The rest of the Fall Break story.

I am just going to quickly recap the rest of Fall Break.

Hah. I say that every time. I'm just not quick.

Sunday we made the trip up to Bountiful to see Grandma and Grandpa G.
The day could NOT have been more beautiful. Seriously. I love Fall.

The Scarlett overload begins right now.
(This trip was the first time she LOVED me!! Ahhh, I've been waiting for this moment.
She actually chose me over Little Billy Grandpa when we showed up at her house.
Happy dance time.)

That evening Lynnea needed to take a little walk to lower her blood sugar levels, so most of us joined her on a stroll around the church parking lot. The point-and-shoot caught these two gems:

Mar and Mer were happy to spend some time together, too. (The point-and-shoot did not fare so well here. The good news is I GOT MY NEW PHONE. On Monday, so I didn't have it for these pics, but all pictures after these, are courtesy of my phone. Yes, my PHONE. So so happy!)

Bill headed back to Utah early Monday morning to conduct a funeral service of a member of our ward. He drove the car that Lex has been borrowing while Lo is serving a mission. We needed to get it back to CO to get it tuned up and registered before Shi returns home anyway, so our initial plan was to just drive two cars back at the end of the break... but it worked out even better, since Bill needed a way home AND I found a $24 one-way flight back to UT Tuesday night for him. So perfect.

Monday night (after Mar and I had received our new phones via UPS -- happy dance EXCEPT for when I tried to activate and assimilate mine, which may have resulted in a few moments of inner rage), we headed off to the park to have dinner from some food trucks. 

I have never eaten from a food truck, people... until now. 

Check that off the bucket list.

This park, a stone's throw (if you have a really really good arm) away from Britt and Austin's house, is amazing!

(More food truck pics... so I won't forget I've been there, done that haha)

We got some fresh donuts, which Scarlett thoroughly enjoyed...

...while Britt, Aust, and Mar enjoyed the park.

Tuesday morning, Mar and I attended Wonderful Sweet Scarlett's dance class.

I loved watching this adorable girl bust some moves.

There's something super sweet about a dance class full of 18mo-to-3yr-olds.

On Wednesday we drove back out to Bountiful to visit J's grave. It's hard to believe it's been a year since she passed away. In some ways it feels like forever, in other ways like it was yesterday.

 I reflected on the time I was blessed to spend with her last year, especially the few precious hours I was with her the day she died, not knowing that was going to be the day. Bill, Mar and I talked about how life is so uncertain... how we need to treat everyone with more love and understanding... and especially how important it is to cherish your family. We have definitely learned some valuable lessons this year.

Have I mentioned I love Fall?

Afterwards we met up with some Parkerite-now-Loganite friends (remember our choir concert buddies?) at Nielson's Frozen Custard for dinner and some catch up. I didn't know places still exist that don't take debit or credit cards, only cash or check! Now I do.


On Friday we went to the Provo City Center Temple. Bill and I didn't make it out for the open house, but had attended the dedication with Mar over Spring Break. We had some fun trying to find parking (i.e. it was a Friday and there were a lot o' weddings going on), but enjoyed going with two of our beautiful daughters!

Saturday evening we met everyone at Red Robin in The District... kind of a final family hurrah before we headed back home early Sunday morning (so we could catch the dedication of the Fort Collins Temple). We had to wait a bit, but had a great time chatting, enjoying the beautiful weather, and adoring Wonderful Sweet Scarlett.

Afterwards we shopped a bit (Hobby Lobby with the menfolk, then we sent them home with Scarlett so we could peruse Downeast Home). Then we all met back up at Britt and Austin's and just chatted. Seriously, those times are the BEST.

The drive home was... beautiful (have I mentioned I love Fall?) This was a rest stop, for goodness sake.

Since Mar wanted to drive for a bit, I sat in the back seat and enjoyed watching Pollyanna (I haven't seen it for decades) because it was one of J's faves (if you haven't seen it for a while, you need to watch it), then the new Saturday's Warrior. Mar has never seen ANY version of Saturday's Warrior (and has never listened over and over and over to the soundtrack... or LP... like I did back in my early youth), so when we got home (and after the temple dedication) we watched it again. She said it was a little different than she had envisioned as she listened to it on the drive home {haha}. We youtubed a few of the numbers they left out of the new version, and had some fun discussion on WHY.

That's a wrap, peeps.

(I didn't take any pictures of our painting projects... which took a lot of mine and Britt's time during the week... a coffee table and end table of Tay and Nae's, and an end table and kitchen table of Aust and Britt's... it was quite a big undertaking, but we did it. Hopefully everyone is satisfied with the results, as they were still drying as we drove away.)

Fall Break begins + a baby shower for Nae and E.

I've been gone from the blog for too long. I've come to the conclusion that blogs are no longer the social media outlet of choice these days... probably because it takes so gosh darn long to bang out a post, select pictures, upload and modify-to-beautify them (I rarely modify due to lack of time AND a slow-running outdated BigMac), and proof to find errors (which I often miss the errors with a quick proofing anyway). But this blog is really for me and a few of my old friends (who no longer blog) and close family (who also rarely blog).

Okay, it's just for me haha.

Anyway, it's been too long. I have a lot o' catch up, so I'm going to try and hit the high points. I may post about the low points (mainly my issue of late with what is apparently a midlife crisis) another day... but only if things slow down a bit. Which I'm pretty sure they won't, so you will just have to imagine my anxiety-and-stress-mixed-with-the-natural-aging-process (wrinkles anyone? gray hair? dry skin? unsightly spider veins? poor vision? aches and pains?) with a little I'm-just-plain-tired thrown in.

Back to my oh-so-quick post to kick off my catch up.

We made the long scenic drive to UT for Fall Break.

 I love Glenwood Canyon, and that I-70 CO drive in the Fall cannot be beat.

We spotted some cow-herders in Price Canyon, which made for a little scenery excitement on the UT side.

After attending a baby shower for Dayna, my cute SIL-to-be (no pics, bummer), we took a little drive to Provo to check out Tay and his band, Lost in Bourbon (I like to pretend it's more like "Lost on Bourbon STREET" hahahahaha).

 This was our first time hearing them live, and lemme tell ya, I think I'm a fan of rock music.

I loved it.

I didn't get great pictures -- only a few on my OLD cracked phone -- and the lighting wasn't great for photo ops anyway, but I head-nodded, toe-tapped, and swayed with the best of them. I may have looked a bit ridiculous, but I was feeling it. And the music was awesome.

The next day we had a baby shower for Nae and baby E.

Of course Britt and I ran into a few hiccups that morning, so we were all working madly (including all the menfolk -- thanks, guys!) to get everything together in time.

The adorable mom-to-be...

Grace refused to smile for a picture because she had just lost both of her front teeth :-D

No shortage of babies on the Syddall side... my SIL Angela is expecting, too! Dayna and Ange are both having boys... so baby E. is the balance in the force haha.

 Britt and I literally got ready in 7 minutes due to our last-minute scrambling, which was due to some indecision (on the part of the old gal in crisis haha) during a not-so-quick shopping run.

It was so fun to celebrate the not-too-distant arrival of sweet baby E.

The two Syddall mamas... aren't they cute??

And a couple of great grandmas... they're cute too!

It was so fun to party it up and play some awesome shower games with our amazing family. A huge thank you to Britt for hosting, and everyone who came!

Next up... more Fall Break and a whole lotta Scarlett.