The Week Before (continued)

I guess it is time to post about the last couple of weeks. For those who would prefer the Executive Summary version: It was great! Here are a few of the highlights about the week before the wedding that I have not already mentioned. Family and friends started to arrive in Salt Lake City and we continued to run around doing lots of errands. Jill put together some small welcome bags for her family full of treats associated with Utah such as salt water taffy. Actually I think the taffy was only thing that was really Utah centric. See's Candy is based in California and Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory is based in Colorado. Oh Well. It is the thought that counts, right?! And I didn't hear any complaining about finding chocolate in their hotel rooms. On Thursday Jill scheduled a pampering day at a nail salon with her sisters and sisters-in-law. I ended up staying for the whole event also, watching little Grace. The salon is in the Cottonwood Mall. My family grew up less than a block from this mall and remember it as one of the bigger and more popular malls in the valley. Now it is a absolute ghost town. Most of the stores are closed. The food court only has one store (Hot Dog on-a-Stick). The story we heard is that Larry Miller bought the mall two years ago and is planning to turn it into a California Style, outdoor mall. But first they are waiting for the current leases to die a very slow death. All that is left is the dedicated mall walkers making laps in the quiet indoor retreat. Unfortunately, even though Jill had called ahead to warn the salon that several of them were coming in at once, they only had one employee on staff and the owner was too busy fighting with her boyfriend to come and help. Therefore, it took much, much longer than they had expected. Robyn, Linda, and Kelly only did pedicures because 3 hours was just too long. Maya's nails turned out OK, Mindy's were OK, but Jill was completely unhappy with hers. Apparently the lady went straight from filing and buffing to painting so her nails had lots of nail dust and bubbles embedded in the polish. Robyn won the prize for most horrific salon experience since she left with a gushing wound on her toe since the lady decided to trim the nail way too close. Although the salon took For-Ever and the quality was extremely questionable, the goal of spending time with the sisters (and Mindy) was a complete success. Thursday night we enjoyed a great meal at The Old Spaghetti Factory. We (Corey, Jill and Maya) took the parents to dinner. This was the first time they had met. The restaurant was a bit loud but we were still able to get to know each other a bit and had a great time. Friday was full day. It started off by going to Books and Bagels at the JCC. Jill and I read several books that Maya picked out to her classmates. They enjoyed some mini bagels while competing to be as close to the reader as possible. Maya left school right after this which she has been excited about all week. We picked up the flowers, the cake, and all the decorations and drove them up to the Inn on the Creek. Jill set up one of the tables like she wanted to show the staff how to decorate the rest of the tables. We were a bit disappointed to see that the landscape was not quite what we had hoped for. Having a March wedding in the mountains we were fully prepared for snow and bwst case scenario, the flowers would be blooming. Instead we were greeted by mashed down, brown vegetation showing the effects of winter. Luckily the flowers around Temple Square very blooming strong. Friday night was the big family dinner celebration. Since I have a very large extended family that won't be able to attend our wedding ceremony and reception we had a big family dinner. Lots family came and lots more family did not come. It would have been nice to see more of the cousins (all married with kids now) but that is how goes. We all have busy lives, right? We had a blast and enjoyed some great food. I dropped Jill off at the hotel where she spent the night with her family. then I crashed - after all, I need my beauty sleep for the big day! Here are some more pictures: Pampering, Books and Bagels, Family Celebration Thanks Chris C. for taking the pictures at the party. Unfortunately my lens decided to stop working! It will not rotate to the wide and zoomed extremes so my 18mm-70mm lens is now just a 25mm-40mm lens. Very bad timing!