Four Showers and 53 Pictures (Including Some of Brittany's Worst!)

What a week!  Well, Brittany the party planner was in town ... thus!

 On Monday, our first day back in town I met up with Spencer to pick up wedding announcements which I then addressed and mailed.  Of course I stopped at DI while in Provo and found this beauty!  I hoped Emily would like it ... and she did!! Happy Me! I visited at her house and watched Enchanted with poor sick Beckie, shown below ... a favorite of hers as well!  Emily, recently delivered of a son, insisted on making me a delicious lunch ... gotta love that woman, eh?

On Tuesday I relaxed at  home, somewhere, sort of, just north of a coma.  Emily came by for a visit .... loved that her and Beckie's outfits matched and had to snap a pic!

Wednesday morning Dad and I met in Mapleton for the funeral of his adorable uncle Kent.  Kent was married to Grandma Connie's youngest sister Glenna.  They were the most friendly of all Dad's relatives on the Warren side, when we first met.  Glenna insisted on having Uncle Kent repair and paint an old child's cupboard for use by Belinda and Brittany, when they were little.  Aunt Glenna died 20 years ago of complications of childhood diabetes, just like her mother, LaRie, had.

 

Kent used to carry a romance novel in his pocket, often.  I sort of think that knowing that, and admiring his Uncle Kent, is part of why Dad decided one could be manly and read romances ... so sorry to see him go, such a great, warm and wonderful man.

Then after a half day at work I got to run up to Maui Chill in Highland (OK, technically Lehi ...) for Trina's baby shower and going away party.  Here I am with Robin, Barb's mom; Bettilou, Barb and Trina. 

Here Trina holds Robin's Gift ... Robin is continuing the mustache theme evidently!  Love it!!

Afterwards I picked up Grandpa from Becca's, who had watched him all day, and for the evening too.  Note his beard ... (Oh and Titan's hat, can I just say he loves hats?  He tried to add a baseball cap today, in his suit, on our way to the baby blessing!)

I worked a full day on Thursday, and spent all my free time making a banner for Spencer/Brittney's shower/wedding.  Afterwards I stopped by Macey's for refreshments for book club, which I had forgotten I was hosting (Thank Heaven for Emily's text!!)  Dad hurried and vacuumed the parlor while I hurried and made dinner for him, Grandpa and Cheryl to eat in the family room just as the book club ladies (three of them, Ginny, and two others are shown above) arrived!! YIKES!

After book club Dad tucked grandpa into bed, and we left Aunt Cheryl with Emily's new cell number ... just in case and headed to Salt Lake for Mike's birthday celebration!!  Here I am shown (sorry about the blurr) with Mike's mom Edi, one of my absolutely favorite people!!

Here are two of my girls and two of their friends ... to the right is the Birthday man himself, Mike, with his friend Cal, another person I admire. (He teaches third grade, which he can only afford to do because his wife is a Rocket Scientist!!  Really awesome people!)

 

Happy Birthday Mike!!

Lets just say Friday was very interesting ... did you know it was National Grilled Cheese day?  So of course we had grilled cheese for lunch, always a favorite for Cheryl and me. 

Oh, and I made one for the tow truck driver as well!  I was supposed to spend the day in Salt Lake at three amazing estate sales, Crate and Barrel, buying something amazing off Spencer and Brittney's registry and at Trader Joe's buying artisan breads, cheese and spreads for the wedding shower the next day ... alas, "the van no go!!"

 

I walked to Emily's to see if I could borrow her car ... nope headed to the doctor's, not to get Liam castrated, but to get him circumcised ... (sorry about the inside joke).  Fortunately when her wonderful father-in-law Steve took me home and tried to get the van started, he mentioned having AAA come to tow it, and offered his card.  Duh, I have a card, and I have yet to use it (issued last August) ... Joel had the van outfitted with a new starter by 6:00  P.M. (we are so blessed to have such an honest and caring mechanic!)

 

I am also blessed that both Becca and Britt offered to pick up my shower gift, and Britt almost insisted she should choose the breads etc for the shower.  It left me with an unexpected leisurely day, to walk up to Lucky's Barbershop/Antique store and get grandpa a shave (seriously, who knew?) ... I spent three times more money on antiques than Grandpa spent on his much needed shave. 

 Oh and I wanted to show you Emily's amazing in-laws who have been here taking care of her, while her good for nothing parents were cruising and then when her fun loving husband was chowing down on $100 a plate meals, while wearing a tux in Las Vegas ... on what he refers to as a business trip .... am I in the wrong business?

 Brittany came down and dropped off her boys with Dad, then picked up Emily and me for our dinner/movie/baby shower for Emily.  Here we are at the end of dinner at La Dulce Vita.  Spencer had come by to pick up Brittney, who is in the midst of finals and couldn't pull off the movie with us.  Actually, lucky Brittney ...

Here are this year's version of the Perkins triplets ... pretty fun to see them all together.

... and here are four of the girls, after midnight at the theater .... Nell headed out before I had a chance to group them all!  It was hard work for them all to smile after seeing what is probably the worst book adaptation I have ever seen ... (of Stephanie Meyer's excellent book, The Host)  it even gave me nightmares that lasted all night! Yawn!

Surprisingly, Brittany still had the sass and energy to meet up with Davin and Dad the next morning for a 5K commemorating the Pony Express!!

 No those are not Britt's shoes, she doesn't have hairy legs.

Here she is at the end of the race ... despite her injured ankle, which she had thought would end her hopes of doing the race at all!!  (Shown with her friend) Yeah Britt (I did warn you about the worst pictures ... right?)

 

Brittany finished up the race in time to grab a quick shower and race to another shower .... the one for Brittney at Becca's house!  Note the banner that took the better part of the day on Thursday for me.

Becca and I hosted the shower, and Becca made up the cute water bottles.  I do have to give Emily credit for suggesting the menu!  I loved it, and even better, so did Brittney!! Below she is shown with her Grandmother Pat and Aunt Linda.

Here are some shots of my girls.

 And my sister's-in-law and nieces!

 Above Kim and her daughter, Natalie, share Adilyn, while Jill tries on her 'new mom' with Charlotte.  (Jill is expecting her 5th baby on May 8th, the first possible day that Mother's Day can occur ... and yes, its a girl!)

I got my fair share of baby holding as well!!  So fun to have so many grand babies at the shower, though Reagan spent most of the shower napping in her own bed ... guess the daughter of the hostess gets some perks!  She is shown below with her darling Aunt Darby.

 

When I got home from the shower, Dad and I combined our skills and got Grandpa a shower of his own, making it four shower celebrations for the week.  Becca had been unable to get him in the shower the last time, even though she is a pro ... dear Grandpa is so confused by showers, its the worst part for him and us.  But we tucked him in that night, all neat and clean and dry!

Sunday morning came bright and early for Dad, as he was off to High Counsel meeting!  I got Grandpa ready, in his suit for the first time in a couple of months and we were off to the old green chapel ... which is now where Emily et al attend ...  Above we see Davin and his friend David ... best friends and chums all through high school.  David now attends this ward with his wife, who is expecting this summer.  It was so fun to see him, and we found out that David has grown since high school and is now 6 foot 3 3/4 inches ... So funny, because Davin is 6 ft 3 3/4 inches!

After the shower it was off to the Payson cottage for food and family fun.

 

 

Is there anything cuter than a thumb sucker?      We missed visiting with Brittney as she had to run off to conduct Relief Society in her student ward.  Thankfully with the Showers Thursday and Saturday, we can't really complain.

 

 

 Sam's bird was the main attraction for the grands ...

Oh and another great shot of Britt as she photo bombs my pic with Adilyn!

 But then, on the other hand, she does have a super cool son ...

 Grandpa and Charlotte.

 Here is Liam in his adorable blessing suit ... Sam did a wonderful job with the blessing and we are so thrilled to celebrate their growing family with them!

 

After the social at Emily and Sam's Brittany and her children came to the house to visit with Aunt Cheryl.  The boys had not seen the garden house completed and wanted to check it out.  Grandpa took them out and let them have the experience.

So that is our over picturefied week .... if you had time to look at all the photos, thanks for sharing our lives .... if you read it all, you are amazing and we LOVE you!! Thanks for caring about us!

Glorified Cruising with the Homokins!

Well, here is our week, told in hard cold numbers ...  The Cruise ship carried about 3,000 passengers, of whom 1200 were under 18 due to the fact that it was spring break in many places and the fact that it included a kid's holiday, Easter.  This meant lots of kids wandering the ship, and the fact that all the icecream cones usually used on board were gone by Wednesday!

 

Just a numerical side note.  The Glory cost 500 Million dollars!! (2003)

 

There were 8 of us on this Cruise to the Caribbean, on the Carnival Glory.

 (Above: Jeff, Robin, Scott, Paula, Barb and Randy ... to the right are additional group members, Jake and Ryan.)

Here we see 2 members of our cruise party doing their best imitations of a poodle and a lab.  This is because we talked a lot about personality theories, and Robin has 1 that has all people falling into 1 of these 2 categories.  (Robin actually characterizes herself as a Lab and Jeff as  poodle, but they imitate the opposite here.)

 

As always, when we spend much time together, we play games, in this case we mainly played 3 games:

 Hand and Foot, The Great Dalmoody (A form of King, Queen, Peasants, Peons that Ryan likes) and Phase 10.

Robin brought along 2 mustaches for fun pics of Ryan and Jake who are celebrating their high school graduation!

 

For those of you who don't know, it was sort of a reunion trip, as 18 year ago, the 6 of us went to Hawaii for a week, and when we headed home, both Barb and Robin carried special souvenirs.

The 8 of us had dinner all 6 nights at this table in the Platinum dining room.  Our head waiter was a very fun loving woman from Romania.

 

Shown above are the 3 party woman at 'tea' ... I got a slice of the chocolate cake shown here with a hug chocolate chard included .... yum. It was 1 of the few times we really got to chat with strangers.

 

Barb met these 2 nice people, and Robin an I chatted with another 2 across the table from us, a mother and daughter from Michigan.

Dad loved the towel origami by our steward.  We came home every night to something different, for a total of 6 different animals.

 

When Jeff and Robin and the boys were otherwise occupied the remaining 4 of us did a tour of the ship and found the adult only serenity deck ... loved the hammocks and later the 4 of us came back for a private hot tub moment!

1 evening when Barb, Randy and Ryan had turned in early, the other 5 of us spent the evening in the karaoke lounge, where Jake sang, backed up by a live band of 4! (Weirdly, one of the electric guitar players look sort of a like a farmer, maybe it was Toppenish Tom?!)

Here are 2 more card playing pics ...  Hand and foot this time ... Jake is shown to the right counting points at the end of a hand, he was my partner and we should have won!

 

As for shore excursions, we took 3!  We sailed on the first one, off  Cozumel, Mexico, then snorkled on the other two, once from shore in Roatan, Honduras, and once from a boat we chartered on Grand Camen for a " 3 hour tour, a 3 hour tour"!  I will be getting pictures from Barb and Robin who both had waterproof cameras of those events.  

Above I am shown here getting my hair corn rowed into 29 rows, which, due to my gray roots, looked awful ... and it took me 30 minutes to take it out that night .... but it was nice to be able to add a bit to the local economy!

This picture was taken on board when we stopped at Grand Camen and did some snorkling.  We had made plans to charter a small boat ... which broke down the day before, so we ended up with a double decker boat that fits 50, all to ourselves.

 

After docking at the end of our cruise, we took a 4 hour tour through the everglades ... it was very interesting!!  The tour bus dropped us at the airport, which was extra nice!

 

Dad and I spent 3 hours reading at the airport, which reminds me that Dad read 3 and a 1/2 books on this vacation, and I read only

2 and a 1/2.

 

2 flights and the rest of the day saw us landing in SLC, where we walked to the gate where the Moes et al would soon be landing.  Matt Heuer came and picked up all 8 of us, and took us to Highland where we picked up our car.  We got home at 2:00 A.M.   with about a Million new and fun memories!