Fun in the Sun

I feel like I have been spending a lot of time working on posts for my new blog that I have neglected updating this blog, and our lives are super exciting, so I need to update you.
About a month ago my sister, Sarah came with her family for a visit. It was a jam packed weekend o' fun. There was shopping, splash pad and carousel, hiking in Zion, and Frostop (yum!).

 Playing at the Splash pad. Emma loves the water. The only problem is I can't get her to stop drinking it.

 Not a great picture, but Emma with her girl cousins. She already knows that she wants to be one of the girls. She had so much fun with everyone here.

 Riding the carousel with Grandpa. She cried the entire time except for when she was passing me with my camera. Then she would smile and wave.

 Our picnic in Zion. It was awful. The place was crawling with millions of caterpillars. It sounded like it was raining, but it was actually caterpillars falling from the trees. They were all over us all over our stuff. It was so gross.

Luckily once we got to the trails there were no more caterpillars. We just did a short hike because there were so may little kids. Emma loved riding in her new hiking backpack.

This month my Mom graduated with her Associate's Degree. I was so proud of her. She put her education on hold for a long time to raise her children. A few years ago she went back and started taking a few classes each semester. Even then she took time off or scheduled her classes so she could still be there to help when babies were born. She took a light class load last winter so she could take Emma for me when I had to go back to work. My mom is really smart and she could have been anything she wanted and I'm glad she chose to be a mom first. And now I'm proud of her for pursuing her education.

Now Sterling is on summer vacation! It's nice having him home, even if he is throwing off our groove. It's going to be a party all summer long.

Emma and Hayden

Emma's favorite snack is is flavored rice puffs. They get us through car trips, church and many other things. Over Christmas break her cousin Hayden came to visit and he liked puffs too. On Christmas night I was feeding some to Emma and Hayden came over to share with us. He tried to feed some to Emma, but would then just put it in his mouth instead. She caught on to his game and was not very happy about it. It was pretty entertaining.

A Very Special Christmas

On Christmas Eve we invited Sterling's parents over for the evening. A few days earlier Karleen, Sterling's mom, and I had been talking about Cafe Rio salads. She had never had one, so Sterling decided we should make homemade Cafe Rio salads for Christmas Eve dinner. Kind of an odd choice I know, but they were amazingly delicious. After dinner we put Emma into her Christmas jammies and put her to bed so we could watch It's a Wonderful Life. Val, Sterling's dad, wanted to go home after a little bit, but Karleen wanted to keep watching the movie. So during the next commercial break, they ran home so Karleen could keep watching and not miss too much. Later that night Sterling realized he had missed three calls from Karleen. She had left a frantic message saying that she couldn't find the right channel on the TV. It was so funny.
I'll write more about Christmas morning later. That afternoon we went to church with Sterling's parents to see the Christmas program Karleen had arranged. It was nice to be together for church.
Many of you know that the reason this Christmas was so special is that Karleen passed away on New Year's Eve. It was very unexpected, which has made it very difficult. I wish so much that I could see her just one more time to make sure that she knew how much we love and appreciate her.
Although this is a very sad time, there are two things that bring me so much comfort. The first is thinking about what a blessing it has been for us to have lived so close to them for the past year and a half. We have gotten to see them often and do lots of things together. I am especially glad that Emma was able to spend time with Karleen. Even though she won't remember it, I will have lots of stories to tell her about her time with her Grandma. I can't even begin to tell how much it meant to me that we got to spend time together at Christmas. It was really special.
The second thing that comforts me is knowing that we will get to see her again. I am so grateful to know that our family can be together forever. So although we miss her here, I know we'll all be together again.