The Love of a Grandparent...

Growing up, my dad was always the fun, active parent. He would take us hiking, biking, and on daddy-daughter dates, which we all loved. However, he was also the strict and sometimes tempered parent, especially when we messed up his things (which I'm sure happened quite frequently)! Over time, we learned to be extra careful around his most treasured possessions, such as his CD collection, his audio system, his bikes, and perhaps most importantly, his flowerbeds! And as we grew older, we began to understand the value these things had to my dad and why he worked so hard to keep them nice and in order. So, when the first grandson Connor was born, I think we were all shocked that so many of my dad's rules about his things went flying out the window! He has turned into quite the softy for these little grandsons (oh, you know you have Dad!) and they love him just as much in return. I know this firsthand from little Gavin who is constantly talking about Poppy, and always wants to be with him when we are down visiting. The past few weeks have really showed me what a great grandfather our little kids have, and how much he melts for them! :)

Case in Point #1: When Greg and I were on our cruise, my parents kept our kids. Well Gavin loves to play in the dirt, especially with his cars and tractors, which we have discovered firsthand at our house by finding cars buried in our flowerbeds. We really don't care much since we don't have a perfectly manicured yard, but I always thought I'd better watch Gavin at my dad's house since he keeps his yard so nice. Well, based on my childhood and how the only time we were allowed in my dad's flowerbeds was if we were picking rocks, you would imagine my dismay seeing the picture to the left! Sure enough, Gavin played in my dad's flowerbeds with his truck and tractor, and my dad sent me this picture of it. I was a little upset at first thinking that Gavin knows better than that (he has a pretty incriminating look on his face), until I scrolled down under the picture and saw that my dad said he let Gavin do it! Wow, what a change from my childhood! And he didn't even make Gavin pick up rocks! (Just kidding, we actually got paid for that - 1 cent for every 2 rocks! :) Ha ha, but we still weren't allowed to play in them!)

Case in Point #2: Greg went out of town this past week for work, so I went and stayed with my parents while he was gone (I know, I'm a wuss!). When we first got there on Monday, my Dad was outside tuning up his racing bike (for the Logan to Jackson Hole race this weekend - he's crazy!). Gavin ran up and of course wanted to play with his bike, so he started spinning the tires. And what does my Dad do? Once again, he let's him! (Of course, Gavin had to spin it slowly, but I seriously don't think that would have been allowed when I was young!)

And Case in Point #3: This is the greatest one of them all! Within the past month, Gavin has started stuttering a little bit. It doesn't happen all the time, but apparently it was happening enough in nursery that one of the other parents thought they needed to come talk to me about it and recommend speech therapy. I was a little offended at first since it has only been happening for the past month, but then I got thinking that maybe she's right and that I should at least have him tested. So, when I got to my parents house on Monday, I told them what had happened and that I was thinking about having Gavin tested, and you should have seen the look on my Dad's face! I honestly think the last time I saw him so irrate was when the cops caught me out at 1:00 AM after I snuck out of the house (ha ha, bet you didn't know I was such a rebel at 15! But that's a whole other story for a whole other time...)! Anyway, he had some extremely choice words to say about this lady in my ward, and said that she better not do it again because "nobody messes with [his] grandsons!" I think we were all a bit shocked at how mad my dad was about the whole situation! I expected him to say that Gavin was fine, and he would grow out of it, but I never expected in a million years that he would really raise his voice like that and almost start swearing (I think he only watched his wording because the boys were around)! After it was all said and done, I got thinking about how just those 5 minutes showed the love my dad has for these little grandsons; in fact, it may be more than I have for Gavin! (I hope not, but I didn't get that upset over the whole situation!)

Now, I don't want you to think my dad was mean when we were younger and would never have done the things for us that he does for his grandsons, but he was just a bit more strict when we were younger! And now, with a little extra testosterone (something out family was lacking for quite some time), little high pitched voices, and even those stinky diapers, he has turned into a complete softy! And we love it!!! Keep it up, Dad! Until next time! -Ash

Eight Days Later (and Probably Ten Pounds Heavier)... We Are Back!

Well, our cruise has come and gone! It's so sad! Typically, we take our family vacation in May or June, but this year it wasn't until August, and it was so hard to wait. And now, it's over in what seems like a blink of an eye! What a crock! But we had SUCH a good time! I could probably write a 10 page blog about this, but I will try to keep it short!

We left from Seattle on Saturday, the 11th, and we were all EXTREMELY exhausted by the time we got on the boat. We spent Friday night at Greg's parents and left their house at 4:00 AM to get to the airport in Boise (which means I woke up at 2:30! Ahh! How do you do it, Linz?). But after a lovely emergency drill and getting unpacked, we found our second wind and went and explored the boat. It was so awesome! There were 10 restaurants, probably 10 bars/lounges too (which we actually loved, but only because they had great live entertainment!), a casino, a performance theater, a movie theater, a game room, a reading room, a library, 3 pools and hot tubs, a snack bar, an ice cream bar, stores, and so much more! It just blew me away that they could fit so much on a boat. And the food... wow! I could talk about the food for so long that it would probably need a new entry! It was just so yummy. Every nice restaurant you went to served 5-course meals and the service was absolutely incredible. I was treated like a queen! So, the rest of the day Saturday, as well as Sunday, we just explored the boat, took naps, and relaxed since we were at sea.

On Monday, we stopped in Ketchikan, Alaska, and it was so beautiful! It's amazing just how many trees there are in Alaska! Most of Greg's family went to a logging show, but we were cheap and just walked around the town and looked at the tourist shops and areas. They have a neat historical street there named Creek Street with an old whore house (but you had to pay to get in! Darn!) and just a bunch of shops, which were really cool.

On Tuesday, we stopped in Juneau and went up to see the Mendenhall Glacier. It was so gorgeous! It's so amazing that the water can turn blue like that. On our little hike up to the glacier, we even saw a little black bear! It was about 25 feet away from us and was eating a salmon - you could actually hear the bones crunching, it was bad! I tried to get a picture but there were too many trees blocking it so you will have to take my word for it! We also went up to the Visitors Center and were put on a lovely guilt trip about how the glacier is melting at "ASTRONOMICAL RATES!" (the tour guide was about screaming it) because of human activity. It was so lovely! But besides that, it was awesome. Once we got back on the ship, we went up to see Sawyer Glacier and that was really pretty too.

On Wednesday, we stopped in Skagway, Alaska. Kristin's boyfriend Dan served his mission in Alaska and is always talking about this place, and we now see why. It was absolutely gorgeous! In fact, Greg wants to move there now (Ha ha, yeah right... I told him he can move up with Dan, but not me! The population is only 800!). They had a really neat, old main street that was really cool. It was just full of old buildings converted into stores for about 8 blocks. So we shopped through those in the morning, and took the Skagway train that afternoon. It's a train that takes you up through the mountains, all the way into Canada and it was absolutely amazing. I wish my pictures even did it justice! (They are quite blurry since we were going so fast.) It took about 4 hours total but was so worth it in the end.

On Thursday, we were at sea most of the day and went to Prince Rupert, British Columbia that night. And wow, what an absolute waste of a stop! It was a pretty place, but there was absolutely nothing to do. In fact, it was almost as boring as Rupert, Idaho! (Don't tell Greg I said that.) Greg's dad thinks the only reason they stopped there is so they could call it an international cruise and then get an international staff. But still, we could have stopped in Vancouver or Victoria! It was just very interesting, to say the least. But there was one good part to it - we found a fire truck that looks just like "Red" off of Cars, which Gavin thought was pretty cool, of course.

We spent Friday at sea and boy, was it rough! There were so many sick people on the ship, including myself and all of my sisters-in-law. While we were all sad that the cruise was almost over, we were also glad at the same time since we felt so awful! Thank heavens for Jenny's medication that we all took! :) (The waves were so bad that our ship actually had to go to a fishing boat that was in distress.) So we just took it easy that day, relaxed a lot, and ate a yummy steak dinner that night.

We got into port early Saturday morning and made our way to the airport for a long day of traveling. We finally picked the kids up from my parents at 10:00 that night in Salt Lake and it was so good to see them! It was so nice to feel missed! :) And again, thank you, thank you, thank you to my fabulous parents for watching them (and my sisters too, it was definitely a family effort)! Overall, we had such a great time and I would HIGHLY recommend an Alaskan Cruise to all of you! (But you need to go on Norweigan Cruise Lines because you can eat whenever you want and wear whatever you want for the most part. It was so relaxed!) I posted more pictures at http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=6l4siiau.adqi3046&x=0&y=4yecea if you are interested. Until next time! -Ash

Busy, Busy, Busy!

Yes... I know I haven't written in 2 weeks! And the funny thing is that I have had plenty of stuff to write about, just no time! Usually it's the opposite. Life has just been so busy between Greg finishing up school last week (and me helping him study) and us getting ready to leave on vacation tomorrow. But I thought before we leave for a week, I'd better write something so I don't have a 3 week gap. So here goes a really quick, short blog! :)

As I said, Greg finished up school last week and I honestly couldn't be more proud of him. He hates school, as we all know, and most of that is because he just doesn't have confidence that he is a smart person and can do well in school. Well, all I have to say is that this past semester should have proven him wrong because he did SO well! He got an A in Geology (and if you've ever taken geology, you know how hard that material is), an A- in Political Science, and either an A- or B+ in Math 1030. Anyway, I'm just really proud of him and am extremely grateful that he's willing to sacrifice so much time (albeit there is a lot of moaning and groaning in that time!) to finish up school for us.

As for me, well I have just been a complete nutcase between the past two weeks with everything going on, but at least I got to do one fun, sane thing! And that was spend a weekend with my mom and sisters. We went to Mamma Mia at the Capitol Theatre on Friday night, stayed overnight at the Salt Lake Marriott, and then shopped on Saturday! We had a really great time. Unfortunately, I really don't have time to write about it but Linz covered it well on her blog, so if you're interested and want to see pictures, check her's out!

Well, that's all for now! We're off on a cruise to Alaska! Yay! And a million thank you's to my parents for watching the boys while we are gone (and Linz who will help)! :) -Ash