Fresh From the Tree

On the day that we arrived in Utah, after we had slept in until the middle of the morning, we walked to church with Bryan's parents. Living close enough to the church to walk on a regular basis would be really nice. My sister-in-law Falisha went to church with us. She also joined us for Sunday dinner at Bryan's grandma's house. I was originally supposed to drive her the rest of the way home to Idaho Falls on Sunday, but we were so exhausted by the long haul from California that she agreed to hang out and rest an extra day. I was thankful.

I drove her home on Monday morning. I loved getting to talk with her for the drive up. When I got back to Bryan's parents' house at lunch time I saw that the kids had helped Papa Ron harvest the peaches from their tree. We enjoyed the fruits of their labors during the remainder of our stay. Thanks to Phoebe for the picture of the peaches.

Apparently I took very few pictures during those first few days. We had a great visit though, even without photographic proof. Topher and Sophie pulled out all the toys and claimed the basement as their domain. We ate good food and got to see Uncle Dallin and cousins Harmony and Liam. We also tried to buy supplies for Peter's apartment. It turns out he had very few opinions about what bedding and dishes to buy. We ended up ordering a lot of stuff online.

A Scenic Route

It took us longer than we anticipated to begin our drive from California to Utah. We packed up both cars, Falisha joined us at the hotel so we would have four drivers, and then we managed to lock the trunk with all of Peter's luggage inside. Bryan and Falisha and Peter spent time trying to unlock it. They finally managed to open it from the inside and we got on the road.

Falisha and I were driving buddies and Bryan and Peter were a pair. I started by driving the giant rental car (a Ford Expedition Max) and switched to being a passenger in the Corolla (the college kid car and the reason for our trip to San Diego) in Baker.

While it was just me and Falisha in the little car, we had many great discussions. When we were in the big car with the kids, we listened to Hamilton. We also sang along. And it was all very loud and lively. We switched back to the big car in St. George when we stopped for dinner.

We stopped a little bit later to switch again, but I don't remember where. Poor Falisha had to drive through an impressive rain storm. I thought for sure we would reach a point of weariness and decide to stop for the night. We were definitely tired, but to my great surprise we pushed through and arrived at Bryan's parents' house around 2:30 in the morning.

We were so incredibly exhausted. We hauled our bags in, claimed our beds, and fell into them. I didn't change or brush my teeth or anything. I just slept.

Thankfully they have church at noon, so we were able to sleep and still be mostly ready for church on time. For those that weren't quite ready, being within walking distance of the church helped quite a bit.

From Here to There to Here

Last week I flew from my local airport to Chicago, from Chicago to Denver, then from Denver to Idaho Falls. I now know that the Chicago airport has a dinosaur in it.

I also learned that United gives these gluten free goodies out as a snack.

Here I am with one of the people I came to visit, my youngest brother, Isaac.

It snowed while I was there. I was not pleased. I had to use my hotel key envelope to scrape the frozen stuff off my rental car. When that turned into a pulpy mess I resorted to just shoving the snow off with my arms.

My sister-in-law Falisha and I went to an art museum that included these lovely pieces. The combination of art and the written word really speaks to my soul.

She and I also enjoyed walking along the Snake River.

I took advantage of staying in a hotel less than a mile from the Idaho Falls Temple and walked over to do a session on Saturday morning. It was lovely. I especially appreciated that the weather cooperated, this was the nicest day we had while I was there.

On Tuesday I flew from Idaho Falls to Denver in a tiny plane.

As soon as we landed in Denver I took my phone out of airplane mode and discovered that my next flight (from Denver to Chicago) was delayed. Then as I exited the plane it was delayed even further. By the time I was in the Denver airport my next flight had been delayed so much that I was going to miss my connecting flight to get home.

I texted Bryan to update him on what was happening and we tried to find a solution. The United app gave me the option of rescheduling to a flight that would change my arrival time from 9:33 Tuesday night to 11:15 Wednesday morning. I didn't want to do that.

I decided to walk to my gate, even though the flight was so delayed. As I went I noticed a gate saying the next flight was going to Philadelphia. I had the thought that I needed to get on that plane. I tried to call United customer service and was bumped to a text conversation with an AI. 

When I got to my gate I saw that my Chicago flight was next, followed by a flight to Philly. I opened the app again and this time it gave me the option of a video chat. I was put through to a person almost immediately. I explained that my flight was delayed so I was going to miss my connecting flight. I said that if I could get to Philadelphia I could get home. I asked him if I could move my seat to the later Philadelphia flight. He said that plane was full, but there happened to be a flight to Philly leaving at 1:40 that had space that he could move me to.

It was a few minutes after 1:00 at this point.

While he changed my ticket I turned around and booked it back to the first gate I had passed, the one that I felt I should get on. That was the flight! I walked up as they were already boarding, told the situation to the gate agent, got a new boarding pass, then walked on to the new plane. The customer service agent stayed on the call with me until it was all fixed and I was walking down the gangplank.

I was so thankful that it worked out. Bryan was able to shift his schedule to pick me up and Cooper and Phoebe took over bedtime duties with Topher and Sophie (Peter was at work).

This is what the middle of the county looked like from the plane.

This is what Pennsylvania looked like from the air.

I exited the flight, so happy to be on the ground two hours earlier than my original itinerary dictated. I was waiting for Bryan at the curb outside the airport when I discovered that my third flight, the one I was going to miss, had been delayed. And delayed again. And then canceled. If I hadn't switched my flight I would have been stuck in Chicago.

I think that experience was a tender mercy.

Thanks for letting me visit, Falisha and Isaac!

Charity Suffereth Long and Is Kind

With all the stress and worry and difficulty of last week, we would have been much worse off if not for some help that we received.

On Monday evening of last week I got a text from my brother that lives just a few hours away, offering to help. Then his wonderful wife sent a text saying that she didn't work the next day and that they could be at the hospital/house in three hours. At that point I had only slept for two and a half hours during the last two days, so I said yes. They drove two cars up; Leah came to the hospital and held Topher so I could sleep and Jordan came to the house to help Bryan. They were an answer to prayer.

After transporting the girls to and from dance and doing the bedtime routine so Bryan could come to the hospital, Leah drove home Tuesday night. Jordan stayed and worked remotely for the next two days. In the early hours of Wednesday morning I learned that my brother Isaac and his fantastic wife Falisha had offered to fly out from California to help. They would arrive on Thursday and Friday. That meant I just needed to get through another few days flying solo at the hospital.

Later that morning, after the sun was up, a friend from church texted and asked if she could come hold Topher so I could sleep. This was shortly after I had started pumping and was feeling a little frantic about taking care of both of us. I said yes. I did the same when four other friends made the same offer. These marvelous women came and held my baby and kept me company and made it possible for me to sleep. I don't know how I would have handled everything without these sweet ladies from church.

Isaac and Falisha have been a great help, first at home so Bryan could come to the hospital, then to me and Topher when Bryan was home with the other kids, and finally in taking care of all of us when we were home again but exhausted. They've both gotten sick while here, but continued to help anyway. They will go home today and we will miss them so much.

Our family has been blessed by so many people through these hard weeks, those that came and gave their time and those that prayed and checked on us from afar. These are the best Valentine's Day gifts we could have hoped for.

Celebrate!

We had a wonderful weekend celebrating my brother Jordan and his bride Leah! They were married in the Washington D.C. Temple on Saturday. It was a sweet and spiritual sealing and then a fun reception afterward. And with all that excitement, I took almost no pictures. I pulled my camera out while Bryan danced with the girls at the reception...and that's it. So, until I can borrow some photos from other people, enjoy these few. Bonus, you can see my sister-in-law Falisha dancing with Cooper and Sophie as well as my brother-in-law Eugene dancing with his baby girl Emma. Oh! And I just noticed that the bride and groom are visible in the back left corner of the pictures. Well, I guess these pictures captured more than I thought they would.

Congratulations Jordan and Leah! We're so happy that you're married and that we could be there with you on Saturday!

Family Pictures 2015

On Thanksgiving Day we delayed dinner, donned our fancy clothes, and gathered in our living room for pictures.

My favorite might be this one where no one is looking at the camera.

We also have several where almost everyone is looking at the camera and almost everyone is smiling. These are the best two from that batch.

The last time all of my siblings were together was almost four years ago at Paige's wedding. That is simply too long. We need to figure out how to see each other on a more regular basis.

The best picture of the session was made possible by the promise of fruit snacks if everyone smiled and looked at the camera. It totally worked.

The Reunion Tour

It's time for me to inundate you with pictures!

I know you've been itching to find out how our drive across the country went. Well my friends, your wait is over, at least partially. I'm not going to cover a whole week in one post; that would be crazy.

But I will write about a weekend.

We finished cleaning and checked out of our Washington house on the last day of July. It took longer than we had planned for (as always) so we didn't even start our drive until dinner time. This meant that we didn't arrive in Boise, Idaho (our night's destination) until 3 in the morning. We had lots of late nights on the trip, but that was the latest.

Since I knew we were traveling across the country I looked to see which friends and family members we would be passing. It turned into quite a reunion tour. First we saw my friend Elise. She lives halfway between Boise and Utah Valley (which was our next stop) and let our motion-starved kids run wild through her house, for which we were thankful. And she fed us! It was lovely.

That night in Utah we had a big ol' sleepover. Remember the friends that drove up to see us when we were in Utah in May? Well they offered to let us crash at their house. It was sooooooo fun. It was also the best night sleep I had had in weeks. The next morning we didn't want to leave. We just wanted to stay and play with our friends. We finally pulled ourselves together and returned our friends' home to a normal decibel level. Thank you Brett and Ben!

As luck would have it, my brother Isaac and sister-in-law Falisha happened to be visiting Utah Valley from Idaho, so they spent the afternoon wandering around BYU with us. I loved getting to see them and the kids loved getting to play with them. Bonus: we went to the Museum of Art on campus and saw the exhibit advertised in the picture below. It was really cool. Phoebe especially loved all the ball gowns they had on display.

Bryan's brother Spencer came and spent time with us as well, including a stop at In N' Out, which really doesn't require an explanation. Also, I found it amusing that my youngest brother and Bryan's youngest brother had a great time chatting about math, calculus if memory serves. Sure boys, whatever makes you happy.

We also saw two more dear friends that day, but somehow I failed to take pictures. I've been kicking myself about it ever since. Charlynn, thank you for taking time to come see us! Gretel, thank you for letting us stop by! I'm so happy I got to see both of you.

After haircuts and a mall stop for some new jeans (I don't recommend eating bread and jam while traveling at 2 in the morning, you'll probably spill), we headed up to Bryan's grandparents' for the night.

The next day we went to church with Bryan's brother Dallin and his wife Melody. Phoebe adores both Aunt Falisha and Aunt Melody, so seeing them in the same weekend was kind of a big deal for her. Sadly, I again failed to pull out my camera for most of the day. I did catch this fun exchange between Dallin and Sophie.

I squeezed in one more friend visit before the traditional family Sunday dinner at Bryan's grandparents' house. Sophie and I drove twenty minutes to see my friend Makana and meet her sweet newborn baby girls. If we had come through the next weekend I would have missed her, but I caught her before she and her family moved to Texas.

Bryan and I stayed up late on Sunday night making sure the laundry was clean and the car was packed to begin the big drive across the country the next morning.

Speaking of the San Diego Zoo

The day after my sister got married, waaaaay back in December of 2011, we went to the San Diego Zoo with two of my brothers and their families. My sister-in-law Falisha took lots of pictures. That night I asked her if I could use some of the pictures for a blog post and she said yes, so I pulled them off of her camera and saved them on my computer.

And then 2012, or "The Hiatus Year" struck. There were lots of things that I wanted to write about, but didn't. And this post that just had pictures in it, remained unpublished.

Tonight, out of curiosity, I looked at the posts in my draft folder and found this. Since I wrote about the Oregon Zoo yesterday, I figured I might as well write about the San Diego Zoo today. Consider it a Throwback Thursday.

Look at how young and full of energy we all are.

Seriously, so young. And so cute.

Our whole family, at least at the time.

My brothers Ian and Isaac. My brother Jordan had to fly back home that morning so he missed this particular adventure.

This picture shows their personalities very well.

And amidst all the picture-taking we saw some animals.

It was a fun, albeit cold, day. We stayed until we were all tired and cranky and freezing, which is always a good way to tell if you've spent enough time somewhere. Then we drove to my parents' house, got Cooper and Phoebe to sleep, and let Peter play Uno and stay up until midnight to ring in 2012 while we played and talked and ate leftovers from my sister's wedding reception.

Thank you Falisha for letting me use your pictures!

Storytime

We had a short visit from Uncle Isaac and Aunt Falisha tonight. They got here in time to read bedtime stories and they were very helpful as I got kids into pajamas and brushed teeth.

Hooray for aunts and uncles!

Wedding Bells

We've spent the last two days recovering from the weekend. I didn't post on Friday because we had so much going on and I wasn't organized enough to post in advance. What were we doing that took so much time, you ask?

We were celebrating these two.

Isaac, my youngest brother, got married on Friday evening.

I've gotten to spend some time with my new sister-in-law and she's swell. She's a good match for Isaac. And the small people at my house happen to think she's fantastic. Last week they stopped asking when Uncle Isaac was going to come over and started asking when Falisha was going to come play.

I helped with the family dinner after the sealing and spent the better part of Friday morning and afternoon getting ready for it. And I didn't take any pictures.

Blargh.

Just know that it turned out well. For centerpieces I covered mason jars with tissue paper in the wedding colors (half in teal and half in cream) and tied a ribbon around it to hold the paper in place (like this, but my bows were much smaller). Then my amazing visiting teachers (who had helped us setup that morning) came while we were at the sealing and filled the jars with wildflowers. It was simple, but it was nice.

We had the dinner catered by Kneaders. It was superb. I highly recommend them.

At every table was a stack of 4x6 cards and a few permanent markers. Each guest was instructed to write marriage advice for Isaac and Falisha. After the dinner we

gathered them all up and I put them into a photo album for the bride and groom. Most of the advice (which I read while I was compiling it) was sweet, some was funny, and at least two contradicted each other. My favorite was Peter's. He included an epilogue.

We all had to be gussied-up on Friday and then again on Saturday for the reception. All four of the sisters (between Isaac and Falisha) were bridesmaids. Our outfits were really cute, I actually wore mine to church yesterday. But of course, I didn't take pictures of it either. Well, I took this picture while Cooper was throwing a tantrum (that happened a lot this weekend) (tantrums, not me taking pictures during tantrums) so at least you have an idea of the color scheme.

All the men had teal ties, including the miniature men.

The best pictures I have are of Phoebe. And, next to the bride, I think Phoebe was the most popular girl at every wedding function. (Thanks to Paige for letting me use some of the pictures she took.)

Phoebe was fascinated by the goldfish in the centerpieces at the reception, can you tell?

Congratulations Isaac and Falisha!