the tiniest perfection

Well, I guess I've mentioned before that I have a thing for little tiny things.
It borders on an obsession sometimes, really.
And surprisingly enough, an old friend of mine from high school remembered this from something I mentioned on facebook or something.

Last week she sent me a message saying she had collected "something little that had reminded her of me" and asked for my address to send it to me.
(I guess I didn't realize how literally she meant "something little." :))

And my heart did a little flutter when I opened the envelope to find this bottle cap filled with these tiny perfect miniature seashells she had collected at Lake Michigan. Ah! She absolutely made my day by so thoughtfully giving to me 2 of my very favorite things: little things, and mail. :)

It is rare in the world today to see an instance where someone is thoughtful and remembers something small and insignificant that is important to someone else, and then actually acts and does something about it, letting the other person feel remembered.

And amazing how something so small and simple, as small and simple as these tiniest perfect shells, can bring such happiness to someones day. :)

I just want to remember that.

Thank you, Stephanie.

Home to the Commonwealth: Day 9, Great Falls, VA

Monday, June 6 was the day that we were flying back home to UT but our flight wasn't leaving until the early evening so we had some time for one . . . more . . . little . . . adventure. Melissa and Chris were off on a little honeymooning adventure of their own, so we decided to drive over to Great Falls National Park since it was relatively close, beautiful, full of memories, and within easy access of the airport to boot! It is, yes, another one of my favorite VA places.

When I was about 14 (?) we came here to go rappelling for a church youth camp activity-thing. We rappelled down a 70 ft(?) cliff down onto the ground right by the water, which was sort of freaky. I was really proud of myself for doing it though. ;) I'll dig up a picture someday to show you.

And then my family and I came again several times.

And I brought Zac there once way back when we lived in VA and Abigail was a teeny thing.

It's just the perfect combination of rushing water, green trees, waterfalls, rocks to climb over, trails to hike. All those wonderful things that I love so much.

(and it's amazing to think about the floods they have there when the Potomac river reaches above where these overlooking platforms are and even higher. Amazing and terrifying. Water is pretty incredible.)

So, there it is. Sigh.

It's been so long since I've been home now, that not only does it feel like the whole trip was a dream, but I am surely forgetting some things that I meant to include in these posts. I'll have to think some more and see if I remember anything really crucial and then I'll have just one more trip post for you!!

Home to the Commonwealth: Day 8, Wedding Photo Extravaganza!

ok. Here's what we're going to do. In the interest of time I'm just going to add some little captions to all of these fabulous photos (and not even put them in order) and hopefully somehow you can piece together the whole magnificent wedding day story.

Oh but first, one part of the story that isn't told in the pictures: the night before the wedding I was woken in the middle of the night with the worst headache of my entire life. Seriously. Severe pain behind my eye and in my head. I considered calling and waking up Zac just to have some consolation from his voice. And, after taking lots of pain meds and still rocking on the floor, crying and holding my head for a few hours, I almost woke up my mom at about 3 am to take me to the emergency room to get some stronger meds cuz I thought I might die. It really was that bad. But another hour later I finally fell back to sleep. But in the morning, I stayed in the hotel to try to get a few more hrs of sleep while everyone else went over to Melissa's for more wedding prep. (Oh and there was another night when apparently I woke up Heather with yelling out in my sleep. I was having a nightmare that I was being hunted down and killed. Yeah, fun times sharing a hotel room (sorry about that Heather).) ;)

ok. Those are just a couple sidenote journal-stories for ya.

Now for the wedding!
me, and all the visiting sibs: Chelsea, Heather, Liz, baby Miles and Devin

wedding ceremony in Melissa and Chris's beautiful backyard

professional wedding pics that I can't resist sharing

my gorgeous little sister Melissa

reception lingering into the night, talking, laughing and listening to great music:)

bride and groom cuteness

um, books from our childhood that Melissa has stashed on her bookcase. Some of them don't belong to her. ;)

my own pics of the reception evening

making a heart pic with sparklers:)

paper chains!

just married spoon!

my brother Devin and his baby, Miles

sisters Melissa and Heather

Melissa, beautiful bride

we made all those tissue paper flowers and strung them all over the car

we did good, if I do say so myself:)

Chelsea painted the directional signs:) And this is Melissa and Chris's cute retro house in Falls Church, VA.

Mr. and Mrs. Forks - no, that's not their name . . . it's just . . . they're forks. uhhh . . .

Melissa knitted the hearts on the cake topper. She also knitted a similar little heart for the ring pillow.

Groom and Best Men in Converse:)

me and Melissa

the happy Newlyweds

we got to pick up the wedding cake! Mom was very nervous about it . . .

Heather's instagram pic of our lovely tissue paper flowers

And a Hans Christian Anderson Fairy Tale book that was my favorite - somehow Melissa ended up with it. I'm determined to find one of my own someday.

It was really a wonderful day. There was rain partially predicted for the day - but it didn't rain. And everything turned out so beautiful! I'm so happy for Melissa and Chris and excited to welcome Chris into our crazy family. And we didn't even get stuck in traffic for the BIG Peruvian election across the street (was it Peruvian?!) I guess that's another story . . . ;)

(Visit Melissa's blog to read her own wedding recap here)

Home to the Commonwealth: Day 7, rehearsal

Saturday June 4th we spent the day at Melissa and Chris's helping to get things ready for the wedding and hanging out for the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. Since they were having the wedding in their own backyard, we got to help out with yardwork and decorating and all of that fun stuff. yay!
(Here are some paper chains that mom cut and assembled)

Melissa is very crafty and she and Chris had a lot of fun unique touches they added to their intimate little wedding. I was very impressed, as the last thing I am on this planet is crafty and the last thing I want to do when planning a big gathering is stressing about any additional personal "touches." haha. But Melissa seemed calm, cool and collected pretty much the whole time and pulled everything off beautifully. Impressive indeed.

Anyway - we also got a chance to snuggle and fuss over cute baby Miles (my nephew):


(mmm, mommy's skirt is so tasty):

(and my brother, the proud papa):


And then rehearsal time (in the beautiful trees of Falls Church, VA):

And some tripoly fun later on:

wohoo! The next day is the wedding! :)

Home to the Commonwealth: Day 6, The Bride

And now for the "real reason" of the trip: my darling little sister's wedding festivities. :)

There's Melissa in the middle, with her 2 friends that planned the bridal shower fun:

We played a game where she had to guess the answers to questions that Chris had answered previously and for each wrong answer, she had to stuff a marshmallow in her mouth. She ate a lot of marshmallows. ;)

We decorated cupcakes:

And hung out doing stretches (??) (hahaha, dont ask):


Mostly though it was just fun to celebrate this pretty girl who has always liked to sit like this:

More wedding goodies to come!