So… where does our saga begin? My parents’ first grandchild, Kyler, turned 8 on January 6. I have known for awhile that they planned to baptize him the weekend of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but I didn’t know if we could make it.
My brother Brad sent us a DVD of Bible videos for Christmas, and the kids and I watched the one recently of Jesus' baptism, and I just had the overwhelming feeling that we should really try to go to this baptism. Cue my awesome friend Stephanie, whose husband Dave is an Alaska Airlines pilot, and I asked nicely for some buddy passes to fly standby. Luckily, she said, January is a great time to fly standby. I was able to get me and both kids there and back for under $300 total. Of course, standby travel has its cons, like we had to take the 6:35 AM flight out there, and there were no guarantees we would sit together. I really hoped they’d at least put me with Laurel because like, um, she’s just 3. Fortunately, all of my wildest dreams came true – we were all together on the very back row on our flight to SLC, and we were all together on our very empty flight home to SEA. Just awesome!!! Plus, standby travel has no baggage fees! Yahoo!
The kids were so good on the flight. So good. It was early and they were total troopers. Wesley was sweet and chatty. He was eager to get to his seat so at one point he was like, all in this older man's way as this man was putting something in the overhead bin, and when the man sat down, we still couldn't go because of other people, and Wesley started chatting this guy up. The man asked if we were going home, or if we were going to visit Grandma and Grandpa, then Wesley said it was his cousin Kyler's birthday and he turned 8 so we were going to Utah. The man kinda looked at me and said, "oh, it sounds like you are going to a baptism" and winked. How cool is that! The nice guy was LDS. It made me smile.
When we arrived, we drove to City Creek Center to walk around. I’ve wanted to see City Creek since it’s an MKA project (I still totally love my old firm), and it’s super cool. There’s a kids’ play area, a cool fountain, plenty of shops. We met Bonnie (Shane’s sister) and her son Evan there; we love cousin Evan so this was just so great. Plus my Mom had arrived in SLC the day before, and Brad and Leslie got in just an hour or so after we did. We all met together to hang out! It was glorious.
The pros: literally a creek in the middle of the mall, with fish swimming. Very cool. Kids’ play area was great fun (dinosaurs!). We ate Chick-fil-a. I went to J.Crew and unbelievably ran into a friend from Salisbury who I seem to run into all the time in downtown Salt Lake (I ran into him a couple years ago when he worked at an Abercrombie store at the Gateway in Salt Lake… it’s like if it’s nice-smelling retail and in a flashy Salt Lake location he’ll work there).
The cons: I had to pay for parking. Lame. And then, sob, Wesley’s pedometer met an untimely demise, as we think he dropped it in the fountain. He was really sad. Poor guy.
After City Creek, we drove to a Wal-Mart and Laurel had fallen asleep, so I let Wesley play with the iPad and I fell asleep in the front seat. What bums we are. I really wanted a nap! I got up at 3:15 AM that day!! I was toast. Just toast.
Luckily I woke up in enough time to go get a few things at Wal-Mart, then get to the Marie Callendar's restaurant for dinner with the whole family... Kurt and his crew (including the birthday baptism boy), Brad & Leslie, Mom, and a slew of folks from Kurt's wife's side of the family.
Kurt arranged for us to sleep at a family member's house, it was Melani's aunt and uncle, who have six kids of their own. Their house was big and wonderful! We got the whole play area in the basement to ourselves. They blew up an air mattress for me, plus there was a couch and bean bag the kids took turns sleeping on. The first night I was super stressed because I was so darn tired, but quickly I realized I was having fun. We were on an adventure. Of course we were going to be tired. I "invented" a game that the kids LOVE, called "Which do you like better?" And I just give them two choices. "Which do you like better? The pool or the beach?" "Which do you like better? Day or night?" "Which do you like better? Cars or trucks?" Etc., over and over. They LOVE it. I feel like I got to know them better somewhat. They were cute and giggly and kept asking me to ask them more questions. I almost fell asleep like three times that night but they outlasted me. Sigh.
SO. TIRED.
Fortunately, we got SOME sleep and got up in time for the baptism. Our host family was AWESOME and even made us breakfast when we were there! Her two little boys were glued to Wesley, and her middle daughter took Laurel under her wing and they all played. It was really a great place to stay, Plus there were amazing homemade waffles and syrup, and great omelettes. So lucky.
We got Kyler some gifts on our way to the baptism.... some stickers from the Church bookstore, plus some dollar-store gifts. Laurel of course picked out a shark!!! for him, and Wesley gave him a United States puzzle (so he can put it together and think of family members all in our homes all around the country. Of course it turns out he already had a United States puzzle but it's the thought that counts, right?).
Mom gave the talk on Baptism at the baptism, and it was beautiful, of course. She served in Primary a lot when we were growing up and I remembering going to baptisms where she would speak and welcome the child to the Primary as an "official" member of the Church. She would say the same thing lots of times: that there were angels in heaven celebrating that the boy or girl made the decision to get baptized. She said as she thought about that, she realized that for Kyler, Dad was one of those angels in heaven shouting for joy. Grandpa Twining was celebrating Kyler. It was hard to not have Dad with us on this trip.
Laurel with our birthday baptism boy and his SHARK. The lunch after was awesome. Much food and happiness. Chocolate and vanilla cake. Jell-o with marshmallows on it.
My kids loved the snow. They called it "kicking the ice" or something like that. Wesley's shoes, socks, and feet got soaked every day we were there.
After the baptism we went swimming in Mom's hotel's pool. The kids loved it. The big drama here is that Mom is wearing a pedometer every day, and a couple months ago she went on a trip and wore her pedometer in the hot tub. She kept joking with us, saying "ok, who is going to remind me to take off my pedometer before I get in the water?" and laughing and such.... and then boom. She forgot and wore the pedometer in the hot tub. So sad. So waterlogged.
But, alas, it was not the pedometer's time to go. She took that sucker apart using a pair of tweezers as a screwdriver, aired it out, replaced the battery, and put it back together. Voila. Like new. It totally worked the next day! You go, Mom! No bag of rice required!!
Sunday was Church, then we ate leftovers at Kurt's house and chatted on the back deck. It was sunny and actually kind of warm. The kids were running around and didn't want to wear their coats! Their gloves, yes, they needed their gloves. Snow is a novelty to Washingtonian children!
That night I ventured up into Emigration Canyon just outside Salt Lake and saw my friend Jessica from my BYU days. It was WONDERFUL. I just LOVE HER. I left grinning ear to ear. She looks just as fabulous as she looked 10+ years ago, plus she has a lovely husband (who cheered for the Seahawks) and three adorable kids. We talked about life and friends and ups and downs. He daughter Sarah latched onto Wesley and they played and giggled, and Laurel was kinda cranky because she was tired so I just entertained her and did my best to converse with Jessica. Oh it was just marvelous. I love her so much.
On the way back, I asked Wesley if he liked Sarah, and he said "she's my best friend." Totally adorable.
Monday morning we got up so early to go have breakfast with Mom at her hotel. Yay! We then drove down to BYU campus because I wanted to check it out. So many memories. I have a lot going on in my life right now, and BYU just made me feel... I don't know. Happy yet sad. It was the best time of my life, so far, but it's over. How I yearn for that time again. To feel how I felt at college... life was fun and held so much promise. Now I just pay credit card bills and mitigate sibling rivalry. Plus I feel a lot less cool then I felt back then.... I suppose my goal for 2015 is to get my groove back. Anyway.
The kids had a great time at the outdoor sculpture park near the Museum of Art. I have no idea if we were not supposed to touch the art. We tried, believe me we tried, but kids don't listen. At least mine don't.
.jpg)
Grandma with Laurel, Kyler, Spencer, Wesley, and Leanna. We missed Ruby and Jonah who stayed in Atlanta.
I was interested to see it was the HFAC's 50th anniversary. All my classes were in this building. I suppose it will always hold a special place in my heart.
We met my cousins Kelson and Stephanie in the Wilk for lunch. The kids found the Y on the mountain! I've hiked to that Y a couple times. It was good to see campus and visit with my cousins. They have interesting lives.... Stephanie is pregnant with baby #2, and her husband might be interested in jobs in Seattle. Kelson is engaged and planning a spring wedding in Sacramento. I can't believe we're all growing up.
After lunch my kids were crazy so I had to get out of there. I found one of my favorite spots on campus, this marble bench sorta thing. I hung out here all the time, it was on the backside of the library across from the International Studies building. Anyway, I sat down for a second because my kids were whining, then all of a sudden the cousins joined in for a huge leaf fight. It was adorable! Who knew BYU could be such a blast?
We also checked out the Joseph F. Smith Building, which was NOT there when I was there. In fact I used to have church in the building they razed to build this monstrous building, so I have a connection to the site but not to the current structure. It was shiny and new (although sheesh it's probably 10 years old by now).
The kids had fun at the water fountain. I kept betting my family $20 that one of my kids would fall in, but no one would take me up on that bet! Fortunately everyone stayed dry.
Wesley and Laurel are being "Y"s.
I love my family. We miss you, Dad.
The WORST part about the visit to BYU? The 40-minute wait in the Creamery to get ice cream! Seriously!?! As soon as we were finished eating the place was a ghost town, no line. Why were we there at the worst time? Sheesh.
After our trip to campus I made a quick Wal-Mart stop to buy flowers and a thank-you card for our hosts, then we went to Mom's hotel to swim some more! Had to get in one last quick dip. After that, the kids and I went up to Ogden to stay at Bonnie's house and play with Evan! We watched the Bachelor (yay!), ate pizza, were not tormented by her dogs, and had a great visit. Wesley and Evan are peas in a pod. Bonnie is taking some tech classes for web design kind of stuff, and I'm trying to convince her to move to Seattle when she's all done since, you know, we have Microsoft, Amazon, and like every other cool tech place under the sun. Maybe I'll get lucky.
Aunt Bonnie even read them books :-)
The next morning we were up bright and early and on our way to the airport. I was looking forward to familiar soil and my own bed. There were 90+ seats free on our flight home, so I wasn't worried at all about getting on.
Here's my awesome Alaska Airlines story: Laurel is totally into sharks, and I gave her this adorable Usbourne Sharks book for Christmas. It was somewhat lost around our house for a few days, but the day before the flight I found it and put it in our stuff, or so I thought. I thought maybe we’d read it on the flight or something. I couldn’t remember if I actually got it out when we were on our way to Salt Lake. In any case, the day we arrived I was sorting all our stuff into backpacks and luggage (pulled everything out of the rental car to get a grip on things), and the book was definitely not there. I was sad. Did I lose it? Did I forget it? Am I crazy? I was also missing my (less emotionally interesting) water bottle. On our last night there, I just felt like, what the heck, and I called the SLC Alaska baggage counter. I told them I came to town on Friday, I thought maybe I had lost this book and my water bottle, and could they check? The guy said, sure, hold on, and after five minutes or some incredible amount of time he was back and said, “I have the book right here, but no water bottle.” I couldn’t believe it!!! I had him put my name on it, and I said I’d be there the next day to catch our flight home! I stopped on in, and boom!, we got the book back! Amazing. So amazing. It’s like it was a trip of miracles… pedometers coming back to life, shark books being found, just wow!
I'm so glad we got to go. It was special to spend a special day with Kyler as he was baptized. I was so glad to let the cousins get together. I want my kids to have good memories of their cousins. I loved seeing my mom and hugging her so tight. I love laughing with my family. I love the memories I have of Utah.
It was a great trip.
No comments:
Post a Comment