Party Filled Weekend

This last weekend was really busy, but a lot of fun!

Friday after spending the afternoon trying on and tweaking bridesmaid dresses at my aunt's house, I picked Justin up from work. We roamed around Goodwill looking for a few things for his work's "spirit week". They're having a dress up day every day this week, for no reason at all, other than to have fun. They have tacky tourist, military, generation day (which for Justin means 80's day), sports, and childhood dream profession day. I'll be sure to post pictures at the end of the week with all his various outfits ;)

Friday night we got to have a date night for Justin's birthday. We went to the temple first and then out to Red Lobster. We'd never been there before so we were really excited. We got sooooo much food! It fed us dinner Friday, Sunday and Justin's lunch today!

Carrie was being babysat by my brother Jake, and my sister Marissa and her fiance Brandon. Since she was already in bed at my parents' house and we were going to be coming back Saturday morning, we just left her there to play at grandma's house. :) We got to have a fun Netflix movie night at home alone watching Michael Jackson's "This is it". Michael Jackson, the man, is strange and a little creepy. Michael Jackson, the musician, is awesome!!

Saturday, we headed back up to Mesa for a day mostly revolving around my sister Marissa. First, was her Bridal shower. We had a chocolate fountain (yummy)! We also played a couple of games. One of Marissa's favorite shows is "The Price is Right", so we made our own little version of that game. We had 11 cleaning supplies that we brought out one by one (accompanied by me giving a little description, just like the announcer on the game show does). The guest who got the price closest without going over, won a little prize, and Marissa got to take them all home!

We also did a game where I had asked Brandon (her fiance) questions and written down the answers. I asked the same questions to Marissa. For every one she got wrong (didn't match Brandon), she had to put a piece of Dubble Bubble in her mouth. After 20 questions, she had 8 pieces of gum in her mouth! It was so gross, but so funny!


After the bridal shower, we went straight to dinner at the Stake Center and then sat to watch the General Relief Society Broadcast. It was great! There was a LOT of emphasis on Visiting Teaching. I guess that's a message I really needed to hear.... I'm trying to get better. For anyone who happened to watch, don't you just LOVE President Monson?! He was in a little bit of a goofy mood, but he still had a strong, awesome message. I love hearing from him. He's just always so happy. It's another confirmation to me that the church is true. If he can be so happy all the time, it must be!

Like I said, the weekend was busy busy busy. I went straight from the broadcast to Marissa's bachelorette party. The bridal shower was really for the moms, in-laws, and ladies from the ward. The bachelorette party was more for her friends from high school.

We played a couple of games first and then a party bus took us to Scottsdale for dinner. We went to Saddle Ranch. The food was delicious and the gigantic mound of cotton candy they brought out at the end was great too! They had a mechanical bull there and Marissa and one of her friends each took a turn. I don't have any pictures of them on the bull because I was taking video. The videos are way too big to post though. They'd take forever to upload!

Instead, how about a picture of me and my cute little bride-to-be sister.

Her shirt from Saddle Ranch, "Save a horse, ride a cowboy!"

By the time the party bus got back and we drove from Mesa back home to Maricopa, it was 1:30am! We were really really tired!

Luckily, we don't have church early in the morning. Justin only had to be ready in time for a 10:00 meeting for cub scouts. That's right... cub scouts. Last week he got called as the cubmaster, which means he's in charge of pack meeting every month. It'll be a big job, but I think he's excited!

After quite a long day (filled with me playing the organ, and then the piano for primary) we finally got Carrie down for a nap at 3:45 after church. She definitely needed it! We had some friends from the ward over for yummy peanut butter cookies and hung out for a little while. It was really fun. We love making new friends, even if we've known the people for a while, but just never really hung out with before. :)

And what's a post without pictures of Carrie?! Our adorable little girl is growing and learning so fast! In these next two pictures she's using her imagination quite well! She found two little cups in the tupperware cupboard and then found two plastic forks in the pantry. She set them on the table and then beckoned me over to "eat". She. Is. So. Cute.



All day long she walks through the house with her sunglasses, purse, and water sippy, while wearing my shoes, and chatting on one of her many toy cell phones. It's not rare to randomly hear a teeny little voice say multiple times,"Ooohh myyy goosshhhh!" while she's talking on her phone. Apparently, I say that a lot.... It makes me laugh every time.