Houston, TX - The wedding

This past weekend flew past in a blur...
Jay and I flew to Houston, TX on Friday for his little brother Matt's wedding.
We arrived in Houston, picked up our rental car, and immediately got on the highway right in the middle of rush hour (or maybe the highways are always that crowded?).
We found out over the course of our trip that the highways there are almost always busy, but during usual rush hour traffic times they are more than packed!
That's ok though, we rented a Garmin GPS navigation system for in our car so we didn't have to struggle with looking down at a map while driving around. Actually, Jay did all of the driving seeing as I'm not 25 yet and couldn't drive our rental car without paying a super-high price on top of what we were already paying.
Friday night we went out to a barbeque place for the rehearsal dinner, met Michelle's family and had fun in general just hanging out and talking to everyone there.

Saturday morning was the wedding, and it was absolutely beautiful. They were sealed for all time and eternity in the Houston, TX temple. Jay was their best man and Michelle had two of her friends, one of her cousins, and Lindsay (our sister in-law) as her brides maids.






After the ceremony Michelle and Matt both went into the visitor's room where her parents were waiting (Michelle is a convert to the church) and had a beautiful moment filled with tears and hugs all around. It really was a beautiful morning.




















The reception that day was at the church where Michelle's parents attend in the heart of the city. They did a short ring ceremony for all her family and friends to be able to witness, and of course, did all the other traditional wedding stuff (with the exception of a garter toss).










We all bid them farewell as they drove off into the sunset (well, actually into rush hour traffic) on their way to Dallas. They are currently on their honeymoon in San Diego, CA visiting Sea World and various other things that the "San Diego City Card" gets them in to for free.








This Friday will be an open house at the Belleview building in Littleton, CO for all of Matt's friends and family to attend. Sadly Jay and I will not be able to go due to my lack of vacation time this year, but we'll see them again at some point. After all, they're in my family!

October 31 party at Apartment 13

Jay and I hosted a blast of a party at our apartment Halloween night.
We had all the decor out that you could imagine: spider web, black lights, a bubble fogger, a graveyard (complete with headstone and chainlink fence), a tablecloth smeared in blood, ghosts hanging from the ceiling and black and orange streamers. And that was just on the inside!!

Outside on the front porch we had caution tape reading: Enter if you Dare!, more spider web, and a big orange bucket filled with apples and dry ice making the perfect bobbing for apples witches brew.



















All in all the evening went quite well. We played several rounds of catch phrase and had a roaring good time hanging out with all of our good friends from the ward. Sadly, there were several people who did not show up that had RSVP'd.

Oh well, a good party is a good party, tough luck for those that couldn't make it.

I served plenty of good food (chili, hot apple cider, chips & dips, doughnuts, cheesey-puffs, chex mix, and lots and lots of candy) which was shared by almost everyone who came.

I was dressed as Marie Antoinette and Jay even got into the spirit of things by dressing up as an "emperor of evil." Sad to say I didn't get a picture of his entire costume on him. The mask was pretty dang cool if I do say so myself. And I do!

Tonight's task will be to clean up some of the decor and store it away for next year. I daresay the party was quite a success having had 17 adults and two babies attend our cute little one-roomed apartment.

Another Happy Halloween!