Lagoon! It's What Fun IS!

That was the slogan for Lagoon back in the 90s I think. Back when I actually saw commercials on television. This summer, Lagoon has actually been fun for Romney, and Emma too.

What Romney wanted for her graduation present was a shopping trip for some nice dresses and also a season pass to our local amusement park. I had my doubts that she would actually put the pass to good use, but really, she'd only have to go a couple of times to make the pass worth it. 

As it turns out, she had three good friends who also had season passes and they went several times over the summer. They seemed to really have a great time together. 

And one day, Romney was really sweet and spent the day at Lagoon with Emma, reminding her that she actually did like rollercoasters. They had a ball. I paid for Emma's day - uh, the season pass is completely worth it, just FYI.

Didn't think I'd ever say this, but Lagoon was really good to us this year.

Another Funny Story

My cute brother Peter gave me a belated birthday present this summer. I think he's been planning it for a while - he had to hunt the thing down on ebay and that took a while. Plus he didn't come up to SLC until well after my birthday. But when he did, and presented me with my gift, I was delighted!

What he gave me was an ancient video game called Galaxy II. It's actually kind of a dumb game, but that is not how I felt about it in 1982! Our family owned this game, and Adam and Peter and I all adored it. I don't think Margaret cared in the slightest. But the rest of us? Basically we duked it out over it all the time. I even remember that missionaries lived with us for a while, and they would spend their day off playing as well. So it couldn't have been that dumb.

The way Peter presented me with the gift made for the best surprise. The game, when turned on, emits a jangly little tune that is now a part of my permanent long-term memory. I mean, it's basically lodged in my DNA now. So when Peter came to SLC, we were sitting around, and he went and fetched the game and just held it behind my head and then turned it on. There was not even a millisecond of curiosity. I knew EXACTLY what it was and let out a yelp of joy. We Romney kids do love our items of nostalgia, don't we? 

What's been really fun since then is having it around and showing it to other people. They tend to really get into it too. Witness Romney's friend Cami on the day we went to go see the Barbie movie together. (That's a different story. Movie of the summer, everyone wore pink to go see it, taking photos and raving about it....and I mostly hated it.)

Cami having the full Galaxy II experience

Pre-movie photo shoot, love those cute girls in pink

Adam came in to town, and I have to include the videos of him and and Park playing - just so you can hear the little tune. Adam was also pretty psyched to get his hands back on the game. The excitement doesn't last long because, like I said, there's not much to this little simplified Space Invaders game, but it's sure fun to flip it on and play a few rounds from time to time.

Speaking of Adam, he also gave me a super generous birthday gift. Because I was turning 50, he sent me an email containing 5 $50 gift cards. How nice is that? The first gift card was to my favorite drink stop, Thirst. It made me think that all 5 gift cards were for sodas. Yikes! I mean, I do love stopping at Thirst for drinks, but even I thought that $250 in gift cards there was a little crazy. It made me laugh though. Turns out, only one of the cards was for Thirst. The rest were for a cool little knitting shop on Bainbridge Island. I sure had fun doing some online shopping, picking out enough beautiful yarn to keep me busy for months. 

My sweet brothers. I love them.

Funny Story

Ok so I'm going back in time a little bit on this one - I realized that I really did, after all, want to tell a funny story, even if it might be off-putting to some. This little incident happened in the springtime. It all started with me staring to get uncomfortable with the fact that I am in charge of both of my parents' ashes. Both of them had wanted to donate their remains to the University of Utah Medical School and we were able to make that happen for them when they passed away. In each case, about a year and a half to two years later, our family received delivery of a package of their ashes. They were contained in brown plastic cases, each with a plastic bag inside. 

I know - this doesn't seem like much of a funny story, but hang in there with me. 

So, like I said, I was uncomfortable. It wasn't because I had the ashes in my possession - I didn't mind that at all. But just having them in a drawer in their ugly brown plastic boxes felt wrong. My siblings and I have made plans with what to do with them, which will be to bury them and create a memorial site up in the Uinta Mountains on property that my brother has purchased. However, it's probably going to be quite some time before we make this happen. And in the meantime, I just needed to do something nicer to feel respectful and not negligent. 

Luckily I have a dear dear friend who is a potter, and recently decided to start making urns for just this purpose. They are beautiful, and as soon as I saw them, I knew that having one would ease my mind completely. They are pretty pricey though. So, I asked my friend if he thought that one urn could possibly contain two sets of ashes. He said he was confident that one would be plenty. I have no idea why he might be familiar with the volume of human ashes, but I trusted him and purchased just one urn.

Now, I want you to know that I wanted to go about the transfer of my parents' remains as lovingly and respectfully as possible. I cleaned my home, I waited for a quiet afternoon, and I even said a prayer before I began. 

I know that if I haven't offended or grossed anyone out by now, then now's when it will likely happen. 

So. With great reverence, I opened the brown box and tried to move my mom's ashes into the urn. However, the mouth of the urn was tiny. And there was no way that bag was going to compress down into the opening. So...I got a new bag, placed it in the urn, opened my mom's bag, and tried to neatly and quickly dispense the material into the opening. It went ok. I started to do the same thing with my dad's remains. (Can you even believe I did this? Or that I am telling you the story?) It was then that I got very nervous about the size of the urn. It did not look at ALL like all of the ashes were going to fit in there. Crap! What the heck was I going to do then? I mean, the bag was open, the ashes were pouring in; it wasn't going to be exactly simple to stop in the middle of this.

Then, I had a powerful memory of my dad. Want to know what one of his greatest joys was? It was finding the smallest tupperware container possible to fit leftovers in. If the leftover food fit exactly into a container with no room left over, he felt he had done his job well. Did it mean he sometimes had to really stuff the food in there? Yes, yes it did. He'd tap the container on the counter, compressing everything and working out air bubbles. Troy and I even saw him once slam a tupperware down on the counter hard enough to send mashed potatoes shooting into the air and sticking to the ceiling. That one didn't go so well. But mostly it was one of his greatest talents. 

The light bulb came on. I started tapping the urn, shaking it and settling everything down inside it. I slowly poured the rest of the ashes, jiggling the jar all the while, until the last of it trickled in and came exactly to the rim of the urn. Just enough room to put the lid on. I couldn't help it. As tender and also kind of weird as this was, I also started laughing my head off, thinking of my dad and his tupperware skills. I sure channelled him that day.

Now the urn sits alone in the cupboard of a beautiful antique wash stand that my parents handed down to us. I love it, and it also makes me smile every time I think of it.

Getaway #4, Plus, A Bad Day for Mommy

I have exactly ZERO photos of Emma's next getaway. This time it was Brighton Girls' Camp - once again with her bestie, cousin Cara. We have some before photos:

 

These were taken in the parking lot of the stake center near the mouth of Big Cottonwood Canyon where the busses pick up and drop off all the campers. I had the happiness of bumping into one of my old staff-members, the famous Ookie. So fun to catch up with her and reminisce about the very camp we were sending our daughters off to. 

I had a busy day that day already. Sheri and Cara came up on Sunday, I drove the girls to the camp drop off Monday morning, then Sheri stuck around long enough to be my chaperone later that day for....

duh duh DUN.......

My very first colonoscopy! I am 50, after all. There is also no photo evidence of that event, praise be. Actually there is but I'm keeping my medical file confidential. I only have the before photos of myself as well, after purchasing some very important supplies at the local CVC pharmacy. I look a little more excited than I felt. It was not my favorite day, but it wasn't as bad as I was fearing. 

Sheri picked me up, took me to get food thank heavens, and tucked me in at home before heading back to St. George.

In the meantime, here's what Emma loved best about camp.

Actually repelling down the rock!

Having an awesome counselor, Marit. (Who, just last week, got called to serve in Chase's same mission!)

The Staff in general who was so amazing and kind.

The Brownie hike

The Craft Shack

How they will encourage you to try new things but not force you

I picked up two very tired and happy girls. They wept pretty much the whole bus ride home.

Cara had fancy braids in all week long and finally took them out at our house - quite the kinky-do!

Here is Emma finally bidding goodbye to Cara - she got to stay the weekend with us which we loved. Cara is so sweet and amiable and just pleasant to have around.

And are we done with the getaways yet? Absolutely not! There is one more to come. Emma traveled enough for the whole family this summer.

Updates on Elder Chase

There's not much to say here, except that our cute missionary has now been on his mission for 11 months, approaching 12, and it's totally blowing our minds. How is it possible that he's been gone almost an entire year?

In his first area there were many people who would take pictures of him and text them to me - I seemed to get photos of him at least once a week. His next couple of areas didn't have that same kind vibe but that's ok. He's now in his fourth area. He's had many exciting and challenging moments - like being emergency-transferred to take over being the trainer of a brand-new missionary as well as becoming a District Leader. Not long after that he was emergency-transferred again to his current area which is in Coeur D'alene, Idaho where he is serving as a zone leader. Here we've been sent a few photos again. His bright countenance just fills my whole soul. He looks so happy and light. I know there are tough days and he gets told off by a lot of people. But he's also having some incredible opportunities and experiences. So far I think I'm most grateful that he has had just wonderful companions. They have been fun and funny and energetic and silly and serious all at once. 

 

In just a few weeks Chase will reach his one-year mark. I'm sure time will slip by even faster at that point. Up until now we have been counting up - one month down, two months down, etc. But starting on September 19 we will start counting down. 12 months left! 11 months left! This is his last Christmas away! He'll be home before we know it. Until then, I am hoping for more photos not unlike these.