Jake and Sabrina

Well, the posting on this wedding isn't quite as late as the other wedding I blogged about a few days ago. Jake (my brother) and Sabrina (my new sister!) haven't even celebrated their one month anniversary yet. This wedding was in Las Vegas and we had a wonderful time. The wedding was absolutely beautiful and we really enjoyed the time away from work and our regular life. The day we arrived in Vegas was also Joey's birthday. He had a day of great food. He got to eat one of his all time favorite desserts, Chili's white chocolate lava cake, shortly after arriving in Vegas. Later that night our family met Sabrina's family for the first time at the buffet at Mandalay Bay. I've found it is hard to go wrong at the buffets in the big casinos. After dinner, Joey, my brothers Daniel and Jesse, and myself all went out to wander the strip. It was soooo windy and cold that we didn't get very far. We did see some of our favorite stores, the Coca-Cola store and the M&M's store. We tried to see the water shows at the Bellagio, but they must have been over for the evening or canceled because of the wind.The day of the wedding my family all went to IHOP for breakfast. Jon and Dan were Jake's best men and were supposed to give a toast that evening at dinner. They still weren't sure what they were going to say. It had been mentioned that they should do a rap since Daniel is a beatboxer and noisemaker extraordinaire. I think everyone at IHOP must have thought we were insane as this family of white folk sat around rhyming, reminiscing, and "rapping." Jon had to dig deep, REAL DEEP, to find his inner "ghetto side" but in the end did a fantastic job with the rap, along with his most righteous beatboxer. The whole audience was in stitches, no one expected those two to rap. If you want to see a video of it check out Jon's blog. http://web.me.com/kibourne/BourneWeb/Blog/Entries/2008/10/18_Jonathon_%26_Daniel%E2%80%99s_Toast.html

The ceremony took place in The Wedding Chapel at The Mandalay Bay. It was a beautiful ceremony with immediate family and close friends present. I have never seen a couple be so calm on their wedding day (or the days leading up to it) as Jake and Sabrina were. They make each other so happy and it is great to see my little brother Jakey with someone as wonderful as Sabrina. Just look at his face when he saw his beautiful bride at the end of the aisle.

After the ceremony and another amazing Vegas dinner at the reception, we hit the strip again. We were determined to see the water shows at the Bellagio, our favorite thing in Vegas. They were running that night and we braved the extremely cold wind to watch two or three of the water shows. (I would include a video, but my cinematic skills tend to make people sea sick.) I absolutely love the Bellagio. It is my favorite casino. There are flowers all over on the inside. They have vases of fresh flowers everywhere. The ceiling in the entrance is covered in spun glass flowers. And they have a seasonal flower garden indoors! The wedding was in October so it was kind of a harvest theme for the garden. We have also seen the garden around Mother's Day and the whole garden was filled with my favorite flowers, tulips. It was breathtaking.

Jake and Sabrina, congratulations. May your future be filled with tomorrows as happy as this day was.

Our afternoon at the fair

Fairs bring a bit of nostalgia for the "good ol' days" when neighbor competed against neighbor in friendly competition to simply be the talk of the town. I wish we could go back to those simpler times. Joey and I visited the "simpler times" for a few hours when we visited the Southern California Fair. We have fair grounds less than ten miles from our home and we took advantage of that.

It was small as far as fairs go but it had most of the necessary components--rides, games, food, displays, live country music, and animals. Much to our dismay, the fair was missing one major component, fried food. We searched high and low for a fried Pop Tart or Snickers, we would have settled for a fried Twinkie. But, alas we could only find fried chicken and an assortment of fried vegetables, BORING. We walked through a tent where local high school students competed in their landscaping skills. Yet another tent was filled with art work, photos, needle work, quilts, and handmade clothing items. There were the typical 4H and FFA farm animal competitions. The high schools from my school district had sheep, pigs, and various other livestock in the competition.

The sheep provided one of our most memorable events at the fair. Joey was baaaahing at all the sheep and one of them really took offense to this. It angrily baaaaahed back. That was one grumpy sheep. We had a wonderful date night laughing and walking together, wishing today's society would go back to those good ol' days. Here are some of our goofy moments, including Joey trying to fight the angry sheep.

Bethanee and Brian

Okay, so this post is only two and a half months late, but as I always tell my students, "turning in late work and getting some points is always better than turning in no work at all and getting no points." So Bethanee and Brian, thanks for having us be a part of your special day. We had a wonderful time visiting all of our family in Utah. We did a salon day for all of the brides maids that were in town and Joey and Jesse tagged along. (They enjoyed the salon day as much as the rest of us if not more even though they would never admit it. Look at the pictures and you will see what I mean.) The girls all got haircuts and a manicure. Some even colored their hair. Joey and Jesse got haircuts and then Joey proceeded to get a scalp treatment, have his face shaved, his hands manicured, and even his eyebrows waxed. I think he had more done than the rest of us. (**Joey's insert: "And DANG did I look purty.") I decided it was time for a new look and cut several inches off my hair, layered it, and added bangs again for the first time in 10 years. Thanks Gina for setting up all of those appointments for us at Bon Losee and taking care of us while we were there!!!

The groomsmen all had their night to play and get together as well. After preparing the veggies and food for the ceremony the next day, they all went out bowling. They reported having a great time, but didn't take a camera so we don't have proof of it.

Some of the week before the wedding is all a blur because I spent much of the week sleep deprived. We left two days early and drove to Utah overnight, without sleeping, to surprise Joey's mom. Then we stayed up all day visiting with family. There were also a few nights with little to literally no sleep as my mom and I worked to complete the custom made bridesmaid dresses for EIGHT bridesmaids. (See two of the dresses in the picture below.) In the end, we finished all of them, except my top. But we decided that as the maid-of-honor, it was okay that my outfit was a little different.

The ceremony and reception were beautiful. The lucky couple couldn't take their eyes off each other and the smiles could not be wiped off their faces. Welcome to the family, Brian. Congratulations you two and best wishes for your lives together.