The Long Awaited...

I was looking at Kar's blog and then checking out who she checks out to see if I wanted to stalk anyone- and I saw "Ken and Patty- 1 week ago." How embarrassing! I'm so lame. But I have lots of fun stories and good news to share... let us begin.

My time off. I took last Thursday and Friday off work to be with my family that came in from Pittsburgh and Oregon. Really though, Thursday I went shopping. I got new shoes, jewelry, and a belt for the wedding. I thought it would be harder than it was but I was super lucky and found everything in like an hour. And then, my dear dear husband took me to lunch! At Puerto Vallarta. Which is pretty much the best Mexican in Idaho Falls. Yeah, pretty much. I crave it every day. The Vallarta Burrito Special is my usual. What I love (tell me if this is awful) is that they know my usual. When Ken and I go we always get the same server and before he even comes to greet us he has our Cokes with lime and guac ready. It's like coming home. Okay, enough of the shameless plugs. Eat at Puerto Vallarta.

That afternoon I went up to __________ (nat... where do you live?) to visit Natalie. She's been telling me about this show GhostHunters for a few weeks and she had a few episodes saved on her DVR. Now, let me tell you I am not into "ghost shows." I think they are lame. I think they are fake. I don't like being scared. But this one is really cool!! They go to people who call them and they try to de-bunk that there is actually a ghost. It's more like a mystery show. On one episode a hanger flew across the room and they were like "Oh my gosh. A entity just threw this hanger." And I was saying, Yeah right.... and entity called a camera man. I thought it was staged. Natalie denied it and said it was real though. But on this other episode the guys jacket was tugged three different times and they showed it from every angle (EVERY ANGLE!!) and no one was there. THAT was freaky. They tried to figure out if it could have gotten caught on his sound equipment but there was no possible way. No way. Fa-reaky! What I liked about the show is at the end they leave you with a good feeling. They show people what they found and assure them that it's probably a "friendly" ghost. Or at least, one that is not going to harm them in anyway. I give it 4.5 stars. It would have gotten 5 if it weren't for that hanger. This is me being "really scared"

Friday the real fun began. I went up to my mom's and spent the day with all my sisters, my grandma, and Uncle Victor. It was Victor's first time to Idaho so we took him to a potato cellar. C'mon- there aren't that many tourist attractions here. I had never been to one myself and was totally floored. I learned all about the proper storing of potatoes, and how a lot of the temperature and humidity control is done by computers now. (Who knew? Probably all you Idahoans did.) Then he took us into the actual storage part. Oh my goodness. I have never seen that many potatoes! It was like a vertical wall of starch. He said there were enough potatoes to fill 65,000 one hundred pound sacks of potatoes in there. In this one cellar! And he had like 4 of them!!! I think he must of thought it was real silly that we were taking pictures of his potatoes- but it was really miraculous to me. When the question and answer session came up I couldn't help but to ask how he likes to eat his potatoes. His response: Baked with butter and sour cream. Yummy. (FYI: My favorite is mashed. Mix in a little cheddar cheese, sour cream, Mmmm Mmm good.)

That night we all trecked over to the Marcum's. (Julie married into the Marcum family.) We had dinner there as a chance to let the families meet one another. Now the Marcum's are an original family of 10 and the Bradley's are an original family of 7- but with every one's spouses and children I feel safe in saying there 40+ people there. It was mayhem. I had a great time. Chris (Marcum) is from a family of mostly boys. (7 boys, 1 girl) and we are all girls. So after we all introduced ourselves- the Bradley's had a photo shoot and the Marcum's hit the buffet. Just further proves how different boys and girls are. We all got to mix and mingle and talk about how much we love Julie and Chris. And I do! I really do.

The Wedding Day was magnificent. In their sealing room those two could not quit giggling. I haven't seen two happier kiddos. They'd just look at each other and smile, then smile bigger, then giggle and shake a little, and then try to control their laughter. They were on a serious laughing jag. They giggled through the whole ceremony. And then the party started. We had a killer luncheon at Amici's and their reception was at The Legacy Flight Museum in Rexburg. Very unique. It was gorgeous in there. They served butter-nut squash soup, harvest breads, and apple cobbler. Totally beat dinner mints and dry roasted nuts in little cups. My favorite part was the dancing. Dancing doesn't seem to be a big thing at weddings out here- maybe because no one is drunk at weddings here. But Julie loves to dance. And it turns out Chris loves to dance. It was Julie, Chris, and the rest of the Bradley's tearing up a rug. But, slowly, one by one the Marcum's loosened up and the dance floor got pretty crowded. And- you Marcum's have some smooth moves! We danced for hours. We danced until they were turning the lights out on us. It was phenomenal.

I loved being with Grandma and Victor. I was so happy that Victoria flew out- I know that was a sacrifice for her. Nothing is better than spending time with family. And what a time we had.

Julie and Chris have been honeymooning in Jackson Hole all week.

Ken and I have been honeymooning in Idaho Falls all week. Just because we didn't just get married doesn't mean that sparks aren't there. Wink. Wink.