Adventuring

Most travel is best of all in the anticipation or the remembering; the reality has more to do with losing your luggage. –Regina Nadelson

A few days ago, I did a little write-up about a quick trip I took last weekend. I intended to pick it up again the next day, but life got in the way. I'm finally filling in the details because it really was a wonderful weekend and I want to share it with you. Fortunately for us, no luggage was lost in the making of our adventure, but we flew stand-by, which definitely added . . . something . . . to the trip.

In the original plans for the weekend, my super cute mom was going to travel with us. But when you fly stand-by you just have to roll with the punches and there wasn't a flight that would get us there in time for the wedding and work with my mom's work schedule. We felt bad to leave her, but my sister and I both really wanted to be at the wedding. We left the Salt Lake airport at oh-dark-thirty and got to Long Beach at 7:00 am on Friday. Our connection to Sacramento wasn't until 11:15, so I did a little hand stitching and my sister played with her new phone, trying to figure out all the whistles and bells, while we tried to make ourselves comfortable in airport chairs.

As time ticked closer, we kept waiting to hear our names called to come up to the podium to get our new boarding passes with seat assignments. We waited. And waited. And waited. At exactly 11:15 a group of people who had paid seats on the later flight sent the attendant scrambling to find them seats on the earlier flight, which bumped us right off and left us with another 5 hours to kill in an airport. I'm afraid this is turning a bit travelogue-ish, because I really, doubt that anyone could make waiting in an airport sound interesting. Well, maybe they could if drug sniffing dogs found a package someone had stashed in their carry-on while they weren't looking. But that's not what happened. I stitched and my sister downloaded some media onto her phone so she could keep herself entertained until we boarded the afternoon flight, which got us into Sacramento at 6:00 pm.

When we arrived in Sacramento, my dear friend and fellow Twi-Quilter, Wanda, and her adorable, er, I mean manly and handsome husband picked us up and drove us to the family dinner. We had a really wonderful time catching up with my cousin and getting to know her extended family. When we finished, Wanda and her husband picked us up and took us back to our house, where they got us all settled in their spare bedrooms.

Saturday, Wanda fixed a lovely breakfast and then took us to the Sacramento LDS temple for the wedding. It was such a beautiful ceremony; I do not have words to express the joy I felt as I attended this sweet couple's wedding. My heart was very full and it may have overflowed a little via my tear ducts. Both of them have been married before and so between them, they have five children and make up a very beautiful family.

The invention of the digital camera is a wonderful thing. You can take hundreds of pictures and share them with the click of a mouse. I had a hard time narrowing it down, so there is some gratuitous wedding photo posting going on here.

My cousin just glowed.

I think this is one of my favorite shots from the whole day.

After the wedding, Wanda came to get us and we went out for a bite to eat and then headed for the reception. It was a huge blessing to have Wanda host us; she was located very near all of our wedding destinations, not to mention a very gracious hostess. On Sunday, we went to church with her and then we met Iris for lunch. I have to insert here that it is a little contradictory to go to church then go out to lunch because Latter-Day Saints take that commandment about keeping the Sabbath Day holy pretty seriously. But it was the only way we could fit it in and I was so glad to get to visit with Iris as well. Both Iris and Wanda have been here to visit. They both came to see the Stephenie Meyer quilt and Wanda visited this summer.

We had a great time talking Twilight and quilting and kids and lives. There was a little gift exchange and I came away with an Alice doll {thank you, Iris!}. After that, we headed back to the airport where we hopped a flight to Las Vegas and then up to Salt Lake. It was a really late arrival, but we were so glad we could make the trip. We packed a lot into those days and had a really lovely time meeting new people and visiting with old friends.

All the same, it's nice to be home.