Festive

We had a festive weekend, as all December weekends should be.

Friday:

Marianne and Robert and Ammon and Melanee and all their lovely children (except Clarissa because she was getting ready for her concert) came here for pizza.  Adam thought that if I got Papa Murphy's pizza and cooked it here it wouldn't be done in a timely fashion.  He wanted to bring home something precooked. I disagreed and bought Papa Murphy's anyway.

Adam was right.  I know, I know.

We went to the concert and true to form, it was fabulous.  Seeing live music performed well is unparalleled.  It lifts my soul and makes me happy.  Afterward Ammon offered to buy us all ice cream somewhere.  That brother...we told him we could get our own ice cream.  Someone suggested Chick-fil-a for the peppermint shakes.

Ammon ordered first and got one and then--they ran out.  Marianne had never had one before and I....have, so he gave his to her.

He's such a gem.

We went to Macey's, the grocery store with big and ridiculously low priced ice cream cones.  They had mint.  Halfway through our admittedly lengthy order they ran out of mint ice cream.

Dear Utah County:

Stock up on mint ice cream.

Sincerely,

A concerned citizen

While we were eating ice cream, Braeden mocked me for the way I was talking and said I "regress" around my siblings.

Regress? I think that was unfriendly of him.

Saturday:

Adam and I started doing errands and ended up buying a new couch.  Just goes to show you never know what will happen when you start doing errands on a Saturday.  Emma went to a play with Marianne's family and we had Morgan with us in exchange.  I forbade any Nerf battles--too many Christmas decorations at risk--but they had fun otherwise.

Sunday:

After church was over, we had Clarissa over for fudge making and tree decorating.  Last year, Adam remarked how much easier setting up the tree was since Braeden is so much stronger.  This year Braeden carried the tree in from the garage alone.  And that thing weighs a ton.  It seems a cruel fate to get used to relying on your children when they are close to growing up and leaving.

Emma and Clarissa and I made seven different varieties of fudge because too much of a good thing is wonderful.

I love these girls.

They are alike and different in delightful ways.

Adam photographed while we decorated the tree:

I don't know what Braeden is thinking here but my best guess is, "Are you taking a picture of me from outside?!?!"

From lots of different angles:

Here we are with big smiles, either because we are happy and we know it, we are decorating the tree, or we are about to sample seven different varieties of fudge.

Maybe all of the above.

A sacrifice

Yesterday morning I had an email from the website Family Search.  They sent me a link about Pearl Harbor and the information that I had a relative who died in the attack.

I was intrigued and clicked around and found out a story.

This is Alva Dowding Walton.  He was my great grandma Jaynes' (a.k.a. Grandma with the Brown Eyes) cousin. (So not a very close relative.  I'd never heard of him, but I wish my great grandma was still around so I could ask her about him.)

Eight days after he graduated from high school, he enlisted in the Navy.

I have a senior in high school.  How would I feel if he enlisted in the Navy eight days after graduation and went to the Pacific?

In late November, he wrote his mother a letter describing sharks he saw in the ocean.

On December 7, 1941, he was killed.  He was nineteen.

2500 people died in the Pearl Harbor attack.  He was only one of them.  Like so many others, he was young and fresh faced and had a future full of promise.  He had a mother.  

It breaks my heart a little to know about this previously unknown relative.  He represents so many who died for the cause of freedom.  I'm grateful to every one of them.

And their mothers.

My tribe

The novelty of being around my family more has not worn off.

Wednesday night, Tabor was passing through and stayed with us.  (He brought a gallon of milk for Braeden.  He said it was like how some people bring a hostess gift of wine.) He arrived while I was gone with the young women from church and Ammon came over too.  They had brownies to eat which I'd had Mark make earlier because I decided he had to know how to make brownies.

Everyone does.

It was nice to come home to my brothers.  We visited awhile and Tabor regaled us with stories--like the time he confronted some people in The Golden Corral who were using loud profane language.  He was there with kids from church, they had just been to the temple in St. George.  (Being there with kids made him more feisty.  Papa bear.) He kept thinking that the employees would do something but they didn't.  Tabor decided if he heard the f word one more time he would say something.  He said he didn't have to wait long.  Tabor is tall and perhaps menacing looking if you don't know him too well but he said the other guys were big so he was assessing his options if it turned into a fight.  He decided the chairs were heavy and he could use one as a weapon.  (Who does that?  Tabor.)

After talking to Tabor the rudeness ended though.  Tabor probably had the look in his eye of someone who had a back up plan if need be.

We laughed a lot and Braeden asked my brothers who was the bossiest sister growing up.  They diplomatically said they didn't know.  (Probably because the answer is all three.)

We talked a little about high school and Tabor described a time he put a teacher in a head lock.  "That probably wasn't OK," he said.  Ammon remarked that he had to do some damage control to recover teachers' good graces after Tabor.

I had a horrifying thought.  What if Ammon had been the oldest child!?!  The perfect one, first, and then we'd all have to live up to that.

Wow.

After Ammon left and everyone else had gone to bed, Tabor and I stayed up way too late talking.  For all of Tabor's toughness--and I really think he is the toughest person I know--he is such a good and kind soul.  We talked about a lot of things that matter a lot to us.  Things like why we go to church even when it's not that easy.  He encouraged me like he's been doing my whole life even though he's eight years younger than I am.  He made me laugh.

And then I made him go to bed.  Sheesh.  I need my beauty sleep.

Tonight we are going to the phenomenal Clarissa's concert at BYU.  I am excited.  Marianne and family, Ammon and family, we're all getting together for dinner beforehand.

I like these guys. 

Yin and yang

Yesterday I had to go to the school for a meeting with Emma and her counselor.  They meet with all of the sophomores to discuss their high school path.  They gave us an overview as a group and then we had to wait in line for our counselor.

I brought a book to read (that's just basic safety).

Emma, on the other hand, was going over the results of the pre ACT test which she took awhile ago.  (They had handed us the results at the meeting.)

If there's anything that ruffles Emma's feathers, it's being told that she's wrong.  She looked up what she got wrong and would nudge me and ask me what I thought the right answer was.  I would tell her.  She would say, "That's what I got too!"

So maybe she can blame her wrong answers on me?

But no, she refused to believe that she (and I) were wrong.  They were English questions so I suggested she ask her English teacher.

We finally got to see the counselor (I didn't get much reading in).  The counselor remarked on Emma's high test score.  Emma smiled a tight lipped smile.  Then we started talking about her future schedule.

The counselor offered two possible calculus classes Emma could take next year and Emma immediately chose the harder one.  (My grandma's penchant for decorating skipped my mom and landed on me.  My mom's penchant for doing hard things on purpose skipped me and landed on Emma.  Generations of women mystified by their daughters...) The counselor said that was usually for people that were going to major in math.  (Emma's not planning to.)  I asked about the lesser of the calculus classes, thinking that was a better choice.  Emma disagreed.  The counselor looked from overachieving daughter to underachieving mother and recommended we ask her math teacher.

Emma's schedule is sort of a problem.  Between her insane desire to torture herself, classes from Washington that are not transferable (they don't really care that much about WA state history here), and her elective choices that are in her words "not negotiable"--namely French and choir, there is not enough room.

We left the meeting and I could tell Emma was ready to melt down.  Serendipitously, Braeden came ambling down the hall.  He can immediately assess his sister's distress and eliminate it.  He's like a ninja.  I asked him why he wasn't in class.  He said, "It's PE.  We can leave after the first 15 minutes.  Best PE class ever."

Emma demanded his answer to a question on the pre ACT test that she missed.  He gave the same answer Emma and I had.  "See?" Emma said to no one in particular.

Braeden offered to walk Emma to class (he had time on his hands obviously) and away they went, my high strung daughter (with her test clutched in her hand so she could ask her teacher) and laid back son.

They're good for each other.  And me.

Another nail in the coffin

My mom was asked to be in charge of their ward's Christmas party.  She asked my opinion.  "Cancel it," I said.  (I don't like ward Christmas parties.)

My nieces were shocked.  (Unlike their aunt, they're all normal, social girls.)

Later, the girls were talking about Christmas caroling.  I said, "I hate Christmas caroling."

More shock.  And horror.  I tried to explain, "I don't like it when people come Christmas caroling to me, so I don't feel comfortable going Christmas caroling."

That only made it worse; they were further astounded.  Clarissa, sweet girl that she is, offered a consolation to try to raise me in everyone's estimation.  "You do make fudge though."

(Their mom doesn't make fudge at Christmastime.  I appreciate every time Marianne doesn't do something because it gives me a fighting chance to measure up.)

Later, something came up about the music from "The Forgotten Carols."  I foolishly said I didn't like those songs.  (Seriously.  Just kill me now rather than moan about crying every time you take the tree down, but I should keep these thoughts to myself.)

Clarissa's, Deseret's and Liberty's jaws dropped.  I could see it on their faces, "What is wrong with you?!?"

I don't think the fudge is enough anymore.

Here's something else, girls.  At church they announced an upcoming Relief Society ornament exchange.  You girls probably think they make the holiday complete but I don't like ornament exchanges either.  I avoid them.  I would rather pick out my own ornament than be gifted with some bizarre thing I would never hang on my tree.

I know, I'm sort of a jerk. But don't hate me, girls.

I do make fudge.

Also, this shirt:

One of my offspring outright laughed at me, another thought it "looked creepy," and the third said it was "quite a shirt."

I think it's festive.  And possibly makes up for some other yuletide failings?

The rest of our Thanksgiving weekend

We drove home Friday and I still can't get over how short that drive is.  I love it!  We started getting festive and it always starts with the Christmas bears:

If that kid tells me one more time that this is his last Christmas here, I will not be held responsible for what happens.  I said, "You are never going to be here for Christmas again?!?"

He said, "Not when I live here.  I'll only be here to visit."

Then I told him to stop talking.  Immediately.

Saturday, we went to Salt Lake City and helped my grandma decorate.  My mom and grandma both warned me that there were a lot of decorations and there were, but lots of Christmas decorations is a relative term.  I felt right at home.

I loved hearing my grandma tell me the story behind some of the things she decorates with.  I tried to convince her to find a place for the slightly mangy mouse decoration that I remembered from my childhood but she said she didn't think so.  At least she didn't throw it away.

I had my brute squad there to carry boxes up and down the stairs.  Mark was carrying a box and he said, "Mom, this says Thelma on it."

I said, "Yeah, that's Grandma's name."

He said, "It is?"

Sheesh. So you never know what your kids don't know...Like who you are named after, for example.

After carrying boxes, Adam and the boys left us to contemplate contents and they went and bought a car!

Three cheers for having a teenager with wheels again!

When we got home, Adam texted a picture of his new car to his mom and brothers:

That's our driveway.  I never get tired of that beautiful next door neighbor, the sagebrush.

Scott "inherited" Adam's Saturn when we left Washington.  Scott texted back this picture:

He wrote:  Does this mean you're not coming back for me?

Adam texted back:  It's not you, it's me.

Good little Saturn. 

All kinds of wonderful

The food.

I'd never been there to witness Jennifer's chocolate pie.  I had heard all about it.  I was sure her pie was good, but I. Had. No. Idea.

It changed my life.

I'm going to follow Jennifer around for the rest of my days, hoping she'll make another pie...or six.  (And yes, Enoch, you did a good job stirring it for a little while.  I'm sure she couldn't have done it without you...)

My mom tried a new turkey method which seems really adventurous on Thanksgiving especially when you consider how sentimental some of us are.  (Yes, I'm looking at you, Olivia.)  The turkey was fabulous.  Keep on brining, I say.

Speaking of my mom and her moxie, she never ceases to amaze me.  She pulls off these enormous meals (there were 27 of us) with panache and poise.  She doesn't let anything get in her way.  The woman is unflappable.  One of the refrigerators failed.  My mom didn't.

My dad didn't have his best Thanksgiving ever--although I was there so maybe he did.  He gets these terrible shots in his eyes periodically and sometimes they don't go well and this was one of those times.  To my dad's credit, he was pleasant despite his pain and even though he couldn't see, he talked Enoch through carving the turkey.

The grandchildren all participated in a talent show. I took a lot of low light grainy pictures like this one.  I love every one of these talented kids.  This happens to be Hyrum and Desi.

Here's my favorite poor quality photo though.  Enoch's kids convinced him to sing with them, something my sisters and I have struggled to do all of our lives (and Enoch's a really good singer).  It's the kind of situation where my giant of a brother would do anything for his little adorable daughter.  I mean, wouldn't you?

After the talent show, we flexed our jewelry making muscles:

Then we took a few blurry sister selfies:

Where was Olivia during SST (Sister Selfie Time)?

It's possible I'm related to the best girls in the world.

Here are some shots of the family solidarity bracelets:

Poor Desi took one for the team helping get food ready and ended up with a scratch on her forehead.  She's still awfully cute.

Carolina and Lili made bracelets too but they weren't there to document the solidarity.

The bracelets were made out of a ridiculous amount of safety pins.  I loved sitting around the table together, teasing each other and helping each other and working together.

Whether it's putting on a Thanksgiving feast or making a bunch of bracelets, put a group of women on the job and it gets done.