David and Kelly's Wedding....and Spokane???

My brother David finally asked Kelly, the girl he'd been dating for 2 years, to marry him! We were all very excited! Kelly is from La Grande, Oregon, so we all made an 8 hour drive to be there...okay it took us 10 hours, but we had planned in some good stops for ours and the kids sakes. We left Friday, November 6th. They had asked Anna to be their flower girl and Grandma Wilkey made her a beautiful dress! I didn't get great pics from the wedding but Amanda, who was their photographer did. This is a picture of Anna rushing straight to me instead of down the aisle so I had to assist her the rest of the way as she sullenly dropped the flowers on the ground...and she wouldn't stand at the front. It was actually quite hilarious.

While in La Grande we started thinking...hmmm....I wonder how much further it is to Spokane... David's sister Heidi and her husband and two kids live there and we had never been up to visit them. Well we found out it was only another 5 hour drive... I know 5 hours is still along way, but since we were over half way there we just couldn't resist! I called to see if they would be home and thankfully only got a hold of Mark, my brother-in-law, because then we were able to work out a way to surprise Heidi! So Sunday morning we headed out, we got a little lost in Spokane, but thankfully Mark was able to talk us through it. We pulled up and Riley their dog started barking and Heidi went out and yelled at him, so we were trying to keep the kids super quiet. We rushed to the front door and rang the bell. Mark threw open the door and yelled SURPRISE! It took Heidi a moment to realize what was going on, she screamed and cried and screamed again! It was so great! She couldn't believe we were at her front door! We hadn't packed for extra days, so we had to do some laundry, so Brent got to borrow some of Hailey's p.j.'s...hence the purple.

Cute cuzins ready for an outing!

Hailey and Anna were immediate friend again, like there had never been a break since they had last seen each other.

A beautiful hike just around the corner from their house. When you walked out their front door you felt like you were living in the mountains, it was gorgeous!

This used to be a swinging bridge, that Mark told us some crazy stories about when he was younger, his mother would have died!!

Anna loved holding Grace!

They had this train in their basement and Brent was in Heaven!!!

She was so smiley for me this was just one of the many pics I got of her grinning away!

So we happened to be there over Brent's birthday, but we weren't prepared so we had no gifts. But bless Bob and Linda, Mark's parents for coming to celebrate with us and bringing an awesome truck for him! He loved it.

Heidi, Hailey and Anna made the cake and frosted it, then I tried to be creative with left over Halloween candy to make a silly green monster....in case you couldn't tell what it was...

I can't believe he is already 2!

First bite of the cake!

We had such a great time! Sadly it was only from Sunday to Tuesday morning, but we don't regret going one bit!

It was an 11 and a half hour drive home, but of course took us 13. The kids were overly exhausted but they loved it. I told every one to pray for us on our drives, and I know they did, because it went so well! The kids were great! Thanks G&G Woolley for letting us borrow your portable DVD player, it saved us!

We can't wait to visit again!