Lotsa news!

When parents of the bride and groom are intricately involved in the planning of a wedding, they tend to know what is going on. This is not the case with Judd and Michele's wedding. We knew that the wedding was being held Friday at 8pm at the Irvine Marriott, but we did not find out until last night's rehearsal that the ceremony is taking place OUTSIDE! Even though this is Southern California, its the end of December and it was still cold! I was shivering. The weather report shows that yesterday's low temperature in Irvine as 39 degrees! It was probably in the mid-upper 40's during rehearsal, but there was a breeze, which definitely resulted in a wind chill adjustment. I was wearing a long sleeve shirt, but no jacket. Fortunately, some of my kids loaned me their coats. I am definitely wearing cycling tights and long johns under my suit tonight! I think the funniest moment of the evening was when the wedding planner encouraged Bishop Mark Cowdell (who is performing the ceremony) to invite the attendees, at the conclusion of the ceremony, to help themselves to the champagne and apple cider. He deftly substituted the phrase "refreshments". I don't think he wanted any blackmail video of a Mormon bishop inviting people to drink alcohol. [BIG grin] Here are some photos from last night's rehearsal and dinner.












Another piece of news is that Jayson's fiancée Celeste arrived from Texas last night for the wedding. They met while they were both serving in the Kentucky Louisville Mission. Judd & Michele generously contributed frequent flyer miles to fly her in. Celeste will be staying with us for a few days. Here are a couple of photos of them together. Speaking of betrothed persons, here's something I just learned. When referring to a woman to whom a man is engaged to be married, the spelling of the French word is "fiancée"; however, when referring to a man to whom a woman is engaged to be married, the final "e" is dropped and the word is spelled "fiancé". The pronunciation does not change.

Last, but not least, we learned today that Zachary has advanced to the third and semi-final round of the Los Angeles Music Center 2008 Spotlight Awards. http://www.musiccenter.org/education/spot/index.html
A master class he gets to attend and his next audition will be towards the end of January. Kim and I are pretty excited that he has made it into the elite 18 out of 400 initial applicants in the non-classical voice category. This is around the same time he needs to audition for BYU's Music and Dance Department, so we may need some help from family and friends in Utah if we have to fly him up alone.