Autumn's Wedding!!

The first 14 pictures are of set up.  Set up actually took place while I was flying home from Mexico... Kristen and Jamie did such a great job heading up that effort!  I knew it would all come together beautifully, and it exceeded my expectations!  All those months of preparing and gathering and planning worked out beautifully!

Autumn and Jesse's wedding day was absolutely perfect!  The sealing at the Gilbert Temple was so sweet and the Sealer did such a good job counseling them.  It was just a beautiful ceremony!  I can tell they are both just so happy, and meant for each other!  After pictures, Bill and I went to Kneaders for lunch with Spears and Pagans and had a nice visit with them.  After we drove straight to the church to help with the last of the set up, but we hit traffic and got held up!  I got there as soon as I could!  I got there in time to bring an extension cord and a few other things they needed and to put the flowers on the cake.  (Nobody wanted to do it and I love doing it so it worked out great!)  The Reception was gorgeous!  I wish I took more pictures of the beautiful greenery and flowers Jamie had arranged on top of all of the backdrops. They had left over flowers from the bridal flowers they did, so Jamie got to put fresh flowers everywhere!  (And they STILL had leftover!)  It was absolutely breathtaking!  It was a fun party and I worked my tail off!  They had a ring ceremony for all the nonmember friends and family with pizza and salad after that for those that attended the ceremony, and then the Reception began.  I spent the whole time in the kitchen and refreshing the mini cheesecakes, which by the way, were SO good!  It was a fun party and a lovely evening!  We had the big send off where Autumn and Jesse drove off into the night, and then it was back to work again taking the whole thing down!  It was a bit chaotic as we tried to keep things organized but hard because everything was borrowed and I had to make sure that everything got in the right box and back to the right people!  I came home tired and with very achy feet!  I'd been on them ALL day!  I finally plopped into bed after midnight, after I'd washed a load of table clothes so that stains wouldn't set in them.  (The next day I washed all of Jamie's tablecloths, because I was so afraid that stains would set... even though it was Sunday!)  I can't believe how much WORK it was to put this all together, but it came off so beautifully and I had such a sweet feeling as I contemplated all the people who helped and pulled together to make it such a beautiful night for Autumn and Jesse!  And I can't think of 2 more deserving people!  They are such good people and so grateful and appreciative of everything we did!  It was a wonderful day, but I'm GLAD it's over!!!  ;)

Day 6-- Our Last Full Day in Mexico! Our Trip to Xplor Park!

Today was our last full day in Mexico-- and it was a fun one!  We caught our shuttle over to Xplor where we had a full day of fun activities.  After going inside the entrance, we found our locker and put sun screen on, etc.  Then our first activity was the jeeps/amphibious vehicles.  It was a super fun ride through the jungle and caves!  Some of the caves were full of water and we drove through the muddy, clay-like water.  Bill took the first big cave way too fast and it got water and mud all over us and inside the jeep!  (I think there is a picture of it their camera's got of this down below!  It's all out of order though, as we took our own pictures and we paid to have them take pictures, as well.)  After that, we rafted through an underground cave, which was pretty fun.  Then we zip lined the biggest circuit of zip lines we've ever done before and got lots of exercise hiking up all the towers to the next line.  On the very last line, we ended in water and we got completely wet!  It was so much fun!  After we finished on the zip line, we went to get our buffet lunch, which was included.  It was actually really good food.  We stuck to the Mexican food, as we won't get this good stuff when we go back home!  It tasted sooooo good!  And, of course, I had a lot of fruit again!  The papaya is sooooo yummy, I just can't get enough of it!  There was a lot of different foods to choose from, though!  We got chips and salsa and guacamole and some more yummy tacos!  After lunch, we went back to the jeeps and did a couple more runs on different courses.  It's pretty fun!  Then we headed to the showers and got all cleaned up and as dry as we could and then headed for the gift shop, where I bought a rash guard for me and also one for Katelyn.  We couldn't find anything McKenzie would like, so we decided to get her something from the airport.  After it was closing time for the park, we headed out to find our shuttle, which was difficult as everyone kept pointing to the opposite end of the parking lot... but we finally found it!  (And we weren't the last ones there, either!)  When we got back to our room we showered and got all cleaned up for the Edward Jones Farewell dinner.  It was on the beach (same as the first night), and the food was amazing!  It was a beautiful evening-- we took photos at the photo booth they had set up.  I have a picture of the picture they gave us at the very end of this post.  The weather was beautiful, but very windy!  It made it a really nice temperature though.  The weather has been so good for us this whole week.  The only time it has rained at all is either when we were indoors, or on a bus!  It has really been a beautiful and relaxing week!  I am ready to go home tomorrow, though.  One week is just the perfect amount of time to be gone and feel rested and then be ready to get back to normal life again.  We travel home all day tomorrow. 
Adios Mexico!!!