Peterson Wedding

Saturday we drove back up to the Las Vegas temple. Last time I had been here was during college to go through the open house. Rob had come sometime not long afterward. Now all of the kids have been inside too. The kids behaved well while we were in the ceremony and then acted more like this once we were outside taking pictures. We convinced the S family to go with us on another harebrained scheme: to visit the Ethel M chocolate factory . . .

. . . and cactus garden. Yes, you read that right. Chocolate and cactus. The factory wasn't making anything on a Saturday, but they were giving out samples, so we didn't hear any complaints from the kids. And the cactus garden was decorated for the holiday season. Here is Will wearing his new suit and the bow tie that his sister gave him for his birthday. Handsome lad, that one, though he still can't smile for the camera . . .

Did I mention that Sebi talked me into buying him a suit coat? It is one of the ironies of life that I try to spare my three boys a whole lifetime of wearing suits, ties and white shirts (I buy them chinos and sweater vests and gingham and colored buttondowns) and all they want to wear are suits, ties and white shirts. So I caved for Sebi, but doesn't he look dashing?

This whole garden just begged the question: How do you get the Christmas lights off of a cactus?!

Me and Maddie and a classic sampler of Ethel M chocolates. Did you know that her name was Ethel Mars? as in Mars bars? As in MandMs? I didn't. This was the educational portion of our trip. That and getting to hold a stormtrooper's gun. In any event, that Ethel knew her chocolate. 

It was a good place to kill time and let the kids run around before we headed back down to Boulder City for lunch. I wasn't a part of it, but adults decided that the kids should sit together at one table and adults (and preschoolers) would sit at the other. We got a bit of blowback about it in the beginning, since the kids didn't know each other at all.

They warmed up to each other pretty well by the end of lunch, though.

See all of these wonderful people? We had a great time with them. All of them. And we realized later that we had exposed all of them to our stomach bug. In fact they'll be getting it right . . . about . . . now. So picture them all with bowls in front of them. And accept our sincerest apologies!

Joss and J-boo, making the most of the cutlery.

Mr. and Mrs. Peterson.

Our family actually left as soon as the lunch was over. Both Rob and I had to get back for church stuff early the next morning, and we felt badly about missing the reception. But then it turned out to be a good thing for everyone involved. Sebastian started feeling unwell in Cedar City, where we stopped for dinner. And then he lost everything in his stomach two miles outside of Fillmore (let's not forget that he helped himself to the lunch buffet three times here, and by his own admission had six of the mother-of-the-groom's most excellent cookies). 

It was really ugly. Rob and I tried to clean it up in the dark and frozen wasteland outside a two-bit gas station using shopping bags, Wet Ones, and shop towels and cleaner bummed off the cashier inside. And we had to change Sebastian's clothes and we managed to freeze everyone else in the process and yell at all of them too. So it was bad, but we did eventually make up and make it home and even get the car clean once again. We all spent the next few days being sick with one or the other virus, and I only  left the house for the first time on Thursday.