Road trip

Fitz is happy to be going on the road!


Last weekend we took to the road and made a wild and crazy loop around the western states!! We left Thursday morning and headed down to Provo to see the kids. We left here at 10:20 in the morning (9:30 was our target time, so we didn't do too badly!) and arrived in Provo around 9:00.

The first item of business was stopping by Hilary's apartment to check it out and meet her roommates. What a fun time! Hilary's roommates are adorable and they are all very cute together! It was fun to meet them and to see how much they enjoy each other! We took Hilary with us and headed to Emily's house.

The kids had been put to bed, but Esther came out when she heard us and we just had to go see if Eve and Isaac were awake. (Em said that they told the kids they would wake them up when we got there.) Eve woke up when she heard us, but Isaac was in such a deep sleep that even when I sat him up, he was still so out of it! It was pretty cute. Levi met us at Emily's and we had fun catching up on what everyone was up to before Levi left with Hilary and Luke. Luke was very excited to be staying with Levi at his apartment.

Friday morning was a flurry of fun with the kids and a trip to Levi's apartment to check it out and to collect Levi and his car so that Scott could figure out what's wrong with it. Levi's apartment is snuggled right up to the mountain and it is really nice. We met his roommate, Scott, who is actually from the Tri-Cities. His brother is in one of Luke's classes and his mother is Luke's Seminary teacher. Small world indeed!

Scott and Levi fixed Levi's car and then it was time to head north to meet Scott's brother, Bill, for lunch. Sadly, Emily and the kids couldn't come with us as Esther had been so cranky from being up so late that she had to be put down for a nap, but Levi and Hilary joined us and we met Bill and his son, Connor, for lunch.

After lunch, we headed into Sandy to meet Ben. Unfortunately, Ben missed his train and had to wait longer for another one and so we chilled outside his apartment for an hour or so. It wasn't too bad. I took a nap, Luke watched a movie and Scott took Fitzwilliam for a walk around the neighborhood. I am not sure what Ben's neighbors thought of us, but the police didn't stop by to check us out, so I guess they figured we were harmless.

Ben fixed us a yummy dinner of Alaska halibut and Sarah made blueberry pie! It was very tasty and it was fun to hang with them for awhile. We had to get going though as Scott's parents were expecting us and we knew they would be waiting up for us! They were, with hot rolls and soup simmering on the stove!

We stayed the night with Mom and Dad Ekstrom and then we headed up to Idaho Falls to the Temple Saturday morning. We planned to stop by and visit Smokie, but it was snowing pretty hard in McCammon and Scott was afraid that the roads would be bad so we headed on up to IF. We were an hour early and when we got to JoAnn's to leave the boys (Luke and Fitz.) it seemed that no one was home. Of course, I let myself in and we made ourselves at home. A call to Jo at work told me that Kynwynn was home and sure enough a few minutes later, she came up the stairs with my little grandniece, Jordan. We visited with her and snuggled Jordan and soon headed to the Temple.

Karen's daughter, Angelina, was going through for the 1st time and Scott had not told Karen that we were coming so it was pretty fun to see the surprise on she and Angelina's faces when we walked in. It was an awesome experience as Mom and Dad were officiating and Scott and I were the witness couple. That was a once in a lifetime experience!

After chinese food with the family, we visited at Jo's and picked up Fitz and Luke and headed to Island Park. Of course we HAD to stop and visit Paul at the store and then Lora and the boys at the house on our way! Mom and Dad were excited to see us and it was fun to visit with them. We stayed the night and left first thing Sunday morning to head to Spokane.

Aaron was the speaker at a Stake fireside that night and we promised him we would be there. We made it to Spokane around 4:30 so we were there in plenty of time to get to the fireside. Aaron did an awesome job. He spoke of his experiences with returning to Slovakia to help with the petition to get the church recognized a couple of years ago. It is an amazing story and I was excited to hear it as we were living in AK then and weren't able to come hear the whole story before.

We headed home after the fireside and arrived there around 11:30. It was good to sleep in our own bed after so many nights on the road!

The road trip was kind of grueling, but we feel so blessed to live close enough to be able to participate in family functions and to visit the kids from time to time!