Holly's Utah Trip Commentary

I received the greatest shock and surprise of my life this weekend at the wedding of Phil’s brother Chris. A few months ago, Chris called us and asked us if Natalie could be a flower girl at his wedding. Phil, confident in our daughter’s abilities, bluntly stated, “Sure, as long as you don’t need her to do anything, because if it requires more than just standing there, it won’t happen.”

Well, the fateful morning eventually arrived. We begged, cajoled, and pleaded with Natalie for us to let her do her hair in a respectable bun. She was very excited about her beautiful blue dress and “diamond” necklace that the bride-to-be, Kiersten, had graciously provided. We showed up at the reception center early for a quick rehersal before the main event.
The mansion was beautiful. The wedding was to be held on the lawn about 50 yards away from the house alongside a waterfall and in a picturesque gazebo. The bride and her entourage, including Natalie, were to walk from the house down about three flights of stairs, pausing for three seconds at each landing, and then walk across the lawn and down the aisle to the front of all of the guests and stand for the duration of the ceremony next to the bride and groom. I stood at the top of the stairs with Natalie (Phil had Alana on the lawn with the other guests) picturing our very opinionated daughter alone with strangers and thought, “Yeah, right! Good luck with that!”
To top it all off, the two flower girls were to descend the staircase immediately before the bride. All sorts of visions of various calamities crossed my mind. I saw Natalie, walking with the older and, we soon discovered, much faster flower girl and falling down the stairs, breaking a limb right in front of the bride, severely crippling the ceremony. I saw her sitting down half way down the steps resolved to go no further, with Phil and me a hundred yards away with the other guests unable to do anything besides helplessly watch. I saw myself, a big pregnant lady, running across the lawn to chase her as she ran, throwing the tantrum of her life, in whatever path would make us most visible for the longest period of time. I saw her jumping into the fishpond and splashing in the waterfall. In my mind’s eye, I saw her doing everything besides walking graciously down the aisle, delicately dropping petals from her silk-covered basket.

And yet that’s what happened (just about). Now we know that miracles happen in our times! She was amazing! She walked without stumbling down all of those stairs, pausing at approximately the right times. She made it all the way across the lawn and even stood with the line of bridesmaids for the entire ceremony! Phil and I just sat there with our jaws on the floor. It was the surprise of our lives. The only hiccup was that we hadn’t practiced dropping the petals, and Natalie had grown so attached to them that she would throw a handful and then stop to pick them up. She didn’t hold up things too much and frankly a lot of people thought it was cute. Since she didn’t destroy anything, we were more than pleased with the way things turned out.

What’s the moral, you may ask? Well, I think that Phil and I will have to work on not standing in our children’s way. We don’t let Natalie try things because we don’t have the confidence that she can do them successfully, when she might have more talents that we are stifling. The bride and groom had more faith in her than we did, and it turned out to be a great experience, both for us and for Natalie. Thanks, Chris and Kiersten!


Some other highlights from the trip were hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa, seeing Buddy and the cat, going up and down all of the stairs hundreds of times, visiting with good friends such as the Graves family, Aslynn, and Jodi, and seeing all of our great aunts, uncles, and cousins, and hanging out with Great Grandma. The girls had a fantastic time.


Alana also gained the confidence to walk at the airport. She has been walking short distances for a while, but she just couldn’t make the switch from crawling to walking full-time. When we were trying to keep her contained near our luggage, she saw her opportunity and made a break for it. She wanted to get out in the crowd in the main aisle of the terminal and walk with all of the people. We got looks that could melt iron from busy travelers as I followed this little girl around the crowded terminal and Phil followed with the video camera. Alana has been running around ever since.

Overall it was a fun trip. Thanks, everyone!