Disneyland in October

We have a family tradition (started in the last 3 years) of going to Disneyland every October with my parents and whichever of my siblings decide to show up. Last year it was almost everyone. This year it was practically no one. But that's okay. The important people were there.

The ShepAlders

And Pumpkin Donald

We've noticed that we take significantly fewer pictures each time we go to Disneyland. We tried to remedy that, but still only took a few.

While driving through LA, we stopped off at the LA temple. We've been there before, but weren't able to take pictures of ourselves out in front. During my August break, I was trying to put together a picture album from all of the temples we've visited, but we didn't have any good pictures from LA!

So we took these:

Our primary reason for going to CA was to attend the wedding of Josh's high school friend Audrey: 

She married the guy on the left:

You may remember them from when we went to the Hearst Castle together.

So that was the excitement of our October. Right now we don't have any more plans to travel for awhile. Hopefully in January I'll be all over the map for internship interviews! 

Hambelton Hijinx

Our good friends John and Carissa Hambelton came up from Eugene to visit us for the weekend. You may remember them from adventures such as this*. It was John's birthday, so we went to John's Incredible Pizza (fitting, right?) for food (the pizza is better than Izzy's but still, ugh, served buffet form) and games. Carissa was smart and got coupons so we could go on the rides and play certain games for free (for a limited time).

I have been to Chuck E. Cheese for many a nephew's birthday, so I can in all confidence say that John's Incredible Pizza is a better experience. It's cleaner, less chaotic, and there are themed dining rooms so not all of the kids are on top of each other and in my way (except for in the buffet line). We even witnessed an IncrediBear dance party. Serious cuteness.

This is a bit of what we did:

Carissa and I rode on the twirly ride and tried not to get motion sick

I made a new friend with a hot ride

The next day, Josh was dying to go to Buffalo Wild Wings. It's his favorite spot because it combines most of his favorite things: food, trivia, and college football. I think if there was a movie theater and a classic arcade he would have to move in. 

While we were there, I was holding baby Cooper and this happened:

He just sucked on my hand for five minutes. It was the weirdest sensation! And, of course, completely hilarious.

We've been terrible about blogging lately because school has started again and I've been about as busy as I've ever been. I'll be done applying for internship in about a month, which I've always known was coming up but seems especially sad/hard now that I'm going through it. I'm so lucky that I have such loving friends who take the time to visit!

*If you followed the link then you saw that we have previously been to Evergreen Air and Space Museum with the Hambeltons. On a sidenote: I now drive past there four times a week and sometimes I worry that I'll get into an accident because I am transfixed by the Spruce Goose every time. Even after seeing it up close, I am still amazed by its size.

Back in college...

A friend of mine from my days at the Eugene Institute of Religion finally got around to digitizing a video of a sketch we performed for a road show back in 2004. My group wanted to do something lame like a dating game sketch... and I was having none of that. So, I wrote a parody version to the song "Superhero" by Stephen Lynch using characters from The Book of Mormon. Needless to say, we blew away the competition and won the road show.

Emily and I didn't really know each other back then, but she was in the room and distinctly remembers thinking that this sketch was pretty, pretty good. I like to think that it was the first of many things that would eventually make her fall in love with me and marry me... three years later. :)

And, with that... I give you "(If I Could Be) A Book of Mormon Hero."

Summer Weddings, Had Me a Blast!

We went to a couple pretty special weddings this summer, including Josh's baby sister Olivia's in June.

 (From L to R): Josh's step-mom, Josh's dad, Josh's sister Samantha, Josh's sister Chelsea, Josh, Olivia, Olivia's husband Mike, Josh's mom, and Josh's step-dad

They were sealed in the Columbia River temple (in TriCities, WA) and we got to see Josh's aunt Olivia and uncle Jerry King. We're pretty big fans of theirs. We love hearing their stories about traveling and they are nice enough to let us stay with them when we're driving through Utah.

Olivia and Mike then had a garden reception in Hermiston in the backyard of a friend.

Josh is pretty serious about his role as the Big Brother to three sisters. Olivia is the last to get married.

They had these cute cards for reception guests to fill out with little bits of advice to the married couple. We, of course, wrote about the importance of attending the temple, seeing movies during the day, and laughing often.

Then Josh and his siblings decorated Mike and Olivia's car. 

 The second big wedding we went to this summer was the sealing of our friend Caroline in Dallas, Texas. You may remember when we visited Dallas previously, but this time we got to see the basement.

It was very hot and awfully windy

We know Caroline from the Eugene Institute. She was in the RS presidency before I was and was good friends with Josh's previous girlfriend. She lives in Shreveport, LA now, but Dallas is the closest temple.

Isn't she cute? Caroline has a distinct sense of style.

They then had their reception in Shreveport, LA, which is on the Red River and is the birthplace of my niece Michaela. 

The waterfront is home to several riverboat casinos

Their reception started off with a wedding parade through town.

They even had a band walking along with us and playing hits such as "When the Saints Go Marching In."

It was pretty hot and everyone was pretty sweaty, but how often do you get to participate in a parade through Shreveport?

They even had a police officer to stop traffic.

Their reception was adorable. They had hot dog and Popsicle vendors, this cute painting (done by the groom):

and this map so that attendees could sign on their hometowns:

Mr. and Mrs. Eckel:

The ShepAlders and the Eckels:

Summer weddings are so much fun!

Spruce Goosed

This weekend we were lucky enough to get to hang out with the Hambeltons, who came up to go to the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum, eat doughnuts from Voodoo Too, and spend the night in Beaverton.

Evergreen ASM is the home of the infamous Spruce Goose:

(Bennett was a little mad because he wanted to go inside the tail and play with the beach balls)

Other things happened, like:

Josh piloted this fake helicopter

It involved getting this red ball on top of this mini toy

One of the docents, upon seeing Josh's prowess at getting the ball in that exact spot, said,
"If you're off somewhere and you need to safely hover in one spot,

THIS is the guy you want at the controls!"

We did this too

I forgot to mention that we made the Westons walk to the south side of Autzen stadium on our campus tour. It was raining a lot, which is why it looks like I just stepped out of the shower (hot, I know). Neither Josh nor Chris look very happy to be there (though they were, I swear), and of course Haylie looks cute even though it was pouring and she was wearing flip flops. 

Weekend with the Westons

Remember when Josh and I went to Reno and then to Medford? And that the reason we went to Medford was to visit our friends the Westons? And that even though we had fun in Medford we didn't take any pictures that had the Westons in them?

Well, we tried to remedy that this past weekend when we met up with Haylie and Chris for a couple days in Eugene. Neither of them had ever been to Eugene, so we tried to give them The Grand Tour, starting with BJs for pizza:

We discovered way too late that Chris and Haylie like BJs (and that there is a location in Portland), because I am obsessed with pizzookies and I try to eat there whenever we're in Eugene.

On Saturday we made them walk around to places like...

Hayward Field

Matt Court

The Jaqua Center

Where they have these bike racks:

And tons of other places of which Josh didn't take pictures.

Then we took them to lunch at the Glenwood, which we figured was a perfect place for the campus experience.

Oh, and there was one other thing:

We also got to see the Ducks trounce the Portland State Vikings (69-0!)

Because Josh and I have season tickets, we couldn't sit next to Haylie and Chris, but they weren't too far away.

We had a great weekend showing off our old stomping grounds, and we discovered that we should have spent more time with them before they moved to Medford because they hadn't heard any of our usual stories!  (or maybe that means they spent the perfect time with us previously because they hadn't had to hear any of our usual stories....) We look forward to their visiting us again (soon maybe?) and visiting them when (if) they move back to Utah!