Utah Trip - First Installment

Welcome to the Shumway Family Blahhhg.

This last week Stephanie's sister got married in the Salt Lake Temple so we rented a car and drove up for the festivities. It was a lot of fun and really nice to see everyone (including Stephanie's brother, Rob, for the first time since he got back from Iraq).

The day after we got to Mom and Dad's house, Aysha and Stephanie decorated the lawn and trees with yellow hearts and ribbons, reminiscent of the song "tie a yellow ribbon 'round the old oak tree," and hung a big banner over the garage that said "Welcome home from Iraq! We love you Rob!" (Made by Mom, Cami, and Katie)

Colin (Rand and Aysha's son) and Matthew had a great time playing and really liked each other's company the whole trip. It was nice to have a buddy. When we drove up Mom and Dad's street the whole thing was torn up and there were large construction trucks.... I have no idea what kind of trucks they were. Matthew would start singing Bob the Builder everytime he went outside and would point to the truck excitedly and say "Mom! Bob the builder! Mom! Bob the Builder!"

Rand rode with Rob and Renee from the airport that afternoon and we were all waiting outside to welcome them.

That night all of the girls took Katie out for Sushi, which Stephanie had never tried before and was a little scared about. It turned out fine, however, the rolls Stephanie liked the best were tempura-ed, so it wasn't really true "blue" sushi anyway. They decided that every family gathering would include a girls night from now on, since they had so much fun.

From L to R: Stephanie(sister), Kaite (sister and the bride), Cami (sister), Aysha (Sis in law), Renee (sis in law)

After dinner, we raced to the reception center to take our family pictures. The dress code was blue jeans and a shirt ranging in color from navy to white. Both Aaron and Stephanie wished that they had started their dieting a little earlier (their plan is to start on August 22nd after Aaron takes the DAT) so they weren't the biggest people in each picture, but oh well. Our kids are still cute. The ones shown here are not the actual pictures, just us taking pictures while the photographer does her work.

What a cutie. This has been the first installment of The UT trip blog. Stay tuned for the wedding day and a day in Provo Canyon where we were visited by two moosen. Thank you Brian Regan.