"The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved." --Victor Hugo, Les Miserables--

The next phase of our trip was a quick little plane ride away to Utah. We were able to spend a lot of time with Amy and Calvin, who graciously let us stay with them half the time, and with Whit the other half. :) This time Evelyn was nice to Auntie Amy but didn’t quite warm up to Uncle Calvin as much (although it wasn’t just him, she was a tad off on most of the guys we met, which is probably due to the fact that her daddy is gone but oh well).

Anyway, we spent the first couple days with Amy, hit up some fabric stores, spent some time at the park, and just enjoyed being with them. Then we spent a couple days in Provo with Whitney and her hubby. One day we had lunch with Maria, which was absolutely wonderful. Not only did we get the wonderful opportunity of all three of us being together, we also got to enjoy the absolutely yummy food of Tucano's! It was supremely fabulous. The next day Whit and I had lunch and visited our good friend Emma. We’ve known her since freshman year. She married another freshman friend of ours and they are expecting a little boy at the end of the summer. We are so excited for her!!!! Part of the time with her we spent at the duck pond at BYU, mostly to entertain Evelyn while we gabbed away, but it was fun. Evelyn enjoyed it very much; she kept throwing the bread at the ducks and saying, eat! It was cute. I’m very glad we got to see Emma though! I haven’t seen her in a long time and am not a very good friend in keeping up like I should.

Maria and Whit at Tucano's eating the MOST DELICOUS Chocolate cake ever...Holy cow it was amazing!!!!!!!!

Evelyn at the duck pond.

The rest of the time with Whit was spent doing a little shopping (mostly more fabric :), and putting together/preparing the flowers for Maria’s wedding. I mostly helped with preparation and getting the boutonnieres and corsages together, which turned out great. We finished the rest of the flowers on the day of the wedding. I gotta say though, Whit did an amazing job! The bouquet was especially gorgeous and the arrangements for the tables turned out amazing as well. She’s certainly got an eye for that! I can do the corsages and such ok but am not good with the arrangements. She had a lot of fun (although slightly stressed) time doing it though and Maria saved a bunch of $$ having her do it! Flowers are expensive!!! Anyway…I loved spending time with Whit as well. We actually spent a lot of time together the week I was in Utah and I loved it!!! I miss her and Maria so much!!!! They are two of the bestest best friends I’ve ever had and I wish we could be closer to each other L. Darn that growing up and being responsible stuff. Blech. :)

One of Whit's amazing arrangements!!! They were so pretty!

Maria eating her bouquet...classic Maria...but aren't the flowers beautiful??? It weighed a TON though! :)

So anyway…..Thursday I went back to Amy’s and spent Friday hanging out and chilling before the chaos of the weekend commenced. Friday night Evelyn had some quality bonding time with Auntie Amy while I went up to Layton with Whit to see Maria, help out, and had some fun getting some goodies for Maria at Target when we didn’t have anything to do at the house. :) We had a lot of fun, felt like the fun ol’ times we used to have together. Man do I miss them!!! I am SOO happy that I was able to go to Utah for the wedding and be there for Maria. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world! She is so amazing, her husband seems pretty awesome (Whit and I met him for the first time the day before the wedding so we don’t know him all that well yet but he seems awesome, he would have to be to marry Maria right? :),and her family is so incredible, I love the Pack’s! They are just the coolest family and so super nice to me and Whit.

The three of us the night before...not the most flattering pic of us but it had to be done :)

Anyways again…on with the wedding! Saturday I got up early, got all prettified and headed off to the temple with Whit! Her husband had a family graduation to go to so he didn’t get to go to the ceremony but in a way I was kinda glad. Since Mark wasn’t there and Rich wasn’t there, me and Whit had some more bonding time and it just felt right for Maria’s wedding. Might sound weird to you but we had an awesome experience there and it was just right for us :). Corny but true :) Whit knows what I mean. Anywho…the ceremony was wonderful; Whit and I couldn’t stop smiling the whole time. It’s just such a happy, joyful time and, once again, I’m SOOOO glad I was there! Maria was utterly gorgeous, Gordon (her new hubby) looked very handsome, the weather was perfect, and it was overall a fantastic day!

We took lots of pictures after the ceremony, then picked up Evelyn and headed up to the wedding luncheon (which they had Famous Dave's cater, yum!!!) and then on to the Pack’s house to help prepare for the reception. Unfortunately Evelyn was a bit cranky and clingy so I wasn’t as much help to Whit as I was originally planning but everything go done in time and it all looked fabulous! The Pack’s live on a hill so their backyard is sloped but they kinda have it open/connected in a subtle way to their neighbors (they are really good friends) so there was plenty of room for all their guests and it was a pretty perfect spot for a reception! Whit, Rich (he came for the reception), Evelyn and I kinda just chilled, ate cake and enjoyed ourselves. The bride and groom were pretty much stuck in the receiving line the whole time so we kept to ourselves and had fun til we left.

SO there you go! That’s pretty much the end of my fabulous vacation. Evelyn and I had an uneventful (thank goodness again!) trip home, she slept most of the time which was wonderful. We got home in time for Mother’s Day dinner and enjoyed a nice night with the MO fam. Kinda the calm before the storm though cuz the whole next week Evelyn was teething with molars and this time she wasn’t too easy about it! But luckily that’s over and she’s fine now :). So, again, our trip was wonderful. I loved seeing all you family and friends and we miss you all! Hopefully I’ll get to go on a trip again next summer. I hate going for so long without seeing people! I’m very glad for email, texting, skype and all that but it’s just not the same as seeing them in person. That’s all for now though…so enjoy the pics! I have tons more on facebook and even more on my computer but blogger only lets me do so much. :) I'll just end with this quote, which the two quotes today are, of course, in honor of Maria :)

"Love each other dearly always. There is scarcely anything else in the world but that: to love one another." --Victor Hugo, Les Miserables--

P.S.---sorry there is such a lack of pictures in this post, again...for some reason my first upload of pictures works fine and then anything I do after that doesn't work. So I'll just have to do another post with pictures later, from CA and UT. Sorry once again!