What would you have done...

I was over at Joe's again, he was having a quiet day, and was seemingly relaxed. He came out of his room after a while and looked a bit more troubled than normal. I asked him if he was feeling OK and he said "I'm feeling alright, but I have a problem.." "Really?" I replied, "What's wrong?" He said slowly and sternly, "I have to go to the bathroom, but I don't remember how!" I showed him where the bathroom was, but that wasn't enough for him. He said "I know I have to go, I just don't don't know how, to go..." So I resorted to plan B. I pulled up a chair, explaining that that back of the chair was like the back of the toilet and the seat was like the toilet seat, and all you have to do is pull your pants down and sit down like so (I didn't actually pull my pants down.) It was really hard not to lose it. Eventually he wanted his daughter to come down and help him which she did. It must be hard living with dementia.

The great new experiences of Denver

So it's late and i shouldn't be writing this, but I had to share this one. Since being out here in Colorado I've worked really hard on not being nieve or showing my sheltered roots. I've done a pretty good job so far. We had a lunch today for the office building where I work. It was a huge party out front with a band and great food catered. I was with a co worker from my office, Alonda. She's a really nice lady, pretty funny. I got my food and headed over for a drink. They had a sherbet drink along with others. I remember sherbet drinks from back in the day and readily scooped up a glass. We went and sat down on a cement ledge and began to eat. I took a drink and thought, wow, they don't make this stuff like they do in Utah, that's strong stuff. I soon took another sip and my suspicions began to arrive. After a couple more sips I couldn't do it any more, something was fishy. You don't put super super strong sparkling cider in sherbet drinks, it just doesn't make sense. I threw it away, but was too shy to ask my co worker if it was really alcoholic.

When I got to my desk I didn't know if it was just my mind messing with me or what, but I was back on my pain pills from my knee surgery again. Things were kinda funny, I couldn't think straight to finish the spreadsheet I was working on, and things just weren't processing right.

I visited my new client, which is another story in and of itself, but it was pretty emotionally draining. When I got home I was so physically exhausted, I hadn't felt like that in a long time, and I had gotten a decent amount of sleep last night too.

Finally after going to a movie with a group of friends tonight I asked one of my friends here if sherbet drinks are alcoholic. She laughed and said yes, if you're gonna drink that one, you better ask for it virgin.

My first sip. What an occasion.

It was really really fun, except we missed you that weren't there. Besides our kids that couldn't come, we were only missing Amber, Jace, Kamara, Natalie, and Corrie and their families. That is quite a group!! We only got to see Mamo and Grandpa on saturday when we worked in their yard and house. It was great service. I think Grandpa was sad to miss it all, but at least he was in on it some.

We had beautiful homes in Park City to live in, and enjoyed Seven Peaks, "campfires" -mostly in the club house because it rained alot-great visiting moments with everyone, and tons of delicious food. (Jared made incredible dutch oven food) We ended the reunion on Tuesday by touring the new Oquirrh Mountain Temple and then a picnic in our back yard with everyone. It was sweet and memorable and went by way too fast!

The wedding and reception for Sam and Camille were so fun. Camille has some gorgeous pictures taken by her photographer. (she flew here from Florida) I will have to get you a link. It was awesome to see everyone from the Clark family. It has been a long long time since we were all together with them. All of the Scott Mackay family were here (except Amber, of course), and we got to see Brett and Jinni's new baby. He is black and has darling wirey curly black hair. He is soooo darling. There were so many little kids around-it was crazy and happy.

We had some great memorable moments when we were all together in the evenings, and some of us went walking in the beautiful morning sunshine. Park City is so pretty and green this time of year.

We were sad to part-as always-and unsure of when we will all be together like that again. We went away thankful for strong and loving families. I think it would be cool to have a goal to have our whole family together at the next reunion. Except for Jared, of course-we don't want him there!!! :) We figured out that there are 94 descendants from Grandpa and Grandma (Grace). (That includes inlaws). It is amazing to think that one couple could produce generations of good families. Wow. That is my hope, too!

Family Reunion ???

From what I hear the family reunion was a blast, but I really think people need to be more specific. So anyone that actually got to go, tell us all your favorite experiences. Also, Charlotte is for real crawling now! She's unstoppable and very very quick. The last bit of big news is that her top right tooth finally broke gum this morning. We're hoping that will make her less cranky. Bring on the stories....

I'd do the same if I was 94

Hey everyone. Though I'd add a small post to encourage blogging. Things here have been pretty fun. My internship is picking up. I started planning for a project today where I'd create some spreadsheets that breakdown client portfolios for semi annual reviews. It's pretty awesome to learn all this stuff.

My other job is great. I spend 5 hours with Joe 3 times a week. He's 94 and very witty when his dimentia doesn't take over. Last time I was there was pretty fun. He was asleep around 3 and I was supposed to wake him up for dinner at 4:30. He didn't want to get up till 6. When he got up he seemed on top of things which was weird cause when he sleeps that long he usually thinks it's morning. He used the restroom and went back into his room. After a few minutes I was worried he was asleep. I knocked on his door and didn't answer me. I called his name a couple times and he didn't answer so I opened the door. He gave a little high pitched squeal as I opened the door if you can imagine that. I peeked in and he was sitting naked on the edge of his bed, thus the squeal. I closed the door and soon realized he was changing because he thought it was morning. He refused to believe it was evening. But we got to chatting. I asked him how many kids he had, he said he had 4 legally, other than that he could "throw a stone in any direction and hit one." After each question he would say "go ahead, ask me now, get it all out." He's pretty fun to chill with now that we're comfortable.

That's about it for me. It's really nice to live here with the Dixons. You have no idea the difference it makes living in a righteous LDS home. It's so much easier to stay close to the Spirit when it's here at home. I didn't notice as much when I was at Doug's but I can easily tell now. It's a good change.

Date NIght: a tribute to bread and jam for frances

okay, so this post didn't turn out like i wanted it to with all the pictures. so the first four should go at the very bottom and the next three should go in between the story line...you know where they go. anyway this totally reminded me of bread and jam so we had to document it. it was an awesome surprise picnic planned by aaron for our date night! "I think eating is nice!"

Frances: What do you have today?

Albert: I have a cream cheese cucumber and tomato sandwhich on rye bread.

And a pickle to go with it and a hard boiled egg and a little cardboard salt shaker to go with that. And a thermos bottle of milk. And a bunch of grapes and a tangerine and a cup custard and a spoon to eat it with what do you have?

Frances: Bread and jam. And milk.

The next day when the bell rang for lunch Albert said, What do you have today?

Well, said Frances laying out a paper doily on her desk and setting a tiny vase of violets in the middle of it. Let me see. I have a thermos bottle with cream of tomato soup and a lobster salad sandwhich on thin slices of white bread. I have celery, carrot sticks, and black olives; a little cardboard shaker of salt for the celery and 2 plums and a tiny basket of cherries. A vanilla pudding with chocolate sprinkles and a spoon to eat it with.

So we haven't posted for a while but I've been meaning to get on here because we have some really cool things to post. First off, we got a sa-weet wedding gift that Aaron wasn't too keen on keeping. I thought it'd be awesome but then after I tried it on I realized it's not all it's hyped up to be. It's more like a big fuzzy hospital gown. But since I did try it on we went ahead and got pictures. Sorry to those of you who were looking forward to getting one of these.

I had a pretty busy weekend culminating in one of the greatest camping trips ever. We left at 4 pm on saturday and went out to a place that should be a 45 minute drive. We got bad directions and missed a bunch of signs and four and half hours later we finally got there. I drove up with the girl that planned it and so everybody else got lost as we tried to explain how to get there. By 930 or so everyone was there (11 were staying the night) and dinner was cooking. About an hour later the park ranger dropped by and explained to us that we didn't have the sight reserved and would have to move sights. She also said if we had more than 7 people there in the morning we would be fined. So we threw everything in the cars and moved. Dinner was pretty good, we had tin foil dinners.

A couple of guys that were invited weren't LDS and brought a nice big 12 pack. They each had six beers and got pretty drunk. They were cool for the most part but one was really worried about the fire all night so the other guy went and broke off some of the fence post that was built around where people park. Neither of them were the brightest boys.

About 2 we were all heading to bed. We had 3 tents. 1 small one for a married couple, a small 2 man for the 2 girls, and a 5 man for the rest of the guys. But by 2 one of the guys had already fallen asleep in the girls tent and refused to move when he was woken up. Since neither of the girls wanted to sleep with just them and the guy in the tent they made one of the drunks sleep in there with him. That left 4 guys and the two girls to sleep in the tent. As we were getting ready for bed one of the girls grabbed me and told me to make sure the drunk didn't sleep by her and the other girl. I was the last one in the tent. That make me the 6th person in a five man. The girls were in the left corner and of course the drunk was snuggling into bed next to them. I leaned down and said "'scuse me, I'll just slip right in here if you don't mind" and put down my pillow and blanket between the girl and the drunk dude. When I laid down I realized my shoulders barely fit and situation hit me. I have a hammered dude to my left and a girl my age to my right. If I roll to my left I'm spooning the drunk and if I roll to my right I'm an inch from the girl's face. It was a long, long 5 hours. I slept maybe 2 hours.

That's about it. I was happy to be home the next morning but it was a pretty fun weekend.