Stephen & Stepheni's FL wedding reception/open house

First off, my mom and Don had Rita's Italian Ice at the reception!!!!!! 

And lots of it.  I had about 4 cups:)

Hollie and I were as happy as we were when we saw the Cold Stone Ice cream at their Utah reception. 

Little Isaac liked the food too, and it shows . . .

on his chin, his shirt, his hands, and probably on his cute bow tie. 

My mom had the food catered, and it was so perfect! 

If you need catering for any occasion, ask me and I'll get you their info.

They kept everything stocked so perfectly too. 

Sister Johnston made the huge half carrot-half chocolate cake. 

Stepheni's lime/lemon colors:)

Here are beautiful Stepheni and handsome Stephen.  They stood under their arch while their guests came.  I wonder who many people came, it was a big turn out. 

They finally sat down for a while because the guests kept coming.

Some of the little guests had fun.

Stephen & Stepheni got to mingle a little.  They are so fun. 

They rested briefly.

But then they spent a long time opening all of their gifts and cards. 

There were a lot of linger-longerers, my kids included.

Congratulations you two!  Now go get some rest.  A wedding, a train ride, 3 wedding receptions in 3 states, a plane ride, and a LONG cross-country road trip in your new car sounds exhausting to me.  Cheers!

Martin's Island Proposal to Katy

Last weekend, I met Katy, a beautiful, fun, laughing girl who loves to run.  I'm so glad I got to meet her.  She and Martin, my little brother, were so cute together, and are in love, so they want to get married.  Martin typed up a detailed plan for the big day.  He asked his friend who has a boat if he would help me pull it together for the big surprise. 

So, I met Nick at the Belleair Causeway where he was patching the boat. 

 Here he is again patching it with better epoxy on the island.   

I loaded up the things from Martin's list and we did the set up. Yada yada yada, Martin and Katy go with a skim board to Sand Key for a beach day. They play a little in the water, then Martin swims out to a random boat that we had anchored just out side of the swim zone. Katy jumps in with him and asks if it's like the scooter. (Ask them.) Since it was, they took off!

Martin asked Katy where she would like to go, and they went under a bridge, started seeing some islands, and Katy pointed out an island with a tree on it. So, that was their destination - just for fun, so she thought.  

It used to have two trees, but is now called by the locals, "One Tree Island." 

As they pulled up, she noticed a cute set up of some beach chairs,

a dozen red roses,

a picnic basket with her favorite Cheez-its,

and even tiki torches. 

They climbed out of the boat, and Martin got doen on one knee with the ring that we had stashed in the boat for him.  Isn't Katy's reaction so genuine and cute?!  These are taken after she announced to the dolphin tour boats that he had just proposed to her and she had said YES!  Somebody offered to take pictures with the camera that was in the picnic basket. 

So cute! 

I'm happy that random couple took lots of pictures of them b/c you know I wanted to be hiding under a lilly pad with a snorkel and wanted to jump out and be their photographer:)  (Martin had actually detailed that in his memo, but I left a camera there instead.) 

I remember being awkward figuring out how to display my ring in every picture and laughing with such excitement with the biggest smile thinking of such happy thoughts while people took our picture when I got engaged too.  I love how it looks like she's doing part of the "choking" sign to show off her beautiful sparkely ring.  It's so real.

They didn't have their phones with them (or anything except for their swimsuits) so they were anxious to get back to the beach so they could call their parents.  

On their giddy way back,

Dolphins swam around and under them! 

It was so perfect, they said. 

We wanted to know how it went but enjoyed a beach day sitting in the water and munching on watermellon. 

 

Then, we saw them!  They snuck back and had already anchored! 

Martin held up her ring while she jumped in. 

Katy didn't know we were on the beach, but she was so excited to be able to tell somebody when she saw us!

Here's her skipping-happy dance. 

And her showing off her beautiful ring that Martin had made for her. 

Awe, so cute.

Martin drew this.

They couldn't get back to start texting and calling about the news!

We ordered pizzas and went to Grandma Rebeck's for a little engagement party. 

They showed her the photos. 

And they {will be} living happily ever after!