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?