It's Finally Happening

Friday I received my Visa from the UK. This means that the wedding will be taking place in N. Ireland/England. We are shooting for either the 29th and 30th or 30th and 31st of March.

I fly back to N. Ireland this Friday and I'm so excited to get over there and get things sorted. I would of course adore having any and all who could come be there. But understand that it's a bit farther to travel than SLC.

We are just so thrilled to be able to move forward and get married! Hooray!

As I understand that my Aunt Kathleen will be in the states and so my uncle may be a little lonely up there in Russia I would like to extend an "especial" invite to him to attend.

Also Mallory if you are reading this....I know you have plans to go to NY that week. But Ireland's cool too. (just saying).

Babies

You can only vacation for so long before tearing your hair out. I have officially reached that point. The only bright spot in my otherwise monotonous exsistence is the thought of, and in some cases the reality of, babies. My dear friend Jodie is here with her husband visiting from Chicago and I have had the pleasure of meeting her adorable 7 week old son Henry. Other baby delights to be had are in order of due date Julie, who's due date was actually yesterday, Kristin and Lacy. I do wish all their babies would hurry up and make their appearance here in mortality so that I might start my full time job as professional cuddler.

Special mention goes out to Canyon Rose who I just can not get enough of.

As a random Visa update. No word from the US Visa. Just nothing, I ask myself frequently," How can this be?" There is no explanation it just is. Ray and I had decided that we would just make plans to marry in England. Turns out in order to do this we will need a UK Visa. So I fed-exed everything off this morning and that could take 3-4 weeks. So at this point our plan is that whichever country will give us a Visa for getting married the quickest that's the route we will go.

I'll of course keep you posted but for now that means I'm in Utah for at least another 3 - 4 weeks.

Update from Utah

I received the sweetest email from my FIL and MIL (mother and father in law-to be). Amongst other things they gently pointed out that I haven't posted in ever so long. So this post is dedicated to them :)

It has been go, go, go since I arrived in the States almost a month ago. Not to much exciting happened in Utah except that I got to see Canyon and the fam. Last week my mom and I drove down to Arizona to see Lex. It was indeed delightful to see her and judging from the look on her face I think she was happy to see us as well .

Mom and I had a few mishaps on our drive down to AZ. First off we missed the turn off and instead of going through page had to go through Vegas. Secondly once we got to Kingman we stopped to eat and then Ray called. My mom blames it on me being in love but I got distracted and forgot to tell her that we needed to fill up before we left Kingman. We were pretty much in the middle of nowhere and only miraculously made it to a gas station. Somehow our car went almost 400 miles on 12 gallons of gas (we hadn't filled up since Beaver.)

Our second driving mishap was that I misunderstood HB's directions and so instead of heading south down to Phoenix and therefore saving ourselves about an hour and a half we drove on to Flagstaff and then down. We did finally make it however and were very excited to be reunited with Jeff and Pam and our little Lexi.

The next day while Lex worked in the morning Mom and I went and visited Uncle Charles and Aunt Laurine. It was delightful to visit with them and seeing uncle Charles always makes me miss Grandpa Howard. To me there is such a strong resemblance between the two of them.

Here is picture of them with Penee. From there lex met up with us and we partook at the Cheesecake Factory which I obviously adored and then we went home for some naps before heading out the Chea's to see the Cliff Arnett family.

Here is a picture of Aunt Cathy, Chea and I at Chea's house in Queen Creek, AZ. The follwing day we got up and drove down to Sierra Vista. Mom had never been to Lacy's house so it was a delight both to see her so adorably pregnant and to see her cute house. Mom washed all her windows, did laundry and helped to set up her nursery. So hopefully Lacy will have a head start when little Penelope Gwen decides to make her appearance.

While we were there we also had the opportunity to go to a baby shower hosted by Lacy's SIL, Maren.

Much delights were had by all and it was good to catch up with some of Lacy's friends who I've

come to know and love. Like Xela, a friend of Lacy's from the U of A from Malaysia. Also Danielle. Here is a fun picture at random from the fun baby shower.

Finally two pics from our last day in Sierra Vista. First a pic of the hosts with the most. Dave, Lacy and Deacon. Dave especially was such a trooper to have put up with so many Arnett women under one roof for almost a week.

Finally a pic of us girls

Mom and I flew out from Phx yesterday and arrived safe and sound last night. I miss the Mayberry's and Lexi all ready and look forward to the news of Penelope Gwen's safe arrival!

It looks as though I will be here in the States for at least another couple of weeks. But I do miss Ray, Ireland and all my family there and I can't wait to be back with them, hopefull soon, soon, soon!