Andelin Adventures

Today was a day of preparations for Wendy and John’s wedding. I went shopping with Dad this morning to get the ingredients for mint julep and stuff for fruit cups, pudding cups, jello cups, and veggie trays and the like. We couldn’t find the creme de menthe syrup that I needed so Kyle did some calling around and eventually found some at Smart & Final. So I went with him to go get some. We ended up getting several other flavors too because they were about half the price compared to where we get them in Utah. So all the ingredients, including creme de menthe, purchased it was back to the house to get started on all this stuff!

I somehow ended up in charge of the kitchen. Mom and Dad went out to finish shopping for the meat and cheese and rolls and other things for the reception, and I got started on making a LOT of mint julep concentrate. Once that was done I put Jonathan to work making the fruit cups and Kyle to work making the pudding cups. While they prepared the fruit and pudding I got all the cups lined up for them ready to fill.

David helped by keeping the boys entertained with video games:

When mom and dad got back, dad sat in the garage slicing open all of the rolls so they would be ready to be used for sandwiches, and mom got back to sewing.

While all of this was going on, I worked on washing and cutting the vegetables for the veggie trays, and Chloe got to hold baby Denzel.

She is just so happy to hold him, he on the other hand is not happy at all….

In the evening David ordered pizza and we got the kids fed and back out of the way. I helped Kyle finish up with jello cups. By then Jonathan was done with the fruit cups, but still had some berries left over, so we used berries to top the jello cups. That made them very stylish. Wendy’s maid of honor showed up in the evening to help too. I wasn’t sure what to have her do, but after she offered to help with food or flowers, and after consulting mom, I put her to work finishing up the flowers. 😀

I had no idea that I would be coming from four states away to take charge of the kitchen preparations, but we got it all done, and everything looks good. The kids kind of just crashed around the house like they usually do when we are at Grandpa’s house, and Kyle and I got to bed pretty late. Mom, however, was still sewing when we went to bed.

As we were passing through Vegas, and Rexton was not at all happy about being in the car still, we decided to stop and take the tour of the EthelM factory. Debby had never been there before either, so that was another plus.

The kids got distracted in the M&M World store before we could get to the entrance of the tour, but we finally got them all past the M&M themed merchandise and on to the tour. Check out all those huge bowls and mixers!

Debby wanted a picture with some chocolates. If you look closely you can see a tray of white chocolates on the belt behind her.

After we finished the tour we walked around the EthelM store for a bit. We had samples of some pecan brittle that was oh so yummy. It was soft and crumbly and just melted in the mouth, so we had to buy some. We also bought a half price box of Valentine chocolate. EthelM chocolates have gotten quite expensive, they are $2 a piece now, and so they no longer give samples of their chocolates, so we figured buying the half price Valentine chocolates was our best chance at buying a variety of their chocolates to try without paying $2 for each piece!

We then headed back over to the M&M World store. I wanted to get some green M earrings to go with my green M shirt, and we needed a new shirt for Jeremy since he  outgrew the last one we got. We also got some raspberry M&Ms. Adam didn’t want to share.

Debby decided that she was going to go back to the van to try to feed Rexton and so we took the kids for a walk around the cactus garden to give her some time to take care of Rexton.

There were lots of different cactus and pretty rocks to look at, but when we felt that Debby had had plenty of time to take care of Rexton and we were anxious to be getting back on the road, we headed back to the van.

One of our stops on the way to California was at Cove Fort. It’s always a pretty place to stop, but we often pass it during the night when it wouldn’t make sense to stop there. So since it was daylight, and we needed a place to stop so Debby could feed Rexton, we decided we would stop here to give the other kids something exciting to see.

We decided to take the tour while we were here. That way the kids could learn about the history of the fort, and it gives the cute missionaries someone to talk to. 😉

The kids really liked trying to see out of the peep holes.

When we finished the tour, the missionary gave the kids some spinny toys that kids used to play with back in the times when the fort was in use as a kind of hotel, and it was time for us to gey back on the road!