I just love Provo! We rolled right up to Grandma Lewis’s home and invaded the upstairs since CJ was running his business in the basement. It sounds like he has plans to be a millionaire before too long. (That would be very crazy.) I loved staying at Grandma’s house because the girls spent most of their days hanging out at the park just next door. It was shady and especially fun because the zip line was up. I also discovered one of the best things about traveling by van is that you don’t have to be choosy about what you pack. So, much to the amusement of my family, I had brought my mac with me and set up shop working on the digital scrapbooking late into the evenings. (They all ended up using my mac for their own projects! Who’s laughing now?) Grandma also pulled out her bag of craft supplies and had the girls working on cross-stitching, which passed away several happy hours. In Provo, we have a list of “musts.” For instance, we MUST go to Bombay House. So, I took CJ out to birthday dinner with Taryn and Diana accompanying. (Sidebar: At this dinner, Diana informed us all that she would be an excellent candidate for giving the talk on the birds and the bees. I’m not sure what qualifies her more: the depth (?) of her personal experience or her scrutiny and criticism of other attempts at the topic. In any case, I would love to hear her version of “the talk.”) We also MUST have all our favorite foods. We made stops by the creamery and Café Rio. Diana brought me back fresh strawberry shakes and invited Ella to a special sleepover. We went bowling at BYU and enjoyed the mint brownies. We hiked Provo Canyon (or took a walk up the canyon?). We cleaned Grandma Jennie’s home and had a garage sale. (Ella came home with several pieces of junk.) We got to see the inside of Ben and Paige’s new home, which was truly beautiful. In our down time, I did a lot of home cooking and tried to teach CJ a few tips. (He was resistant, claiming that cooking is a woman’s job…I’m waiting for that to cause a blow up someday.) I also noticed that whenever the girls put on a Disney movie, CJ seemed to find more excuses to sneak upstairs and join them. All in all, it was a great week!
Diana begged me for three weeks to run the Freedom 5K with her and I got in "relative" shape to do it (note the baby belly in the pictures). She even said, "Lauren, we don't even have to pay. We'll just show up and wear our Smoot T-Shirts." So I agreed. Then the night before the race, she kept on complaining about being tired and nearly canceled running. I had to convince her to run this time. Then the morning of, she showed up without her Smoot T-shirt on. She had forgotten ever mentioning wearing matching shirts. Well, we ran together anyway. I made her put away her music so she could talk to me. She continued trying to convince me that she would be the best sex education teacher in the family. Apparently, she is an "expert." I love being around Diana. She makes me laugh all the time. We should make a book of her quotes.
We celebrated the 4th in true Utah style—beginning with the Freedom run and then stopping by the parade, with a side trip to see Ben’s new beautiful home. We continued Grandma Lewis' tradition of a big bbq after the parade. I even found some of the little flags in the fruit room for decor. Ben, Will and Paige made it, along with the Hydes, Louise's family, Taryn's family, Grandma Lewis, Linda and Amos. It was really fun to see everybody. Michelle’s salsa and my salsa were judged side-by-side…we called it a draw. I think the highlight of the day was seeing how excited Grandma was to meet Baby Olena. She kept on repeating "Oh gosh" and waving her hands in the air. It was adorable.
The Johnsons
With all of the wonderful memories we hold from our time in California, we love the people the most. Since we lived in the same complex and even shared an apartment wall for over a year, we got to know the Johnson family the best. Eric and Camille are wonderful people and I was thrilled to learn that they would be in Salt Lake while we were staying in Provo. So we arranged a meeting in the middle at Café Rio. Even though the weather was TERRIBLY rainy on the drive over, I was so happy to meet the Johnson’s brood of boys and they met our gaggle of girlies. While we were living together in California, Camille was diagnosed with toxemia with her first pregnancy and ended up delivering baby Chance at only 31 weeks. After an extended stay in the hospital, he was declared fit to be sent home and he became Kayla’s best pal. It was fun to reunite the two and especially to see how much this family has grown after a rocky start. I hope we can do this every summer!
This summer, CJ was called to be the second counselor in a BYU ward. It was quite enjoyable to take the girls on Sunday to see him on the stand. Being in a college ward brought me back some poignant memories. I was reminded of the level of reverence that can be obtained in a non-family ward. My row of little ones created quite the ruckus and I spent most of the meeting in the hallway with Olena.
After church, we made the SLC round of visits. We started at the Turners who provided us with delicious cookies and a chance to pet Lorenzo the Dog. We then went to the Assisted Living Center to see Grandma Lewis and Linda. Grandma was very anxiously pointing at the book “This is Not My Hat” and insisted that we read it to the kids and put on the hats. I was happy to see that she still seems to know everyone and be excited about her life, even though it is such a struggle to communicate. I was also happy to have Olena meet Grandma Lewis this trip. She is definitely not long for this world. I am sad that the girls will not ever know the Grandma that I know. I will have to pass on our many stories of her and remind them they were able to stay in her home. We played several rounds of Sorry and pulled out the poploids daily—all in Grandma’s honor. After our visit to the Center, we went to the Hydes for a family dinner celebrating all of the July birthdays. Diana had created a movie of all of our awesome cousin camp experiences from the summer and we enjoyed it in Michelle’s amazing theater room. Being surrounded with all of our family sometimes makes me sad that we don’t live in this truly Happy Valley. (It would probably not be in my waistline's best interest though—can you say “mint brownie” daily?)
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