Weekend

 Saturday afternoon Adam got out a stack of shirts from his closet and put them on the bed.  I said, "You're not packing already!?!"  He had just returned! He wasn't.  He said he was just going through his shirts.  (He also definitely falls in the camp of last minute packer.)

He is leaving again today.  The weekend was too fast.

I was happy to have Adam here when I got home Friday.  We happily slid into our weekend routine.  It was Braeden's birthday Saturday and it is strange that the older our kids get, the less involved we are in their birthdays.  Anna and QE did an excellent job celebrating him.  They had decorated with balloons and Anna asked QE where they should put a decoration and she proudly chose under the table.

She has flair.

For future generations (QE et al), here's Braeden at 28:

• He walks fast and makes phone calls to people he cares about while he's walking (I'm a happy recipient).
• He is a runner and was buying himself new running shoes with his birthday money.
• He uses words I don't know and is always down to talk politics.  He can seamlessly talk to people on the far right and the far left and they all still like him afterward.
• He is a righteous man who fulfills his calling, serves others and attends the temple.
• I love when he sends random texts with insights he has learned from the scriptures.
• He is sometimes careless and misses details and he says that he got that from me, which is true, but I don't think he needs to say it out loud like that....
• He is a devoted and loving husband and a besotted father.
• He has taught me about dealing with anxiety.  I call him my shaman.
• He has minimal interest in things.  He requested a new computer bag for Christmas.  I asked him for specifics (color, style, material, etc.).  He said he wanted it big enough to fit his lunch.
• He likes the Beatles and Bob Dylan, building with Legos, Harry Potter, the Mariners and shopping at Trader Joe's.
• He never holds a grudge (unless you got rid of his Yu-gi-oh Duel Disk Launcher).
• If you need a ride to the airport, he's the guy people ask.
• He told me the date it is coming back because he is excited to watch All Creatures Great and Small on PBS. 
• Mark said once that All Creatures Great and Small was like a warm hug.  So is being Braeden's mom.

On our trip to and from Nevada and on subsequent errands, Adam and I have been listening to the podcast, The Good Whale.  We have enjoyed it and episode 5 is a musical and I can't even tell you how happy it made us.  We finished the podcast Saturday evening when we went to Salt Lake.  The heat doesn't work in Emma's apartment.  She has let her apartment management know, but Emma's interest in being a squeaky wheel is very selective.  Since the high has been in the 20s the past few days, we offered her a space heater.  She was going to come and get it, but Adam said we'd take it to her and we decided to take Emma to a pizza restaurant in downtown SLC, Settebello Pizzeria Napoletana.  We had gone there once before years ago when Emma was a freshman at BYU.  Some of her friends were with us and we'd gone to temple square and Emma felt sick and I had a migraine and neither of us had enjoyed the restaurant to its fullest so we tried again.

It was really good and we were happy to have dinner with our girl.  I told Emma that we have Mark Monday, but we don't have anything with her.  She said maybe it was because her name doesn't work with a day of the week.

Sunday besides church, I was mostly unsuccessful at family history, but made beef stew that made the house smell good.  Emma and Mark came over and Adam had to leave early for a youth fireside.  We played games and talked music and I'm always grateful for time with our kids.