Deja Vu

Last year on Saturday March 22, Sydney was sealed to our family in the Rexburg, Idaho Temple and was blessed the next day. (Click here for that post.) This year, we had some deja vu when on Saturday March 21, Aaron's mother's family was sealed together (In our religion we believe families can be linked together in this life and the next through a special ceremony called a sealing). The next day we blessed Mady. It was weird thinking that we had just done this exactly 1 year before! We have loads of pics to share, and most of you probably don't want to muddle through all of them, so I'll tell the story and add a slide show so you can go check them out if you want.

Here's the rundown. Friday March 20 we loaded the girls up and headed us to the airport. I had borrowed this amazingly cool contraption from a friend of mine that completely saved our lives. Basically it attaches to any convertible car seat and gives it wheels. No lugging car seats or strollers. You can find them here. On Thursday I had put Sydney in it to test it and she loved it! She refused to get out - definitely a good sign!After walking about a mile and a half, we finally got to our gate. The ticket person greeted us by name (apparently not many people travel with 2 lap kids!). The girls both did pretty good on the flight, although Sydney fell asleep about 3 minutes before we landed. Of course. Aaron's parents were gracious enough to come pick us up and loan us a car (we take up a whole one now) while we were there. Thank you so much again! Sydney had tons of fun running around when we got there and Grandpa & Grandma were thrilled to play with her! That night we hung out with lots of family on both sides and I got to meet my cute nephew Isaac while lots of people met Mady.

Saturday my mom watched the girls while we went to the temple for the sealing. It was beautiful and wonderful to see so many people! We had a giant family get together afterward and it was insane! There are tons of little kids, all ages 7 and under, so it was a bit of a madhouse, but very fun.

Sunday was the blessing and it was beautiful. Aaron did a wonderful job and Mady looked beautiful thanks to my mom who sewed her gorgeous dress and my sister who made her adorable headband - thanks again! My sisters and sister-in-law came to my rescue since my camera didn't make it out of it's bag until 2 days before we came home! My mom also put together a great luncheon after church, which was great. Lots of family, friends, and great food.

The rest of the week we hung out with our remaining family members and even squoze (is that a word?) in a date night while we had grandparents to babysit. We bought mountains of diapers (such good times), stayed up incredibly late, played with our old toys we grew up with, and I don't think I ever had more than 1 child to watch at a time - it was weird. Nice, but weird! We got lots of fun toys and cute clothes from the aunts & grandmas. Since we have most of the girl grandchildren (and the only grandchildren on Aaron's side for a few more weeks) they get a tad spoiled. We like it. Thanks for everything - and yes, Kiery, even the heathen socks!

Saturday morning Aaron's parents got up at the crack of dawn to take us back to the airport to catch our 6:40 AM flight (the price of getting cheap tickets on Priceline). Both girls did awesome until we landed 20 minutes early. Then the Jetway was frozen to the runway or something and they couldn't get it to the plane. Both girls decided it was the perfect place to launch a screaming assault. Such fun times! Then we got back to our house and realized we had turned the furnace off (it was nice when we left but snowed a bunch while we were gone). Our house was a chilly 42 degrees, so we all stayed bundled up for a few hours while the temperature climbed to a more hospitable number. All in all, a great trip with tons of fun memories and 2 very tired parents! Thanks again to everyone for coming and for your hospitality while we were there! We loved seeing you and you are all welcome to come visit us anytime!