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In April, I turned 21. My birthday was relatively uneventful. My wonderful boyfriend treated me to a yummy dinner out with my study abroad group. It was really pretty neat to see them again. Then to top the evening off, Branden made me a wonderful promise. He promised me that he will ask me to marry him. What that means is that he's given me the green light to start planning for our wedding. So, as you can imagine, that's taken up a good portion of my time. HOWEVER just to let everyone know--we're not engaged, and we're not going to be deciding on a date until we are actually engaged.
In the end of April, I finished my semester and I am happy to announce that I made good grades and achieved my goal for the semester.
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In May, my cousin got married. It was really awesome. Everything was so beautiful and elegant! I had the opportunity to be one of her bridesmaids. I showed up that day with everything from extra makeup to double-sided tape scissors. After leaving later than we hoped, we waited outside of the temple until Emily and Josh showed up. They were so smiley and happy. Just looking at them you can tell that they're so in love! After taking some pictures we all moved into the Joseph Smith memorial building for a luncheon. It was beautiful. Emily sang Josh a song, and I was able to capture a little bit.
After that we ran over to the reception center. The ring ceremony was beautiful. I really loved what Josh's dad said during it, and I remember thinking as I was standing there that it was next to perfect. Then we got the reception going. It was pretty fun. After finding AV cords in Matt's truck we were able to get the songs up for the dancing. For the bouquet toss my mom and I lined up and got ready to try to catch it. I jumped and it bounced off of my fingertips. After looking at it on the floor, I decided I should pick it up (though honestly it was probably more like a lunge and pounce). After that I realized how I probably should have not caught it, seeing as how I already had my own bouquet as a bridesmaid. So, I started pulling flowers out of the bouquet and giving them to the little girls who had tried to catch it. After sending the bride and groom off on their honeymoon, I got to take the little kids home along with some of the wedding supplies. All in all it was a fun day.
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The day after the wedding I went wedding dress shopping with my mom and my grandma. It was really fun, and I'm happy to announce that I think I've found it. I've been checking out shops all over Utah and in Las Vegas.
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Speaking of Las Vegas, Branden and I went down the following week to see Jimmy Buffett. It was the first time either of us have been to one of his shows. I of course took too long to get out of the house so we couldn't do much that first night. Then the next day Branden took me shopping. It was mostly window shopping, but he also got me a t-shirt. It was really really fun. Then I had to go change my shoes, and we went out to eat at Margaritaville. We started out with conch fritters, and then I had coconut shrimp. It was so good! It seems like it's been forever since I had either of those. The concert ended at midnight, and I just about fell asleep in the car.
The following day we went to go check out the Hoover dam. It was so neat. I hadn't seen anything like it, and I LOVE stuff like that. We watched the sun set over the mountains while watching the river flow out of the power plant. Then as we were driving back towards Vegas we turned off towards Lake Mead. We opened the box of pizza we had and watched the sun set over the mountains again. I had to get something out of the trunk, and when I got back to the front of the car, Branden had picked me a "flower." It turned out to be something related to a dandilion, but I'm going to keep it forever.
Once the sun was gone we got back on the road, and of course, we caught sight of the sun again. We pulled off onto the shoulder to watch it set again, and we even got it a fourth time once we had Vegas in sight.
We got some In-N-Out and got back on the highway. Or at least, we tried to get back on the highway. Not only were a few exits closed, but so was a section of the highway. So, after about an hour or more, we finally got out of Vegas and started heading back towards Utah.
It was a lovely vacation, and was exactly what I needed!
