thanksundance

my grandpa (toni's dad) came out from arkansas with his wife (carolyn) for thanksgiving. now grandpa (dean) and carolyn haven't ventured to the great state of utah for 22 years. so to make it easier to understand...i hadn't seen them since i was 4. my mom was pregnant with emme when they last came so emme hadn't ever met them! crazy is right. all i remember about our first meeting was that he took us all for a ride on his motorcycle...so you can imagine as a 4 year old that was pretty cool. then he breezed on out of your lives for 22 years.

i had just finished curling and spraying my hair when they knocked on kate's door. i was the last to greet them and i just could hear carolyn say 'oh my god dean, look how pretty she is!' in a really think midwestern accent which coincidentally sounds like a cheese head...from wisconsin. they are a fantastic retired couple who will tell the same story while talking over each other the whole time, leaving you to struggle to know which one to listen to. only to find out that once you make eye contact with either one you are stuck in their non stop talking until either you have to go to the bathroom or fake an injury.

dean loved to talk about his 2 lexus....which i think you should pluralize to lexii. your thoughts? they also really loved to talk about how much money carolyn's daughter pearl has. which is fine, but i think i should get a cut of that money for being pearl's step niece...right? on thanksgiving day it was dean's 79th birthday! so we celebrated by making real mashed potatoes rather than potato pearls. and also by stuffing our faces full of turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, shirley's rolls and various pies, banana cream being my personal favorite as always. it was the good thanksgiving ever, even though i lost mario party yet again. stupid single siblings! then we sat around talking and for me playing angry birds on my mom's new kindle fire. yep i am just like a 12 year old...boy.

the day after thanksgiving was my mom's (toni) birthday. so i celebrated by working at 8am! no we really celebrated by heading to sundance to meet up with the garn's for an adult only dinner at the tree room. really fancy we are. well actually we aren't. turns out that after dinner char told me that she wished we would have sat differently at the table so that all the single kids would have been separated and not all at the same end of the table. whatever. dinner was delicious and we stuffed our faces with our individual desserts and a giant delicious chocolate birthday cake. we bought my mom a new ski jacket. she was stoked. then we went back to the cabin they were staying at (it belongs to olivia newton-john...omg!) and just hung out with the kids for a bit. it lost it's magic when i asked grace (10 year old niece) if she was excited for hawaii, seeing as they were leaving in 4 days. her reply was, and i'm not making this up...'yeah, but not really. i wish we were going to maui instead.' oh boo freaking hoo grace, you HAVE to go to oahu instead of maui. your life is so hard! that girl has been on an airplane more than i have and i am in my mid 20's! kids just say the darndest things!

so anyway...happy birthday dean and toni. i hope you both had the good birthday ever!