My oldest niece, Melanie, is getting married this coming week and I wouldn’t miss it for the world!! 

I have such fond memories of little her (she was 4) when I lived with my brother and sister in law while doing an internship at a school out in Utah. I can’t believe she’s all grown up and marrying the man of her dream!

We decided to combine her wedding with a visit out to see Gabe at BYU-I. He was home just in mid April in between semesters for a week, but a weekend in his territory sounded fun!

We booked a Friday night flight to SLC. What a fiasco getting to that flight! Traffic getting to airport, nightmare parking issues (I decided we would try a new lot since the price of where we usually park had doubled! Never again!!! Will find new options.) Long, and inefficient lines in security. And to top it all off, Rob was somehow preselected for some security check which meant he couldn’t check in ahead of time and had to be pulled aside and all bags fully searched! We decided we better separate so I could run ahead and get  to the gate. By the time I cleared customs and entered the “duty free store” (forced to walk through it before entering the gate area in Toronto airport), they were calling “final boarding call” for our flight!!! I ran!!!! I got there while there were 3 people still lined up to board and luckily Rob had raced too and came running up! Thank goodness he’s a runner!!!
So we made it. And settled in for our flight. Sitting separately of course, since airlines like to now ensure you aren’t together – unless you pay. Which we didn’t even have the option to since Rob wasn’t allowed to check in early….

Anyhow.

We ended up landing early which I was super excited about because that night, my nephew Tanner received his mission call and was opening it!! My fondest memory of Tanner was him climbing into Zach’s crib during nap time and the two of them jumping like monkeys (Tanner is a year older than Zach). I can’t believe all these boys have grown too!!!

By way of background, in the LDS church young men and women have the opportunity to serve a full time mission for 2 years. It’s completely voluntary and is a combination of religious teaching and humanitarian work. You submit your “papers” (application)  and then are “assigned” where you go. You don’t get to choose where to go (although you do let them know your interest in serving in a foreign country, learning a new language etc). It’s a very exciting time to open “your call” and see where you are going to be for two years!

So, I was super excited to hear that Tanner’s call had arrived by mail and they were having an “opening party” that night! We raced to collect baggage, pick up our rental and headed to my brother and sister in law’s! We didn’t tell them we were coming, so it was a fun surprise.

However, I am super bummed I was not on my game to take a lot of pictures! I was caught up in the whirlwind of the dozens of friends that arrived (how does he know so many people?!?) Unfortunately even Judy was a mother mess and has limited pics too:( 

A few were taken: Rob with now giant Drew and me with Judy, wondering how our children can be growing up so fast (it’s a crazy time for her: one kid on a mission, one getting married, and another kid about to go on a mission…!) 

I did get a nice video of him opening the letter that said he had “been called to serve as a full-time missionary in the Peru Trujillo South Mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He will report to the Lima Peru MTC on August 29.”
And a few shots afterwards: 

Wow!!!!! He’ll be learning Spanish!!! So exciting! So happy I was there! I missed Abby’s call (obviously!) so it was nice to be around for Tanner’s. (Abigail is serving in the Washington Vancouver mission and is almost a year in!) 

Tanner with his gf ^^

It’s super fun to guess where he’s going ahead of time and see if anyone nails it! Only a few guesses were in South America. 

We also got to meet Melanie’s fiancée (so nice!), Tanner’s girlfriend (such a sweetie!) and Ellen’s Guinea pig (pretty cute too!). And the only one we seemed to get pictures of?!?

We hung out for a while catching up a bit before heading out. We had a hotel booked half way to Rexburg, Idaho where BYU-I is so needed to drive a couple of hours. With the time difference, we were zonked but Rob is such a champ for driving! We seriously crashed in that hotel after an eventful day!