Utah Day 6 & 7 - the End

Earlier in the week, I texted Nicole to see if there was any way we could meet up with Alyson while we were here, and she is always so willing to bend over backwards to make it work if at all possible. She has a pretty crazy work schedule where she works five graveyard shifts a week, but she said they could meet us for breakfast Friday morning after her night shift. So I found a little café in Ogden, which was about exactly halfway for us. We met there at 9 AM on Friday and had an extremely delicious breakfast and got to hang out and chat for a couple hours. I SO wish we could see Alyson more. Sort of breaks my heart that we can't, and it breaks my heart that there is division and separation with her and Carly. But I am also so grateful that she is still able to see us occasionally and that Nicole understands how important family is to Alyson, when she really doesn't have to do that at all.















I will admit, after breakfast on Friday I really hit a wall. I became very mentally drained. It didn't help that I slept hardly at all the night before. But I felt myself crashing a little bit. I laid down for a little bit and try to regather my brain, but I had to be honest and tell Lyndsy and Carly that we were rearranging our plans a little bit and could not have lunch with them like I had thought. We ended up getting takeout Café Rio and eating it at home. And then Jeannine and I took Jordyn, Lexi and Peyton out to Stansbury (which is about 45 minutes away) so they could spend the night at the Gertson's house. After we dropped them off, we visited Lynda at work at the ER. Tucker was at a U of U basketball game with Neal, it was only about 6:30 and we realized that we had no plans and no kids and no husbands! That's as rare as it gets! So we decided to stop by the mall and pop into a few stores. Even though it was technically Black Friday, the crowds had died down and it was no big deal. There is a Sephora in the mall and since I am up obsessed with make up, we had to go in there for a little bit. I had to show her the incredibly pigmented lipstick that Beth and I had found, and we put them on as a joke...but the sales ladies were walking by trying to tell us how much they loved the lipstick on us!


Tucker and Neal got to see Kevin Livingston, who I remember coming over as a little boy when we were first married and hanging out with Emmi while we played games. He has a heart condition and they didn't know if he would even live to be an adult, but he certainly wasn't supposed to exert extra energy with his heart. It's pretty miraculous now that he is a cheerleader for the University of Utah!



After browsing around the mall, Target, and getting a frozen yogurt, we came back home and Carly was there waiting for us. She came in and had some leftover turkey and we visited for a while. Soon, Neal and Tucker got home and we all visited for a while longer. I had to turn in about 1 o'clock when my brain was shutting off!

The final day arrived, and the girls were out at the Gertson's. Tucker and I started to pack up and and since Jeff and Emmi were coming in a little bit later, they brought the girls for us around noon. We chatted for a little while and finally got in the car around 1:30 to depart back to California.





It's always difficult to say goodbye. It makes your heart feel split in two places. I am so thankful for the 12 years of memories that we have had to do this. And each time we leave, I have a sense of gratefulness knowing that it's possible for it to never happen again in the same exact way. Life always changes that's for sure. We love our memories in Utah, and all of our visits, and I'm thankful to have in-laws who are kind and supportive and loving...and unconditionally accepting of us!


I wouldn't say it was "fun" for Tucker to get a ticket about 30 minutes after we left. I just had to breathe deeply and let it go because, lets face it, what's the point in getting all mad?


Cute, tired, sleep deprived girls. Ready for the 12 hour journey!


This picture is rare, and not one that I see almost ever. The girls only fall asleep in the car if we are driving after midnight.


(So I have been madly trying to update my blog, and I have spent the last four hours of our drive home from Utah doing the last 10 or more posts. This is my disclaimer, just in case anything doesn't make sense or is sorely missspelled! You get the gist!)

Utah - Thanksgiving Day!

The tradition thanksgiving morning is to go bowling at FatCats around 10:00. The family has obviously grown over the years, so that is not a small or inexpensive thing to do. It is very nice of Neal to continue to pay for that tradition!


The kids really love it, and it's a fun way to kick off the day.













Then we all gathered back at the house around noon, and we ate, this year, around 1:30. Jeannine is so organized and has her preparations spaced out over a couple days very methodically, so it looks like she pulls the dinner together like a magician, but in reality it takes an amazing amount of effort to off a dinner for 30 people!















I love this picture, this is titled "water challenge" or you could call it "I'm drowning". Mindy challenged us to drink 100 ounces of water every day for 30 days. There is an app called Waterlogged that helps us track our progress. It is amazing how much harder it is then I thought it would be because I have been in such a horrible habit of not drinking enough water. I'm really excited, though, to see how I will feel.




















Annie always has some sort of creative and yummy treat each year!














I took this picture to capture one of the funny things about the family. Jeannine takes the time to set a beautiful table full of China and very formal, yet most of us bring our huge and not-formal water bottles to the table! It never fails!



The little park just around the swimming pool from Gam and Pa's house is often a perfect place for the little kids to get energy out. They also like to play on the little side sloped embankment nearby and it scares me a little bit. But they like to get huge sticks and pretend they are hiking.


River, Andrew, and Peyton worked really hard on this and came upstairs and specifically asked me to come down and take a picture of them with their creation.


Games! Games definitely get harder these days with the big group and lots of people not wanting to play the same games. But we still managed to squeeze them in.


Just some attempts to get a few family pictures.

Utah - "Friendsgiving" at Katie's

I haven't documented it exactly, but for the 12 years that we have been back in California, I don't know if we have missed even one year of getting together with Katie and Brittany and Karli. It's possible, but we have managed to do it nearly every year. The past few years, it has worked out well to do it at Thanksgiving or Christmas-time and Katie always offers to host because she is central to everyone, and she has a good sized house. It's so fun to keep in touch with childhood friends and people who have shared so much with you, and been a part of so many phases of life with you. And now it is so amazing to see all 18 of our children play together! I love them all!

Utah Days 3 & 4

(Well maybe I'm not dividing this precisely by the days of our trip, because I forgot a few things that happened on day two.) All of the girls usually help Gam make bread, it's just tradition. It started with Tucker demanding, or I should say strongly requesting, homemade bread every time we come into town. But the girls have also loved helping make the bread. This time, though, it was Pey who was extremely persistent and excited about the breadmaking!








We were able to witness Neal sacrificing his humongous tropical plants! These are truly his "children" and they are now indoors because it has become too cold outside. But these have become a little too wild and big and somewhat of an eyesore, (although that depends on the eye of the beholder). Janine is very patient with them because I don't think she likes them inside the house even a little bit. Anyway, somehow we talked him into cutting them down and had to document the process!






So the excitement of Tuesday was to wake up and get ready to go down to Provo and visit Emmi on the BYU campus. Our girls have always heard the rivalry between BYU and Utah, but I wanted them to really understand what college campus is like, to be able to visualize where Emmi lives. So Emmi gave us a tour of her dorms, the library, various parts of campus, and then we were able to go eat at the BYU creamery.


Peyton was so excited to see Emmi! She sure loves Emmi. She told me before we left for Provo, that Emmi is her "spirit cousin" because she's so connected to her. Isn't that sweet?


















After we left BYU, (we had to drive separate because we did not bring our Honda pilot this time so we needed two cars), so Jeannine and I stopped by Hobby lobby and Krispy Kreme on the way home. Hobby lobby was fine, but Krispy Kreme was so hot in the line was so long, I don't even know why we ended up staying! I just wanted one donut, and we ended up walking out of there with two dozen donuts to share with the kids!

That night, we were going to drive out to Lynda Ann's house, but Jeff got sick and so she brought the kids into Gam's instead, and made Navajo tacos for dinner. The kids played, we played some games, and Pa helped Emmi edit one of her term papers, which took much longer than she had anticipated. He helped her make lots of edits.









On Wednesday morning, Tucker went with Neal and met up with Greg, Jeff, Ryan, and Grayson to go to the shooting range.





And Lyndsy asked if the girls could watch her boys while she gave someone a massage. It was so fun for the girls to babysit baby Desmond!