Thursday: Day 6 (10/23/14) Beach Bums

Ahh, a beach day. As much fun as it is to go to all the Amusement Parks, we really enjoy the beach. What's not to love though? I get to relax on my beach towel and watch the boys play. It's the greatest thing. A beach provides them with so much to do and it's FREE!

Jesse is always so great to play with the boys. He was attempting to build a castle with the boys in this picture, but I think it ended up being a row of bucketed sand (I think I just made up that word, but I'm going to go with it).

These two boys never stopped moving. They were always busy doing something. Digging, running or playing in the waves. They were in hog heaven with hours and hours of entertainment.  What is it about kids and sand that makes this happen?

As the sun was starting to set, we decided to go on a little walk down the beach before we went in for dinner.

We walked past the pier and I thought it was really cool being underneath it with the glare of the sun in the background.

The boys were always on the search for sea shells. Especially since the tide was low, you could see a lot of washed up shells. While searching we were able to find a tiny sand crab.  The two of them were thrilled. Almost to the point that they were arguing over the little crab. I had to remind them to share and be gentle. When Cy got his turn, the crab crawled up Cy's arm and seemed to be hiding behind his ear. Cy was laughing at first, but after a little while his giggle turned into a "I-want-it-off-me" whine.

As the sun was starting to disappear I had Heidi take this picture of our family. I love how it turned out. I didn't even have to put a filter on it to enhance it. I love ocean sunsets. There is something about them that are peaceful and calming.

I am so blessed with such a great family. Honestly Jesse is dang near perfect as a husband, father and  person. I love him dearly. And I truly feel like I would fall apart of I didn't have him in my life. He keeps me and my life just calm and even kill.

Then there is Ryker and Cy. I feel that I have learned what true happiness is from them. Being their mother has helped me grow in ways that I never could have imagined.

At the end of the day it's these people that matter the most to me. I love and cherish them dearly.

Wednesday: Day 5 (10/22/14) Sea World

Recently a documentary came out about Sea World and all it's secrets and how horrible the animals are treated in captivity. Yes I agree that Orca's really shouldn't be in captivity because they are such a large mammal that is so used to a much bigger environment, and the tanks are just not big enough for them. But despite all of that it is a really fun place to take the boys.

As we were walking up to pay for tickets (which by the way I was really excited that kids were free for the month of October), Ryker was acting so excited I thought he was going to cry. I even asked him if he was crying.

About a year and a half ago Heidi, Uncle Christian, Aunt Mel, Sarah and myself came with the boys here. And since then Sea World had remodeld the entrance of the park.

They now have these touch tanks that have Bamboo Sharks in one....

...and these little fish that eat the dead skin off of your hands. Right off the bat the boys were in heaven. Especially with the sharks.

They both really like sharks, so the first stop we had to make was to the Shark Encounter.

This was probably one of my favorites. I love Sea Turtles so much and to see them like this is pretty cool. Granted in the wild it's far cooler, but this takes a very close second. I find the turtles so fascinating. And of course so do the boys. Their 2 favorites are sharks and turtles. So of course those two exhibits were a must see first for them.

Another place that we spent most of our day was at the Bat Ray pool.  I remember last time we were here Ryker was extremely nervous to touch the rays, where Cy wasn't. But this time both of them were really brave and eager to touch them. It's really cool to see their excitement when they would touch one. Then they got really brave and wanted to feed them. So we bought 4 dinky pieces of fish for $5 (seriously?) and fed the rays.

Right by the Ray Pool is a roller coaster ride. So Jesse and I took Ryker on it, while Heidi stay behind at the bat pool with Cy. The line to the roller coaster ride was non-existent, we were able to just walk right on. Ryker BARELY hit the height mark to be able to ride. But hey, he was tall enough and that's pretty cool. I was excited that he was able to ride. He chose to ride with Jesse and I sat behind them. It had been a long time since I had been on a roller coaster ride and I used to be all for the crazy fast ones and it never affected me. This coaster was pretty fast and I could tell I would be sick if I did it too many times. Jesse got off and was feeling worse than I was. Haha, I guess that's what happens as you get older. Kinda lame.

When we finished the ride we noticed that the line was still gone, so we asked if we could go again, and they let us. I had to talk Jesse into going again. He was a good sport and came anyway. Ryker rode with me this time and it was fun to hear him giggling the whole time.

We get back to the bat pool and find Mom and Cyrus, and then we realize that the Shamu Show was starting in 5 minutes. So we rush over there. It was probably really funny to see us running around trying to figure out which way the Shamu Stadium was located. One of us would say "Oh it's this way", and we would run 30 feet and realize it was the other direction. Haha. What a bunch a goofs.

Cy and I were ahead of Jesse, Mom and Ryker. We got to the stadium and we see that it's really full. Which is what I expected since we were late. I had a hold of Cyrus' hand scanning the stadium for a good place for us to sit. When everyone else caught up with us I let go of Cy's hand thinking he would follow behind Jesse to go sit down. We all sit down and I realize that Cyrus is not with us. Panic. We are amongst hundreds of people and Cy is going to be hard to spot. He could have gone in any direction, I was feeling totally lost as to which direction I should start looking.

Mom finds a Sea World worker to tell them we can't find our little boy. We give them a description of his clothing and his age and he then got on his radio to tell the other workers.

While mom and I are looking throughout the Stadium, Jesse had told Ryker to stay in his seat while he came to help. He decided to go outside of the stadium the way that we came in. After about 2 or 3 minutes of searching, I see Jesse across the stadium carrying Cyrus. What relief. We told the S.W. workers that he was found.  Thank Goodness. I told Cy how scared he made me, and I could tell that he himself was scared.

Then the show started. I couldn't help but hold Cyrus tight in my lap feeling grateful that he was found. I know it was only 2 minutes or so, but it felt too long.

Not to be a downer, but the Shamu Show was pretty lame. In the past they do so many flips and give a great show, but this time they just swam around the tank and splashed everybody. The coolest thing we saw them do was jump up straight in the air. I think there was maybe one of the Orcas that did do a flip or two, but nothing like the shows used to be.

Because we were so late getting seats the only ones available were in the "Splash Zone". Well we definitely got splashed. We were all soaked. Which I guess was nice because it was a hot day. The boys thought it was pretty funny.

We headed over to the Arctic Section of Sea world. And by this point, the boys were loving having soaking wet shirts on. So.... we let them go shirtless. Not sure if that's ethical or not, but we went with it.

The Beluga whales were really cool to watch. Except they kept the place so cold. I guess they need it to feel like how it would be in the wild. But we weren't enjoying it because we were wet.

There was a new section that they had made specifically for little kids with a bunch of kiddy rides. Jesse and I each took a turn going with the boys. Ryker was big enough to ride alone, but Cy wasn't. Then we went on one all together that was suppose to be a spinning one, but we didn't really want to spin. When Ryker found out we weren't going to spin, so before the ride started he wanted to go in his own. Before he got out I asked the ride attendant to take our picture.

Cyrus must have had extra weight in his head on this day because he tripped several times. The last time he hit his lip just right on the concrete and resulted in a big fat lip.

That didn't stop him though. He just kept on going.

I guess in October the Park closes a lot sooner. So by 5:00 we had to leave. Just before it was time to go we made one last stop a the tide pools to see the starfish.

After we left the park we all went to dinner. The sun was almost down so it was feeling a little chilly and with our shirts being a little damp. When we went into Chili's we asked for the warmest part of the restaurant. Haha. Thankfully that worked. We weren't too cold in the restaurant.

What a fun day!

Tuesday: Day 4 (10/21/11) San Diego Zoo

You can't be in San Diego and not go to one of the best Zoos around. San Diego Zoo is just HUGE. It puts our Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City to shame. I admit I get a little bored at Zoos, but this was actually a really fun day. They have so many animals there, it's amazing that they can take care of them all. I was fascinated by the Koala Bears. It brought back those childhood memories of wanting to hold one so bad. They just look so cute and cuddly.

The boys of course were looking forward to going to the Zoo. They both are at a great age for this. And really the reason we go to the zoo is for the kids right? We live through their enthusiasm and excitement.

I think I dare say that this was one of our favorite stops. This Gorilla was really funny. She seemed to know it and put on a show for everybody watching her. Jesse made me laugh because he turned on the selfie camera on his phone and put it right up to the glass for the Gorilla to look at herself. And she totally did. It was funny.

Kind of a fun picture of our whole gang. They had things set up like this all over the park. Ones with the Pandas, another by the Giraffes. And of course they pressure you into taking a picture so you'll wanna go buy them. But funny thing is they were totally willing to take a picture with our own cameras. Which didn't make sense to me that they'd do that because then I didn't care to go buy the ones they took. Not that I really would have bought them either way. It's just that if I were a person who usually buys something like that, I would become reluctant to buy theirs when they took one with my camera. Just thought it was nice of them to do that for us.

We miraculously made it through the entire park in one day. Some say it isn't possible. But we did it. And we could feel it. Heidi bets we walked about 10 miles. And it's not all flat either. The park/zoo is in the shape of a bowl. So when you are in the middle and want to see the stuff on the outskirts, you gotta trek out of there. It's quite the workout. I was feeling tired by the end of the day...so I can't imagine how tired the boys were. It would have been cool to wear my GPS watch all day just to track our walking distance. Next time I'll know.

We thought it would be best if we saved the Kids-Land near the end of the day. We knew if we didn't wait until the end, then we would have been stuck there the remainder of our time there.

They have a section where these cute goats and sheep are just wandering around and you can pet them and play with them. Imagine the state of joy these boys were in because they could actually pet these animals. It was really fun for me to watch them interact with the goats.

Especially Cy. I ABSOLUTELY love this picture of him. It speaks louder than any words I could write. All the joy and exctitement is written all over his face.

By the time we left the zoo we were all tired and hungry. I googled searched for a good and fresh Mexican restaurant and found one down town San Diego. It got great reviews online but when we pulled up we started to question it. The outside wasn't too promising, but we braved it. And I am glad we did. It was really good and the portions were huge. I could barely get through a third of my Chicken Fajitas.

We made it back to the condo and we had a little bit of time relaxing before we needed to send the boys to bed. The boys loved having Grandma around. And what better way to relax than to relax in Grandma's arms. 

Monday: Day 3 (10/20/11)

Monday was the day that Heidi was flying in to come join us for the week. We were all excited to see her. Her flight came in around 10:00am, so that morning we just had a relaxing breakfast. And while we were eating Jesse noticed there were dolphins just off shore. So we all run to the patio to get a better look. I was like Ryker, all giddy and excited to see them right from our condo. Pretty cool.

 

After we picked her up we went to the grocery store to pick up some food and snacks. We were also on the hunt for sand toys. You'd think because San Diego is warm all year round, and the beach is right there that they would carry sand toys all year round in the stores. Nope. We searched Walmart and Target and a few other stores and they all told us that rightkjjpulled the jmnbnnknm,n mnbsummnmbmnbmnbmkjhkjher toys" from the shelves to bring in the winter merchandise. I thought that was only a Utah thing. Haha who knew right? I did find some plastic rakes, hoes and shovels that were more gardening toys and Halloween candy buckets that we still made work.

 

We finished all our running around and we took all our goodies back to the condo and then headed off to our Whale Watching tour. I had a client tell me to search on Groupon for a whale watching tour and I was able to find one 50% off one. Woot. So we decided to go. Even though it's kinda in between seasons we were hopeful to still see something.

 

The tour started at 1:00 and went until 4:00. We were suppose to be there 30 minutes prior to leaving. When we arrived there weren't too many people, which made me happy because then the boat wouldn't be too crowded.

 

Ryker is really into Marine life right now, so he was really excited to go on this whale watching tour. 

 

At the beginning we were all eager to see something. Scanning the ocean for some possible movement. An hour went by...nothing. But that's ok we can't be too picky we still had 2 more hours of possibility. But another hour goes by without any sign of marine life. We did see a few flying fish by the boat, but no dolphins or whales. At the dock they had a list of sightings in the past few days and only a day or so before our tour they saw about 1500 dolphins. So I was hopeful to see something, especially since that morning we saw dolphins during breakfast. But still nothing.

By this point we notice that the boat starts to head towards land and the girl in charge came over the intercom to tell us about their guarantee. If we don't see anything during our tour, then they let everybody on board come back again for free. Well I think this is a fantastic thing, but since we were from out of town we wouldn't really get to take advantage of that .

So we all starting to come to the conclusion that it was just an unlucky day to see whales. Cyrus was asleep at this point and Ryker was being a good sport about, but I could tell he was disappointed.

Then all of a sudden there was a whale that breached out of the water. I sadly missed it. But I saw the splash though. Haha. The boat went towards the sighting then the whale came up on the other side, so again I missed it. We then all waited eagerly and hoping it would come up again. And thankfully it did, and this time there were two of them. The Marine Biologist lady that was talking to us over the intercom was thinking that they must me courting. Which explains the breaching. She then commented that the first whale had quite a bit of it's tail missing. Most likely from killer whale fight. Crazy huh?

So after waiting 2 1/2 hours we were all happy to finally see some action. Especially Ryker.

I couldn't get very good pictures of the whales, but thankfully the Marine Biologist had a really nice camera and was taking pictures to put on their fb page(which I copied). I was impressed she got such great pictures and talked to us at the same time on the intercom. That some awesome multi-tasking. So thanks to her I was able to get these great photos of the 2 whales we saw.

After all that excitement we went to dinner with Aunt Mel and Uncle Greg. Mel is Heidi's sister who lives in Santee, which is about 40 minutes from San Diego. We thought since we were in California it would be nice to meet up with them for dinner. They suggested a Sushi Restaurant that was near the dock.

Sunday: Day 2 (10/19/14)

No big plans for this day. Which was welcomed after a 12 hour drive. Since we had arrived to the condo when it was dark, we were so thrilled to wake up to this view from our patio. I can't complain about this one single bit. 

There really isn't a whole lot to record about this day because it was spent on the beach. Before we did go outside to play/lay on the beach, I decided that since we were missing church, we should have a little lesson. So I taught until the boys couldn't focus anymore.

The great thing about boys and the beach is that they are entertained for hours on end. Something about boys and sand that make them just so happy. Ryker did see this huge thing of kelp washing up on shore. He wanted to get it so bad, but it was far too heavy for him. Jesse and just giggled as we watched him try and pull that thing up onto the sand. I think at one point he was riding it like a raft. It was pretty cute.

With no success on his part he gave up on the thing and let it be. But like I said earlier, they are entertained for hours with their imaginations.

We stayed out there until lunch time. Then we all took naps. Then went back out again. We played until it was almost dark. The boys were getting more brave with the waves. Especially Cyrus. It would actually worry us a little bit because he would just wander out farther than I was comfortable with him going, and just get knocked over by a wave. And that wouldn't phase him. He would just get back up every time he was knocked over. As a matter of fact, he was giggling the whole time. I've said it before, and I'll say it again...that kid is Fearless.

Can you see two little boys playing in the waves?

I got Ryker to take this picture. Pretty great photographer huh?

So that's pretty much it. Sunday at the Beach. Nothing but relaxing. Oh it was wonderful.

The drive....

We have been home for two weeks now and it seems like I need about that much time to get all caught up with life. My work was really busy and I worked extra hours to make up for being gone for a week. So putting more hours in at work means I had less time at home to catch up. Thankfully Jesse was home and was willing and able to do some laundry, dishes, keeping the house picked up, picking the boys up from school and helping them with their homework. He is the best at being Mr. Mom. It makes my load feel a lot lighter when I he helps me with my Mom duties. I love that he has my back. We really make a great team. I love him for it.

 

So now that I have some time to sit down and update October, I shall take advantage.

 

For months now we've had this family vacation to San Diego, CA planned. We thought since Jesse and I had a vacation alone (Feb), that we wanted to plan one with the boys. We had thoughts of inviting another couple family that we could spend the week together and share a condo. But without fail all the families we thought we could travel with either had new jobs, new babes being born or already had a vacation planned.  So that plan didn't work out. But that's ok. 

Part of Jesse's job is required to take one of his "go-arounds" off. Which then combines his four day break, six day break and his go around off. Totaling up to be 17 days off. Then he took an extra vacation day, making it another two full days off. So he doesn't have to work for 19 straight days and he'll still get paid. Pretty cool huh? 

Saturday morning(10/18) we  started out our drive as soon as Jesse came home from his 24 hour shift. Thankfully his shifts were in Eden so he was able to sleep through the night. 

A 12 hour drive is no joke. But thankfully these boys handled it very well. Cy only had two melt downs and the rest of the time they both were laughing, snacking, watching movies, napping and just were champs.

When we finally arrived to our condo, we all unloaded the truck of our luggage. Then, feeling restless from sitting all day, we decided to go for a walk on the beach.  Since our condo is right on Imperial Beach, this was a pleasant way to end our evening.

The second we stepped foot on the sand, the boys went wild. They were acting like they hadn't ever seen or touched sand before. They were crawling through it like little puppy dogs. It was making me laugh. They had so much energy that they were jumping around, kicking over sand castles that were built from that day. Well one of the "sand castles" turned out to be a big rock. It was shadowed just right that Ryker thought it was a big sand castle. But he ended up scraping up his knee. The thing with Ryker is that he gets kind of dramatic when he sees any sight of blood. And this was no exception. He was crying and limping around the remainder of our night beach walk.

After our walk we were all excited to go to bed.

Cy Says....

Cy is in that stage where he says the darndest things. I try to keep an ongoing list in my head or phone to remember them until I can record them.

A few of our favorites....

-We've noticed he struggles saying his "th" sounds. It's replaced with a "ff" sound. For example: "flumb" (thumb), "earf" (earth), "bowf" (both). It's really cute when he says something like " They're bowf da same". Jesse's favorite  is "flumb". He's always trying to get Cy to say it.

-Back in August I got this text message from Jesse...."I had a green cup and Cy went and got a cup that was smaller but the same color and he came over by me and said "it's the same! Because we're buddies!" :-D I said yep we are buddies. About ten minutes later he looked at me and said " I'm glad we're buddies" :-) It was cute.

-A week ago, Cy and I were running errands together while Ryker was at school and Jesse was working. We both got out of the truck and Cy opened his door too wide. It was opened up so his little fingers were smashed between the car we were parked next to and his door. I see these little fingers poking out and hurry to help him.  He's crying, so I pick him up to comfort him and through his tears he says "Thats cars bits me."

-Today Cyrus was on his third melt down because I wouldn't let him watch a movie. And reason for that was because the first two melt downs were in the middle of the grocery store isle. :-\ Not cool. No way was he getting rewarded with media time after acting that way in the store. So while he was throwing his third fit at home I just ignored him. He  went at it for about ten minutes while I ate my lunch. So I just let him cry it out. He eventually went outside in the backyard still crying. I went outside to bring the groceries in, and I heard the gate to the backyard open and shut. It was Cy. He had stopped crying and came up to me and said with all of the sincerity he had in him "Mom, I'm sorry, I'm sorry".  My heart was melted. So I knelt down and gave him a hug. I was so impressed he would come to me and apologize. Then these words came from his mouth..."Can I watch a movie now?" Haha, seriously? Where did this kid come from? How can a 3 1/2 year old know how to be that manipulative?

Road Tripping Home

Before we hit the road, Jesse and I woke up early to go on a run together. I wanted to be able to get some exercise before we went and sat in a car for 9 hours. Or more. I was glad he was willing to come with me because I am not familiar with Denver and I didn't want to have anything happen to me. So it was nice that I could have the security of him running with me. Our plan was to run out a half hour and then come back. We were thinking we would get about 6 miles in, but we ended up getting 7 miles done. I think mostly because we got a little bit lost on our way back. I was so impressed with Jesse because that was the furthest he has ever ran. Before that he ran 5 miles about 6 months ago. And he did great. We were able to stay together the whole time. It was a very enjoyable run.

 

Once we got back we ate breakfast, packed up our bags, loaded up the car, showered and were ready to hit the road. But before we were to leave we wanted to go say goodbye to everybody. They were all over at Grandma's condo distributing all of her things amongst the kids. Heidi is the executer and is in charge of the whole thing. I know she was worried about it going smoothly so no fights would be started. But from what I saw it looked like they had  a good system going.

 

We were really sad that we couldn't stay the whole weekend. The majority of the family was staying until Sunday. But Jesse and I both had work to get back to for Saturday. So after lots and hugs and goodbyes we hit the road around 10:30am.

 

Jesse decided to we should take I-70 back home because it's a much more beautiful ride. And he was right. The leaves on the trees have started to change with a touch of snow on the tops of the mountains. 

As we were driving, Jesse mentioned he thought it would be nice if we could stop somewhere on the way to break up the drive. No rush to get home. So we decided to stop in Glenwood Springs and visit the Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park. It's a park that they've built up on top of a mountain. To get up there you have to ride the tram. There are tow caves that you can go on a tour through. So we decided to do that.

The boys really enjoyed the tram ride.

The funnest part about going to this park was reliving the memories of when we were there 6 years ago for a Bohm Family Reunion. Ryker was only 5 months old. I was wishing we could have spent the whole day there and gone on the rides. But we only had time to walk through the caves.

Our pitstop ended up lasting about 3 hours. A lot longer than we had expected, but that's ok. We made a good memory.

As we were finally making our way across the Utah border the sun was starting to set. And we still had about 3 hours before we would make it home. I was getting really tired and feeling bad that Jesse had been driving the whole way. But I didn't trust myself to drive at that point. So he was such a trooper and drove the rest of the way with his sleepy passengers.

We pulled into our driveway around 11:00pm. The boys did really well on the drive. Which is great because in 2 weeks we are driving to San Diego. So this was a nice little warm-up drive for them.

Goodbye Grandma Sally

We all knew Grandma wasn't doing well because she was diagnosed with Peritoneal Cancer (the lining of her stomach) at the first of this year. She fought her way through all of the chemotherapy treatments and was able to finish them all. The chemo lowered her cancer levels and shrunk all the tumors in her stomach.  But she never seemed to be able to regain her strength. We thought she would have until Christmas before she passed away, but that wasn't the case. 

Two weeks ago, Heidi heard from grandma's nurse that grandma's blood pressure was really low. So she was going to admit her into the hospital. The only way they were going to let grandma go back home is if someone could be with her 24/7. And because Heidi was I'm Florida, she sent Robyn to be with her. 

The day after Heidi got home from Florida (9/25/14) she got another phone call from grandma's nurse that grandma wasn't doing well. Heidi then talked with grandma and from the sound of her voice, Grandma sounded really week. Grandma asked Heidi when she could be there. Heidi told her that Tony (grandma's nephew) would be there for a week, then Heidi could be there the week after. Grandma then told Heidi she didn't think she could last that long.  So Heidi booked a flight for the next morning (Friday Sept 26). It was that night, when we received the phone call that grandma had passed. I truly believe grandma was holding on until Heidi got there. Such a tender mercy. 

From that point, we had to wait until we knew when the funeral would be.  We knew we  would have to make sacrifices to get our family to Denver. But there wasn't even a doubt in our minds that we should be there. When we learned the funeral would be on Thursday Oct 2, we started to plan out how we were going to get there. 

Because I work Wednesdays through Saturdays I needed to reschedule several clients. And Jesse worked Thursday, so he had to find a trade for part of his shift. We decided that Jesse would drive down Wednesday morning with the boys and I would fly down Wednesday night after work. Then we would all drive home together on Friday.

Thursday morning we all got ready for the funeral. A family in Grandma's ward offered up their house to us to stay at while they were on vacation. Another tender mercy. I was grateful not to have to pay for a hotel and to have the comfort of a home.

All of Grandma's children and grandchildren that were attending the funeral that day had all come in from another state. So it was really good to see the whole family. The last time we were all together was at the July 2013 Family Reunion. So I was really excited to see everyone. It's a sad reason to be together, but good at the same time.

We all gathered together an hour before the funeral to give our last goodbyes to Grandma. When it came time to close the casket, we each went up to bid her farewell. I snapped a quick photo when Grandma's children gathered around her.

The funeral service was very tender. Between Heidi and Uncle Matt's words of endearment, Uncle Christian & Emily's vocal and voilin duet of "Be Still My Soul" , and the grandchildren's musical number  of "Love One Another", there wasn't a dry eye in the room. I'm sure Grandma was honored and pleased.

Grandma had purchased her funeral plans over 20 years ago. And in those plans it had a police escort to the grave side and 2 limousines for her children and their spouses. Pretty cool.

When we arrived to the cemetery I realize it a military cemetery. I hadn't known that Grandpa Bohm had served in the military. Jesse told me that Grandpa had fought in WWII. That's really neat.

The cemetery was breath-taking. All of the headstones were perfectly aligned. As we were driving past them I couldn't believe the perfection.

I had never been to such a graveside service. It felt so official. And it was just beautiful! Dad (Mike) gave such a profound dedicatory prayer for the grave site.

Ya know, I remember back when Jesse and I were first married or even just engaged, he couldn't wait for me to meet his Grandma Sally. The way he talked about her really touched me and has stayed with me to this day. He always talked so highly of her. So it was really important that we were there this day. Grandma Sally had a special place in Jesse's heart. And it spread over to my own heart. She really was a special woman.

I know I said this back on Grandma Mickey's post, but I really am so blessed to be a part of this family. Heidi is such an amazing woman that I aspire to be like. And I'm without a doubt sure she got a lot of her defining attributes and characteristics from her Mother Sally.

This whole group of wonderful people traveled from across the map to be there for Grandma. We had people come from Utah, Kansas and California to be a part of this momentous occasion.

After the service was over we went back to the church for a yummy lunch that the Relief Society Presidency from grandma's ward prepared for our whole family. It was so wonderful of them to do that for us. What a service and a blessing that was to us all.

We all then went back to relax and hang out together before we went to dinner at La Loma Mexican Restaurant.