New Year's Day meant epic games with double the Quirkle downstairs and Axis & Allies upstairs.
We also go to meet A & E's puppy, JoJo. He is soooo cute AND quiet. We may have gotten dog envy.
Monday was the grand finale. We visited Great Grandma with S & T's family and then watched the Utes play in the Rose Bowl at S & T's house where we had delicious pizza and S tried to convert us to Stanley brand drink containers. lol.
S & T's house it right down the street from where Danny was sealed to us and he was kind enough to let me take a selfie with him -- can you spot the temple in the background? How I love the promise that familial love is forever. Love is what makes the world go round! The only picture I took inside the house was of how much their dog loved Kate even though he really didn't want anything to do with the rest of us. Ha!
I am grateful we had such a wonderful trip to see family. On the way home Hubby fell asleep near Grand Junction and we got stuck in a muddy ditch in probably one of the only safe places to do so along all of I-70. We were very grateful no one was hurt & that wonderful construction workers came by a little while later (when I was about to call a tow truck) and towed us out for free. They had three pick up trucks with three drivers so one had traffic move to the other lane for us while the other two men worked to get us back on the road. They simple asked us to pay it forward. We soon got lunch and it turned out said lunch was near a car wash where our car wash membership worked so we got a ton of mud off the truck there. When we gassed up Hubby realized the front license plate was gone but Danny and Kate were convinced it was at the car wash and they were right! We got our plate back and continued to drive home with me behind the wheel. This incident could have been a huge accident that stranded us in another city but we were all ok. Hubby was very upset that he could have killed off both of Michelle's parents and all of her siblings with one mistake. I felt like this was God protecting us and telling us to think twice before crossing the mountains in the winter again. It took me 9 hours to drive from Grand Junction to Georgetown due to ski traffic combined with a storm that came in so once again it took us 14 hours to drive from us to family (or in this case, family to us). The slow climb up to the Eisenhower Tunnel from Silverthorne was so slow the speedometer needle was at zero for most of what felt like hours. At one point we saw two men pushing their car up the hill and they were going just as fast as the rest of us. By the time we got to Georgetown we had to pee so bad! Thank goodness there is a nice rest stop there. Hubby drove us the rest of the way home safely and we were so happy to get out of the truck we had been in from basically 8:30am until 10:30pm. Ooof.
I think my teenagers were missed. On the way home we dropped Kate off at P’s house for a sleepover and the next night P slept over at our house. Hubby headed to the tire store and got his left front tire replaced and it was proven once again it pays to have the extra warranty. He headed to work but was back in time to take Kate to volleyball practice. At home I was thrilled to pick up Michelle and Maisie from my parents house (we missed Michelle so much!), unpacked, did laundry like a mad woman and made some important phone calls. Two of Danny’s friends, C & N, even went with us to Danny & Michelle’s dentist and chiropractor appointments in order to spend more time with us. It was nice to get to know N better and I am very impressed with that girl. Our second day in Colorado Kate left P asleep to go to her orthodontist appointment/Insta Juice, I took care of some important emails, and luckily Natalie felt good enough to go to her private softball lesson. I had my follow up mammogram for the medical staff to check my left side again. I was still working on laundry and got the house ready to be professionally cleaned before Kate went to strength training and Danny got picked up for basketball. I was exhausted but grateful we still had a couple days until school started again to get all this stuff out of the way after our trip. Oh, and we finally got to have our annual Latke dinner and it was delicious! And the food processings attachment to our mixer Hubby bought worked quite well. Thanks, Hubby!
After looking at the books I read in 2022 I decided there weren’t enough of my favorite genre on the list. So I made it a priority that the first book I read in 2023 was historical fiction (by Kristin Hannah). After loving The Nightingale, I read The Four Winds which had special meaning to me because my mom‘s dad was one of the employees the government sent to try to help with/prevent another Dust Bowl. You can see a link to his obituary telling about his work in agriculture here and in my grandmother's obituary here. It was a pretty neat but heavy book so I next read The Princess Companion since Michelle said it was a fun fractured fairytale (and it was). Although I usually listen to audiobooks while getting other things done, I must admit there was more than once I just wanted to stay in bed or sit down to listen and as a result I didn't get everything done that I wanted to before it was time to go back to work and school. My middle and high school kids (and I) had new classes to go to but even though Natalie was better from coming home sick from our trip, my guys were both ill. So much for Danny having a fresh start for second semester. Oof. Here we go again, living day to day and having to prioritize what is needed most in the moment. Wish us luck!
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