Amy's Wedding

(Ben) We just returned from a wonderful trip to Utah to see our great friend Amy Squires get married! Although the trip was on the short side, we had a marvelous time seeing so many of our friends and spending some time with family as well. It was great to catch up with so many people, and we're looking forward to coming back out for a longer trip for Jon Gardiner's wedding in about a month.

Our trip began as many of ours seem to: with transportation issues. This time we had the best situation possible with a direct flight from Newark to SLC, but alas, we were still held for almost 4 hours on the runway before they finally let us take off. Although it was nice weather in Newark, apparently there was some bad weather to the west of us that air traffic control would not let us fly through (or over). The pilot told us that the thunderstorms stretched from Massachusetts to North Carolina, so there wasn't a good way to get around them. Not only did they make us wait, but the in-flight movie system was out of order so there weren't any movies or TV that we could watch either. Anyway, after waiting forever, they finally re-routed us up over Toronto and then down across the Dakotas and to Salt Lake. You can imagine that sitting on a plane for a total of 9 hours with a 20-month old wasn't the best scenario, but Henry actually did surprisingly well. He just played and ate dinner while we were waiting, and he fell asleep for the whole flight just after we took off. We both agree that Henry was MUCH easier on the plane than last time we flew at Christmas. We were glad about that.

After arriving in Utah, however, it was well worth the trouble getting there. We spent the weekend with the Griffin family and Henry had a great time playing with his cousins, and with their Matchbox Cars. Meanwhile, we had a good time doing the Pepsi-Coke challenge with Mom G. The idea was to test whether she could tell the different between Pepsi and Coke in a double-blind taste test. In fact, we all took the challenge (the caffeine-free version!), and overall we guessed correctly about 60% of the time. Mom, however, was 100%, so I guess there really is a difference for the hardcore drinkers.


We also had a shower for both Amy and her then-fiancé Dave, and Jon and his fiancée Kristie at Griffin's house. It was great to at least get a few minutes to catch up with so many people that we haven't seen in a long time.

On Monday we went down to the Iverson household and had a nice barbeque at their house that night. Henry had a great time running around, jumping on the trampoline, and looking at Grandpa's birdies (pigeons). He was in heaven at both grandparent's houses, really, with so much yard to run around in. We hope he doesn't get too bored back at our house.

Tuesday was the wedding, and it was great day! Jenn and I left Henry with the grandmothers and just pretended we were college students again, hanging out with the gang. We were able to go to the sealing at the Bountiful Temple, and it was beautiful to be in the temple with so many of our friends. The ceremony was very nice, and following that we went to the luncheon, also in Bountiful, and then the reception that evening in Layton. Amy and Dave are a perfect couple, and we're so excited that they are going to be just a few hours north of us in Connecticut while Dave attends Yale and teaches elementary school, and Amy finishes her nursing degree.

We flew home on Wednesday, back to the humidity and real life. The flight was uneventful (luckily!), and now we're really looking forward to a relatively calm August and then another trip out west in a few weeks!