Wedding.

 We got a surprise phone call about two weeks ago. Jeff's brother was getting married. In Puerto Rico. In a week. Would Jeff be the best man? 

 We were lucky, and had just gotten some unexpected back pay from Jeff's job. Now we had a great place to spend it.

 We headed over last Thursday night, leaving at midnight. In the middle of the flight, some gentleman had some sort of medical emergency, and we emergency landed in Oklahoma city. Jet Blue, our airline that night, doesn't usually use that airport. What this meant for our poor pilot was hours of paperwork. What it meant for us was an extra 2-3 hours of sitting in the plane on the tarmac. We got to our final destination very late in the day. 

 Our first day in Puerto Rico was therefore a big disappointment, consisting of picking up Jeff's tux, and sitting in a two hour traffic jam. Side note -- we ended up loving Puerto Rico, but were deeply unimpressed with the road/highway system!

 We did finally get to Paola's  mother's house for dinner at around 8:30 that night. Paola was the bride, and turned out to be very nice, and her family was lovely, but Jeff and I could barely keep our eyes open, and I had a rotten headache. 

 We got to bed pretty late, and got up early for the ceremony. It was in an LDS church building nearby.

 We were so worried we were late, but the wedding started an hour and a half late, so that didn't matter. We were told that that sort of thing is common in the Puerto Rican culture. The picture above is Paola's mother and a cousin.

 Paola's best friend and another cousin.

 Jeff and a sister.

After a lengthy sermon from one of the local clergy (I doubt anyone wanted to hear a sermon that morning, but whatever), the ceremony was brief and nice, and we went to the large room next door for a reception.

Great food, and a DJ for dancing. People actually danced which was cool! Around here, people are to inhibited (unless they are drunk). 

But it was freezing in there! It's so hot and humid outside, most buildings seemed to over compensate with the air conditioning. This was no exception, and we were right under a fan. Brrr. 

The bride and groom seemed pretty happy, and left that afternoon for a short honeymoon. We helped clean up a bit, and left for the Bio-Bay. I will talk about it in the next post!

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Blood moon, and girl's night.

Around Utah, there was a lot of fuss about the blood moon. Apparently there was an author who scared a lot of people making some doomsday prophesies, and so was able to sell a lot of her books. It makes me mad, and I have to get on my soap box for a minute. I think of the scripture in Isaiah 8:19-20: 

19.And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead? 20. To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.

If you want to know about truth that's coming down the pike, go to the scriptures and the true prophets.  (In our church we believe there is a living prophet on the earth who communicates with God, and is his spokesman on the earth. It's kind of like how the Catholic church feels about the Pope.) You may feel cooler to think you have the inside track on a secret someone who knows "more" or is "sharing more", but if the very public prophet and apostles aren't agreeing with what this person is saying, the person has no light in them.

(back off of the soap box)

Around our neighborhood it was a telescope party. I had no idea so many people on our block had telescopes! Everyone was out to look at the eclipse.

We spent a lot of time trying to find the moon in our telescope. It's a really good telescope, but the smaller, attached spotting scope you use to get you in the general vicinity of what you are looking for had a dead battery.

Our neighbor boy right behind us got his focus way before we did. To be honest? It was more fun to look at the moon when it wasn't being eclipsed. Brighter (duh), so more detail. Maybe if we were patient enough to watch the whole eclipse process across the moon and back off it would have been neat, but we're not really that kind of people. 

Funnily enough, a couple of weeks after the whole blood moon thing we had General Conference for our church.  This is where the prophet and apostles speak to the membership of the church for 4 hours on Saturday, and Sunday. On Saturday night, there is a men's session, and my sister-in-law Annie invited me and the girls to go do something with her and her girls. We went out to a corn maze near the Provo airport, then to Guru's for dinner.

 Tia had to work, so it was just me and Ari. That was kind of nice to have some one on one time with Ari on our way there and back. 

 We bonded. I didn't know she liked bubble baths so much.

 The farm had a lot of activities-- a corn cannon, which is a little hard to explain. You shoot a cob of corn with an air compressor? Kind of? Steer roping, which looked so easy when the cowboys did it at the Young Living rodeo, is a lot harder than it looks. Ari and I were both rotten at it.

 Though we tried for a long time!

 Annie brought Sabrina and Olivia, and Olivia's kids. I found out I'm a Great Aunt to those kids, which was kind of disturbing actually. The Great Aunts I remember from when I was a kid were REALLY OLD!

 We had lots of cut out picture taking fun,

See the little baby head?

and everyone took turns roping cows. Nobody was any good, but I have to give Olivia props for roping with a baby strapped to her chest.

 

 There was a little tractor pull ride thing, which as adults we were scared to get into and break, but the guy let us. Pretty fun, but we were right in the exhaust path for the tractor, so a little smelly.

 But the little great niece and nephew-lings made my night. The corn maze was a scavenger hunt for clues on who got the farmer, and we let Olivia's boy lead us around. He was adorable. 

 Obligatory corn sand box. Shudder.

Little baby loved Guru's as much as the rest of us. Fun night!

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The zoo the zoo!!!

 Wanna go doops? This is what Tia would say when she was little. It took us weeks to figure out that doops meant zoo. I wanted to go doops, and if Sea World was disappointing, the zoo at least met and surpassed my expectations. 

 The only thing with the San Diego zoo is that it is so big. This is of course a good thing, but I remember as a teenager just getting so tired before I saw the whole thing. Now, a bus tour is included with your entrance ticket, so we hit the bus first, thinking we could get an overview and then come back for our favorites, and for what the bus didn't hit. It was a good plan. We had a great day. Our bus guy --hilarious. Should have been on Broadway. Jeff of course just gets embarrassed by people like that. Heck, he gets embarrassed by actual plays so...

 Some pics from the bus -- it was nice because we got there early in the morning and the animals were still active and moving around. 

Elephants with their weird cement tree. I guess shade?

 In the San Diego zoo, I love the plants as much as the animals. The zoo is placed over a bunch of hills and ravines, and is  maintained as an arboretum as well as a zoo. This sago palm was spectacular.

 I loved this desert area too with its aloes and cacti.

Look at this interesting tree with its layers of seed pods. I saw these on my runs in Nicaragua.

 Here's my favorite tree from my mission. In Uruguay they called it Palo de borracho (drunkard's stick) because it's covered in thorns I guess. But the flowers are like orchids. So pretty.

 The zoo has a lot of great secluded areas like this fern gully I made Jeff go through with me.

Great place to make out. I'm not saying we did...

On the other side we ran into the great apes. It always seems slightly obscene to me that the chimp ladies don't wear clothes. Or the gentlemen either for that matter.

I'm also a little bothered about the captivity thing with the great apes too. Not the other animals, but gorillas, chimps, and orangutans yes. At least this zoo has nice big natural enclosures. I have to include a link for Ken Allen the Hairy Houdini here. So funny! Check it out.

This is the Owens aviary. It was huge and amazing. Four levels I think? Read the link --lots of info there.  

Like my dreams of a rainforest jungle.

Handsome couple.

Nesting pair.

These bromeliads were affixed to the walls. 

I want some in my house. I remember them in people's houses in the 70's in San Diego, but do people have these now? In Utah they don't, but maybe just because it's so dry?

We finally found the hippos, -- one of my favorite animals.

This was an adorable mother and baby. Every little while the mother would raise just her nostrils above the water surface to get a breath. Then the baby would take a turn.

Lovely to be in that water in the heat of the day.

The last animal we looked for was the panda. Ummm....I guess he was popular. We had to get our picture taken (even if we didn't want to buy our picture), line up, and file past the cage without stopping. All that, and I got only this crappy picture. I was thoroughly disgusted by the time I was out the other side. Not the panda's fault. 

But, our entry fee also included the gondolas! When I was a kid, I always wanted to go on these, but they weren't included. I remember going on them only once.

They cross the whole park, and are silent and peaceful --a lot like a ski lift.

The breathtaking views are a bonus.

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