Kelli and Hunter's Wedding

I have had so much stuff going on lately, forgive me for not blogging the past few days. Yesterday I had the great privilege of attending my cousin Kelli's wedding down at the Mount Timpanogos Temple.

My family and I awoke very early in the morning to get down there in time for the ceremony. We were on the road at about 7:30 in the morning. The roads were very wet and it snowed/rained/snowed the whole trip down but the roads were relatively bare and traffic was at a minimum. We made it to Renae's house with plenty of time to get to the Temple. Renae and Gregg were kind enough to have Logan come over and play with their kids while Kristy and I were at the wedding.

We then hopped on the road and made our way to the Temple. The night before I used MapQuest to get directions but instead of printing out pages of useless directions, I copied down just the main turnoffs and points thinking that once we saw the large Temple we could find our way there. Well, it was real cloudy and we couldn't pinpoint where the Temple was and time was running out (we had to be there about a half an hour before). Just when we were about to hit the "panic" button, the Mount Timpanogos Temple popped into view.

What a gorgeous Temple! It was much larger than I thought it would be (I am used to the Logan Temple) and the closer you got the more impressive it became. We entered the Temple and we were greeted by my cousins Kyle and Brian (Kelli's brothers). Soon after my Uncle Kurt and his family arrived. Then we all went to one of the many Sealing Rooms and waited for Kelli and her soon-to-be husband Hunter. The Sealing Room was just so peaceful and beautiful. The reverence and silence was so thought-provoking and it made you reflect and think about life and what comes next. It reminded me of my own wedding, even though I hardly remember it. We waited for a few minutes and other guests came in. And then in walked my Aunt Julie and Uncle Jerry. I have not seen them in years and it was wonderful to see them smiling and in the Temple. As I looked around the room and looked at everyone, I felt this deep appreciation for my family and the support they give me. Soon my Uncle Mark and Aunt Barbara came in (Kelli's parents) and then shortly after that Kelli and Hunter came in. She looked unbelievable, so pretty and she was glowing. I may be biased here but I think I have the best looking cousins in any family.

The Sealing Ceremony was something you just have to see. Words cannot describe the feeling you feel there as you watch a couple be sealed for time and all eternity. For those that don't know, in the Latter Day Saint religion we believe that when you get married and if you are worthy to be married in the Temple, you can be married (sealed) together forever.

After the wedding it was great to catch up with family and chat. We waited outside (close to the Temple doors since it was cold outside) and finally the new couple came out and they looked so happy. They had a photographer to take some pictures. I felt bad for them since it was a little drizzly and cold but I remember the feeling of just being married. Kristy and I were married in the cold, cold winter and it was foggy. But it didn't matter to us since we were still on Cloud Nine.

I got all of my cousins in one shot. But minus the new guy.

Kelli had these bright green (it matched his tie) flipflops that you couldn't see because of the dress.

The Anhder Family. Brian and his wife Kari, Barbara, Mark, Kelli and Hunter, Kyle and Brian who was paying attention to someone else.

After taking pictures we were invited to attend a luncheon at Golden Corral down in Orem. There we ate a ton of food (mmm... liver*) and a ton of dessert and chatted it up with my family. I am so thankful for my aunts and uncles. It was great to sit with them and talk about family, life and pretty much everything in between (sorry Aunt Julie... I am just not a Stones guy). After killing ourselves with food, Kristy and I left to go back to Salt Lake and pick up Logan.

We visited with Renae and Gregg and the kids for a little bit and then we dropped in on Kristy's parents. Unfortunately we couldn't stay long because we had to leave already to make it to the reception. We were making good time that is until we tried to find the Bella Vista Reception Center. Funny thing is that both of Kristy's parents were there the night before at a reception. Good thing too since they told us what to look for because MapQuest sent us somewhere else. I am surprised that we actually found the place and if we weren't looking for an office building (like Kristy's mom said) we may not have found it at all. But we did! We went in and were greeted by Julie and Jerry so we sat with them and ate a ton of donuts and food. And get this, they had a lime drink. Right up my alley!

I didn't know a soul there outside of Mark and his family, Julie and Jerry.

But that changed when I met Jerry's older brother and his wife along with some other friends. I am horrible with names, I cannot remember Jerry's brother and wife's name but I remember Dave and Sue. (I think I got that right) It was fun meeting new "family". It was also nice to see my other cousin Wes too. Unfortunately I didn't get much of a chance to chat with him.

Aunt Julie was teaching Logan tricks here.

And there is the happy new couple!

Finally, it was time for us to go. We packed up our stuff and Mark made sure we got some extra donuts and we headed back to Logan. The drive was long but fortunately the weather was great. The roads were barely wet and the canyon was absolutely clear. I am so glad that I took the time to go down to the wedding and reception. I am seriously blessed with a great family. I appreciate Mark and his family for letting my family take part of the festivities and I appreciate Julie and Jerry for letting us hang out with them. Some day we will visit them in Colorado. And a special thanks to Kelli for inviting Kristy and I to the Sealing Ceremony at the Temple. We had a fantastic time and it means a lot.

Friday Flashback: Case Cousins

I am having a hoot scanning in all these old slides. I cannot wait to get my hands on more of them!

I look just like Logan in this picture. Our mannerisms are so alike it is scary!

I like how we can barely see any one's face. And I absolutely love the old vintage Pop Shop bottles.

Same photo only retouched. It is definitely clearer.

Boy do I look unhappy here. I think it has to do with my dad making me take pictures when I would rather be playing.

I'm Back!

First of all, I appreciate all the comments of support. I don't want to stop blogging, I just have lost the motivation for doing so. My cousin Josh gave me a lot of ideas to blog about and that got my mind going and hopefully that will get me going.

Jaimee mentioned that she was surprised that I didn't blog about the Superbowl. I was going to but I forgot to take pictures of the event so I decided it was not worth the effort. But now looking back, I wish I did so here it is a few days late and a few dollars short.

Superbowl Sunday was a lot of fun though. It was a long day, I was out and about doing Church-related assignments all up until the game. My mom came over for the festivities and we made a whole lot of food. Kristy made her famous stuffed mushrooms, we had a sweet shredded beef in the crock pot for sandwiches, I had some boneless buffalo chicken strips and we had an ice cream bar and eclairs for desert. That and a ton of other candy (Bottlecaps!) and soda. Yeah, I was stuffed and I am sure I have gained some weight. But hey, it is the Superbowl!

The game was great. The halftime show...  ...not that great. I am not that familiar with the Black Eyed Peas but I came away unimpressed. The lights and special effects were pretty good but the music was just not that. I really think AC/DC or Paul Rodgers + Queen would be awesome halftime shows. Can you imagine everyone in the stadium doing We Will Rock You? The commercials were pretty good, Pepsi Max was the worst offender. I guess crotch shots and sex will help you sell Pepsi. The game though was amazing. I am a Green Bay Packer fan, they are my 2nd favorite team behind the Jets. I was a little worried when all the injuries for the Packers began to pile up but I was glad that a former USU Aggie made some key plays in place for injured Charles Woodson.

When I became a Packer fan there was hardly any merchandise out there. Remember that this was before the Internet. My Aunt Julie found this sweatshirt out in Colorado and sent it to my Mom so she could give it to me. Thanks Julie!

I am happy for Aaron Rodgers and Green Bay. I have to admit that I was not a fan of the Packers when they let Brett Favre go and I stopped rooting for them while he was with the Jets.

This is a real authentic Cheesehead. My mom's friend Julie Shipley took a trip to Wisconsin and my mom asked her to buy one for me for Christmas. So Julie did and she came home on the plane with this Cheesehead on her lap. Thanks Julie!

(I'm very lucky and blessed to have such good Julies' in my life!)

But as a true Packer fan, I will forgive and forget and support the Pack. I became a Packers fan back in the late 80's. And it was one player that sealed the deal for me. He was #84, wide receiver Sterling Sharpe (older brother of Shannon Sharpe). That guy was truly talented and was looking like he was going to become a receiver like Jerry Rice. And then came Brett Favre. And then came Reggie White. And thus a Packer fan was born!

Ah the wonders of eBay and the Internet. I got an old Sharpe jersey and I found his rookie card from a street dealer in New York.

Since then I have followed the Pack and a few years later I was cheering them in the Superbowl. Since I didn't want to be counted as a bandwagon fan, I became a fan of the Jets.

Happy Birthday Josh!

Day 322

What a lame post yesterday. I did have a lot of fun winning all those games against Eric and there is nothing like racking up 514 rushing yards against him. But I feel like I have reached a low in my roller coaster. I get like this sometimes (it would be interesting to check back on my blog and see if maybe I am cyclic) where I just feel blah.

So today I plan on reading some comics and drinking some Dew. I think it is time to re-read my collection of X-Men comics starting with this huge hardcover.

I think I might be a little nervous for tomorrow too. And surprisingly this has nothing to do with the big Jets/Patriots game that I get to watch (even though that makes a little nervous/excited too) but I am anxious to see what happens at Church tomorrow. I just might get released from my current calling which means I soon might have another calling. Our small little choir is singing tomorrow too and my ace-in-the-hole won't be there to help me get through it. There is this kind lady in the ward that sings tenor with me because we don't have enough guys and she is out of town this weekend. I have this ugly gut feeling that I will be the only tenor there. We have practice here in a few hours and I hope I can catch my parts.

Yesterday was my cousin Josh's birthday and I totally forgot to blog about it. I told myself that I would blog about my fellow blogger's birthdays (no other family members get that privilege embarrassment) and I totally skipped out.

I don't have many pictures of my cousin Josh. But Jeremy sent me this pic while I was on my LDS mission in New York.

Jeremy wrote this on the back. I think it is okay to reveal this now.

It is how I will always remember Josh.

I have many fond memories of my cousin Josh. He was just as into Star Wars as Jeremy and he loved video games. I remember spending hours playing the old Atari basketball game, the Nintendo Ten Yard Fight game and getting so competitive and hating each other.

Ahhh.... good times. We didn't just play video games either, I also remember the highly competitive basketball games in the driveway at Greeley.

Josh also served an LDS Mission around the same time only he was on the West Coast while I took the East Coast. He served in Los Angeles and in the hood.

Like I said, I don't have many pictures of Josh. This was taken at the SLC airport when I flew out to New York. I guess he looks sad since he had to go to the West Coast instead of the East. I guess that makes you Tupac and me Biggie.

Happy Birthday Josh!*

*better late than never right?

Happy Labor Day!

Day 310

Can you really wish someone a Happy Labor Day?

Aren't you really asking someone to smile and be happy while they work and sweat?

Well today is a little special. Not only is it Labor Day (I am sure I can make a ton of jokes about Aunt Julie being in labor) but it is also my fellow blogger and cousin Jaimee's birthday!

Sadly, Jaimee is a girl and growing up I wanted to play with the boy cousins and I had Jeremy and Josh to play with instead. (Jordan coming into the scene a bit later) But what was great (and still is great about Jamiee) is that being a girl didn't matter. She played just as hard as the rest of us. She was no different at all, she was one of us.

Unfortunately I don't have any embarrassing pictures of her to use.

I remember one occasion when it was just Jaimee and I. Aunt Julie came out to Utah with just Jaimee and my mom and Julie went down to Salt Lake to go shopping leaving Jaimee and I by ourselves. Now you would think that we had a boring time but that was not the case (no pun intended). I remember having a blast with her (at least I had fun, hmmmm, wonder what she thought). We walked down to Jed's (the local burger bar) and ate some lunch and then came home and we watched MTV and sang along with the artists. We watched some movies and played games. It was nice spending some time with just her and getting to know her. Now with her blog, it has been awesome to get to know her even more and getting to know her sweet family.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAIMEE!

Thanks for being a good example and a great cousin. One day we will have to run a 5K together.

Happy Birthday Jeremy!

Day 252

I am in awe of those bloggers that try to cover every one's birthday on their blogs. I thought about doing that since I would have something to blog about the majority of the time but then I thought of the workload and I remembered that I don't remember occasions like these. And I would feel incredibly stupid if I accidentally missed someone. I am horrible at remembering birthdays and stuff like that. So I decided against covering all the birthdays aside from my own family.

But I have made a special case (Get it? Case - case?) for my fellow bloggers. One of the biggest advantages of blogging with my fellow bloggers is that you will not miss their birthday. And really, I have only a few extra blogs to cover and they don't come for awhile. And I would be carrying some extra guilt since they wrote about me on my birthday. (wink, wink)

And today is a special day, it is my cousin and fellow newbie blogger Jeremy's birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

As he mentioned on his blog Jeremy are close. Maybe it was because our birthdays are so close to each other, personally I think it is because we knew each other in Heaven before this life. And we saw what crazy families we would be apart of and we vowed to try to strengthen and keep ourselves sane. (Only kidding folks... out families are not that crazy)

I guess I was the exhibisionist of the family eh?

I love this picture of us with Grandpa. Who would have thought that we would both have the same hairstyle now?

We have a lot of similarities. We both like to write and he is perhaps the biggest influence on my writing. I started this blog because I wanted to have some sort of record of my life. I regret that I never kept a journal like Jeremy has. I am in awe, I mean I am completely jealous of his tenacious ability to write and keep a journal. Jeremy also has a beautiful way with words. And not only can he creatively write, he has the best penmanship! Seriously, I wish I could write cursive the way he does.

Now I just need him to sit down and crank out that great American novel! I know he has it in him. I am looking in your direction this November Jeremy!

I hope you don't mind me sharing this. This was one of the novel ideas he had that he shared with me. Maybe this November you should write a rough draft or add another chapter? ;)

I actually created a character based directly on Jeremy. Remember Jetstream?

There are many things that Jeremy knows about me but no one else does. He was very instrumental while I was serving my LDS mission to New York. He inspired me to keep a daily journal (which I did) of those two years. I have shared with him parts of that journal so he knows stuff that I have never shared with anyone else. He also wrote me regularly while I was in New York. His letters were always so uplifting and full of creativity. What I enjoyed most of his letters was his honesty. Not only did we share what we thought and felt, we also shared writing ideas. On my P-Days (the one day of the week you had off while on the mission) I would write and plot stories and then send them to Jeremy. I would get some valuable feedback but he would also send me his story ideas and I fed off of that energy. Thanks Jeremy! You helped me through many difficult times on my mission.  I believe it was during this time that we coined the phrase "Soul Cousins".

I still have all your old letters from the mission field. I love that you sent me a Star Wars card. We must have asked to be sent to Earth so we could see Star Wars while growing up.

 I have some fond memories of spending time with Jeremy and all the CaseClan. I was lucky that I had a cousin my age (remember, I am still older than you!) that I could hang out with. You have been through so much and I have never heard you complain or utter a word of despair and I admire that. I am so glad that you have taken this blogging challenge. I think I will continue past my time to keep you company during this year-long adventure.

I hope you have a great birthday. And may the Force be with you!

Star Wars Kids

Day 201

When I lived in Canada my family and I were all alone. We didn't have any extended family around us. In fact we didn't have any other family members in the whole country.

So we would take extended vacations down in Utah that would last a couple of weeks. We would try to squeeze in as much family as we could during our small space of time and one of my favorite thing to do was to visit my Case cousins in Orem.

I have a lot of fond memories of their house in Orem. It has the coolest balcony (that was huge!) and they had a nice backyard. When we got older we could walk down to the 7-11 to get slurpees and buy comics.

One day we were down visiting we were putting together a Star Wars puzzle (based on the poster below) and of course Jeremy, Josh and I were beside ourselves. I mean this is Star Wars we are talking about!

And my poor sister had to bear the brunt of our obvious Star Wars love. Jennifer also loved Star Wars but she was older and therefore more mature about it. You can tell from the following picture that she was slightly annoyed. I love the look of my sister in this picture.

All I remember about this is that we were all searching for Princess Leia's gun. And we would pick each piece up and tell Jennifer what it was and then put it down randomly. I think the gun was only just one or two pieces.

I am pretty sure that Jeremy, Josh and I eventually got bored and ran outside to play Star Wars much to my sister's relief. She was a good sport though and was not averse to playing Star Wars herself.

List-Mania: Comic Book Movies

Day 27

Last Sunday I confessed my love (re: addiction) for comic books. For most of my life, comic books that were translated into movies did not fare so well. In fact, most of them were so cheesy that it just echoed the stereotype that comics are JUST for kids. Now we are in the golden age of comic book movies and the best part of this new age is most of the them are actually pretty good.

I am not a stickler for comic book movies needing to stick to the source material. I do hope that the movie studios stay true to the concept but I can forgive the often glaring differences between the actual comic and the movie. Take the X-Men movie franchise for example. There are more differences than similarities between the movie and the comics but in the end it doesn't bug me. The X-Men franchise was entertaining and that was the most important thing to me. What annoys this comic geek fan is when the movie that comes out does not come anywhere close to its potential. That is what irks me the most and there are quite a few comic book movies that have done this.

So here are my Top 5 comic book movies. Now let me remind you, this is MY list. You can argue all you want or make fun of the movies I picked out here but in the end it doesn't matter. These are the comic book movies I personally liked the best. Yours will probably differ.

5) The Rocketeer
This movie just might have more to do with my man-crush on Timothy Dalton than anything else. This is the story about a pilot that finds a rocket pack and battles Nazis as the Rocketeer. Simple premise, simple story and simply entertaining.




4) Iron Man
Marvel started strong out of the gate with some fantastic movies based on their characters but soon a bunch of duds hit the screen. I went to see this movie with the expectation that it would be a dud too. Boy was I wrong. Everything about this film was fantastic, the special effects were spectacular but Robert Downey Jr. owned this movie. The man in the suit stole the show.

3) Hellboy II
Sequels rarely are better than the original but there are exceptions to the rule and Hellboy II was one of them. I loved the first one quite a bit, I thought it captured everything Hellboy should be but this one hit it out of the park. Visually this movie was eye candy. The special effects were amazing and the colors were spectacular. The storyline felt like something right out of the Hellboy comics. The creatures were fascinating, the Death Angel was creepy but yet elegant. I love this movie so much.

2) Spider-Man
The first X-Men movie blew me away. They captured exactly what the X-Men were about. I hoped that Marvel would strike comic gold again with Spider-Man and I was so happy that they did. There was a lot I was leery about (Sam Raimi, organic Web-shooters, metal-looking Green Goblin) but I was so taken by the story. They nailed what Peter Parker was all about. I know a lot of people complained about the ending with Peter leaving MJ but that was spot on what Peter would do.

1) X2: X-Men United
Like I said, the first X-Men blew me away and I couldn't wait until this came out. This was probably the only sequel that topped my expectations. I don't think my eyes could get any bigger watching one of my favorite characters, Nightcrawler, teleporting all through the White House but that was just the start. This movie scratched everything this fanboy had an itch for. Sadly, the rest of the X-franchise has not been near this good.

Now I can hear it now. Spider-Man 2 was way better than the first one. Or, The Dark Knight is the greatest comic book movie ever! Those are good movies. Those are GREAT comic book movies but I didn't like them as much as the ones I listed. I hear someone screaming Sin City was the best adaptation! I can probably agree with that. As pure adaptations go, Sin City and 300 were the best ones. But they were not my favorite comic book movies.

But what was the best and worst comic book movie of all-time? This movie is a guilty pleasure. So bad that it is so good.

Honorable Mention: Flash Gordon
Hmmmm. Timothy Dalton again. But he is not the only reason I love this film. I love the costumes and the sets, so vibrant and colorful. Max von Sydow as Emperor Ming and Brian Blessed as Prince Vultan stole the show, everyone looked like they were having the time of their life making this movie. And who can forget the soundtrack by Queen? FLASH! AHHHHHHH AHHHHHHH! SAVIOR OF THE UNIVERSE! I could write a column all about this movie.

FUN FACT: One of my favorite memories is watching this movie with my cousins the Case's. Watching that movie with them is like being on Mystery Science Theater 3000. But we poke fun at the movie because we love it. I'll have to get together with the Case's again for another viewing. It has been too long!