New Mexico Fun!

A quick weekend trip to pick up my mother and bring her to our home turned into an unplanned family reunion! Gena, Steve, Emily & Allison came from Denver, and Tom and Dorothy came with their family from Mesa. Brad and Amy live nearby and came often to visit. It was gloriously noisy and busy in Uncle Dean's house...never a dull moment! There were Tom's 6 children, Brad's 4, Emmy, Alli, Richard, & Rachel plus 10 adults playing cards and Farkle, Wii and all kinds of outside play! Uncle Dean let the kids ride "Buck" his four-wheeler and Richard became a really good driver! He even gave his tentative Mom a ride. Gena's camera caught the initial scream I gave upon take-off& I am sure she will let you all see it on her blog! What a great time we all had together! I even caught my 85 year old mother bowling on the Wii! I played my first game ever and beat my big brother too (Sorry Dean)!

I loved little Brigham's hugs, Ben's smiles, and Jessica's silliness but the funniest moment for me came when Becca came out of the bathroom after getting ready for church and asked, "does my hair look too poofy?" If you know Becca and her naturally curly hair you would have to ask..."compared to what?!" I loved seeing these kids who have grown so much since I saw them last. The older girls indulged in the big weekend pleasure of reading the new Stephenie Meyer book "Breaking Dawn". Thanks to Aunt Gena for driving us

all the long way into Farmington to get it!

There's nothing like family and I was so pleased that everyone wanted to come and be together when I was there for such a brief time. It was fun to visit with Edwin's family and get to hold my new great nephew Conner. He is beautiful and so tiny! I also loved seeing Jay and getting to go out to the Kirtland Cemetery to see Sharon's grave. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be and the headstone Jay chose is beautiful. I just had one hard moment when he first came to Dean's house and I saw him across the room. I suddenly realized she wasn't there and how much she would have loved to be with us all and visit.

Thanks to Dean and Renda for letting us all invade their peace and quiet! We love you!

P.S. We arrived home safe and sound with Grandma. We woke up this morning to discover a flat tire on the car and Discount tire found a coupling pin in it and one other tire with a nail in it. We drove through a lot of construction and rough roads and I am very thankful that we were blessed to not have any mishap with these two ruined tires!!

...and Richard survived Scout camp having had a wonderful time! I survived too, only to find out later that the camp was evacuated the day after I picked him up due to a forest fire. I am glad he missed that bit of stress!