We left home on Thursday evening after Shad got off work. We made it to Colby, an hour and a half away, just fine to meet up with Jimmy and his boyfriend, Kerry. It was five minutes AFTER leaving Colby that we had to pull over because the belt on our van had frayed a bit. All the auto shops were closed in Colby. Walmart didn't carry the part we needed. We were just going to all pile into Jimmy's car and head back to try and figure something out, when Kerry found a spare belt in the car. So Shad went to work to replace it. It wasn't the right size. But since he had it all taken apart, he realized that he could just peel the frayed part off and it would still work. We decided to call my parents and have them pick up a spare belt for us to replace it before going to Utah. My parents are awesome and went through a bit of effort for us to get that belt and didn't have us pay them back for it. Unfortunately, all that time being pulled over made us an hour late getting into Denver after 10, so we the kids were asleep when we got to my parents' house and we couldn't play. Besides the fact that the folks themselves were about to go to bed. It was disappointing all around, though Tom still doesn't know what he missed.
We left for Utah Friday morning at 6 and arrived just after 3. We went through Wyoming and it was pretty enjoyable. The kids travelled well. They slept a lot, were entertained by Jimmy and Kerry, who rode with us, and we have a portable DVD player. Tom now has a larger variety he likes to rotate between: Sword in the Stone, Robin Hood, Hercules, Mulan, and Cars. We still have more we're working on introducing to him. He's slowly coming around to The Emperor's New Groove. He was also happy to watch all the cars, semis (they're called Mack, because that's the name of the semi in Cars), cows, sheep, horses, and windmills. He had hardly a fuss the whole drive.
After spending some time with Grandma Howes, all the grandkids went to the bowling alley so that we could enjoy each others' company and not overwhelm her. Tom loved racing cars in the arcade with Ruth. In fact, when we started bowling, he booked it to the arcade after every turn. Our lane was on the complete opposite end of the alley as the arcade. Shad and I got quite the workout taking turns running after Tom for 2 hours.
Saturday was our "memorial day" for Grandpa Howes. He had donated his body to science (University of Utah) and didn't want a funeral. He loved the outdoors and so that's what his family decided to do for him--spend the day outdoors. After Shad and I had a successful morning of garage saling all along our way from American Fork to Salt Lake City, we went up to Big Cottonwood Campground with the family. While waiting for lunch, we went with his sister Ruth and cousins, Alex and Arielle to Silver Lake, Alex's sanctuary. It afforded gorgeous views of mountain, lake and meadow, as well as some ducks for Tom.
We spent all day at the campground barbequeing and then hiking up a long, steep trail that we never found the end of. We called it quits and shot down the mountain for smores. Tom and Katie loved it; Katie took a nice nap in my arms. We estimated that it was about 6 miles round trip. Our legs paid dearly for it on Sunday.
Sunday. Oh, it was so nice to just sit and enjoy church and not have to run off to teach a lesson or play a piano or talk to people before they went home. It was also nice to sit in a gospel doctrine Sunday School class, since I haven't been in one in about a year and a half, yet I'm teaching it now. After talking to the teacher, I came back with some good resources to use and ideas for teaching. We spent the whole day with my aunt Suzanne's family, who was our hotel in American Fork. Shad got to nap, I got to rest, Tom got to walk and play with all of his boy cousins, and Katie just did her thing. It was a needed recoup after the chaos and lack of sleep.
We went up to Salt Lake to see Grandma Howes nearly every day the week we were there. We wanted to spend as much time with her as we could, yet not overwhelm her by staying for more than an hour at a time. We sure loved every minute we had with her. She is a wonderful lady and we love her dearly.
Here's Tom, drinking from a Slurpee cup that's bigger than him, on our way to see "Gama Howes."
Shirley Howes, Shad, Katie, Megan, and Tom Kendell
Tom found a mirror in a bedroom at Grandma's house. He had a nice Narcissus moment.
Grandma asked us to please take pears from her overloaded tree, so we did.
We picked a bag for us, and a bag for Suzanne...and still left more than we took.
Miss Katie is getting so grown up all the time.
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