... that I barely survived last weekend?

This is the longest post ever, which is fitting as it commemorates the longest weekend of my life.

One of my best friends from college, "Jimmy Mac," got married last weekend and I have been looking forward to this wedding for months and months.  Unfortunately, there was no actual planning that went along with that looking forward (I know, surprise surprise), cause two days before the wedding I realized that the reception was in Bear Lake... which is 2 and a half hours away.  Now I'm not complaining, because after all, Jimmy drove all the way from Utah to go to my wedding in LA, so really I am losing the friendship contest big time.  But still.  This required planning.  We were trying to figure out the logistics of this whole trip when Matt said the worst thing I could have possibly imagined:

"I know!!!  Why don't we go camping while we're up there?"

Anyone who knows me knows that I do not like camping.  I like my bed and my shower and sanitation and I do not like sleeping on the ground.  And this particular weekend was an EXTREMELY bad weekend for camping for the following reasons: 1) Tracy and Marc were going out of town and had asked us to watch their dogs, so we would have to figure out some way to take care of them and Xena, and 2) I had been planning on going to Draper Days with Kaari for weeks and the only day we could go was Saturday, which meant we would have to rush home from the lake in order to make it to Draper Days on time.

I did not want to go camping.  But I love my husband and he loves camping, soooo whattayado?

Friday found me driving to Brigham City alone cause Matt had to work that morning (insert grumpy face here).  But the sealing was awesome and it was so great to be in the temple with so many great friends.

Me and Choc waiting for the happy couple.  Don't let these pics fool you, it was approximately 500 degrees outside the temple and we were miserable.

Newlyweds Jimmy and Lindsey!

While we were waiting for the happy couple to finish picturing, my friend Nikki called and said she had two extra tickets Saturday night to go to the 20th anniversary party of the movie The Sandlot, where they were showing the movie at the actual sandlot.  And I think waiting in the heat had done something to my brain at this point, because I told her that Matt and I would go.  Because we didn't have enough to do on our Saturday, right?  But it sounded so fun!!!  More on that later...

After all the pics were done, we went to a great luncheon at the Maddox Lodge.  Just as lunch was ending, Matt pulled into Brigham City with Lance, Renee and Korance.  I met them for a quick stop at Sonic, then we all piled into Lance's car and drove to Bear Lake.  Oh and did I mention that Lance's air conditioning was broken?  And that it was still boiling hot?  After an hour of driving in the car with all the windows down, my hair was a disastrous mess of tangles that I was positive I would have to cut out.  Me = not happy.

After checking out two campsites, we finally found an open spot and set up camp.

And obviously by "we" I mean "they" because this I was busy doing this:

And by "this" I mean combing the knots out of my hair for 15 minutes then standing in the one shady spot in our camp ground trying not to let the sweat soak through my dress or get dirt in my heels, swatting away bugs, trying to ignore a massive headache probably from dehydration, all while being very very grumpy and not helping at all.  In my defense, I had had a very explicit conversation with Matt the night before in which I clearly stated that I did NOT want to be setting up any camping materials in my wedding clothes, so he knew what he was getting into.  I WAS IN A DRESS AND HEELS PEOPLE.  Don't judge me.

After camp was set up, the kids dropped us off at the reception while they went swimming.

The reception was beautiful, aside from me STILL sweating the whole time and that blasted headache that never went away.  It was in Lindsey's parents' backyard, which is right on Bear Lake and absolutely gorgeous.  They had smores, popcorn, and lemonade bars set up, all Pinterest-worthily decorated, of course.  So cute :)

The kids picked us up and we went back to camp where I was thankfully finally able to take off my nice clothes and get comfortable camping and stop being a raging grump monster.  We whipped up some awesome tin foil dinners and finally got to eating at around 10:00 at night (most likely another factor in my killer headache- I was a little bit starving).


I dragged my exhausted self into a sleeping bag and somehow managed to sleep pretty well, even if it was cold and Matt didn't even sleep in the tent with me because he prefers to sleep under the stars with disgusting bugs and ferocious wild animals.  I hate camping.

The next morning I was in a much better mood.  After a quick oatmeal breakfast, we took down camp (yes, I helped this time) and drove out to the lake for a quick swim.

Lance decided to stay on the beach and read The Wheel of Time... nerd.

Then we stopped in town to get some lunch: delicious hamburgers and apparently famous raspberry shakes.

So yummy!  But it was hard for me to fully enjoy them because the whole time we were eating, I was just thinking about how late we were going to be getting home.  We still had to drive 2½ hours home, get cleaned up, meet Kar and Zach at Draper Days in time for the reptile shows (because obviously we weren't going to miss that), pick up our tickets from Nikki, then head over to the Sandlot to save our seats cause she was going to show up late.  And I was already exhausted.  But there was fun to be had!!!

1st stop: Draper Days!  It was seriously miserably hot, so Matt and I downed a snow cone while we waited for Kar and Zach to show up.

The fair was absolutely huge, but it was mostly full of lame cheap stuff to buy or blow up things for the kids.  We had fun looking at the doggy splash competition, the pony rides, and the kind of weird recreation of a Native American village.

G loved the swings!

Matt and I had really wanted to stop at two things there: the Reptile Rescue tent and the Scales and Tails tent.  The Reptile Rescue was less than exciting, but we stuck around for the Scales and Tails show and it did not disappoint! 

This guy was seriously so funny.  He had a ton of animals and was cracking jokes right and left.  In the end, I was glad we stayed.

As soon as the show was done, we hightailed it over to Nikki's house to pick up the Sandlot tickets and booked it to the park.  It was a good thing we got there early:

The place was packed!  But luckily there was plenty of space inside the park and we got a great spot to put down our blankets.  We didn't know this, but it turned out that a bunch of the cast had showed up for the party!  They had a little Q&A before the movie started and then spent the rest of the night signing autographs in the back.  Pretty awesome!

That's Yeah-Yeah, Timmy and Tommy Timmons, Squint's Grandpa the Police Chief, Squints, Ham, and the directors.

They had rebuilt a baseball backstop for pictures, were giving out free popcorn and selling giant bags of cotton candy for $1.  Matt was in heaven.




Nikki and her friend finally showed up


And a good time was had by all.  I fell asleep a few times cause I was so exhausted, and by the time it was over I was a walking zombie.  It was hard to remember that just that morning I had been camping at Bear Lake!  It had been the longest day/weekend ever!  I can't believe we fit it all in!  Thankfully on Sunday I was able to take a nap after church and basically spend the whole day recuperating, and boy did I need it.  Next time I decide to be extra fun and quadruple book my weekend, remind me to limit myself please.

I love fun times and a husband who is willing to drag me through them :)