I'll admit that I was NOT looking forward to the trip. It's a 12-13 hour drive each way and we couldn't miss any extra days from work. Which meant we left on a Thursday, went to the wedding and reception on Friday, and drove home on Saturday. We had to get home for Carolyn's boyfriend Caleb's mission farewell on Sunday, so it was one. quick. trip.
We woke up bright and early on Thursday morning and got out the door around 8AM. We dropped Benny off at Jared and Sam's house and started the trek!
We arrived in Gilbert at about 8:30PM at Riley's aunt Jolene's house. They were gracious enough to let us breeze in and out to stay!! That night we went and met my friend Kristi for frozen yogurt and spent way too much time chatting and catching up. We didn't get back home until 1AM but we fell asleep immediately and didn't wake up till like 10 or 11 the next day. We got up and went to breakfast with Cousin Tyler at the Black Bear Diner, came back and got put together for the wedding!
The sealing was beautiful and they looked SO happy! It reminded me of our wedding a few years back. I can't recall nearly a single thing that was said in the ceremony, which makes me kind of sad. But we were so anxious/nervous/excited/scared/happy that the whole day was a bit of a blur.
It's important to note here, that Riley picked a "lemon" from one of the trees at the temple. I was positive we were going to Hell for stealing from the temple (more on that story later), but he didn't think much of it.
We had a few hours between the sealing and the reception, so we ended up walking through the Chandler mall for a bit. WOW! What an amazing mall!! It makes all the malls here seem so small and pathetic. Riley's favorite part was the Lego Store, which I practically had to pull him out of.
As we left the mall and were on our way back to the house, we were stopped at the mall exit waiting to turn right onto the main road. We noticed that several cars in front of us, a vehicle was parked in the middle of the road not moving. It was holding up traffic and several people had gotten annoyed and were honking. Riley got out of the car to see what was going on, only to find a young teenage girl sitting in the car, panicked because it had died and wouldn't start. Luckily he had packed practically his entire tool box in the back of our car, whipped out his handy scanner and was able to reset the codes for her long enough for the car to start and get out of the way of the other cars. By that time, her dad had gotten there and was so grateful that someone had stopped. You could tell that she was beside herself that people were upset they had to go on the curb to get around her. Her dad mentioned that it took someone driving all the way from Utah to help his daughter, and thanked Riley multiple times.
We went to the reception that night which was held at a friend's backyard. It was a beautiful night with lovely weather, made even better by the fact that they danced to the "What Does the Fox Say" song. Love it.
That night we met Kristi Lou for dinner at an Italian place called Oregano's. The portions were HUGE! Between Riley and I we ordered an appetizer and an entree to share and had TONS of leftover.
We woke up the next morning at about 7AM and were on our way! We stopped in Vegas and met our friends Cameron and Lorna for lunch at the Vegas Ale House and enjoyed catching up with them! We miss seeing them all the time, but hopefully we'll have the chance to visit with them again VERY soon :)
Even though it was a LONG time in the car for a very short trip, I wouldn't have had it any other way. I love being able to spend time with Riley, just the two of us. We had about 26 hours in the car to talk, laugh, and enjoy each other's company. I learned lots of things I didn't know about him (which I didn't know was still possible,) and it just makes me appreciate having him in my life even more.
One thing stuck out to me in a conversation we were having. I asked, "Do you remember the day you decided you wanted to marry me?" He thought for a minute, and said, "I have good news and bad news. The bad news is, I can't remember the exact day I decided I wanted to marry you. The good news is, I can't remember a day when I DIDN'T want to marry you." I about melted in my chair. He's an incredibly soft hearted guy even though he doesn't show it all the time. I'm one lucky girl!!
Remember the "lemon" from earlier? Well fast forward to last night when I took on the challenge of making a FROM SCRATCH pumpkin pie with my mom and grandma. The recipe called for lemon zest so I thought, "Great! I'll use the lemon that we picked from the temple!" I got to my parents last night and whipped out my "lemon" to show off to my mom. She looked at it for about .2 seconds and said, "That's not a lemon. That's a grapefruit." I denied it as I was SURE it was a lemon. Well, we cut into it and sure enough. Grapefruit. Awkward.... 
