Mr. and Mrs. Brown

We had a happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy, superb day in our family this weekend! Now I have another beautiful sister. It’s impressive that one family can even HOLD this many good-looking people! But we pull it off rather well, I think.

Aren’t they just so perfect together?

On Saturday (June 18th), my brother Brad married his gorgeous sweetheart, Dani, in the Salt Lake Temple. We flew down for a whirlwind 2 day wedding extravaganza. It all started on Friday night with a lovely family dinner and culminated on Saturday with Dani and Brad’s sealing and wedding reception. It’s hard to find words to describe the joyous HAPPY feelings swirling around inside me when I saw my brother sealed for time and all eternity. I held in the tears with difficulty, but I’m glad I did because then I could fully appreciate the whole scene without annoying blurry- blotchy, obscured vision. I basked in the glow of the joyful, happy couple in the peaceful temple. It was all just SO HAPPY! JOYFUL! SPLENDID! The English language is NOT equipped to describe temple weddings.

The Schapps had a bunch of family/friends over for an amazing night-before-wedding-FEAST on Friday night. Never has beef been so delectable. Too bad it was a secret family recipe for beef teriyaki. I haven’t felt that FULL since I was 9 months pregnant! YUM.

Dani has such good taste (look who she married, after all!), and all the décor was very well done. This is “the high table” of parents and THE COUPLE of honor.

There were toasts. (that’s Martinelli’s, I promise).

[can you see the GLOW radiating from their faces? it’s like looking into the sun!]

They also showed a sweet slide show of pictures from Brad’s and Dani’s lives. So darling. (Their kids are going to be adorable). This is one of the pictures that was in the slide show. Did I mention the tear-fountain bubbling below the surface? It threatened to spill over at this point. My little brother!

And now on to the BIG DAY! All morning before the wedding, Jeff, Mom, and I were kind of stressing about what to do with 3 little boys and one little girl while we were in the temple for the sealing. When we got to the temple, we discovered a convenient children's room in the waiting area. We commissioned my sister Mel and our cousing Caralyn to keep the kiddies corralled in there for the hour we were gone. They were SO sweet to take on the challenge of 4 overtired children under the age of 4 during naptime. They totally ROCKED.

The most amazing part was how Caralyn NEVER GOT TIRED of those little boys (and Rose)! She played with them ALL DAY, even after the one-hour sentence of doom was over. What a sweetie!

While we were waiting for the bride and groom to appear after the marriage, we took a few sister pictures. They are wearing high heels and I am not. But I still win the height contest.

And another sister picture—my Mom, and her sisters, Stefani and Elizabeth. They are so much fun. I really really wanted to go do a temple session with Aunt Stefani, Uncle Bruce, and Kyle, but I just couldn’t leave Rose for all that time PLUS Brad and Dani’s sealing. That was the 4th time I’ve been to Salt Lake City and haven’t managed to go through that temple! I’m dying to go in it! So Stefani, Kyle, and I made a goal to go to that temple together some day in the future. It WILL happen!

All the cousins that were there (except Brad and Dani, of course): Me, Brooke, Kyle, Mel, Em, and Caralyn. Since all of these pictures were taken on Em’s camera, we didn’t get a BIG GROUP picture with Brad and Dani, since we were IN that big group picture. Oh well, big group pictures are crowded.

Fresh out of the Temple. I love how Brad is looking at her.

Also love this one.

Wedding dress = license to kiss in public. A LOT! I love people in love.

In-laws: Brad got some good ones. Dani got some good ones too!

Brothers! Kyle went through the temple the day before the wedding so he could BE THERE. It was special to have 4/5 of us Brown kids in the temple all at once. Man I love my familia.

Jay got more and more TIRED and touchy as the evening progressed, and eventually Jeff took him back to the hotel early before the reception was over.

Rose was pretty good. She got a bit overwhelmed at the end of the reception, but the good thing about young babies is they succumb to sleep a lot faster than toddlers! I have fed Rose in so many public places now: airports, restaurants, family gatherings, etc. Not my favorite, but you’ve gotta do what you’ve got to do! Nothing like a good nursing cover. I still wish she’d take a bottle, though. Oh well.

The reception was beautiful. The cake was DIVINE: there were 4 kinds, one per layer: carrot cake, spice cake, chocolate, and…ummm…one other kind that I don’t remember. Yum, though!

The best part of any wedding reception: the cake smear!

Brad and I did our traditional swing dance. We learned ONE move (the pretzel) at a church activity about 10 years ago. Ever since then, when a swing song plays, we do our move over and over really fast, and we look like pros.

Brad is 6’7’’. I’m 6 feet tall. There are a LOT of arms when we swing dance, and we really SWING—he’s strong!! I was swooshing and wooshing all over the place! We only danced about 30 seconds this time, because we’re pretty rusty and there wasn’t much space, and now that he’s married, Brad has a much more graceful woman in his life to dance with. Plus Utah’s high altitude kills me. It was great swinging with Brad again even for a short time, though! The last time we did that was at MY wedding, for goodness sakes.

Congratulations again to Mr. and Mrs. Brown! Love you guys.