Summer weddings

Jana and Brad were married on July 12 in the Mt. Timpanogos temple in American Fork. Their delicious wedding dinner was held the night before in Salem - the hometown of the groom. Their reception was in the backyard of the bride's home in Alpine. This wonderful family has been our friends for more than 20 years. We've attended the marriages of four of their six children and were honored to once again be included. Best wishes to Jana and Brad!
Our daughters, Jordan and Claire have been dear friends with Jana and Becky their entire lives almost. Our girls traveled to attend the wedding and we're so glad they could be there to celebrate with Jana.
Our niece Sydney was married July 25 in the Salt Lake City temple to Adam. They make a perfect couple. Their marriage was in the afternoon and their wedding dinner followed afterwards in the Joseph Smith Memorial building in the Empire room. It was a lovely evening and we enjoyed being with family and friends.
I helped make Sydney's dress. The skirt was made out of silk chiffon and each layer was a seperate skirt. It was like working with tissue paper. I'm glad I could help and I think the dress turned out beautifully.

In addition to these weddings, including the wedding we attended in Calgary Canada, we received invites to about 10 other wedding receptions and we attended most of those as well. It was indeed a summer of weddings!

Spring weddings

Our son Dave started the season off right. He and Courtney enjoyed a beautiful wedding on May 3rd in the Salt Lake City Temple. Their wedding dinner was held the night before at the Joseph Smith Building, in the Jade room. Their reception was held at Magnolia Grove, which was a classy reception center in South Jordan, half way between their homes.
The spring flowers at temple square were amazing. They got some remarkable pictures. Their wedding day couldn't have been better and we're so happy for them both. We love you, Dave and Courtney! We're so happy to have such a great new daughter-in-law in our family.
The wedding party included the bride's family, her parents, four sisters and one brother, their spouses and children, and the groom's family consisted of his parents, two sisters, their husbands and children. One missionary brother in Mongolia was sorely missed.
Rick flew up to Portland to attend the wedding of his best friend David later in May. We all met as freshman at BYU and we've been dear friends ever since then. David and new wife Pam were married in the Portland LDS temple and they are currently living in Eugene. I didn't have a wedding picture of them, so I included a picture taken at our home earlier this year. They are so happy and we are thrilled for David to have a new love in his life.One of Dave's best friends was married on June 21st. Josh and Dee were married in the Mt. Timpanogos temple in American Fork. They had their fun wedding dinner at the Pizza Factory with a reception following at the oldest LDS church building in Orem. Josh's parents Roger and Allie are our very good friends and we were honored to be included in all the wedding festivities.

Dillon and Katie

Our purpose in going to Calgary, Canada was to attend the marriage of our niece Katie to Mike. Katie is the daughter of Rick's brother Jim, who died 18 years ago. He was married to Sharon and they had two small children at the time of his death - Dillon, who is now 20, and Katie, who is now 19. After Jim's death, Sharon moved back to her hometown of Calgary. Her wonderful parents lived there and they have helped her raise her children. Katie and Dillon are wonderful people. They are smart, kind and very supportive and attached to one another and they are very interesting people to talk to. The younger girl in the pictures is their half-sister. We went to lunch with them the day before the wedding so we could have a chance to visit. We haven't seen Dillon and Katie since they left Utah and Dillon reminded us so much of Jim. His voice, his mannerisms, his personality and intelligence are so similar to those of his dad. Katie looks like Jim and she is a little firecracker, a take-charge kind of girl. Her husband Mike is a nice guy. It was so good to see them all and to renew friendships. We'll be staying in touch with them through email in the future. It was an emotional time to see them again and to be there to support Katie and Dillon and Jim to some degree.

O Canada! Terre de nos aîeux,

Oh, Canada! Our home and native land!

Who knew that Canada was so beautiful? The parts of Canada we saw are beautiful almost
beyond description - like it was another country (tee hee). Some observations from our trip last week with my husband and his parents:

• no litter in Canada
  
• no graffiti, even on railroad cars
• no billboards along the roadways
• Calgary was a safe, clean and beautiful city with 1,000,000 residents and we only saw three homeless men
  
• beautiful farms and well kept homes lining the roadway
• no license plates on the front of any of the cars I saw
• beautiful flower baskets and window ledge baskets everywhere
• temperature, mileage distances and speed limits in the metric system. Did you know your car's speedometer also shows kilometers inside the mph?
  
• people drove very close to the speed limit
• I now know that the the phrase "purple mountains majesty" means
• we traveled 2346 miles. My father-in-law kept track like he always does
• instead of seeing all the signage and information in English and Spanish, it was it English and French
  
• the LDS temple in Cardston is very large and different in appearance from other temples. No angel Moroni. The town of Cardston is very, very small. Smaller than Rupert. The members in Calgary currently travel 2 1/2 hours to get to the temple in Cardston or to Edmonton, which is takes about 3 hours travel time. The Canadian saints seem to be very faithful.
• Someone told me the Frank Lloyd Wright helped design the Cardston temple. Check that out, Claire.
  
• I have never seen another lake the same color as Lake Louise. And the rivers and the streams in the area - same color. It must be something in the glacier water coming off the mountains. Calling it turquoise doesn't even do it justice.
  
• Canada is home to the Rocky Mountains. Kind of makes our version of the Rocky Mountains here is Utah look like the Rocky Hills
  
• Canadians say "aboot" instead of "about" and instead of the letter "z" they say the letter "zed"
• There are some stores that are distinctly Canadian, but many of our US chain stores exist in Canada. We ate at a restaurant called Joe Tomato's and it was to die for.
• We stayed one night at the home of our old college friend Gary Tagg and his family. We learned a lot of interesting things about living in Canada from Gary and Glenda. Gary was instrumental in getting us together back in 1978.
  
• Banff, Canada is a happening place. Trendy, hip, and very fashionable. We didn't stay there very long, but it was nice to see it
• Calgary hosted the winter Olympics in 1988. We visited some of the sites where the competitions were held. How many luge runs and huge ski jumps does the world need? Why doesn't the Olympic committee just go back to some of the countries that have all the infrastructure and events built and use it again?
  
• We know less as a country about Canada and Canadians than they know about the United States and US citizens. That is very sad. They are interesting people who live in a very remarkable part of the world. I'm on a quest to learn more Canadian history and geography.
  
• It didn't look like the Canadian boarder police had any problems keeping the people in. No razor wire, high fences, guard dogs or the like.
  
• I'd go back in a heartbeat. What's not to love about Canada? Ok, so it's a little cold in the winter, but AZ is a little hot in the summer. You just cope, and enjoy the weather when's it temperate.