KEEPING UP WITH THE KENDALLS: May 2010

I’m going to try again to update my blog without losing everything. The last time I tried it got too hot and shut off. I write my blog with Live Writer and unlike Blogger it doesn’t automatically save every few minutes. I know I should do it manually but I didn’t. My bad. Also, my laptop does sit on top of a cooling fan. Apparently it’s not doing it’s job either.

We’ve been hanging out here enjoying the grandkids. When we first got here we saw them a lot but lately we haven’t seen much of them. More on that later.

Ashton’s soccer game

Reilly’s “movie star” look

I had a fantastic Mother’s Day. Ashton & Reilly had a sleepover so of course I had to make them waffles for breakfast. As I was finishing up Michele & Todd showed up to pick them up and Todd insisted on making omelets for Rod and I. They were really yummy. Later that day we went to Todd’s parents house for dinner that he prepared mostly all on his own. He didn’t just prepare a regular dinner. We’re talking marinated flank steak, barbequed shrimp, grilled orange roughy and even asparagus with hollandaise sauce. Oh yeah, and there was also the bread. He made Challah bread. We honestly could have just eaten the bread all night and nothing else. Todd says he’s the only Dad at daycare that can braid his daughter’s hair. He learned it from braiding bread. LOL

The bread (4 loaves!!)

The shrimp and grilled pineapple

The asparagus

This next part is very personal and I don’t usually write about that kind of stuff but I have to explain why we recently went to Las Vegas for a few days.

When I was very young my parents were divorced and I never saw my Mother again. She left us. My Dad was awarded custody and raised us with the help of a housekeeper/nanny. We had a few of them over the course of my childhood until one day he fell in love and married one of them. Her name is Beverly and she is the one that we all called Mom. They were married when I was 10 years old and couldn’t have been a better mom.

Recently my niece was doing some genealogy online and came across a forum. Somebody was looking for my sister, my brothers and I. She said on the forum post that she was our sister. Apparently our “mother” (not Beverly) had a child before she met my Dad and gave her up for adoption. After her adoptive parents died she decided to look for her biological parents. She found our “mother” and she told her about us. She was the one who posted on the forum. My sister decided to write to the email address that was included on the forum. Sure enough, we found out we have another sister!!!

Now the plan was to meet. Since Rod and I are going to Alaska for the summer and my new sister, Tina, lives in Philadelphia the winter was definitely out. My sister, Joyce and I started talking about meeting up in Las Vegas for the weekend. At first we thought somewhere in between but who wants to meet up in Nebraska?? The plan was set in motion, we contacted our brothers and everybody decided to go to Vegas for a four day weekend. Rod and I rented a car and drove since it was only a 6 hour drive and flying is such a hassle these days. We had a blast and you could sure tell Tina was our sister. She was raised as an only child and then finds out she has a LOT of brothers and sisters. She also has 7 kids so now I’ve got six more nieces and one nephew. We plan on going to Philadelphia next summer to meet all of them.

The weekend was absolutely amazing and meeting my new sister and brother-in-law was something incredible!!

From the left, Me, Donny, Joyce, Tina and George

Since Tina and her husband, Jim weren’t familiar with Mexican food and we all grew up on it we decided to introduce them to it for breakfast. They weren’t impressed with the food but Tina LOVED the margaritas. LOL

I had machaca con huevos which was unbelievably YUMMY!!

Rod had the biggest burrito I’ve ever seen in my life!!

Jim and Tina had steak, hash browns, eggs and pancakes. LOL!!

We got home on Monday and were looking forward to seeing the grandkids again but Ashton was sick. Michele brought Reilly over for a little while. She said Ashton was fine but didn’t want to chance it getting us sick too. We made plans on Tuesday to go see him at Taekwondo practice. He really loves it but he was being a goofball that night with us being there. Mommy was NOT happy.

Wednesday the kids were supposed to come over but those plans changed. Michele recently got a promotion and they are moving to Ft Collins, Colorado. She had been over there for training and to find a house. She thought she had one but it fell through so she and Todd had to make another trip over. They had to take the kids to Todd’s parents house so they could get them to school and daycare. Sooooo, that’s the reason we haven’t seen them much in the last few weeks. With us being gone and then them being gone. I think a sleepover will be mandatory this weekend. Oh yeah, and Michele and Todd did find a house and got back to SLC today. Ashton has a soccer game tomorrow so we’ll see them all then.

HA!! My computer got too hot and shut down while this was publishing but I had saved the whole thing!! YAY!!!

We left Moab on Thursday morning because we would have had to move to another site. Rather than packing up to move 30 feet we decided to get a little closer to Salt Lake City. It was snowing very lightly when we left but the forecast was for more throughout the day. As we got out of town the snow stopped and we had an uneventful drive. We stopped in Green River for the night because I had been reading on Facebook that somebody I knew from reading blogs was staying there. I’ve been reading Donna’s blog for over two years and she’s been reading mine so we felt like we already knew each other, we just hadn’t met in person.

We got set up and headed over to their rig. We sat and talked for awhile and then decided we were all hungry for a late lunch/early dinner so we walked over to a restaurant across the parking lot. We each sampled the local beer along with our food and proceeded to talk and talk and talk. It was so much fun but we started getting looks from the waitress so we decided we should leave.

Stu & Donna

On the way back to the campground we all decided we needed to extend one more night. The weather in the mountains still wasn’t good and we don’t drive in snow.

There was a museum across the street from the campground so we decided to go check it out. It was a museum about John Wesley Powell. Powell was an explorer who navigated the Green River and the Colorado River in this area and beyond even though he lost his right arm while serving in the Military. He is also who Lake Powell was named for.

A replica of one of the boats

Notice the one arm on Powell in the stern

This area has proclaimed itself to be the “Melon Capital of the World” and apparently this bear kept eating more than his share of melons. His remains are now on display…

After we finished up at the museum we stopped at Donna & Stu’s RV to see if they were interested in a local tavern for burgers and beers. I had found this place online and the reviews were really good. The reviews were right. Great burgers with homemade fries AND apple pie ala mode for dessert.

We ate our burgers so fast I forgot to take pictures but I did get one of our pie. The waitress gave me two spoons because she actually thought I was going to share with Rod. HA HA!! He had to get his own..

We said our good-byes to Donna and Stu and headed back to our rig to get packed up. We needed to leave in the morning before the next weather system came through. We checked and rechecked the road conditions over the mountain pass since it’s over 7,000 feet in elevation and it had been snowing recently.

It was a beautiful but cold morning as we pulled out. Not a cloud in the sky until we got closer to the mountains. It was definitely snowing on the pass but nothing was sticking to the roads. We made it over the summit just fine.

YIKES! I really don’t want to see any snowplows