Fairies and Football: Sam's Trip To California

Let the blogging begin!
I'm finally blogging about 2017, it only took me four months!
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Anyway, back in January I flew to the Bay Area for my friend Opal's wedding.
We've been friends since High School.
And her wedding ended up being a little reunion for our group of friends from High School.
Court and I flew together from Salt Lake and met Kaci at the Airport.
And then Shayla picked us up. She lives in Fremont now. And she volunteered to host us.
After the airport we grabbed Opal and went out to lunch.

That night we headed to the temple.

There is a church building on the temple grounds and that's where the reception was.
We helped decorate the night before the wedding.

We were in charge of ironing.

We ironed every single table cloth and chair cover.

My hand and fingers were numb by the end of the night!

The next day was the wedding.
The sealing was beautiful. I was so happy for Opal.
I bawled hysterically, especially when I hugged her after the ceremony.
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Sarah arrived from LA that morning. She met us in the temple.
It was so good to see her.
Here we are waiting for Opal and Andrew to come out of the temple.

Mr. and Mrs. Ojeda!!!

Here's our group! The Lively Fively (Plus Court The Littlest Lively... we adopted her).

Enough of the phone pictures. Here's some pictures from the wedding photographer.
By the way, I blame her for my recent blogging break.
It took her over two months to get Opal and Andrew their wedding pictures.
So I was waiting on her to do this blog post.
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Here they are coming out of the temple.

Here's Opal with all her Bride's maids.

Opal made all of our bouquets out of paper!

And here's the entire wedding party.

A group shot.

Here's Opal and Andrew with all their friends who came.

The Lovely Lively group!

And here's a few of my favorite pictures of the happy couple...

It was pouring right before they came out of the temple.
And then stopped when it was time for pictures.
And then started sprinkling again just as they were wrapping up.

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After pictures there was a luncheon and then some down time.
Sarah, Shayla, Kaci and Court and I went to target and bought our group fun matching socks.
We used to wear matching socks in High School.
We were excited to surprise Opal with them at her reception.
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There was a ring ceremony. So I got to walk down the isle. Something I have never done before.

Here's some pictures of the decorations.

Our loud and wild table. We had a blast that night.
I felt like I was a teenager again. It was so fun!

We told Opal since she wasn't doing a garter we had something else for her.
Here is Andrew putting on her wedding socks.
We were dying laughing.

We all wore our socks the rest of the night.

Here's the bracelets Opal got us Bride's Maids for helping her "tie the knot."

We danced a lot that night. It was so fun. We couldn't stop laughing.

I don't know why I didn't snag any of the dance floor pictures from the photographer.

She had some fun ones.

I do have this one of Norah (Shayla's daughter)

she was having so much fun dancing and running around us.

The next day was Sunday. We went to Sacrament meeting in Shayla's ward.
They meet in the coolest old building and their chapel was gorgeous.
Sarah, Shayla and I all bore our testimonies.

After church, Sarah left to go home. Shayla, Kaci and Court and I headed to San Francisco.
First we went to go see the "Painted Ladies" aka the Full House house.

Then we went to the Golden Gate Bridge.
We drove across it to the other side.

It was so windy and wet.
We were laughing so hard trying to get our picture taken.

I love this picture I got of Court.

Sunday night Court flew home.
Monday Shayla, her daughter Norah, Kaci and I headed to Oakland to the Beastmode clothing store.

Then we headed back to San Fran.
I was so grateful that we had Shayla and her car to drive us around.
She was an amazing host!

I'm pretty sure this is the Oakland Bridge.

We headed to the water to walk on the pier.

And we went out to lunch.

Then we went to see the Sea Lions.

We saw Alcatraz in the distance.

Shayla and Norah looking cool.

I went to this store for Avery.

I wanted to go in this store for my mom (because she served her mission in Ireland) but it was closed.

I loved the landscaping on the pier.

Then we went to get dessert.

That night we stayed up late playing games and laughing.
I learned that I'm horrible at this game.

Shayla and her husband Ben were on one team and it was so funny to watch them interact.

Tuesday morning we got up early and Kaci and I headed to the airport.

Oh my gosh, it was such a fun trip. Just what I needed! It was good for my soul.
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Here's a picture from my plane just before landing. I live around the corner of that mountain.
And there is the Great Salt Lake.