Lacey's Wedding Reception

After our camping trip, Rinar and I headed back down south to go to my cousin Lacey's wedding reception. Her reception was in Orem at my Uncle Barry's house. It was an absolutely beautiful day for an outside reception. And I am really grateful that I was able to go. I have not been able to make any of the wedding things for Uncle Barry's family. But finally, I made it.  

And my grandma was there!  She was able to make it up for this special day. It was really nice to see her again. 

This is a picture of her with her great grand-daughter Sophie, Julie's daughter.

The colors for the wedding were orange and turquoise. Here is my Aunt Sue with Devi and Julie. I took this picture right after we waved goodbye to Lacey and her husband, who were on their way to the honeymoon.

As is the case with pretty much every wedding, there was a ton of cake left over. So we went home with a box of chocolate cake. It came in handy on Sunday. The choir was very grateful.

First Awakenings in Salinas

After an invigorating drive down the California coast, we were able to get an amazing breakfast Monday morning at First Awakenings.  My cousin Sue and her husband Chris own this gem of a restaurant in Salinas and it did not disappoint.  Since it was the Monday after Easter and a pretty rainy, drizzly day, the restaurant was pretty slow.  This was quite wonderful for us because we were able to visit with both of them for a while. It sure was awesome to be able to reconnect with family.  Sue is my Uncle Ron's daughter. She and her sister Debbie are the only cousins I have on my Dad's side of the family.

 

The restaurant is so charming, situated in downtown Salinas, the home of John Steinbeck. It is a very quiet farming community really close to the Pacific ocean.  This is what I ate for breakfast, and it was delicious.

We headed up the coast after breakfast and stopped at a beach along the way. It was overcast and a little cold, but the kids were in heaven. They got so absorbed in playing that the time we spent there was but a moment. It was interesting to see their little personalities and how they chose to spend their time. When we were at Cape Cod a few years ago, Zach stood in front of the waves and "conducted" them, while Raef busily built something in sand. Nothing much has changed after all these years. Raef found something to build while Zach stood in front of the waves.

Eli is also a builder, I guess. This is what he did the entire time we were there and he just loved it. He made a canal system and then he wanted water. I gave him a cup, but he soon realized it was not easy to fill a cup from an incoming wave. It was near impossible. But Eli made a discovery: when you dig down in the sand there will be a pool of water. Way to go, kid!

A lady found this washed up on the shore. Isn't that fantastic? Harry and Julia just loved it.

 

We soon were on our way to San Francisco. We got there at the perfect time, right after lunch. We dropped Rinar off at the hotel and then I hit the road. I wanted to get through Sacramento before rush hour, and I did.  After a brief stop in Reno to pick up some frozen elk meat, we made it all the way to Winnemucca and then stayed in a little hotel off of the freeway.  The drive was uneventful, thank goodness.  On Tuesday, April 1 we pulled into Salt Lake City and were ready to start our new life in a new place.  

Tucson

This has been a week full of surprises. I decided at the last minute to drive down to Tucson for a family dinner. It is a long way to Tucson.  I broke the drive up into two days, staying the first night in Redlands, California.  The first day went well, and we made it down south fairly easily.

Then the kids and I hit the road again on Friday, pulling into Tucson in the afternoon. We met my mom and siblings at Funtasticks, and the kids were able to run around and do something that did not involve a minivan.  It was lots of fun: go-karts, carnival rides, and skeeball. 

After that, we all headed over to our hotel, the JW Marriott. It is a super fancy 5 star hotel, tucked up into beautiful saguaro hills to the west of town. It has been pretty darn cold down here, but everyone went swimming that evening.  The pool was heated so it could not be passed up, except by me.  I left the swimming to Jamie, Leah, Mike, Cody, and my kids. I took the pictures.

When it was time for everyone to leave and for the kiddos to go to sleep, Catye decided at the last minute to stay at the hotel with Heather and me.  I thought that was a bit strange, but I was deliriously tired and was like, whatever!  So the three of us sat in the hallway waiting for the kids to all fall asleep.  We were talking and playing games on our phones.  And the two of the them had some kind of joke between them. They kept twittering with each other and I was ignoring them.  But when I looked down the hallway and saw Rinar walking towards me, my jaw just about dropped to the floor.  My rascally husband flew down to be with us for the weekend.  He still has to work, but just came for the dinner so that we could all be there. Catye was really sticking around to drive back to my parents house with Heather.

But boy, was I surprised!!

And the surprises just kept on rolling in.

We got to the church on Saturday around lunch for our get-together. Rinar and I pulled into the parking lot and looked over at Christi's car, and I'll be gosh darned.  I could not believe who was in the front seat: Grandma Wilma!  What!?! Christi had flown her in from St. George so that she wouldn't miss the dinner either.  It was pretty darn cool.

This is everyone in our family.  I can't even remember the last time we were all together. It has been ages. We had to get a family picture.

And all the women...

This is Christi's Mya. What a cutie.

Christi and Thomas brought a pinata, and the kids had a lot of fun whacking at the thing. We also played a riveting game of Duck Duck Goose and Curses. Leah's family was in town, and they all came to the dinner, as well as Leah's brother Roy's in-laws. Whew, that can get confusing.  But they all came and feasted on Mexican food, joining in on the celebration. The more the merrier.

We went back to the hotel for a second round of swimming, this time with Thomas and his kids.

It was much better to swim while there was still some daylight. It was not nearly as freezing cold as it was the night before. 

Today, my parents and siblings came back to the hotel to hang out and we also were able to get a few more pictures with the beautiful scenery. Julia was really happy to see Grandpa.

We went to church with mom and then hung out at their house for a little while.  Rinar headed back to the airport and I headed up to Scottsdale. 

After all, I have a long drive back!

Despain Family Reunion

I had a prolonged moment of insanity and decided to drive to Provo alone with my kids.  Rinar did a brothers trip and since he was going to be gone for the week, I thought, "oh, why not?"

Did you know it takes over 8 hours to get there?

Sheesh.

But we still had fun. We stayed the first night in Wendover and I pulled in to the hotel registry Thursday night at about 10pm. I was tired and I just wanted to get my kids to bed.  First, I couldn't find the room and thought I was going to go crazy. Then, I go to open the door. It is three floors up, Eli is asleep in my arms and my older ones have to go to the bathroom. The key did not work! I got so mad and frantic I decided to take it out on the door so I kicked it as hard as I could. I had on my sandals, so I only managed to stub my big toes pretty bad.

After a trying ordeal of trying to get the babies to go to sleep, they finally succumbed to their eyelids and I fell asleep, sort of.   But I had this really achy big toe. It felt like it was broken.  What an idiot!

We spent Friday with my good friend Melanie and her crew. It was a blast. Except, because of sleep deprivation, Harry and Julia were horrible. So I strapped them into their car seats, turned on a movie, turned on the car and left it idling for about 1.5 hours. I say it is cheaper than a babysitter and can you really put a price on sanity?

 Isn't this the most scrumptious little baby? This is Melanie and Jared's latest girl, Taryn. She is a good little baby.

On Saturday I went the the Despain Family Reunion in Provo. Despain is my grandmother's grandmother's family and her posterity. There were a lot of people there. They have quite the posterity.  Here is my Grandma N. and my uncles Barry and Dave.

They just had a little moment here.  Brotherly love, you know?

My sister Catye is getting married in October and here is her man, Mike. My kids LOVE him.  Hence, I love him. He will make a great addition to the family.

My Great-Grandmother May was one of 12 children. She was number 5. The church sent her parents to Lovell, Wyoming in 1905 on a mission to settle the area. It was one of the last wagon trains.  The guy standing up in this picture is Gordon. He is one of two surviving kids and my Grandma's uncle. I am not sure who the other two are, but I bet they are important.

We belong to the May faction.

On the drive back, Raef wanted to touch the salt. This is the famous salt flats. This is where they break land speed records and where the unfortunate Donner party planted the seeds of a horrible demise in the Sierra Nevadas.


We limped to the finish, but we made it all in one piece. The more I see Nevada, the more I realize that it is an incredible beautiful state. Elko and Winnemucca are beautiful country and I look forward to going back that way again.

Reconnecting on Spicer's Reservoir

It is one of those wonderful blessings when you have the opportunity to reconnect with family, where there has not been that much connection in the past. One of the incredible benefits of moving to Reno is that I was able to reconnect with a part of my family that I don't know very well. My Dad has a brother named Ron and his family always has a family reunion every year at Spicer's Reservoir, high in the Sierra Nevada's. Amazingly enough, the campsite was only about 2.5 hours from my house.

So I had to go.  Unfortunately, Rinar had to work, so I braved it alone.  I spent one night there and it was great to see everyone. However, it was not great sleeping in a tent with my kids. Julia had a hard night, therefore so did I. She fell asleep at dawn right when the birds started to sing. Hence, I got about 1 complete hour of sleep. It was a very long night.  What can I say? She is my sleeping beauty.

Here is my Uncle Ron, cousin Sue, and her daughter Cassie. I think you know those little tikes.

Uncle Ron is on the right, with Dino, my other cousin Debbie's boyfriend.  The lady on the left is a family friend.

This is another family friend, Jeff, holding a distraught Harry. Everyone was so welcoming and inviting and they all were very happy to help  my with my kids.

Cassie is standing, then her dad Chris (Sue's husband) is sitting behind  his oldest son C.J., and next to my other cousin Debbie.  Sue's family owns a restaurant in the Monterrey area called New Awakenings. It was actually featured on an episode of "$40 a Day" with Rachael Ray.

Let's get dirty, oh yeah! My Dirty Harry. Don't worry, it got much worse.

Dino was so good with the kids.

There you go...me and my cousins, Debbie and Sue.

Debbie and Cassie

This is Peggy, my Aunt Vicki's sister. Vicki passed away almost a year ago from cancer. I first met Peggy when we went to Ron's house to pay our respects.

Chris and C.J.  C.J. was so cute with the kids.  Harry and Julia loved playing with him.

On the way home, we drove on hwy 4 through Ebbett's Pass. It is an incredibly beautiful and  harrowing road.  My pictures do not do it justice.  It must be one of the beautiful places on the entire earth...truly God's country.

I actually think I have been on this road before. I have a childhood memory of driving with my dad and sister's up a really windy road. There was snow everywhere and then we had to stop because at this point, there was a huge avalanche of snow piled right here and we had to turn around. If it wasn't at this specific spot, then it was at a place that looked exactly like this.  Weird.

Our Family Reunion - Part III (The End)

This is the last bit of pictures from the reunion. We took some individual family photographs from our backyard. That's right people. This is my back yard.  It is quite a bit different from the cinder block monolith I was greeted with every morning for the last 7 years in Vegas. Now my "fence" is the Sierra Nevadas.

Lyf's family

My family

Lani's family

The Grandparents

Nordel's family

 Aislinn's family was the only missing component to our family reunion. Well, her and Lani's son Jazon.




We then headed to Virginia City for some serious tourist stuff. Everyone had a lot of fun. I am sorry to say that I did not revisit the librarian.  But we did find candy in other locations along the boardwalk.  Plus, this time I had my wagon. Hello, long, lost friend. It is good to see and use you again.

Since Raef, Zach, and I had already done a mine tour, we waited around while everyone else headed over to check it out.  

They also panned for gold while they waited. I think Bryn actually found a few flakes.