It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times

We have sufficiently taken advantage of about everyone we know in the last few weeks, so it was time to come home.  Unfortunately the trip back wasn't any less eventful than the trip out there. We got up at 4 am in order to be to the airport by 5:15 to fly out. That went off without a hitch, fortunately. UN-fortunately things changed once we got to Atlanta. What we thought would be a 2-hour layover turned into a NINE AND A HALF hour layover once our flight was cancelled.  And you'd think with that much time, they could figure out which plane to put our bags on. But it wasn't meant to be. My children were more mature than I was about it all. When we were getting off the plane in Virginia (finally!) Kate asked, "Mom, are we getting on another plane now?" And you know, she really would have done it without thinking twice.  She's awesome.

I guess it was kind of like an Oreo cookie experience. Sort of brown and crunchy on the outside, but everything in the middle was tasty, and worth swallowing the other parts.  A few highlights:

We stayed with Barrett's mission "mom". Boy, she was generous!  Can you imagine a family of five living at your house for several weeks? We swam in her pool, ate delicious veggies from her garden, and drove her car for three weeks. I'm just sad I didn't think to get a picture of her or her lovely flower garden.  We'll never be able to repay her kindness.



We had a huge family reunion. Two parents, 11 kids, 10 spouses, 37 grandkids (#38 just barely missed it).  No partridges in pear trees.  And that was just my immediate family. We had grandma, aunts, uncles and cousins and their children there too. I'm not sure I even said hello to all of them. (I'll post a picture of "the group" when I get it).

We got to go up to Idaho to spend some time with my parents and younger sister. Barrett sometimes teases me about being from Idaho (secretly he thinks it's really great). And I have to confess, driving up there we saw a sign for the "Potato Museum" and it was pretty funny. 

On multiple occasions we got together with my various siblings.  I won't recount all of them.  I don't think Blogger allows that much space.

We celebrated Kate's fourth birthday.  A few times, lucky girl.  Last year she promised me she'd be two again after she was done being three.  I'm sad to report, she changed her mind.  Speaking of which, it was so fun watching the Olympics this year (and oh, did we ever enjoy that) because Kate was born during the last Olympics.  It brought back so many memories of getting up in the night with her and actually being excited because I could watch whatever it was they were showing at 2:00 a.m.  And 4:00 a.m.

We were able to see Barrett's best friend's family.  They have two girls and a little boy, and we like them so much we followed their example.  :o)  Andy is the only person I've ever met who can make Barrett giggle.   If they're on the phone together I know within seconds who he's talking to because no one else can get him to do that.

Barrett's family also drove through Salt Lake on their way to Texas.  We didn't get to see them long, but it was really fun to see Luke get excited about their dogs.  Anna and Kate have always loved them, but this is the first time Luke was loving the interaction.  Very fun to see.

We went to temple square.  I love it there.  The grounds were so amazingly kept.  The flowers are always gorgeous and I love seeing all the brides.  

I was able to go to St. George with some of my girlfriends from Williamsburg who have since scattered for a "Girl's Only" trip.  That was fun.  I don't think we stopped talking for 80+ hours.  Barrett is always amazed that we can find so many things to analyze.  When we started feeling sleepy, we threw in some arm-wrestling (I let everyone beat me) so the husbands could relate to some degree.  You'd think without kids we would have wanted to sleep, but I vaguely remember seeing the clock strike 4:00 one evening, er, morning.  

All through the trip there were things that we were excited about.  Mostly the dry air and the mountains and the cinnamon bears.  But then again, there were things about the East that I would be so sad to leave.  I guess there isn't a "perfect" place.  Just perfect things about each place, maybe?  

And of course at the end of every vacation, I think Dorothy had it right.  There's no place like home.  Anna was so cute the morning we woke up after our first (half) night in bed.  She said, "our house feels different now."  I asked her what she meant and she said, "like my pillow is softer and everything just feels good."  Ha ha!  How cute is that?  

Well, this is a marathon post, but it's been a marathon couple of weeks.  I have so many other things I want to blog about, aside from vacation.  Not enough time in the day, I think.