Grandma turns 100!!

A couple of months ago (two days after we got back from spring break which is probably why it's taken me so long to post these) I flew to Utah to celebrate my grandma Colleen's 100th birthday!!

I also shamelessly stole a lot of pictures from Rosalind's IG stories. All five of her granddaughters were able to be there so it felt pretty special! 

I'm trying to remember everything we did--I think the first full day I was there we went to lunch and went shopping? (I know those happened just can't remember when, I was pretty tired.)

I also got to meet Ruth's cute new puppy Archie, who was very interested any time I was icing my leg post-run. 

Ruth made this incredible photo book and gave a copy to each of us. 

And I learned how to make a balloon arch! It's very easy when you have other people blowing up the balloons and tying them and all you have to do is stick them on. Follow me for more life hacks. ;-) 

Ruth and I had a fun time doing the flowers together (another of her many talents and fun to learn from her). 

We had a whole bunch of family dinners which were so fun--an awesome Italian night at Elise's new house the first night I got in, then an awesome adult dinner at a yummy Mexican place the second night, then a special celebratory dinner at Ruth's, an even more spectacular brunch the next day, and a really yummy charcuterie spread the last night. Truly delicious and so fun to be with people who enjoy food so much! And it was so amazing to get to spend so much time with my grandma celebrating her life and hearing her stories. 

We also got to go to a special party her assisted living center threw for her, safe to say it was the event of the year and all the residents were SO excited for her!!

I actually did not take very many photos this weekend, so this photo of Dad with Elise's daughters will have to stand in for Elise, who 10000% kept me running this weekend with a steady supply of Swig. (I was just beyond exhausted after spring break!!)

And one good shot of Timp to take us out, I think I took this one morning when I was running. So dang beautiful. 

 

Mary Beth & Julie’s reception weekend

In October (on Mary Beth's birthday weekend!!) we were FINALLY able to gather together to celebrate Mary Beth and Julie's wedding. They were married during the pandemic and we've been waiting over a year for the border to open. It was so great to be together and celebrate as a family (we weren't able to bring our kids, since unvaccinated people couldn't cross the border, and it was about a month before the kids were eligible for vaccination, so our husbands all ended up staying home with the kids and it was just the sisters who went). 

I stole the above 2 photos from Mary Beth's wedding previews which is why they are so much better. But I have some outtakes!!

All five of the sisters together, for the first time since pre-pandemic! 



I'm so glad we took a bunch of phone pics. 



I drove to Detroit on Thursday and picked Elise and Ruth up from the airport, then we all crossed into Canada together, which was an EXPERIENCE thanks to my PCR test that didn't actually process three days previously. (Very short story is that I ended up taking 4 PCR tests in a span of 18 hours and we got to experience how nice Canadian border officials are, which is very.) 




We had a very long day of driving on Thursday and barely made it in time for the amazing Chinese dinner where we met Julie's parents. Then we went back to our hotel and everyone else partied while I collapsed. 



Sidenote: I had soooo many pics from this trip on my phone, but my phone was having all kinds of problems because I had used every bit of memory on saving over 10k photos/videos. So I spent all my free time for one day on deleting photos, which is great because now my phone works normally and I can actually take pictures again, but it also means that I only saved the really key photos, and I lost all the ones of fun little random moments or basically anything that doesn't have people in it. ETA: going back and adding screenshots from Instagram!

Anyway. Friday morning I got up early and ran 11 miles around Toronto, which was beautiful (and surprisingly hilly if you are basically trying to do a run that links all the ravines. My legs were pretty sore afterwards!). I ended my run by meeting my mom at a breakfast place and she had already ordered for me and I had the best ham and cheese croissant/fruit cup and holy cow, wish I could end all my runs that way. 

Then we headed over to this gorgeous nature preserve for photos, then we went to this amazing French restaurant and set up for the reception dinner. The food was so, so, so good and the restaurant was absolutely beautiful (there are lots of pics on my IG and I'll put up a story highlight).

 
It was such a fun night and the food was so extremely very good and I LOVED all the people at my table (huge understatement, they were so fascinating and Mary Beth & Julie had done a masterful job of grouping people by interest...I was so interested in the conversation and eating the insanely amazing food that I kept forgetting that my job was to be the mistress of ceremonies and introduce the toasts between courses. Mary Beth kept texting me and I was ignoring my phone so the poor brides had to come over a couple of times and quietly ask me to do my job. Oops). 

The next day Rosalind and I went for a walk through the nearby cemetary, which was extremely beautiful. I'd run through it the day before so there were a couple of cool spots I wanted to show Rosalind. 



Then once everyone else was up and going, we took the metro to the St. Lawrence Market, which is basically heaven if you're a foodie. 

Julie and her family were doing some sight-seeing elsewhere in Toronto, so it was special to have a day where we were all together as joined families and a day where we were together as birth families. 

My dad, who is perennially prepared for everything, gave us all a whole wad of Canadian cash and we split up and wandered around the market and then kept meeting up outside to eat our findings (no eating indoors thanks to the need to stay masked for Covid. 

Sidenote: Canada is WAY better about Covid precautions than the US). 

Eventually we had so much food that we really had to settle in and just focus on eating, so we walked over to the waterfront and made ourselves a little tent city in the downpour and watched Dad feed an entire log of soprasetta to an enterprising seagull. 

Then we walked over to the Distillery District which I LOVED and took soooo many photos of which are now deleted. 

Dad bought a lock for the love wall and we wrote our names & MB & Julie's initials and then took a bunch of pictures. 

We also basically ate our way through the Distillery District and my favorite part was when Mom and Dad ordered a ton of frites and we sat outside and ate them and reminisced about the last time we'd eaten frites in the rain just the seven of us, which was in Belgium twenty years ago.

After eating and shopping our way through the Distillery District, we went back to the hotel, changed, and went out for the best Indian food. Oh man, SO good. My mouth is watering just thinking about it! Then we stayed up late hanging out in my parents' hotel room and eating all the patisseries Ruth & Dad had been buying all day before getting up the next morning for a traditional Chinese breakfast that Mary Beth and Julie brought to the hotel before we left. So fun to try and hear Ruth and Rosalind remiscencing about their time living in Hong Kong. 

And then we all went our separate ways...such a fun weekend and SO fun to have time with my parents and sisters in a way that we haven't been together in the last twenty years. Love seeing everyone's spouses and kids but it was pretty amazing to just have the original seven together. 

And three cheers for Neil, who was back at home not just dealing with ordinary logistics, but tournament weekend for soccer and cross-country!!!

 

Nathan’s baptism and the end of school

A couple weeks into May, we had a really special day: Nathan's baptism!! 




A day or two before his baptism, we had another round of pandemic restrictions lifted, but we went ahead with our original plan for his baptism (just our family in person + our friend in the bishopbric). We then had a Zoom for everyone else to join; we were so happy that my parents, my sister Elise's family, and many local friends were able to attend virtually! 



Nathan was so sweet and it was a really special experience for us all. My parents gave the talks (via Zoom), Abigail played all the music, Juliet & I gave the prayers, and Luke and Isaac were the witnesses. 


A few days after that, we got to go to the temple with Isaac! (he actually went earlier in the week with Neil & the rest of the young men, but this was the first time that I went with him.) 

We went with our good friends and it was such a neat experience to see all of our kiddos in the temple together--and this was the first week that the temple was open again after the pandemic! 



And then of course we went to grab ice cream downtown afterwards. It was a really special night. 



We held our annual (scaled-down) end of school party for the first time in two years, which felt very celebratory after this year!! Normally we invite everyone we know and have a giant ice cream party; this year we kept it small with just 3 other families and did a cookout. I only grabbed a couple of pictures but here's the dry ice rootbeer & the pre-party decor (I was pretty proud of myself for pulling this together because we left for vacation the next day!). 

We had some really amazing flowers this spring; I think I already put up pictures of the tulips which were AMAZING but the peonies put on a good show too! 

They made an amazing backdrop for our last day of school photo!

A few more last day of school pics...

Cute macarons that my friend brought over--I couldn't get over how darling these were!

Another last-day-of-school tradition returning with the Kona Ice truck coming to our neighborhood...

This was the Sunday before school got out, but I randomly snapped a picture of our weekly Sunday night hangout. Love these people so much!

One day my sweet friend texted about taking the boys & I for a ride (she knows how obsessed they are with cars and they think her BMW convertible is about the greatest thing ever). They were totally in heaven!

My friend & I chaperoned the 8th grade end-of-year celebration--it was such a fun night and the PTO did a great job adapting it for the pandemic! Normally this is an indoor dance but it was SO much fun that I think they might just keep it as a carnival going forward! 

Can hardly believe this year is on to high school!!

And here's Isaac finishing up his first year of middle school with the big coveted Scholar Athlete award...he did such a good job adapting to a crazy year and kept his GPA at the tip-top while doing 2 school sports! Go Isaac!