I don't know why its been so hard for me to get back into the blogging mood, but we did have a fun trip to spokane. it was our last plane trip for a very long time and that made ryan and I both happy because we feel like we've been on an airplane way too much in the past months. we did get a kick at how experienced and cute kate was with the whole airport/airplane thing. she walked right in like she knew exactly what she was doing. we flew 3 hours straight there and it was a pretty good flight until the very end when my right ear felt like it was going to explode. I had been sick starting a couple of days before and when we got there we realized it was a sinus infection. I have never had one before and it was not fun. what was nice was that the first part of our trip was in wenatchee and it was just our family visiting my mother in law and jesse, who were working and going to school the majority of the time, so I think I got more rest there than I would have at home when I would have had laundry and other things to do and ryan would have been working. so even thought I was sick it was a nice vacation. on thursday we drove back to spokane and the real fun began (luckily I was feeling much better!) we met hilary and mike and their girls at a hotel that was our home for the next 3 nights. the best thing about it was the pool where kate learned to swim on her own with the swim floaties!! she is just so BIG! I thought it was so funny how last summer she knew exactly what swimming was and loved it and this was her first time doing it in a long time...it took a little time for her to not be so timid, but she soon LOVED it!
that night we all went to dinner at red robin with aunt natalie and got to hang out and talk about the upcoming wedding and all the plans. on friday jen and jeremy and their family came and so all the cousins were there. kate just loved her cousins and they were so good to play peek a boo with her and to do silly things to make her laugh. we did a lot of wedding getting ready and hanging out all that day and night. we were able to get a lot of the decorating done at the church for the reception the night before. natalie did an awesome job planning everything and picking out her colors and really nice fabrics for table runners and things. here are the tables:
she had some girls in her ward do her cake, didn't it turn out great?
and she had a really fun idea to serve ice cream with lots of toppings options. the set up was so cute, she had made the labels really cute....I wish I would have gotten a close up...but you get the idea.
the night before the wedding, as I was ironing at the church and getting ready for the reception at about 10:00, the thought somehow came to me that I didn't bring my temple recommend with me. when I go to the temple I usually leave my wallet in the car so I put the recommend in my temple bag and then try and remember to put it back in my wallet when I'm done. of course this last time I wasn't successful!! if I had remembered at any other time in our week long trip in washington my mom could have one day mailed it to me or something, but of course I realized it late late the night before!! oh man, I felt so dumb! the next morning I called the temple and the temple president called my bishop and everything worked out and I was able to get in...phew! everyone kept saying not to worry because you hear about it happening all the time...but that almost made me feel more dumb because you do hear about it all the time and it seems that should serve as a better reminder to bring it!! but the sealing was wonderful and I was glad I didn't miss it. natalie looked gorgeous in her dress and jewelry (that she made!)
but remember that cute dress I bought kate (that wasn't cheap, mind you!) so she could get cute pictures with gorgeous natalie outside the temple?!? yeah, that didn't happen. my stubborn (and tired and hungry) kate cried everytime I tried to put her in them. I was so frustrated!! so this is the only picture I got of all the girls together in their dresses:
yeah, not quite as cute as I was picturing in my head!! but what can you do? the reception was really nice but went really fast. here is kate showing off a blue m & m
the kids were all in ice cream topping heaven! afterwards we said goodbye to natalie and then cleaned up the church. I'll be excited to hear from natalie if the night turned out how she imagined. it seemed like such a whirlwind to me, and I wasn't even the bride!! but it was beautiful!
the next day we were all leaving but we spent a little time hanging out (and the kids had a little more swimming time!) after we had all packed up we were hanging out in hilary's room when ryan asked me to call my mom and make sure our plane left at 2:30 like we were thinking. I called my mom and she informed us that our plane actually left at 1:30....I looked at the clock and it was 12:30....yikes!! so we basically said goodbye to everyone in panic mode and rushed to the airport, not even knowing if we were going to make it. we got there at 1:05 and ryan dropped me off with our 4 big suitcases, a car seat and a kate and he drove off the drop off the rental car. I ran in and asked the guy at the counter if we could still make it and he looked at me like "what were you thinking getting here so late?" yeah, I know, I'm an idiot...just get us on this plane!! he said we might be able to make it but we would have to hurry. so I ran and got 2 more of my suitcases from the curb, ran back in with them, ran back and got the last 2, ran back in (all the while kate is chasing me back and forth) and he checked them in, but wasn't completely optimistic that they would make it on the plane. he broke the rules and gave me ryan's boarding pass without seeing his ID and I ran to security. (ryan is still checking in the rental car at this point.) so I tell the security people my dilemma and they let me cut in line in front of everyone and they held onto ryan's boarding pass to give to him when he came running up (which they told me is also against the rules). I started doing the security shuffle with kate, taking off shoes, taking our dvd player out of the bag, etc when ryan runs up completely out of breath because the car rental place is about a half mile down the airport. he cut in line too and we made it through security in a flash. we ran up the escalator and started sprinting towards the gate (expressjet is ALWAYS the very last gate in the terminal!) I had kate in my arms and ryan had the carry on bags and kate thought it was so fun to run through the airport. she said "fast!" and started giggling!! I was glad she was having fun!! we were so amazed....and completely out of breath....when we made it on that plane!! and to our surprise, we got to tucson and had our bags too!! thanks expressjet!!
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it was really nice and can I just say, I LOVE TUCSON WEATHER!
after we ate lunch, the "easter bunny" went down to the lakes by the neighborhood clubhouse and hid LOTS of easter eggs for kate to find. 
(aren't the sunglasses great? she has several pairs and anytime she sees us put them on she has to have hers!) mom had bought some confetti eggs at walmart because she had remembered making them in oklahoma. its where you drain out an egg and then fill it with confetti so you throw them at people and they break open. well devin and ryan started throwing them at each other and they wouldn't break! they were some hard shells! so they were smacking each other with these eggs and, of course, kate thought thats what she was supposed to do with the eggs she was finding. perfect. it was fun, but I decided that one of the things that makes easter eggs great is having some competition! 
kate and I had a fun time going through all the clothes. she even tried on a couple of outfits because she couldn't wait. and I have to admit that it feels good. so now we have drawers full of cute handmedowns!! thanks hilary!
