Busy August, Part I

August turned out to be a pretty amazing and busy month this year. On August 14th, my nephew Ben Aird married Eboni McPherron in Bountiful, Utah. Because of a prior sealing, Ben & Eboni were married civilly, but they plan to be sealed together on their first anniversary next year.  Although the ceremony could not take place within the temple, being at the temple that morning was important to Jane & Ken so an early session in the Jordan River Temple was attended by all of Jane & Ken's children, some of Eboni's family, plus Gayle and I. 

Later that day...

 The ceremony

A Groom cake made by my niece Heather Bremner for her brother. It turned out fantastic!

The formal wedding cake!

Church Celebrity spotted at the reception: Pres. Henry B. Eyring!

The next day started out fun, turned into a minor disaster, and then ended up fun again. Early that morning, Alan, Cheryl, and I were able to attend the Ogden Temple Open House.  I have expressed before how much I love temples so I considered this an amazing blessing to be in Utah during the Open House. Even though we didn't have tickets, we showed up anyway and were never asked to produce tickets.  This temple is beautiful inside and out. I loved it! I hope I can do a session inside some day.

After we left the Open House, we went back to Gayle's where we were staying and there was a rush of excitement outside.  Jane informed us that a sprinkler line had broken in Gayle's yard and water was rushing into the basement through the window wells.  Scott and Ken were busy trying to get the water turned off, but were unsuccessful because of a tree root growing over the valve. It took about 45 min. to cut through the root and turn off the water... while water continued pouring into the basement.  After changing out of our church clothes, we all pitched in to help. Alan & Cheryl started using buckets to empty the water from the window wells and they also dug trenches to try to divert the water away from the house.  I went into the basement to try to sop up the water with towels and wet vacs. This unfortunate event came at a bad time - the day of our Burton Reunion in which Gayle was in charge. Also, it didn't help that Scott was not feeling well.

In spite of the flood, the reunion went on as planned and turned out to be a big success.  It was held in Bountiful at the Rec. Center.  It is always fun to be able to gather together as an extended family and get reacquainted with one another.

Ryan and Cheryl were our only children who could attend.

Gayle (music teacher for elementary students) had a fun song for everyone to sing along with special musical instruments that kids love to play.  She asked me to play the song on the guitar.

Then everyone played a couple of games on the lawn.