Tempe Arts Festival

We headed out to enjoy the beautiful weather and the semi-annual Tempe Arts Festival. It is always fun to walk around and see all of the booths. Rylie did great in her stroller and she loved seeing the bunnies!











Rylie loved these garden decorations. They were all made out of medal and some had bells so they sounded really pretty. She just stared and giggled at them...so of course, Grandma came home with one for her garden. :)

Loving California

We had already planned to go to California for Spring Break, so we just extented our trip a little bit for Brandon's grandmothers funeral. The funeral was beautiful and Brandon did an amazing job with the eulogy (he did part of it from Rylie's perspective...I think everyone loved it). The rest of the week was spent enjoying the amazing California weather (seriously...it is trips like this when I realize why a billion people live in Southern California!) and of course, Disneyland! (One note...my camera broke during this trip. Thank goodness for the iphone and its amazing camera!)

We headed to Laguna Beach one afternoon and ate lunch at this great restaurant on the coast (I think it was called Las Brisas). We love walking around the grounds of the Montage Hotel and the weather was so perfect that we actually went down to the beach to see how Rylie would like the sand. She loved it! She is definitely a daddy's girl through and through!







The Montage Hotel area is where we took our maternity pictures, so I had to get one of Rylie with the same purple flowers that we took our photos with almost exactly one year ago. :) You can see the purple flower pic here.



Rylie loves to give kisses right now. Here she is sneaking one in for her Daddy :).



Sleepy girl!



The weather was so great and since Rylie loved Laguna Beach so much, we decided to actually go to the beach later in the week. We headed to Newport for some fun in the sun! :)



I think that Daddy had just as much fun as Rylie did!





Rylie was so funny with the water (which, even with great weather, is still amazingly cold!). She would take off walking with Brandon right for the waves and then as soon as the water hit her feet she would lift them up like she was sitting--she did this probably 50 times!





We went to Disneyland a couple of times, but it was spring break, so it was pretty crowded. We didn't really spend a ton of time there this time (the beauty of having a pass!). We also went wine tasting in Temecula...it was so much fun, but no camera=no great pics! It really was the perfect vacation week!

The Wedding

The day of Jeff and Laura's wedding was beautiful! I woke up and headed over to Laura's house to get ready and Brandon left to meet all of the guys for breakfast. Brandon's mom, Helen, had come for the wedding, so she kept Rylie at home to hopefully get a couple of good naps in before the afternoon. And boy did she nap! She took the longest nap of her entire life that morning! :)





I don't really know what to say about the actual wedding except that it was perfect...Laura looked amazing and all the decorations were beautiful...and since this is a blog about our family I will add that Rylie was beyond adorable in her flower girl dress and sitting in the wagon (did I mention that my mom made the flower girl dresses...yes, she is amazing!). :)







The one sad note is that we found out that Brandon's grandma passed away during the ceremony back in California. We weren't able to be at all of the reception as we were with Brandon's mom, but I really think that the day ended up being exactly what Jeff and Laura planned and hoped for. Rylie did great during the reception and of course--she loved the music! :)


"This wedding stuff is exhausting!" :)

Rehearsal

I know that I am so far behind on blogging and a whole lot has happened in our life lately, so here is my attempt to begin to catch up. I promise, I will get back to blogging regularly! :)

Jeff and Laura's rehearsal went very smooth and it was fun to get a glimpse of how Rylie and the other kids would look at the wedding. I was also very happy to see that Rylie still loved her wagon, even with it all decorated. :) After the rehearsal, we all headed back to my parents house for the dinner. It was exactly what Jeff wanted--a big BBQ with all of their family and friends. My dad did all of the food and he did an amazing job (I think he has been hiding this talent from us for all of these years... :) ). Jeff and Laura gave Rylie and the other flower girls the cutest flower girl Build-a-bears and gave the bridal party these framed letters that they had written to all of us. It was such a fun evening!


Gotta say...I loved her outfit! :)


Rylie giving Cayden kisses :)








The beautiful centerpieces at the dinner


Rylie and her Gammie :)


The bears caught a ride in the wagon. :)

Wedding Week

The week leading up to Jeff and Laura's wedding was full of crazy fun! We had a bunch of family come into town and there are a few little ones, so it was great to have all of the kiddos together. On Wednesday, we headed to the zoo. All of the out of towners were so impressed by our zoo...it was a good reminder not to take it for granted, we really do have a great zoo! (I actually didn't take many photos of the zoo since we had some amazing photographers with us, but I still thought this was a cute one of Ry!)



That evening we all went to Rawhide for dinner and some of the kids did a bunch of the little games that are there. Rylie was even given a sheriff's badge! :) The steak dinner was really fun with a live band (Rylie immediately started to dance when the music played...the musicians thought she was hilarious!) and the kids loved panning for gold, the petting zoo and riding the train.








The amazing sunset at Rawhide...this is one of my favorite things about Arizona...you can't beat the sunsets! :)

Thursday was bridesmaids day! We all met Laura at Cheesecake Factory for lunch and then headed to get pedicures and shopping. It was great to get to know Laura's friends from her childhood and spend a day having fun before the craziness of the wedding.