, as did the parents.  Lexi's Maid of Honor was a girl named Kate.  Let me tell you, Kate ROCKS!  She told this awesome story about how Lex would talk about Chris when they first met, but they (Lex and Kate) had a nickname for him of Javier.  It was so funny!  Also, there was dancing later on, and when the DJ was doing a crappy job of picking out songs, Kate kicked him out of his chair and took over to find awesome boogie-down songs for us.

We had this amazingly yummy dinner.  There was a strawberry-spinach salad, and chicken (or fish, but I'm a chicken girl), and...is it called twice baked potatoes where you bake the potato then pull out the insides and mash them up and put them back onto the skins?  Well, if it's not that, then that's what we had but I don't know what it's called.  I'll call them Prettily-Presented Potatoes.

And here's their cake.  Chris designed it.  I know that their colors had something to do with their school colors or something, but I know I'm going to get it all mixed up.  They met at BSU, so that's the Bronco thing on the top tier.  And something about a team that starts with a C, which is also Chris, and something with a team that starts with an A, which is also Alexis.

I'm SOOOO into sports, can you tell?

But what I CAN tell you about the cake is that it was deliciousness wrapped in amazingness.  Each layer was a different kind of chocolate.  One was German chocolate, one was Mexican chocolate, and the other was...I know I'm not remembering right...like a double dark chocolate or something like that.  I had a slice of the Mexican chocolate layer.  It supposedly had cinnamon in it.  But all I tasted was super rich, moist, yummy chocolate.  Oh, mama.  It was so good!

Lex and Chris cutting the cake:

...And then Lex and Chris shoving the cake into each other's faces!  When Pete and I got married, I told him I would kill him if he got cake on my wedding dress, so he placed the cake nicely in my mouth.  Not Lexi and Chris.  Oh, no.  This picture below is Lexi, mid-fall.  Chris totally pushed his bride down!  It was funny.

The aftermath of the cake shove (you can't really see the cake smeared all over his face unless you enlarge the picture).  Chris:

And Lex:

But all was well.  They got cleaned up, and had their first dance together.  (I really don't remember if they danced before or after the cake shove.)

And here's the bride dancing with her dad.  I love this picture-such a sweet moment.  (My dad is so cute.  And Lexi's hair was to die for.)  Say it with me: AAAAAWWWWWWWWW!

At this point, my kids had had it.  They had gone to bed super late the night before, woke up super early that morning, and then had a really busy day.  Troy could barely keep his eyes open during the dinner. The DJ dude started playing music after the dinner, and normally my kids boogie on down, but they were not about to do it in public that night.  Ivy danced with me, but her tights kept falling down and pulling down her undies, so I'd have to keep fixing them.  She tried to get people to dance with us, like Pete or my dad or my mom, but no one was ready to boogie...yet.

Although, I danced with Ivy, and then I kept making faces at my kids.  Jakob was about to die from embarrassment at his dorky mom, but I didn't care.  Yep-I'm one of those parents, that thinks it's really funny to embarrass my kids.

We took the kids back to our room, told them to open the door under ZERO circumstances, and...then went back to boogie.

It was so fun to dance!  And, of course I don't have pictures of it, because I was too busy having a blast!  They played way fun music, some of which was old school (old school meaning when I was in high school, or even junior high).  Like, "Killing Me Softly" by the Fugees, "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" by the Proclaimers (which I first heard when I attended my first EFY at 14 years old-YIKES!), "Pour Some Sugar on Me" by Def Leppard, and "Cotton-Eyed Joe" by the Rednex. (Yes, quite the variety.)  They also had Beatles songs, and Black Eyed Peas, and Tao Cruz, and Beyonce's "Put a Ring on It".  Which, at that point, I wish I would have known all the dance moves to that song, because that would have been awesome.  I know, like two moves.

So, yeah.  WAY fun.  And Lexi's bridesmaids had some sweet, sweet dance moves!  After a while (a LONG while), we were worn out, so we went back to our room.  (Not to worry-we had checked on the kids periodically during the dancing.)  And, surprisingly, they were still awake for some reason.  I would have thought that they'd be out cold by then.  Oh well.

Well, that wraps up Part 3.  And I really did save the best for last, huh?

They Call Me the Hip-Hop-opotamus

Jakob's Hip Hop class had their first performance during half-time at a high school JV girl's basketball game. I was so proud of him, because he actually performed! He tends to get stage-fright, and won't do things in front of crowds, like sing, or say his lines for the primary program, that kind of thing. On the way there, he said, "Mom, I hope I'm brave enough to do my dance."

So, behold! Sorry about the video quality; my camera tries to "correct" the lighting it's getting, which is why it flips to green all throughout. Good times with that. Apparently my camera thinks we all need to look like aliens or something. And the sound is none too good, either. (They start dancing about 38-ish seconds in - the guy introducing them took a hundred years.)



And here's the video that I got my post title from. Flight of the Conchords rules.

Reasons to Dance

-Brock went to the dentist for the first time. He screamed. A lot. It was kind of like when he rode the dragon ride at the fair. (Nooooo! I, don't, WAAAAAANNNNNT TOOOOO!) But then we convinced him to sit in the chair and go up and down. Then I counted his teeth for him. Then the dental hygienist started with her mirror and pick, and all of a sudden: "That feels good." He ended up doing everything but the X-rays.

-I signed Jakob up for a hip-hop class. We were originally going to have him take karate, but we're thinking the dancing thing is more down his alley right now. His first class was on Monday, and he loved it.

-We refinanced our house. It went a little like this: "Hey. How about we knock 11 years off your mortgage? Oh, and we'll also take 1.5% off the interest rate for you, too. Is that okay? And we're thinking we'll give you some cash back, which you'll use to pay off another debt you have. Also, it's only about $300 more a month, is that too much? And doing this will cut out October's house payment for you. How does that all sound?" Um, yeah. They really had to twist our arms to get us to sign the papers.

-I've found some awesome sites lately. Check 'em out: Item Not As Described, People Of Walmart (thanks, Marci!), Emails From Crazy People (mind the f-bombs), Lovely Listings, Passive-Aggressive Notes, Probably Bad News, and Awkward Family Photos. Hilarity ensues.

And here are our little dance machines getting all crazy. (Some of the sweetest moves are between 1 and 2 minutes. I wish I knew how to edit down videos.)

So You Think You Can Dance?

Jakob does. But wait, he really can dance. He loves watching a guy named Phillip Chbeeb; Jake mimics his moves, but does his own as well:

And here's the video of Phillip Chbeeb, who tried out for "So You Think You Can Dance":


*sigh* I love my little break dancer.

Break. Dance.

Last night Pete pointed out that I haven't blogged in a week. Not that that's such a gigantic hiatus, but unusual considering my blogging average. I guess I've felt like I haven't really done anything of note, but quite the contrary; I've been busy! Doing what, you may ask? Well...

1. Last night I cleaned my bathrooms. If you know me, you know that's quite the feat. I just kept thinking about if someone came to my house and had to use the bathroom. There's no way I would have let them, because all three of my bathrooms were that bad.

2. On Friday we went down to Pete's brother's house. Both Pete and Mike are Industrial Hygienists, and they're both studying for the Certified Industrial Hygienist exam coming up in April-ish. So we all went down, hung out, Pete got some books and attempted to copy some CDs (didn't work). It was awesome to see his little family, and Pete's parents came up to see us. Super quick trip, but it was fun.

While down there we ate at Benihana. Ahhh, Benihana. Even my kids like their rice! If I were a millionaire I would either have a private jet and go down every week and eat there, or I'd hire a Benihana chef to cook for me. Man, now I need to go wipe my drool off the keyboard...

3. I gave a talk on Sunday. Talks really shouldn't be that nerve-racking. It was on the Mutual Theme for 2009: 1 Timothy 4:12. Look it up.

4. I conquered Mount Laundry yesterday. Of course, in our house, that lasts about two days before it rears its ugly head and grows back. But as of last night, it was completely gone. Go me!

5. I also taught the lesson to the Young Women on Sunday. I'm really glad I had a movie clip to show them from The Testaments. I'm just not the greatest teacher out there. Of course, I've been considering teaching piano; maybe I can take classes on becoming a better teacher.

6. Taking care of my rug rats. Ivy's getting close to crawling. She's very mobile without it, though. And she sticks everything in her mouth. Brock was being clingy yesterday (drove me insane). Troy, for some crazy, wonderful reason, hasn't been getting into stuff as much lately; I hope that sticks. (Knock really really hard on wood!) Although he did pull a table onto himself last week. And Jakob is back to the grind with homework. Lots of homework.

7. My back has been killing me for the last couple of weeks. I have a chiropractor appointment tomorrow. I hope it helps. (In case you didn't already figure it out, that's not my back. I only wish I had that many muscles. However, I don't wish to be a man. But that is where my back has been hurting me.)

8. I've been debating the whole digital scrapbooking thing. Blurb, Shutterfly, Picaboo, Heritage Makers, etc. So I've been looking through my old scrapbooks to see how big they are in terms of pages, and how big a year's worth is, etc. By the way, my babies are total clones of each other. I'll have to post about that some time.

9. I've been watching my kids bust some sweet moves. Jakob does this little dance that cracks me up every time. They are constantly boogying. So here are a couple of clips; the first is Jakob's little dance, the second is to some music. Brock wasn't feeling the love at the time. He's more of a sit and lip-sync kind of kid anyway.




Troy's such the little copycat. And Jake is a spaz, no doubt about it.

Anyway, that's where I've been for the last week.

Vote for the Master

One of the things I wish I could do is dance. I mean, I can go to a place where music is playing and flail my arms around a bit and contort my body to the beat, and I'm okay at Dance Dance Revolution. But I wish I could REALLY dance, where people would want to watch me shake my booty and move my feet in some kind of coordinated manner. Here are a few of my favorite guys showing off their skills. And I'm curious-which one do you feel is the best? I tried figuring out how to post the actual video here, but to no avail. I'm sure it's super easy, but it eluded me, so you'll have to make due with clicking on the links provided.

Justin Timberlake:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFAbhGebKxc

Fred Astaire:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VInuG98hmrs&feature=related

Michael Jackson:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKBLxh3u0tM&feature=related

Gene Kelly: (he doesn't start dancing until about 2 minutes in)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aus1PA5-SyI

Usher:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvqbaOYBJ8g

So...who's the master????

IT

When I first heard of IT, I didn't really bother to learn much about IT. Then my sister told me she loved IT. I tried IT and was terrible at IT. Then my other sister had IT. I tried IT again, and lo and behold, IT was really awesome. Ever since, Pete and I have been kind of obsessed with IT. We looked for IT in a few different places, all to no avail. We finally found IT on ebay. What luck! We bid on IT, and won IT! YAHOO! Now we have IT, and have used IT over and over. IT has been and will be a great thing. IT makes exercising fun. IT plays some pretty sweet tunes. Needless to say, IT rocks.

Still don't know what I'm talking about? Here IT is in action:

(You must excuse my camera's lack of decisiveness on lighting.)

Shall We Dance?

If you've never tried it, you HAVE to find someone or someplace that has Dance Dance Revolution. It is so much fun! Brianna and Spencer own it for the Playstation 2 and brought it up this weekend. We all quickly became addicted. We had a tournament, and yours truly won! Yeah, baby! Again, I don't have many pictures from this activity, but check out Kar's blog under Dance Dance Revolution for more. Kar said that I'm "REALLY good at this game"; Friday night I did fine, but Saturday I was all sorts of off. If you want to see people that are really good, check out some videos at YouTube, especially the video titled DDR Freaks. Super awesome!

Here's Ben and Pete competing. Pete looks like he's really concentrating, and Ben looks so nonchalant.

Here's Mom grooving on down.

And Jakob our dance machine wanted to play too.