Spring Broke

As always in our lovely state of Utah, spring has brought sunshine and flowers, snow and rain, blossoms and hail - you know, the usual. There are always ups and downs here; I don't know why I'm ever surprised when we get completely manic weather patterns.  This year it just so happened that as I was looking at the calendar and comparing the dates of our spring break to the weather forecast, it became clear that leaving the valley and heading for warmer climes would be extremely beneficial to our general happiness and well being.

Fessing up: it was actually Sheri who pointed out to me that our weather was going to be extremely sucky.  She recommended that we come visit her.  I wasn't even thinking of going really because it wasn't their spring break, but she talked me into it.  We decided to not tell her girls that we were coming because surprises are the best.  Sheri even decided to let her girls stay home for one day of school so we could be together.  I was really really excited to go.

Before we could start having fun in St. George, we had to actually make it to St. George.  This proved much more challenging than usual - we had snow, sleet, heavy rain and wind in various combinations  for the entire drive down, which ended up taking a good 5 and a half hours instead of the usual four.  I was not sorry to take it slow however, due to the fact that while we we driving we passed multiple wrecks on the side of the road, including more than one roll-over, and we watched cars fishtailing ahead of us and just decided to crawl along in happiness.

Here we are taking a pit stop in Filmore, both to grab grub and de-slush the car

We had been hoping to make it to the valley of the sun before Siena was done at school so she would come home to find us, but that did not happen.  Instead, when we got there we rang the doorbell and Sheri had Siena answer the door. My one regret is that I wasn't filming her when she answered.  The look on her face was awesome.

We proceeded to have an awesome three days.  Actually we didn't do a ton besides go to the park and sit in the sun for absolutely hours on end.  Sunburns all around.  We loved it. Swig, sunburns and shows.  I took all the kids to see the latest Disney Cartoon - Zootopia.  It was really very good and fun to be out with a crew of cousins. Yay for $1 cups of popcorn.

We also spent some very productive time on a face-switching ap and laughed a LOT

The kids were confident that it was warm enough for suits....until they actually got wet.  Then it officially wasn't warm enough

After we returned to Salt Lake we prepared for Easter, which included a trip out to "Oma's Village" on Saturday morning for an egg hunt.  It was basically total and complete chaos, complete with a very brave woman dressed as an Easter Bunny who delighted all the other children and terrified mine. (Mostly Skippidy - I actually can't believe I got her to be in a picture with the dread rabbit.)  Despite the chaos it was a great time and the kids hauled in an absolutely massive amount of candy.  Sadly, about 50% of it was tootsie rolls....the lowest of all candies.  I take that back.  Necco wafers are worse.

In the afternoon the kids had a great time coloring eggs.  I set them free with sharpies and sparkly dye and they came up with some great eggs.  Cap especially had fun creating Marvel-themed eggs such as Iron Man, Hulk and an egg that appeared to have had some bad dealings with Wolverine.  Bitty went for the cuter side with eggs decorated like chicks and toll-paintings.  Skippidy?  Anything shiny made her happy.

Easter baskets are always tricky for me - I don't want to make Easter feel like Christmas, but it's always fun for the kids to get a little something that morning.  I'm sure I over-did it... (who ME?) but so be it.  Bitty got her long-longed-for Ugurt refillable cup and the whole family has made fairly good  use of it ever since.  The gift that keeps on giving?

We spent Easter dinner with Troy's parents and his oldest brother and his wife.  We had a lovely meal together and really enjoyed each others' company.  I love Troy's family. It was a sweet and wonderful way to end our Spring Break...



....and a horrible way to start up back to school since Skippidy spiked an impressive fever in the middle of Easter Dinner.  She stayed home for two days.  Mommy was really ready for a break by the time everyone was all the way better and all the way back to school, by which time I was also sick.

Sigh. She's better now of course....I'm mostly better. But not quite. That was a busy week!

Blossoming

Being a fifth grade girl isn't easy. I know this not only because I was once a fifth grade girl myself, but because I'm currently witnessing the challenges, the ups and downs our fifth grade girl is navigating day by day. I just want to take a moment to give her a little shout out to tell her what a fantastic job she's doing and how much fun it is to watch her grow up a little more each day.

Something that I'm really delighting in is the fact that Bitty has developed a passion for the stage. I think I probably mentioned this before, since she was in last year's school play, but she just absolutely loves acting and being on stage. I'm so happy for her. I hope she continues loving it. Sometimes Bitty's passions have a serious ebb and flow - for so long sewing was really filling her bucket and that has completely petered out, darn it. Well, "petered" isn't quite the word.  More like an instant halt.  Luckily she still is sticking with the cello and she's finding a great deal of joy in drama. Her class recently put on a play all about the Salem witch trials - yes, it was quite frightening! Especially because the play was done more as a silent dance than an actual play. It was super spooky and Skippidy fell apart while watching the school performance, along with several other kindergarteners and 1st graders. I think the teacher got a little bit of back-lash about it but I thought it was an excellent piece of drama. Bitty played the part of one of the young girls who fell ill and I'll just say that she can really flail in a seizure-like way when she wants to. Again...creepy. And Bitty was over the moon about the experience.

She's also getting the chance right now to take part in the official school play - not just her class's annual performance. They are putting on a Charlie Brown play, and she's taken the roll of one of the Lucys. (There are enough kids who want to take part that they have to divide up the rolls between kids.) She practices after school twice a week and those are her best days. She just glows. I'm so grateful and happy that there is something that makes her light up like this. I hope it continues. I know drama was the love of my high school life, and though that may have occasionally brought on the scorn of other students, who cares. I was happy and I had a home base in high school and nothing could have been better for me than that.

Another hobby she's developing is writing poetry.  I was not at all expecting this or did I have any idea that she was interested and then one day she showed up with a few poems she wrote at school and I was very impressed. She even had the chance to share some of her poetry at school where we have a really cool evening called Poetry and Prose night.  Kids (and adults too if they want to) can get up and read poems or stories that they love or that they have written.  Bitty proudly got up to share three of her poems.  I wasn't able to be there but Troy recorded them and she did a great job. May the poetry continue!

I have to tell one funny story - right before Christmas break I loaned Bitty my very favorite hand-knitted mittens and she promised to take very good care of them. She did a good job and brought them home safely so I let her wear them a few more times. Then over Christmas break I wanted to wear them myself and couldn't find them. I kind of got after her, asking her where she had left them, and when school started up again and we couldn't even find them in the lost and found I was pretty disappointed. I promise I really did say this - I told her that I loved her a lot more than I love those mittens and it was going to be okay, but I also told her I might not let her borrow hand-knitted clothing as much, which really bummed her out. Well guess what. The next day I went to my own place of work where I hadn't been since before Christmas break and....there were my mittens! DoH! (Really wanting to insert that red-faced emoji here.) I was so ashamed for getting after Bitty about the mittens! Bad mommy! Bad! The only way I could make it up to her was to make her a pair of her very own. I let her pick out yarn and spent the rest of the winter knitting these rather intricate mittens. It's dumb that it took me until April to finish them but at least I did. And if she loses them I'll kill her. Kidding! Only kidding. I would deserve the punishment of making her more.

Presidential Tradition

I believe it only took one visit to St. George in the middle of February for us to realize that it would be absolutely necessary for us to go there every single year.  Somehow just knowing that a few days in the sunshine and clean air are ahead we are able to survive January and all its depressing smog, darkness, cold and total lack of Christmas.  I can't remember if it's been three or four years in a row now that we have made the trip - it seems to me that one year Peter and Co made the trip up here instead, which seems like a monumentally terrible idea. I think they must have learned their lesson because if I remember correctly that was an especially frozen and iced-over weekend.

This year as we mourned the loss of the holidays (I know they're a lot of work and kind of exhausting but I'm always so sad when they're over) we comforted ourselves by counting down the days to our annual trip south. It's always such a pleasure to drive those last 10 or so miles as the elevation drops precipitously and we can see an expanse of sky ahead.  When we arrive at the Romney's home our kids always immediately take off with their cousins and start playing.  Even Cap is excited to be there, despite the fact that he is the lone teenager, the lone big male cousin - he just heads to the back yard to flip around on the trampoline and look for lizards.

We so enjoyed being outside as much as we could on this trip, including a lovely walkish-hike in the hills - I don't think I've ever been on the same hike twice in St. George.  Sheri always knows some new place to take us and it's always delightful if occasionally slightly scary - see last year's trip to The Vortex.  I'm so impressed though that there's always a new place to explore.

We also took the kids to see the St. George tabernacle, which my great-great-great grandfather, Miles Romney, helped build. (I might be wrong on the number of greats.) He built twin staircases himself and when the prophet Brigham Young told him they were too high and would have to be rebuilt, Miles told him to take a hike (so to speak).  The tabernacle was built around the stairs and you'll notice that after you climb the stairs you have to go back down some more stairs to get to the second story because the Romney stairs are so tall.  That's right, Grandpa Romney, you tell him! My kids were slightly less impressed than I was about this story - but then again, I have a vague memory of seeing these stairs as a child myself, I think even with some of my Romney cousins, and not caring much either. I have hopes that my kids will care someday.

Despite it also being slightly on the chilly side in St. George (which equated to downright balmy for us) we spent some time in the River-Park as we like to call it - I didn't think the kids would want to get wet but by the end they were pretty soaked.

And of course a great deal of time was spent at the school yard around the corner where Cap did some serious lizard hunting, succeeding in capturing four lizards.  One of the lizards in return was pretty successful in capturing Cap, as it clamped its jaws on Cap's finger and really was not interested in letting go. It was funny for a while.  Until it was painful, then it was less funny.

We so appreciate the chance to get away from gloomy SLC every February.  We're a little sad - uncle Peter has been searching for a job for a few months and it's very possible that they might have to leave St. George.  We're hopeful that if this happens we can still find a way to go there together and still get into that February sun.

My girls getting sung to in Primary on Sunday - Hello HELLO!

Iva had a little potty issue at church so I brought her home...bare bum and all

What's awesome is how clearly we are still SLC people - because by about mid-April it's way way too hot to go visit again until about October!!

Cousins ForEVER!!

My Mom's Journey

I think it was all the way last summer, after my family returned from our surprisingly successful trip to San Diego, that we began thinking more earnestly about when it would be time to move my mother into a full-time Alzheimer's care facility.  In July, we thought we might do it that very summer, and immediately began to tour some suggested homes.  My sister and dad and I were the first ones to see the first home, and setting foot inside brought reality into clear focus with a rather painful bump.  Even though we were able to see my dad's exhaustion and frustration in caring for mom, and the thought of a care center seemed inviting and comforting, actually seeing real live people living in a place that was not their own home was a tear-jerking shock. The reality of what we were doing was an unexpected feeling.  Despite that, we kids all felt really great about a couple of the places, and really terrible about several more.  We knew dad would need some time to truly be able to make that decision, and it was a hard few months as we had many many conversations, both all together and in small groups, about our hopes and expectations.

Finally just after Christmas dad was ready to look again at moving mom into a home.  We had found one we really like - amazingly in Taylorsville, which is a pretty different part of the city from where Dad or Margaret or I live.  When we first were on our way to tour it in the fall we all thought it was nuts to pick a place so far away until we got there, whereupon we immediately decided it was the best match for us. When, after Christmas, we called to check on availability of rooms, it just so happened that there were two open. This really tested dad's determination.  I think he had figured on a waiting time of at least a couple of months, and he struggled with feelings of guilt about moving mom.  The kids all really felt great about this though, as we care for our dad's health just as much as we care about our mom's.  It was time.

The process of getting mom moved into the space were rather tricky behind the scenes as the kids tried to support dad in picking out what to bring with mom, how to decorate her room and what furniture to use. There were some mix ups and Peter and I ended up furniture shopping on the very day mom was supposed to move in which was very hectic and my blood pressure still elevates a bit when I think of the stress of that morning. Despite the clamoring to get ready, everything with mom's move itself went extremely well.

I'll mention first one of the most special and sacred moments of my life, which occurred between my father and my brother and myself the afternoon before mom moved in. We were gathered in mom's room, the three of us, and we had decorated it and fixed it up as well as we could. We still all felt rather empty though, and sad deep inside. I felt inspired to mention that we should kneel in prayer in that room, and ask for the room to be dedicated for the special care and keeping of my mom. A very tender and heartfelt prayer was uttered, and I can only say that the feeling in that room changed.  It was sunnier, and we all felt calm and comforted. I'll never forget that moment.

The next day, after dad and Peter and I had scurried around and finally gotten the place put together properly, we headed out.  My sister Margaret was the designated drop-off person, because mom is so calm in her presence and isn't ever ruffled or suspicious. We all felt nervous that mom would be aware that she was being left in a new location but Margaret's skills with mom are very easy and natural.  My skills have definitely improved over the past couple of years but Margaret is really talented.

We have all been so grateful and relieved to see that mom really only experiences the world a minute at a time - she has never really recognized that she has been moved out of her own home and into a new one.  She is getting used to some routines and familiar faces at her new home, but she doesn't see that she hasn't been home in almost two months.  She seems delighted every time she goes into her room - she really loves it there.  She of course has her moments of paranoia and unsettled feelings, but as I have gone to visit her, those moments come and go in a flash.

Dad of course is lonely, but he was lonely for his old Kathryn anyway, and now he's no longer exhausted by her constant care and challenging nights. He sees mom every day, though I hope soon he takes a chance to go on a trip with friends. I see mom almost every week.  The nice thing is that she's just so happy to see me whenever she does see me - she never knows how long it's been since she's seen me. It's just happy. It's starting to feel more like she's happy to see a friendly face smiling at her as I approach - I'm less and less sure she recognizes me.  This could be partly due to the fact that my last few visits have been on very busy days with lots of people there, and this overwhelms her, but I haven't heard her say my name in a few weeks.  That doesn't bother me too much, as I know that that is part of the process.  It's just interesting to think that I will not ever know if, when she does recognize me, it will be the last time.

I'm so grateful we found this lovely facility and that mom is happy there.  I'm so grateful that dad has settled into his new routine and seems much more peaceful and happy, albeit lonely.  But it's so much better than frustrated and exhausted.  I'm proud of him.

This is the sign that was posted on the day of mom's arrival

Here's part of mom's cute little room

Me bringing mom a tasty treat from In-n-Out - chocolate shake!!

Sassy Gal

Turns out we're going to be keeping a record of our family's haircut history here.  And you can hardly blame us - get ready for one darling hair cut coming up. Bitt has had the goal for months now to re-grow her hair down to her waist in order to have many inches to donate to Locks of Love. However, when her little sister got such a cute hair-chop and frankly got plenty of compliments and attention....Bitty thought to reconsider her time line.  And she knew exactly what she wanted.  She kept trying to describe to me what cut she wanted.  "Pretty short, mom." "What, like to your shoulders?" "No, mom, shorter.  Shorter. No, like REALLY short."  And short she went.  It looks so cute and I will tell you, I do not miss making my daughter cry every time it's time to brush her hair. Once again, MANY kudos go to my dear friend Jeannie who is a fantastic hairstylist.

Oh yeah, and Cap got a slick trim too.  Not quite as dramatic, but still an awfully good looker.