Day 28: Mesa and Phoenix

Saturday October 12th, the day of the rehearsal!

Caleb arrived Friday evening from northern BC where he is in medical school; laaate Friday night, Nate also came down from Prescott with Sarah and found the only bed left at the Millers, their living room couch. 

In the morning, we all carpooled to Stonebridge Manor for the rehearsal of the ceremony. Gathering together was awesome and with a little tension between the site wedding planner and the family's wedding planner, we all found our places and hashed out our walking order and other details. 

We then went to Bagel Nosh for a brunchy breakfast before the boys headed off to Lake Pleasant for Nate's stag. Bryan had a blast wakeboarding and tubing with my brother Ben. Nate unfortunately injured his already-injured ankle fairly badly and was limping for the rest of the weekend, even with an ankle brace. He also looked utterly ridiculous during the stag in a prom dress and pink dolphin tights. 

Mom and I on the other hand, left the bagel place and went to get mani-pedis. I got shellac nails for the first time and loved them, bought a pair of flip flops from Ross as my $1 Locals were hurting my feet and super dirty, and then watched the nephews play in the "Tornado" blow up water toy before picking my sis in law April up at the airport and bringing her to our Mesa Hotel. 

I wasn't sure what the plan for the afternoon was but Sarah didn't have any obligations so April and I sat at the pool for awhile, went and got froyo, helped do flowers at Sarah's aunt's for the rehearsal bbq and then went to Sarah's suite where we watched Bride Wars and ate pizza. 

A very busy, full, but productive and fun day. It was nice to be there for Sarah in the evening to pray peace and joy over her in the stressful few days before the wedding. It is such a privilege to pray God's peace and grace with a few others. I love the intimacy of small group prayer and petition before our loving God. 

Such a great day!!

Day 27: Phoenix, AZ

October 11th, 3 days til the wedding. 

Thankfully, despite this being a wedding weekend, there was really only one thing a day Saturday and Sunday and then the wedding Monday, which meant a pretty relaxed weekend overall.

First things first, a visit to the train park. Phoenix has this awesome train park with a rideable mini train, free model train room full of a miniature world with trains zooming around through landscapes, cities and up in the sky on rails, as well as a carousel and a HUGE playground for the boys.

With book reading, toy rockets and sports outside, we played with those kiddos all day long.

Day 26: Prescott, AZ to Phoenix, AZ

Day 26, the Thursday before the wedding, October 10th. 

Despite misplacing our main set of car keys and not finding them, we set off to the Mesa airport to pick up the Mother and Father of the Groom, aka. mom and dad. (Thankfully I had a spare set of keys in my purse). A zippy drive to Phoenix, we stopped off briefly at the Miller's (my sister-in-law's parents) to drop off our stuff so my parents could actually fit in our Subaru. Lo and behold, my bro, sis-in-law and the two most adorable nephews you have ever seen, had already arrived after driving through the night from Wichita Kansas and forgetting to factor in the time change when communicating their ETA.
WOOT! NEPHEW TIME! 
My wonderful husband agreed to pick up my parents while I had some long-awaited snuggles and giggles with little Nathanael and Micah. Oh they are so precious. 

My one remaining wedding job was to buy goodie bags for the kids and fill them with items that would occupy an age span of 2-9 years old. For someone as indecisive as me, this took awhile, but it was a lot of fun. My final dollar store purchases included a paper booklet for drawing, crayons, an activity book (Bible stories, score!), lollipops, taffy, tootsie rolls, lemonheads and Rockets (ok, the package said Smarties, but that's just weird. In Canada, which is the law on such things, they're called Rockets). Each kid also got 3 glowsticks with connectors to make bracelets and a spinning top.

An excited mom and dad arrived at the Millers and the rest of the day passed just hanging out and playing, finishing with s'mores over the firepit outside. Family-togetherness-bliss. 

Day 25: Prescott, AZ

Sarah's house was a flurry of figuring out wedding details in an overall atmosphere of anticipation, excitement and overwhelmed-ness. Thankfully, there was something I could do to help. 
Sarah figured out the wedding programs and I was stoked to take care of the printing, cutting and assembly, which primarily included tying tiny bows. Thank you YouTube tutorials, I can now tie a tiny, straight, even ribbon bow with the tiniest of green ribbons, and tie I did. They looked great by the way and it took most of the day. 

Meanwhile, although he didn't get his ATV day in, Bry was busy working on his programming skills and enjoying a chill day. 

In the evening, we made tacos, and then attacked the wedding planning with gusto, writing names on favors (the COOLEST old fashioned keys that are also bottle openers, my favorite favors I've seen I think) and also doing table arrangements (any brides out there know, one of the most stressful parts of planning). 

By the time this was done, it was pretty late and Sarah's eyes were glazing over. Only a few more days to survive before wedded bliss, you can do it!

Day 24: Vegas to Prescott, AZ

This blog has been severely neglected over the wedding weekend; my apologies.

Day 25 consisted of the following:
- Crepes/froyo for breaky at Luxor, utilizing our coupon, yay for us.
- Check out and head to the Hoover Dam.
- Walk across an awesome bridge to view the dam, then walk across the dam itself. Some seriously cool engineering has been employed for both of these structures.
- Bryan drives the 4.5hours like a champ to Prescott
- Dinner of deeelicious chili and gluten free cornbread at the Snyders
- Bryan played flashball with the Chi Alpha guys while I ran around the track 13 times at Riddle (2 in each lane, one walking, gotta fit into that bridesmaid's dress!!)
- Sleeping on the Snyder's suuuper comfy couches yet again...man, who knew couches could be so comfy! We are so investing in good couches...once we live somewhere...and have money to actually buy furniture instead of getting it free.

Day 23: Las Vegas

Monday October 7th dawned nice and late...well dawn was likely at the same time, but we did not notice. For us, the day dawned around...11am?

We decided to spend the morning walking the strip, and walk we did. A rather boisterous man we met in the hot tub in Kingman had been going off about how long the strip is and how everyone should taxi instead of walk. But poo poo to you old man, I need to fit into a bridesmaid's dress in a week and we are walkin!

On our route we stopped at the Cosmopolitan to see the chandelier, at the Venetian to see the ceiling murals (lo and behold, Joe Montana in wax at the entrance to Madame Tussauds wax museum!), and detoured into a few others. Let's just say it was a long walk.

In the afternoon we spent a few bucks in the slots (I won a dollar back twice, but as Bryan kept pushing the button and losing two cents every time, I had to lose all mine too.) That's what you do in a casino, right? Play til you lose. What fun...

We decided not to see a show, seeing as neither of us are working and we've spent a decent amount this month, but the alternative was the roller coaster at New York New York. Now I have never been on a roller coaster that goes in the sky on a single track. I'm terrified of them and I get motion sick. The limit to my roller coaster experience has been Space Mountain at Disneyland. With sweating palms we trekked over there and hopped on. Once locked in, there's nothing else I could do! AHHH!! The first hill was terrifying; in fact I spent most of the ride screaming with my eyes shut...especially the upside-down portions. But I did like going fast around the corners and I think I'd do it again. Apparently it is not that scary of a roller coaster...too bad, I'm still proud I went on it. Yay for me :)

Then we watched Vegas Vacation.

Day 22: Las Vegas, Nevada

Bryan’s mom is a licensed travel agent and loves looking up hotels and deals and all that comes with that, which we have benefitted from in the past and loved again this trip. She searched for and found a good deal to stay for a couple nights at the Luxor, the pyramid hotel at the end of the strip. It is a cool hotel, nice clean rooms, and I loved the way the sun shined off of the gold windows of Mandalay Bay Hotel nearby and shone into our windows with blinding golden light.

First Impressions of Vegas:

•           Larger than life buildings and hotels
•           Love the themed interior and exterior of New York New York
•           Why are people smoking inside? Gross.
•           Slot machines are the most boring way to lose money.
•          This would be a lot of fun if I had a lot of money to burn, wanted to eat a lot, and was slightly drunk.

We really enjoyed watching football at the pub in our hotel and enjoying the food and bevy coupons we got for staying there (they gave us an extra one so $40 worth of free food and drinks, mmm). It was also great just to be together; Bry is so fabulous and fun to be around, so positive and optimistic, so adventurous and sweet.

Thanks Mom in Law for hooking us up!