Andrew Gibbons married Maddie on December 19, 2020. We were excited that we were able to be there. Because of the COVID pandemic restrictions, not very many people could go into the temple for their sealing. They were sealed in the Provo city center temple with just their parents and grandparents in attendance. They had a ring ceremony and reception in a rented hall a couple blocks from the temple. We drove over with Tiffany and her family and were there waiting when they arrived from the temple.
We all wore our masks, but we were happy to be with the family for the ring ceremony that Tim presided over. The cousins were so excited to be together and it was fun to visit with family that was in attendance.
Tyler’s parents came over from the temple and that was the only time that we saw them while we were in Utah. We got a picture of all of the Gibbons original kids and their spouses. I really liked this picture even though it took forever for everyone to stand still long enough and look at the right camera to get it taken.
We stayed for the luncheon, which was pretty small since a lot of people left with their food after the ring ceremony was over. I took pictures of the cousins, so I got one with Aubrey and Taryn and all the younger cousins; and then I got one with Tessa and Abby and all the teenage beauties.
This all happened on Abby’s birthday. She was a little sad that we had to travel some on her actual birthday, but once she knew we would be with her cousins, she was willing to make the sacrifice. She loves her cousins very much and these girls get along really well. Even with only seeing each other a couple times a year, when they’re together, it’s like they’ve never been apart. When Abby heard the wedding reception would be on her 16th birthday, her only question was, “Will there be dancing?” So, during the reception, Tim made an announcement about Abby’s birthday and then they played a line dance for the kids to dance to while Maddie and Andrew changed into their travel clothes to head out for their honeymoon. Abby was ecstatic about the dance and the shout out for her birthday.
The girls love their cousins. Here’s Abby with the youngest cousin, Camden. He loved snuggling with Abby and she just soaked up the affection he gave her as she held him. They were so cute together. I loved the wedding colors and flowers so we took pictures of the girls with the table centerpieces. This was my favorite picture of Tessa. I loved her hairstyle that she let me do - a crown braid. She’s so pretty!
We loved the different shades of pink in the flowers. Here’s a picture of Aubrey with one of the centerpieces. I love her smile. Taryn was so excited because she caught the bouquet that Maddie threw out to all the young girls. I believe how it really went down was that her cousin Sara actually caught the bouquet since Taryn was a little shorter, but Sara gave it to Taryn since she already had a bouquet as one of the bridesmaids. It was very nice of her to let Taryn be the shining star. I might have made the suggestion that Taryn give it to Abby since it was her birthday, but by the disgusted look on Taryn’s face, I figured that wasn’t going to happen. She was very proud of herself for being the one to “catch” the bouquet, so she didn’t like my idea at all.
As the newly wedded couple left their reception, everyone got to do sparklers. I didn’t take pictures when they actually ran through the lines of guests, but I did take some pictures afterwards while the kids used all the extra sparklers. Here are some pictures of the tweens - one with Jacob and one without. These three girls are pretty inseparable when we get together.
Aubrey usually hung out with Jacob, but would jump between hanging out with the tweens or the littles depending on her mood. She loved doing the sparklers and was so proud of herself when she had one in each hand.
Taryn, Lucy, and Anson are called the littles and they are also inseparable. As soon as we walked in Tiffany’s house, Lucy grabbed Taryn’s hand and they were off and we barely ever saw them again. They always included Anson whenever his family was with us and those three were like peas in a pod - they did everything together.
For Abby and Julia’s birthday, Tyler rented out a movie theater and we saw the new Croods movie. Tim and Tara’s family joined us too, so it was the one time we all did something together. Just like last time, we loved having the entire theater to ourselves and everyone really liked the movie. We of course had to have our traditional dance party during the credits and then we got a picture of all the cousins outside the theater.
The movie theater was in a mall, so we walked around the mall for a bit after the movie. We found some cute Christmas decorations where I had to get pictures. This big Christmas tree was in one of the main mall galleries and it had a walkway through it, which was a perfect picture spot. I took a picture of Taryn and Lucy and I begged the tweens to get in my picture too, but I couldn’t talk the teenagers into having their picture taken.
On another day, we decided to meet up for ice skating. We had to wait in a really long line because there were restrictions on how many people could be in the rink at one time. We finally got to the front of the line and they let our large group go in together. While we waited in line, outside in the cold, I took a few pictures of the kids while they were bored and trying to stay warm.
The cousins didn’t care too much about the wait, as long as they got to wait together where they could visit and catch up. They all just wanted to go ice skating, so they didn’t care how long it took as long as they got in at some point.
I had to smile watching my Texas-raised kids trying to ice skate. We’ve done it before when we visited Vernal, but it was many years ago. As excited as they were to ice skate, it took them awhile to get used to the skates and the slippery ice. I was very thankful of the family for giving helping hands to my girls who needed the support. Here’s Abby taking turns with Halley and Katie, and then another turn with Tiffany.
Halley was a good help for Taryn and even Uncle Justin took a couple turns helping Aubrey. Once they got the hang of it, they did eventually do some skating on their own.
Tessa picked it up pretty quickly, but she enjoyed going around with Makaela. Taryn was so excited to finally catch up with Andrew and Maddie who made an appearance too.
At one point all the skaters had to get off the ice for the zamboni to drive through and smooth the ice. We all crowded together so I got a picture of everyone while we waited.
Another activity we planned was an escape room. We wanted to do fun stuff during our vacation, and Tyler found a family-friendly escape room where we all worked together to solve clues to help save Santa and Christmas. It was a fun one and all the kids were able to participate and we did solve all the clues and save Santa with time to spare. We had the host lady take a picture of us with Santa in the background after we won the game. The kids all said it was so fun and they had a great time.
The escape room was just down the street from my grandma’s house, so after leaving the escape room, we stopped by to say hi. We thought we’d just say hi from the driveway to keep our distance, but Grandma Willes was ok with us coming inside if we kept our masks on. We got to have some of her famous homemade Christmas chocolate truffles and we visited for a bit. She’s doing well even though she’s been stuck home for most of the last year because of the pandemic. I think that’s been hard for her since she’s used to going and doing. She normally teaches at a senior center and she has lots of groups and clubs that she’s a part of, but with everything closed or restricted, she’s just been spending most of her days at home. We were happy that we got to stop by and visit even though it wasn’t for very long.
While we were at Tiffany’s, there was a phenomenon that occurred that hasn’t happened for many, many years (like 800 years to be exact). Saturn and Jupiter aligned so that they looked like one bright start and many were referring to it as the “Christmas star.” It happened on the 21st of December, 2020 and I went outside of Tiffany’s house to try and catch it on camera. I took a couple pictures, one with the flash and one without, but you can kind of see the two planets really close together even though I missed the exact moment that they were aligned. It still was a pretty cool sight and I was happy that the pictures turned out as good as they did.
Tiffany planned some fun menus and one morning we did pancakes and created them like Santas and Rudolphs from a Pinterest article that she had seen. We thought they turned out super cute and the kids loved decorating their own plates, especially when they found out they could use however much whipped cream they wanted. We also spent an evening decorating sugar cookies, although the only picture we got was one Tiffany took as Tyler decorated cookies after all the kids were finished. His perfect decorated sugar cookie was one filled with chocolate chips.
The cousins had a blast hanging out day and night. We love being at Tiffany’s house. All of our kids are so close in age that everyone gets along so well. All the teenagers serenaded us with a song while wrapped in blankets one night and we thought it was so cute we took a picture. We were able to watch the BYU bowl game while we were there, and Lucy even dressed up in her cheerleading outfit to help cheer on the cougars. They even did a cheer and pyramid during halftime. It was a good game and they won easily, so it was a fun game to watch.
We packed in all the fun activities we could and still had plenty of time to just relax, hang out, and play games. We went over to their church gym a couple of times to play basketball and the teenagers took a lot of drives to just hang out. We also took trips to the BYU campus and its bookstore which is always on our to-do list when we visit Utah. We really love getting to spend holidays with family and we loved being together for Christmas. We did so many fun things, I had to split up the posts, so all of the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day festivities will be in the next post. We love our family!
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