One Last Farewell

We made a quick trip up to Utah to see Grandma and Grandpa Stuart one last time before they left to serve their LDS mission in the Kiev, Ukraine temple.  Charlie, JaNay, and their kids had spent Christmas there so we were excited to see them too before they headed home to El Paso.  It was a lot of fun to see everyone and Grandma and Grandpa had an extremely full and noisy house.  Luckily the weather was great so the kids played a lot of basketball, football, and kickball outdoors along with riding bikes and scooters while the sisters-in-law did a lot of crocheting scarves and blankets.
 
I am always amazed at the patience and love of my in-laws.  When we come up, and especially when Charlie and JaNay are there at the same time, it is a constant party.  Everyone is at their house all the time to see us and spend time together.  It is a really big and happy gathering of about 36 people.  It definitely gets loud and a little crazy because all of the kids are around the same ages but everyone gets along really well and we all love just being together.  The kids don't care about doing anything else but playing with each other at Grandma and Grandpa's with their cousins. 

Marcia always has activities and meals planned and is constantly feeding an army of people that are coming and going.  The kitchen is open almost 24-7 and she is always running to the grocery store to buy more chocolate milk, fruit snacks, licorice, creamies, ice cream sandwiches, go-gurt, root beer, and anything else that any of her offspring requests.  Everyone always wants to sleep together so there are air mattresses, pillows, and blankets all over her entire house from the office to the living room to the family room and in between.  Sometimes there is even a small grand-daughter sleeping between her and Grandpa.  She carries little girls all over the place, pulls out paper, crayons, markers, and sidewalk chalk for artistic creations, reads and tells bedtime stories over and over again, wipes up messes and spills, helps do hair and get little girls dressed that always "want Grandma" instead of Mom.  She is willing to have beauty makeovers with nail polish, fancy hair-dos, and greasy obnoxious make-up and will even smile for the "after" picture.   She never utters a peep or complaint when the doors are left open, kids start wrestling or sliding down the stairs in sleeping bags, or things are pulled out of place and left there for hours while the children move onto something else.  She truly relishes in the joy of having her family around her and consistently takes care of all of us the entire time we are visiting with a big smile on her face. 

Jay patiently saddles the horses on and off throughout the days for the kids to ride.  He loads up children for four-wheeler rides back and forth to the barns and around the field.  He sacrifices his sports games and prime-time television dramas for the Disney Channel and kids movies.  He constantly pulls young grandkids up onto his lap to snuggle.  Jay teases the kids mercilessly with crazy nicknames and conversations in his own made-up foreign language but he is quiet as his kids trample his perfectly manicured lawn and "borrow" his garden or work tools.  They are truly some great grandparents and we are going to miss them so much as they serve the Lord so far away from us and for so long.  However, we are excited for their service and know they will be blessed.  We also look forward to hearing about and seeing their adventures and stories.

Opening their mission call

We headed up on Wednesday, December 28th and arrived just around dinnertime.  Marcia had made her famous shredded apple pie for dessert and stuck a candle in it for my birthday the next day and all the family sang to me.  It was sweet.  Joe had taken me out a few nights before with some of our friends to celebrate and we ate at Roy's Hawaiian Fusion.  It was delicious and a new place that we haven't tried.

Birthday dessert at Roy's

 Driving up north.  I love sneaking pics!

Thursday, the 29th was my birthday.  Joe and I spent the majority of the day shopping at gun stores and looking at odd paraphernalia at Smith and Edwards.  Not exactly the kind of shopping I would choose for my birthday but now I have something to hold over him for his birthday next year.  Mwah ha ha! He wanted some guns and a safe for Christmas and since I didn't get those for him, they were still on his brain and he wanted to windowshop for some.  He did however, buy some cowboy boots at Smith and Edwards that I teased him about it the entire time he was trying them on.  I wasn't convinced that he would ever wear them.  Years ago, when we first started dating and on my first trip to Brigham to meet his family, he convinced me to go with him and his dad to Smith and Edwards.  I had heard about that store from my own father and Grandpa but had no clue what that store was like.  I was completely taken aback, yet impressed by Smith and Edwards just off the freeway. 

Back then, Joe was set on buying some Wrangler jeans.  I was still trying to make a good impression for Joe and his family so I didn't say a word about it and just smiled, nodding my approval, although I was a bit skeptical that he would wear them.  Although Joe grew up on a farm and did all the typical outdoor labor of a farm with horses, I could see that he was more of a "city boy" as we dated, talked and got to know each other better.  But he purchased those Wranglers anyway and never wore them one time.  He tried them on a couple of times at home but never wore them out in public.  So I thought it would be the same thing all over again with the cowboy boots.  He emphatically convinced me that he would wear them on our dates for dinner on the Strip, dancing (what?!?), and to church with his tan suit and I just gave up the fight and allowed the boot purchase.  He was pretty excited.  Happy Birthday to me!

Later that afternoon we all headed to a trampoline jumping place in Ogden.  Trampolines were all over the place!  They were slanted up and down the walls and above the ground everywhere you turned.  You could play dodgeball with small, squishy foam balls or head to the hoops for jumping really high to slam dunk.  There was an area for the younger children and another section with foam pits to fall into after your tricks and flips.  It was a fun time and everyone was worn out, hungry, and sweaty by the end.

 Megan and Carlee.  These two are such characters and are so cute together!

 

We then planned to grab some dinner.  After much deliberation, especially among a group of almost 30 people, it was decided to go to Cafe Rio.  It was really busy there and half of our group headed to Chick-fil-A instead.  When dinner was over, we headed back to Brigham to turn in.

On Friday, Joe gave me a box with my birthday present in it.  I got a new lens for my camera.  I was surprised and excited.  That afternoon we went ice skating at the Olympic ice skating rink.  Ironically, we ran into some Las Vegans while we were there--the Dustins.  They are from Brigham City too and were up visiting family so it was a fun surprise to see them at the same ice skating rink and at the same time.  The ice skates were terribly uncomfortable so most of the adults quit skating after about 30 minutes but the kids held strong and had a good time.

After skating, we all went to UpChuck-a-Rama (excuse me! ;)) for an early buffet dinner.  The kids had a great time going back and forth for food and especially picking more than one dessert.  It was a great place for such a large group.  Afterwards, the boys headed back to Brigham while Carrie, Shelly, our daughters, and I hit Hobby Lobby and stopped at Krispy Kreme to take donuts back up for the boys.  Later that night, Joe and I went with Matt and Carrie to see Sherlock Holmes.  It was a great movie.

Saturday, we did some last-minute horse rides, took some pictures with the Stuart cousins, shed goodbye tears, hugged and kissed Grandma and Grandpa and started on our way back south. 

Grandpa and all the granddaughters in his life.

We stopped for lunch with the Holt side of the family at the new Brick Oven restaurant in South Jordan and then followed Grandma and Grandpa to their house.  We had missed the family Christmas party earlier in the month so the kids were thrilled to open more Christmas presents from the Holt family.  They got new pajamas and iTunes gift cards.  They were so excited to start downloading their music choices.  Joe and I got a really pretty Christmas print that we will have to frame and hang next year.  Then we hit the road for St. George to spend New Year's Eve with the Quarnberg clan.  


As a birthday side note, a few weeks later, my girlfriends took me out for a birthday dinner at Brio and some shopping at Charming Charlie's, a huge accessory store.  I didn't bring my nice camera and neither did anyone else (shock!) so I have one picture of us after the shopping with terrible lighting.  But they are sweet friends that spoiled me with some nice gifts, yummy food, wonderful company and conversations, and I'm thankful that they thought of me.  Thank you, gorgeous gals!

Julie, Youngsil, Jackie, Kaydee, Kelly, Ami, Jen, Von, Austin, Me, Whitney, Melissa (Marquessa, Wynette, Missy, and JaCoy missed the shopping and had to head home early.  They only came for the food ;))