Vegas Vows - 11-11-11

Ashley and I bonded during her first year at BYU when I lived in Heber. I adore the girl and so does her Uncle Dave, so on 11-11-11, we headed to Las Vegas to attend her wedding. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful ceremony.

All the Westra siblings came.

When they are all together it's like they finally realize that they outnumber their parents and then all the jokes start, some more appropriate than others, and neither Joy nor Jerry can stop them. In fact, Jerry spent a good portion of the trip analyzing their genetics and blaming most of their antics on his wife's side of the family. The truth is, both of them really want to share the credit because they raised nine really great kids. It was so fun to have everyone together.
Here are some of the cutest grandkids around.

I sure like this guy.

Justin literally had this football in his hand the entire weekend. My favorite moment was when we were all gathered in the very crowded lobby of the temple and he threw a long pass across the room to an unsuspecting patron/receiver.

A lovely bride.

Have you every seen a church gym transform into something this amazing?

Little Jack.

I learned that there is a long standing tradition in this family of harrassing newly married couples. Only Jerry could say for sure which side of the family this genetic trait can be traced to. I heard horror stories of brothers calling Todd and Sharolyn's room every ten minutes all night on their wedding night. And something about one of Scott's friends handcuffing himself to Jenn on their wedding night. I was starting to understand why Dave treated our wedding night destination as top secret miltary intelligence.

So the uncles started early trying to figure out where Scotty and Ashley were staying. They were badgering the bridesmaids, setting up traps, holding meetings in the hall, anything to get this information. Ashley, being the bright girl that she is, held strong and didn't fall for any of it. All the uncles left the reception defeated. So imagine our surprise when Dave and I pulled in to our hotel and saw this.

There are 155,000 rooms in the 113 hotels in Las Vegas. I looked it up. Vegas is all about odds, but really, what are the odds that they were staying in our very hotel? We left them alone and made sure that the uncles did too. Ashley heard we were staying there and invited us to breakfast with them on the day we left. We were very lucky to get to spend some time with them before we all went our separate ways. It was one of my favorite parts of the trip.

Congratulations Scotty and Ashley! We love you!