Wedding Photos: Cake

From some of those involved in putting everything together:
 
"I am so happy for you!  Thanks for letting me be a part of your special day!  I love you both very much.  Take care of each other.  I wish you nothing but happiness!" -Michelle, unofficial wedding planner

"I'm glad I've been able to meet you both and be your friend.  You guys are amazing!  May many happy years follow.  I love you guys." -Wes, guy who did the grunt work

"Congratulations.  I'm so excited for you guys.  I feel so lucky to know both of you." -Jocelyn, wedding cake baker and caterer

Wedding Photos: First Dance

My Precious Child
-Katherine Kesler

There he is, my sweet little gift from God.
A towheaded little boy with talents galore,
How could a mother ask for anything more?
But along with the joy there was heartache to be found.
Confusion, heartbreak, unfairness abound,
Seeking for guidance on both sides was great,
But love everlasting held open that gate.
This was not the vision either of us had planned,
But reality stepped in holding our hands.
God loves unconditionally and so we must too,
But with a child so fantastic that is not that hard to do!
How could I ever have dreamed ten years ago,
A man named Jack would walk through the door,
To help us accept this next phase more.
They have been judged- we have been judged,
But I have given it over to God,
For he has the wisdom to know what we should do,
And so... "As I have loved you, love one another.
This new commandment, love one another.
By this shall men know, ye are my disciples,
If ye have love one to another."

Thankful

Like the last few Thanksgivings, this year will be spent with Brian's family.  We'll eat yummy food  and then go see a movie.  Last year we watched Hugo.  This year we'll be watching Lincoln.  Part of that tradition involves sitting in the front few rows of the theater...  Not by choice, mind you, but because we forget about how busy Thanksgiving gets at the movie theater.  Crazy packed.  It's funny, but I didn't even know that the Pilgrims had movies back then.  But the Native Americans did invent popcorn so I guess it all makes sense.

Anyway, no matter how we celebrate it, Thanksgiving is about being grateful for what we have in life. And I have a lot to be thankful for.

I'm thankful for Brian, who has recently become my husband, and who loves me despite all my many flaws. He makes me feel safe and respected and better than I really am. He believes in me and he believes in us.

I'm thankful for my family, who love me and accept me even when it's difficult for them to do so. I'm especially grateful for my dad, Patricia, Renee, Jaylon and new baby niece who made the effort to come out from Colorado to be at my reception. It meant a lot to me. I'm also incredibly thankful to be a part of Brian's family. They've welcomed me even though they didn't have to.

I'm thankful for my friends, especially Michelle, Wes and Brett who have become like family to me. I'm also grateful for my coworkers, past and present, who make every day a good one. We always have so much fun together.

I'm thankful to be employed, to be in school, and to have a roof over my head. I'm thankful for my abilities, my inabilities, my strengths, my weaknesses, my ups and downs and everything that is essentially ME.

I'm grateful for the life I've been given and the time I'm living in. Things are good. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Grand Central and Central Park

Our wedding/honeymoon in New York City ended with a lot of walking. Oh, and a cab ride in a real New York City cab, which I must say is much cooler than riding in a taxi back home in Provo. After checking out of our hotel we needed to stow our luggage somewhere so we took a cab to a storage place and then took the subway over to Grand Central Station.

I'm sorry, I mean Grand Central Terminal. Although I've been calling it "Station" my whole life (as many people do), Brian was quick to inform me that it was "Terminal" and when our newlywed bickering ensued, Google came to Brian's rescue and soundly kicked my butt. It's Grand Central Terminal, and it's pretty cool. We had lunch there at Junior's before heading out to Central Park.

That's where we did a lot of walking. So much walking that Brian's legs started to hurt him until they fell off completely and he lay there, legless and crying, as people threw their spare change into his hat. Okay, that part's not true but he did wear a hat. A "Sherlock Holmes" hat as a young Black boy pointed out. The kid was raising money selling fruit snacks for his basketball team (he was very tall, you see, with long pencil legs) but unfortunately we were out of cash by that point. We had given it to the luggage storage lady and it wasn't even enough. We were short a dollar but she let it slide...

Anyway, not sure how I got lost on that tangent. The park was awesome and the weather was beautiful. We saw ducks and geese and more squirrels I think than we ever saw in Yellowstone this summer. If you're looking for wildlife, go to the city! Ha ha. And there were musicians with saxophones or guitars and artists with their canvasses or sidewalk chalk and there were runners and horse-drawn carriages and children watching puppet shows or riding on scooters or playing with sailboats and it was so much fun!

That's pretty much where we ended our trip to New York. We retrieved our heavy bag and with it made our way to JFK airport where our flight was delayed. Then delayed again. And delayed one more time. With lots more time on our hands we had our final meal at Stone Rose Bar & Grill in the airport. I had barbecue pork sliders and Brian had a turkey and bacon panini. Then a bomba and tiramisu for dessert, respectively. We were a little bummed by this point (you might say we were eating our feelings) because we had to go home to Orem, Utah and say goodbye to New York, concrete jungle where dreams are made of, there's nothing you can't do...

Sorry, that Alecia Keys song just flows through my veins now.

There's more though! Guess who we ran into at the airport restaurant? Hugh and Barry! The Irish guys! So not only did we happen to get married on the same day in the same place but we also flew home the same night and ate at the same restaurant. This was too much of a coincidence so we decided the universe wanted us to be friends. We exchanged email addresses before boarding our plane (now more than an hour behind schedule).

But the plane delay didn't end there. We just taxied on the ground for another hour or so while we were all on board. You know, just driving around in circles waiting for what the pilot said was a long line of backed-up planes. Brian said it was a sign that we were supposed to stay in New York forever. I just thought it was fitting, considering all the drama of flying out to NYC in the first place. But our plane eventually took off and returned us safely home. Looks like Utah had some snow while we were gone, huh? Our car was buried under 2 feet of it! What a sweet welcome home present. Thank you, Utah.

Once and The Fantasticks

Ever since I saw them perform on television at the Tony Awards (where they walked away with 8 Tonys including Best Musical), I have wanted to see the musical 'Once.' Based on a film, 'Once' tells the story of a Czech girl and an Irish guy who fall in love while making music together. The show is unique in its staging and narrative form, and also in the fact that all of the actors are also musicians who perform live on stage, giving the show an organic feel. It's like going to an open-mic night with acoustic guitars and soulful ballads. Just perfect. The only way I can describe this show is by saying it's magical and moving. It just became my new favorite musical!

So after our matinee we had time for another show. There were many that caught our attention, like 'Evita' or 'War Horse,' but none of them were playing Sunday night so we decided that 'The Fantasticks' off-broadway would be fun to see. It wasn't until we bought our tickets that we realized Aaron Carter was in it! Yep, once the biggest kid in pop music, he is now performing in a tiny off-broadway show. And do you know what? He was actually pretty good in it. Not the greatest singer (far too nasally) but full of energy. I wasn't familiar with the show at all, but it's one of Brian's favorites. It's quirky slap-stick fun with some great tunes.

The only problem seeing this show was a group of women who came stumbling in, drinks in hand, giggling like schoolgirls. They had fits of laughter several times throughout the production and at one point one of them tried getting out of her row. She stumbled over her friends and spilled her drink on them, which caused a loud shriek of "Shit!" and more laughing. It was a small theater so this was definitely distracting. A little funny, but mostly distracting.

Oh, one more thing I want to mention. For lunch yesterday we ate at a yummy little Japanese place called Saporro. I had Katsu-Don and Brian had Miso Ramen. Yummy stuff. At the table next to us was a little family from Brooklyn: Dean, Caroline and their middle-school-aged son Harper. They struck up a conversation and they were so fun to talk to. Dean is a film-maker who once had a movie at the Sundance Film Festival and Caroline studied English like me but then got into landscaping instead after working at a publishing house for a while. Their son is involved with theater in his school and loves it. As you can see we had lots to talk about. Before they left they gave us their number and email, encouraging us to give them a holler next time we were in New York City.

I'm telling you, the people here are the best.

Chaplin and Avenue Q

Patrick, Brian and I enjoyed two musicals yesterday, the first of which being 'Chaplin' with the slogan, "The big musical about the little tramp!" And when they said big, they really meant it! Black and white staging and costuming combined with projected reals of old Chaplin films gave it a highly stylistic look and the choreography was splashy and fun! Rob McClure, who played Charlie Chaplin, was fantastic and full of energy, but the story, based on his life, was a little messy and schmaltzy at times with average music. We all still had fun though.

We knew 'The Book of Mormon' was difficult to get into, being one of the most popular shows on Broadway, but someone told us of the ticket lottery and the standing-room-only tickets available if you went early. So we each entered the drawing, and although they pulled out several names from Utah (causing us to hold our breath in excitement each time) none of them were ours. There were also too many people in front of us in line for the limited standing room tickets, so we didn't get one of those either.

So, in the mood for musical laughs, we ran to the TKTS booth for Plan B: 'Avenue Q.' It was off-broadway by a few blocks in a smaller theater, but it was so good! I've heard all the songs before but I had never seen the show performed and I loved it! It's basically a grown-up version of 'Sesame Street' with puppets and cartoon segments and singing, only the characters are living in the slums and struggling with bigger issues than colors and counting. If you get a chance to see it anywhere, see it. You'll be laughing your head off!

Greenwich Village

Saturday morning we were hoping to go to the Statue of Liberty, but it's closed (blame Sandy) so Brian decided to take us down to Greenwich Village instead. He had found a sort of tour online and following its directions, we had an enjoyable morning. It was nice to get away from the bright lights and touristy hustle and bustle of Times Square and enjoy a different side of the city.

We saw beautiful brownstone houses including the one used as the exterior of the Huxtables' home on 'The Cosby Show,' the home of poet Edna St. Vincent Millay and even the house that a young Walt Disney lived in before making it big. We browsed in shops in the gay district, saw a street performer flip over a group of people in Washington Square and looked out on the Hudson River. We explored the gardens of St. Lucas and at one point in the day we were attacked by a flock of seagulls... not the band, but the birds.

The streets were cobbled, the air was crisp with autumn, the leaves were falling and squirrels and birds and trees reminded us of the pulsating rhythms of nature and life and the city.