Grandma Lou

My sweet Grandma passed away last month. That was a hard time. A couple of months before the doctors had said with her declining health she probably had 6 months to a year left. But then she had a stroke and was left paralyzed on one side and was unable to swallow. That was so hard to hear, and I hated not being able to be there with her. Two days later she was gone. I was able to attend the funeral and speak at it. As hard as it was to do, I'm glad I was able to honor her in that way. She was the sweetest woman, filled with more love than anyone I've ever known. The world lost a beautiful soul. I miss her lots.

 

Betty Lou Robinson

September 2, 1926-August 6, 2015

At age 21.

Cousins.

Grandma's children.

Mom with Sylvia, I love this photo.

We needed a break from the stresses of the week so a few of us drove up a canyon that Grandma loved and had lunch. She loved the outdoors, and sure did have a deep love for Utah. 

 

FHE

We attempted Family Home Evening over FaceTime and it actually worked pretty well. Good times.

Lana's Weekend

Lana came for a few days to play. We had a great weekend. After looking through all the pictures I realized we have no pictures of the kids. They were around too of course, but Josh was definitely a good sport while we took off for girl time.

 

We both love Kneaders. It's an adorable restaurant with delicious food, cute home décor, and a yummy bakery. We have always wanted to go together and finally got to.

 

Of course we had to eat at Café Rio (twice).

Following Café Rio we went to the temple. 

 

We went shopping and stopped by Charming Charlie's, it's like a candy jewelry store for adults.

 

We got our craft on. Made some shirts, was so fun.

 

And of course, we watched the Bachelor. Best weekend!



Mom's Visit

My mom came to visit in January for a week. I didn't take a single picture, but wanted to be able to remember it. I got sick about halfway through, so that was a bummer, but we had a good week. It was nice to just have her around for a normal week in our lives. We had a girl's night at the movies, went shopping without kids one morning, thanks to a great friend who offered to watch Tanner. The kids were in heaven with all the attention, reading from Grandma, and songs with her guitar. Sidney was singing along with her, and it was especially cute because she has memorized the words to her favorite song my mom wrote. We binge watched some shows on Netflix, took a drive in the mountains, and ate chocolate. Josh and I went out a couple of times, it was great. It's been so nice living closer.

More Visitors

Living here has had it's ups and downs. Coming back has been harder than I anticipated, but one of the ups was having Jake and Lana come visit for a couple of days. It's always about the food, let's face it. We had a great date night.



Visitor

My mom has come through a couple of times already. She's happy we're here. Boise is always her stop on her way to Utah, so now she has a place to stay. We took Tanner to the zoo. It's always deserted, it's great.

 

 

There's a fantastic shopping center that has spectacular fountains with lights that dance around. It's a fun show. We took the kids for the first time. There's a playground and fireplaces, such a fun atmosphere.

 

 

We also had to eat at Big Jud's, home of the one pound hamburger. We got the double pounder. I usually don't like burgers that much, but this one is pretty good.



Spring Break

We actually did something for spring break this year. It came really early, March 10! We started out going strawberry picking. The pictures are on my phone. Maybe one day I'll get them off of it. It's almost an hour away, but we drove down with friends and met some other ones there. It was a perfectly gorgeous day. The place is absolutely adorable. Tons of beautiful fields, cutouts for photos, picnic tables, and a cute country store with delicious fried pies that someone told us we had to try. It felt like a perfect fall day, there were leaves on the ground, and a nice breeze. Great start to the week.

 

Then Kathryn came! Josh took a few days off too, so it was such a fun week. We picked her up from the airport and drove by our childhood home. She and I were the two in our family born here. I was one year old when we moved into the house and she came a year later. She hasn't been back to Texas since we moved away when she was a toddler. So that was kind of fun. We were looking at pictures of it in my scrapbook, and it's been painted. I must be getting old to think it's fun to go see childhood places.

We had some other plans for the week, but some of them got scratched because Tanner ended up a little sick and was not having it in the car. That's ok though, we had plenty to do. Mostly hanging out at home, doing crafts, eating out. There's an awesome enormous movie theater by our house. We saw 3 movies. Pretty ridiculous, but this theater is like it's own vacation destination, and we rarely go to movies, so it was fun to live it up a little. Kathryn and I went to 2 movies in one day, ha! Jayden and Sidney made her signs to welcome her at the airport. But in true Houston fashion, traffic made us late, so we didn't get to go in. We miss her now!

We ate out a lot. This is a good Mexican place. 

Cutest and biggest BBQ place. Don't worry, we ate at more than just these places. This is where we take our visitors to make them feel the Texas experience.

 

Just hanging out. 

We also went to Brazos Bend State Park. The alligators were out, just laying there. It was cool to see them and all the birds.



Utah

About a month ago my grandma got really sick with pneumonia and was hospitalized.  I hadn't seen her in about 2 1/2 years, so I thought I'd go for a visit.  My cousin was also getting married, so I was glad to be able to go and see some family and have a mini vacation with just me and Tanner.

 

Grandma Lou improved in the hospital and is now in a rehab center, working on her walking.  She is improving little by little.  She's at a great center.  She has changed a lot since I last saw her.  With her declining health, she is pretty miserable and is lonely.  I feel so bad, I wish I lived closer.  I have a cousin who goes every day and spends hours with her, she is awesome!  She has been updating every day on Facebook her progress so we can see how she is doing.  Even though Grandma is a lot different from the grandma I knew, there are little things about her that reminds me she is still my cute and funny grandma.  For instance, she might be eating her meals like a bird these days, but she finishes her dessert every time.  I can thank her for my sweet tooth.  She is lonely and sad a lot, but when she smiles and giggles a little, she is still Grandma.  She is so funny, she wasn't getting along with her roommate, so she switched rooms.  I pointed out to my brother, who is about to get a new roommate, that roommate issues never go away.  Ha!  It was funny to hear her complain about how she didn't like her roommate.

 

When I arrived one day she was getting a perm.  It was so cute.  They have a little salon, where a stylist comes in twice a week.  She was so nice, I'm glad she is being well taken care of.

 

My cousin, Danielle, got married in the Salt Lake Temple.  She was so pretty, she looked like Rapunzel.  I so rarely get to make it to family occasions, it was a real treat.

Miriam and Clayton live in Salt Lake and Kathryn came down from Idaho Falls.  She and I spent most of the weekend together.  We had a great time, it was so nice to be able to spend time together.

 

Tanner made a great travel companion.  We had a blast.

 

Before I left, Jayden asked me if I was going to see the Salt Lake Temple and if I would take a picture of it.  I missed the wedding, so Kathryn and I went to Temple Square so I could get a picture.  The kids always like to touch the temple, so I had to let Tanner touch it.

I wanted to get pictures of as many of the temples as I could for the kids, but only ended up being able to stop at the Bountiful Temple.

My high school friend and college roommate, Janean, came down to see me as well.  She married Josh's roommate, and we had the greatest time together in college.  It was so fun to see her, just like old times.

 

I spent a couple hours with my other grandparents, but didn't get any pictures there.  Tanner loved my Grandpa Mortensen, though.  He just laughed and laughed at him for no reason, and my grandpa soaked it up, it was really cute.  I also met up with my friend, Michelle, for lunch one day, who used to live here.  It was fun to catch up.  It was a really busy trip, but it was so much fun.