the day before the wedding

The first reason we went to California last week was for the wedding.  Kent's brother, Mason and Jessica were married.  We got there a day early and were able to spend time with cousins and Kent's family, we went to the family luncheon, and we did Mason's bachelor party.

We all stayed in the same hotel for the night, and the kids had a blast playing together for several hours that morning in the beautiful gardens.  

 These boys were so very sweet with Ellie-they were gentle and eager to help her-just darling.
(Thanks Shannon for almost all of these pictures!)

 The kids literally spent two hours with this little koi pond.  And they were sad to leave it when we finally pried them away. We were all trying to figure out how to get one of those at our houses too.  

I love that my kids were able to spend some short-but-quality time with their cousins.  It was great to see them all playing so well together.

 For Mason's bachelor party, we went to a medieval dinner and show.  

Have I mentioned that my children are scared of anything loud, dark, or with strangers in costumes?   
Kent and I were certain the two of us would spend the entire time in the halls with our kids.  

This is Nicholas before we even entered the building.  This awesome performer was leaning in to make sure Nicholas was going to be okay.  "It's not too loud, young sir-you'll be all right!"  

As the performers came out, Ellie was up by the door-just walking around exploring.  They all filed out and lined up with her smack in the middle of them. I was expecting her to cry but she just looked around with wide eyes and walked back over to us.  

Later, though, she dropped her princess wand and the same performer/announcer from above reached down to pick it up for her and she really did burst into tears.

 When the show started and the room went dark, Ellie started to cry and I thought,
"Oh boy, here we go..." 
but then this gorgeous white horse came running out.  
Ellie stood up in my lap with her hands on her cheeks, eyes and mouth wide open, gasped, and then pointed and said "HORSE!"  (Which from her sounds like tongue clicking--she refers to most animals by the sound they make instead of their name.)
And she was perfectly happy the entire rest of the show.
In fact, she actually fell asleep during the crazy jousting part at the end.

 That's my Nicholas in the middle-hands over his ears for the entire dinner and show.  But he loved it. Horses, knights, swordfighting!
And now he asks me about sixty times a day if we can pretend to sword fight.

After we got back to the hotel and put the kids to bed the adults all gathered in Mom and Dad's room for a gift-giving, advice-sharing, very sweet family meeting.  

I am so so glad we were there.  We missed the last wedding (Nicholas was born just two days after Denver and Bree were married), and we were very grateful we got to come for this one.