If you ever wondered what I've been doing this summer...

here it is.

That is 144 letter pieces. I played Bananagrams by myself. It's like speed scrabble except without the numbers on the corners. I played by myself. And won. Thanks

Just kidding. I only did that for about a week. This was one of my big projects this summer:

Helping with Megan Barnes' wedding! We've been going to the same Sunday School class since I was seven, and we heard all of the same lessons about marriage and families and everything, and now she's actually married! To Matt Morgan.

My mom enjoys saying Megan Morgan Megan Morgan over and over again.

They're cute. But now for the important stuff. just kidding...but really. direct your attention to what she is holding. Megan and her mom Debbie trusted me with all of the flower arrangements.

Her colors were black and yellow with a Paris theme (because her husband and her fell in love in Paris...what??), so my mom and I decided on many colors of yellow dahlias, yellow roses, and other cute flowers like pincushion flowers, and daisy mums, and we cut wildflowers and my mom tore up her hands picking blackberry branches. (and my hands...and every person who helped carry arrangements...totally worth it.)

These are my pride and joys:

The vase is filled with wild grasses and flowers we picked two mornings before this, and each arrangement at the bottom took about an hour. Then I put a plastic dish thing on top of the vase, filled it with soaked flower foam, and made the top part of the arrangements. The top for each arrangement also took about an hour.

The cause of Rachel's almost early death:

(The arrangement was actually in the middle of the table originally...and that roll of tape wasn't there either...) Rachel and I spent all day Friday working on these arrangements. We watched a lot of movies. I couldn't believe how well Rachel was able to pick up doing this stuff. She's never arranged flowers in her life, and she made boutonnieres, and arrangements like this with only a little bit of my help! I definitely would not have finished on time without Rachel. My mom had the idea for these arrangements. We put lemons in the bottom of the vase, and used plastic dish things on top to put the foam in and arrange the flowers. Cool right?

My mother's lovely boutonnieres:

Michael, Megan's brother on the left, and Matt, the groom on the right.

Other things we did with flowers:

My mom and I weren't too accurate on the amount of roses we would need...we ordered a few too many. Rachel and I put them in the cupcake holders and the chairs and any place we could find to put them. The bottom pictures are the cake (on a hat box) and a picture and flowers flanking the path to the reception area at Mt Pisgah.

And...my mother dreamed all of this up:

I wish the pictures did justice to all of her decorating, but my camera was not that great. Anyway, it was a beautiful night, a beautiful setting, and a beautiful reception. I'll put more pictures up if I get more of the details that my mom worked so hard putting together.

Good luck to Megan and Matt!

*ps photo credit from the temple goes to Calleagh Brown's facebook album...