Sam’s wedding weekend: July 30-Aug 1, 2010

(1987)

Sam and I go way back. Like to the day I was born. She is the greatest! When we hung out growing up, we always had stuff to talk about, and then come college time we were roommates! And we made many a memory together :)

A couple days after we moved into our apartment: Glenwood #17. Best apartment ever! (PS the tan is post summer #1 of lifeguarding. best job ever.)

Before church one day

We hiked the Y together.

We made up BYU-related words to the Barenaked Ladies' "If I Had A Million Dollars" together. (Boy in picture is Jacob Jones, not related.)

(Sam do you still have the slideshow? I do not...)

We went to the Relief Society Broadcasts together.

We took breaks from studying for finals together

She made me the most incredible birthday cakes ever!

We went out to dinner with roomies together

And made funny faces with roomies together

We went to football games together

We sang along to The Messiah at Christmas together

We made really dumb movies with roommates together

We dressed up as punk rockers together

We helped each other get ready

We took vacations together (Arches National Park)

She borrowed my clothes ;)

We matched on Halloween together

We went places for assignments together

We went country dancing together, and took country dance together

And we graduated together!
We ate cake together to celebrate...

and stabbed the cake to death together.

We went to wedding receptions together too, where we posed for silly pictures together.

Sam moved back to California in November of 2008 or so. I was so sad! We went from living together, to seeing each other every week-ish, to now being 800 miles apart? No way. It was not fun. But we still talked and texted. And then there was the occasional visit.

She came to visit, and we went to Kneader's early in the morning together.

We hung out at family reunion together

And spent a Sunday in the park together

And we even let other people into pictures on occasion...

In June 2009, at our Jones Family Reunion, I met Ben Allred. He and Sam had been dating for approximately 2 weeks and 5 days or so. (I just made that up. It hadn’t been too long though.) Ben survived meeting our ginormous family, and stuck around!

At the beginning of 2010, Sam and I spent a lot of lunch breaks (well, my lunch breaks, walking in the snow) on the phone talking about her and Ben and how I may need to plan a trip to CA for a wedding.

Well, in May, Sam called me with some exciting news! She was engaged! We talked for a few minutes, and then I let her go so she could call other relatives about the news. She gave me the date and I booked a flight!

I threw her a bridal shower and we had a roomie reunion :)

Fast forward to the weekend of the wedding. I had previously heard that my dad was going to come up Friday night, but somehow that message got lost in translation, and I heard wrong. So Thursday I call Sam and tell her I need a place to stay (sorry for the added stress Sam!). It ended up working out, no worries. Got into Oakland, took the BART to the Walnut Creek station and got to Uncle Wally and Aunt Vicki’s around 11pm. Ate some food, talked to cousin Ben (who I hadn’t seen in quite some time) and then went to bed.

Next morning, I woke up to the sound of little children running around, and I made some new best friends. Cousin JR and Tamera were at the house with their 6 kids, and we spent the morning eating breakfast, painting nails, playing games and watching Oliver and Company. It had been a long time since I had seen it, and I forgot about all the good lines! Especially Tito. So funny.

We got ready for the wedding… and waited. Met up with my family (minus Carly) and waited some more.

Jenny got to go to the ceremony... lucky duck.

My super cute brother

Cousin JR's kids
Natalie is such a sas, I love it!

No more waiting!

Here they are coming out of the temple.

They look so happy! I admit, I totally cried when they came out. Sam had been my BF for a long time! I tell her everything. Anyway, I wasn’t sad, they were happy tears.

We headed over to the church for the luncheon, which was delicious, and then Jen, Mom and I headed to a mall. I met up with my best friend from high school, Tyler, who lives in the Bay Area, and we hung out for a few minutes while Jen and mom shopped.

The reception was awesome! Good food, good company (I mean, seriously, Jones cousins. Does it get any better?) and after the cutting of the cake we had a wicked awesome dance party. We sent the bride and groom on their way, took down the reception and headed home. I stayed at Dan and Amy’s that night (extra bed as opposed to the floor) and then went to the airport the next morning.

So Sammy found a new best friend.

But you can have two best friends right?

i digress

from my goal to catch up on blog posts. but here's why:

aren't they adorable?!

they were born last night; i skyped with carly for about 2 hours just watching them. i get to keep one!

July 22-24, 2010: Ward Zion's Trip

So for the ward trip last year, I couldn’t go down the whole time due to not being able to get work off. This year, I was co-in charge, so I made sure I had that time off loooong in advance. Good thing too, the week was stressful enough with last minute plans and people dropping out. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Morgan and I got called to plan the ward trip in like, May. Early May. We were soooo excited! We started coming up with ideas, which included making shirts for everyone. Wouldn’t that have been awesome?! Those actually ended up not coming to pass, but it’s okay, because everything else was fantastic.

Fast forward to the week of the trip. Morgan and I spent LOTS of money on food, because at the time we went food shopping there were 70-ish people scheduled to come. So after a 3 hour Costco run (and people thinking we were buying for Girl’s Camp – awesome) and a couple other grocery runs, we were stocked up with food. Morgan’s car barely held all the food. Shout out to Morgan’s car!

I know it's dark, but can you see how much food that is? Ridiculous...

Anyway, so Thursday comes around and we are all gathered to get ready to leave. And there are quite a few people not there. So we are calling and calling to see if they are still coming. Somehow this increased my stress level quite a bit. I should work on that. Anyway, we all got down there safely and got dinner started. We played games at the park after dinner, and then packed our lunches for the next day.

Pictures from Thursday night:

No worries, there was still enough spaghetti in tact to feed the 50 people on the trip...

Left to Right: Brianna, Alison, Caitlin, Jake

Left to Right: Amanda, Megan, Angie, Doug, Sean

L to R: Laura, Dan, and Bishop Benson, our fearless leader.

Left to Right, Katie, Jen (daughter of Bishop), Sister Benson.

Me, Aubri, and Maddie, Bishop's granddaughter (and my mini-me, oldest child, two younger sisters, and in a swimsuit with pink cheeks and nose all summer).

Friday we woke up around 6am and started waking up everyone else so we could get going on the hike before it got too hot. People were NOT happy, but that’s okay. They had fun! We had quick breakfast ready and then got in cars and drove to Zion’s.

Side note: our Bishop was leading the caravan, and his car doesn’t read the correct speed limit, so we got down to Zion, well, we’ll just say in record time.

Some of the girls: Me, Courtney, Kristin, Angie, Katie, Aubri

Katie, me, Aubri

We got on the shuttle and started hiking Observation Point, which is an amazing, amazing hike for anyone who has not done it.

Mom, we saw a deer!

My sister and I hiked up with a couple of people from the ward and our Bishop and his wife. We had so much fun!

Me and Carly

Our group of hikers minus the Benson's (they wouldn't get in the picture):

The girls:

Love you Kathy!

Kristin, me, Carly, Courtney:

Really pretty view about a third of the way on the hike:

View from the hike:

See those switchbacks? Yeah, we climbed those:

Don't worry, Courtney and I are fearless:

Carly, I'm so glad you came!

After a long and hot hike (even with the first part being early enough that we were in shade) we got to the top,

ate,

took a couple pictures,

(everyone)

and headed back down the mountain. After we got down, we went to a water hole hidden somewhere in Zion, and played for about an hour or so there.

Trying to organize rides, etc. to the water hole.

The water was so cold but felt so good!

Jumping in:

Drying off:

Then we headed back to clean up and have dinner.

We had a barbecue at the park right around the corner from where we were staying, and it was delish. Props to the grillers, the meat tasted perfect!

Me conducting the event:

Kathy, me, and Carly:

After dinner we played games/watched a movie and ate cookies, (which Morgan and I had to guard until everyone came back from the park, no easy task...)

and finally went to be around 1:30.

Saturday we woke up, and Morgan and I had planned some awesome games at the park. We set up a relay and had 4 teams.

Each team had awesome team names and cheers, and I wish I had a video of all of them doing their cheers; I was peeing my pants they were so funny.

Me supervising some of the groups.

Post relay we packed up, cleaned up and went home! So all in all, the trip was a success and I am extremely relieved it is over.

Side note: this was written about 2 weeks after the trip, and finally put together and posted right now. Also, for more pictures of everyone else, please see Kathy Benson's facebook album entitled "Annual Ward Zion's Trip" and make sure to pay attention to her captions. They are epicly funny!

Dear Morgan, I freakin miss you! We need to play more often!