The Keller Wedding-Part 3

And finally, the thing I had waited for all week!! Steven came :)

Ok ok just kidding. He did show up but not without some set backs. The Friday morning before the wedding, I woke up to a text from Steven that said "you're not gonna believe this. It's snowing" WTF? April 15th and it's snowing? Well needless to say, I wasn't missing the weather. As soon as I got it, I called him. Before even saying hello I said "GET OUT. Get out of there right now and come to me in the sunshine" I expected it to be a joke. Well the next thing he said was "Don't freak out. But I'm in a ditch" Of course I immediately started crying. A ditch? where? what happened? are you ok? you're going to freeze to death! You'll miss the wedding!! And so on and so forth. But he promised to keep me updated and was hoping he would still make his flight. I rushed out to my mother in law and was freaking out. Luckily she is a mom and knew I just needed to be held. I figured that if anyone in the world loves Steven as much as me, it would be her. We worried together. Brad and his 2 groomsmen had stayed at my inlaws house. They knew something was wrong, but not what was happening. Crying females always make boys uncomfortable. But, Brad got the general idea and asked if he could help with the baby. He fed Q breakfast and I stayed up to date with Steve about where he was. Eventually a highway patrolman (who is in our ward) showed up. Steven talked to him, calmed down, and they called a tow truck. While Steve was talking to Greg (the cop), Greg received 2 other radio calls for the same type of accident. That should tell you something about the weather and road conditions. Greg left to take care of the others and Steve waited for the Jeep to get towed. $100 and a whole lot of praying later, the Jeep was back on the road with no apparent damage (Steve was just stuck in slush and mud too far to get out on his own) and on the road to Fargo trying to make his flight. Luckily he did. Holy cow. What an experience I never want to repeat. Knowing my husband is supposed to be on his way to me and instead he's in a freak blizzard in a ditch. Count your many blessings.

He showed up later that afternoon and it was over 90 degrees when he got to AZ. How weird. It was hard to believe it was snowing in GF and so warm where we were! He showed up as we were decorating the church. We finished decorating, and went to set up for the luncheon at the other building with Steven's parents. In case you didn't know, I have the world's greatest in-laws. HONESTLY would your in laws go straight from work to the church to help deal with all the lights and the ceiling AND then help set up the other building for the luncheon AND then take you out to dinner? Mine inlaws are awesome.

Quintin loves attention and he did not lack for any with so many cute bridesmaids and aunts and uncles and grandparents around.

The Keller Wedding Week-Part 2

We took a day off from wedding festivities and then had the Bachelorette party. Now planning a bachelorette party for a bunch of girls who don't drink, dirty dance, or party could seem like a challenge. Are you dieing to know what we did?

Ok I'll tell you. I rented a hotel room and we had a little staycation. We went swimming, played some get to know you games (for her high school friends and her college buddies), did facials, did pedicures, ate a lot of food (which was hand delivered by the groom himself). And of course there was ice cream. I didn't stay the night so I could be home with the baby. I'm told that they went swimming again and watched a movie. The next morning, they ate breakfast and I checked us out of the room.

For each of the bridesmaids, I created a little gift bag of sorts. Inside was a pair of pajama pants, a matching headband, a shirt that said bridesmaid, their favorite treats, and some other little knick knacks. They had wondered why I kept asking for measurements and sizes. It was a fun night and I'm glad we got to capture the bride away from the groom one last time :)

PS Quintin stayed with grandma and grandpa and got spoiled out of his mind!

Mar 7: Grad Party

Steven threw me a little grad party for Family Home Evening. He made lots of food and invited over our 'grand forks family'.

Some of the food.

I didn't take any pictures during the party except:

There was lots of good food and even better company. The question I got asked most frequently was, "How does it feel to be done?" My answer: "It feels like a giant weight that I didn't even know was there is lifted off my shoulders".

We are truly blessed to have good friends here. As we told everyone it was Family Home Evening, we thought it best to have some sort of message. I shared this quote:
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, A Prayer for the Children (Apr 2003 CR, 90)
“Live the gospel as conspicuously as you can. Keep the covenants your children know you have made. Give priesthood blessings. And bear your testimony!11 Don’t just assume your children will somehow get the drift of your beliefs on their own. …
“Nephi-like, might we ask ourselves what our children know? From us? Personally? Do our children know that we love the scriptures? Do they see us reading them and marking them and clinging to them in daily life? Have our children ever unexpectedly opened a closed door and found us on our knees in prayer? Have they heard us not only pray with them but also pray for them out of nothing more than sheer parental love? Do our children know we believe in fasting as something more than an obligatory first-Sunday-of-the-month hardship? Do they know that we have fasted for them and for their future on days about which they knew nothing? Do they know we love being in the temple, not least because it provides a bond to them that neither death nor the legions of hell can break? Do they know we love and sustain local and general leaders, imperfect as they are, for their willingness to accept callings they did not seek in order to preserve a standard of righteousness they did not create? Do those children know that we love God with all our heart and that we long to see the face—and fall at the feet—of His Only Begotten Son? I pray that they know this.
“Brothers and sisters, our children take their flight into the future with our thrust and with our aim. And even as we anxiously watch that arrow in flight and know all the evils that can deflect its course after it has left our hand, nevertheless we take courage in remembering that the most important mortal factor in determining that arrow’s destination will be the stability, strength, and unwavering certainty of the holder of the bow.”

Steven turned 25!

In July...and I'm just now posting about it. BUT it was the very last day of July, so I'm not really THAT behind.
For his birthday, he voted to have his gift be getting to go to the OshKosh Air Show in Wisconsin with a group from school. He left me for like 5 days and went and looked at airplanes, met pilots, camped out, did other man stuff. I stayed home and hung out with the baby. So, that was technically his birthday present.

But, it was BEFORE his birthday and I still wanted to celebrate somehow...so we had a party with some of our friends. It was the first time we had really had a group of people over since we've lived here. Our new apartment isn't huge, but it was big enough to have people over. We played Jenga Max (one of Steven's gifts) and we also played Mad Jab. AND we had cake, ice cream, and some other foods that I never took a picture of.

The families with kids all left right as the other couple without kids showed up. They stayed and chatted with us for awhile (but I forgot to take their picture!). We watched this crazy rain storm that blew in too.

Overall, it was pretty fun. Steven got to hang out with all of our GF friends, spend some time with airplanes, and his old mission companion even called from Brazil. Here's some pictures of the party

The cake-it got kind of melty, but I made that bad boy into an airplane!


Blowing out LOTS of candles:


Playing Jenga Max


The Butlers


The Smiths


The Adams


The Piersons (minus Dallin who was at summer camp for ROTC)