"F" is for FORBES: Girls' trip

This baby. I love her.

I was rather looking forward to getting her all to myself when we went back to UT for Mel's wedding. I think everyone sensed my eagerness and tried their best to make me feel guilty for leaving them. Vivi threw up all over herself the day of my flight, but we'd already blown $2,000 on our nonrefundable, nontransferable tickets to Sapporo that we missed because Vivi vomited off the top of her bunk bed (onto an unsuspecting, slumbering Rafe) the night before we were supposed to leave, so I went to Utah anyway. And I didn't even worry about them, because they were in the capable hands of their Daddy (who ended up being sick himself all week . . .).

Right after breakfast the day of my flight. This is not normal after-breakfast behavior at our house.

I got to stay with Kaitlyn and Justin this trip. Kait picked me up from the airport, and I am still sick about what happened. I had sent her an email of old flight information, so she got to the airport to pick me up for a 9:12 pm arrival time. But I left SFO around 8:30 pm, and because my brain wasn't working, I thought I would still get in at 9:12 since there was a time change involved, so I didn't say anything to her. I guess I was really tired. When we touched down in Salt Lake and they announced, "local time is 11:05," I thought they had made a mistake. But they had not. And I was horrified. So Kaitlyn waited at the airport for me in the cold, without her book, and with a dying phone for 3 hours. And she was even nice to me the rest of the trip, which I did not deserve. She is a good sister.

Kicking it with the Dread Pirate Rose, who is the cutest and has the cutest bedroom that has ever been decorated.

We got there just in time to catch a few Z's before the wedding Friday morning. It was wonderful! I don't think I ever caught Melanie without a smile on her face. Outside afterwards it was a little foggy, but everything was encrusted with beautiful crystals. Melanie looked like the Spring Sprite.

I'm not sure what the shoe situation was, but we definitely lined up in order of descending height without even knowing it.

After the wedding we headed to Thanksgiving Point for a tasty luncheon, at which point Andelynn started protesting the craziness of her last 48 hours and required lots of bouncing. I think my favorite thing from the luncheon was when Isaac assured us it was ok that our family isn't diverse because we are unique. That and the delicious cheesecake.

And then it was reception time! The photographers took many lovely pictures, but this one will do for now. It was such a fun, happy day, and it's nice to have Isaac in the family officially!

I got my hair cut Saturday, then we went to lunch at El Mexiquense and wandered through Hobby Lobby on the way home, buying many, many things. That night I finally caught either the bug that'd been floating around Japan or the one that Colette and Rex had, and spent the evening supine or barfing.

Sunday we woke up for Music and the Spoken Word, then we all went to sleep again! It was awesome to be The Napping House; everybody needed it. After church we had Second Sunday dinner at Nana and Papi's.

On Monday we played some basketball with all who were well enough, then we soaked in the hot tub until it was time to deliver Melanie and Isaac's wedding gifts to their apartment. I think we spent the rest of the day lounging about. We talked to the rest of our family . . .

And had our last bath in the sink.

Tuesday we were incredibly productive. In the morning I drove to the canyon to buy Haley and Jake's belated wedding present, stopped by the post office to mail some of our Hobby Lobby purchases that wouldn't fit in my bags, met the rest of the married sisters in Provo for the Open House of the temple, got lunch at Sensuous Sandwich and went to Haley's to eat it, picked up some things at the Bosch store and bought too many things at Target while Haley and Kaitlyn did some paperwork at the Social Security office, went back to Kait's and packed my bags, went to Cafe Rio for dinner, stopped by the Forbes' to say goodbye, then jumped in the car with Mom and headed to the airport.

Cousins at Aunt Haley's house

And now we are home again! I am ready to be done traveling for awhile. Right now I am blogging while Rafe watches "Princess Egypt."

We've been watching a lot of Dinosaur Train lately. The kids love it, and it's kind of fun to hear them say things like "herbivore" and "ornithomimus." They like to pretend to be the characters.

Rafe: I am a dinosaur named Buddy.

Drew: Ok. Hi Buddy!

Rafe: NO! I am a dinosaur named Buddy!!

Drew: Ok, "a dinosaur named Buddy." Would you like to eat this?

Rafe: smiling Yeah!

But, we have the theme song stuck in our heads constantly, which is ridiculous, and Rafe has now resorted to roaring like a Giganotosaurs whenever he's angry. Not pleasant.

Rafe wanted to use the popcorn popper the other day, so I said we could go for a walk on the sea wall and pick some up on our way home. It took awhile to get ready to go, then I said "Ok! Let's go get some corn for poppin'!" to which he said "NO! First the sea wall. Corn is not the sea wall."

His balance bike technique has improved greatly. He goes at a good clip with that full leg extension!

The youchien's been preparing for their big winter concert and they're doing a set of English songs. Vivi is kind of confused about them and has been singing: "The weasel goes round the merry-o bush, the merry-o bush, the merry-o bush. The weasel goes round the merry-o bush. Pop, goes the weasel!"

We inherited another installment from Traci's dress-up collection. I spent the better part of Saturday trying to make this wig not look like a rat's nest. It's not perfect, but it will do!

Vivi is sitting at the new Japanese dining table we bought at a store in Hiroshima (in efforts to become more flexible and increase core strength by forcing ourselves to get on and off the floor at least 3 more times a day). We listened to Harry Potter on the way up there. McGonagall was reading off the names of the first years and I was reminiscing about Birrell calling roll the first week in American Studies, exploring all the family connections, when it occurred to me that Rex will be the last Brunsdale they'll ever have. I pointed this out to Drew and said, "It's like the end of a dynasty!" Rafe immediately chimed in "Dynasty! Die! Die! Die!"