Soaked in Grandchildren!

FYI: When I checked my recent posts, I discovered, to my horror, that when I was finally able to restore my blog on Live Writer, I somehow lost spell check. Not only were there a ton of errors in that last post about Bali, but it was somehow posted twice!  Sheesh! Don’t know how that happened! Sorry about that!I fixed it but darn! Please excuse future errors until I get it fixed! You don’t realize how much you rely on spell check until you don’t have it! Please excuse other errors until I figure it out!

We were home for four days after being on the other side of the world from January 5th to February 6th before we had to leave again. But we took advantage of that time and were so hapy to be able to see Eliza’s state basketball game in Ogden!  It was a thriller! We thought Eliza had made the winning shot in overtime, but somehow the other team came back in the last few seconds and won! Still, it was such an exciting game and we were so glad that at least there was one family thing we didn’t miss while we were gone!

There were some terrific players on that team including Eliza and one of her best friends so it was a delight to see them play together!

Let’s take a closer look at those cuties:

It’s always fun to be with the Looslis. We adore those kids! We stayed for delcious dinner and terrific Family Home Evening which gave us a chance to see the “inerds” of that fantastic family and to have the opportunity to fill the in a little on our fun trip!

The next morning we took off for Los Angeles. We had a speech there but the very best part was that two of our families were within an hour and a half of the airport! Jonah and Aja and their five kids had been there with Noah and Kristi and their five kids for two weeks waiting for their cars to arrive from Europe. They claim that they had the best time ever, taking turns with meals (including a make your own sushi evening) and Jonah and Aja, as always were helping to fix and organize things and whatever they could think of to help those CA Eyres.

The best part for us was that we got to see ten of our grandchildren, all in one whack! It was so fun to see them bonding and doing so well together! Within fifteen minutes of entering Noah and Kristi’s house (on Valentine’s Day weekend) Grandfather went from this…..

To all ten grandkids huddled around him in his glory….and yes, some were happier about the 10th picture than others and yes, that is a small Monster Truick on Grandfather’s head and no, McKay’s knees are not two extra bald-headed babies! 

We had a great time with this little guy, who was about to have his 2nd birthday party…

It’s a tradition to take everybody out to breakfast on a Saturday morning when we are there so we packed the Sprinter and took off for the Cinnammon Stop (our favorite). Grandfather never lets that many kids actually order their own meal. He just orders two of everything making sure that there are no desperate requests. FUN!

 

The two babies stayed home with Aja so we took her a treat!

What a time we had with this crazy crew! Non-stop fun:

Since Ezra was pretty sick for his real two-year-old birthday last week, we celebrated while we were all together. He adores cars and trucks and acutally anything that moves on wheels!

I don’t know who was the most excited here but I do have to say that when Ezra opened that present on the right which was a double decker truck filled with cars, he just beamed and said in the cutest, most enthusiastic voice….”NICE, NICE, NICE!” What a Cutie!

 

On Friday night we did a presentation for a positively terrific Los Angeles EO group. We were lucky enough to be able to take Noah and Kristi and Jonah and Aja along to the speech and their special “Romantic Valentine Dinner” that followed!  Everyone was so delighted to meet these great couples and Jonah and Noah added a lot to the discussion! They even sang “The Family Laws Song” from the back of the room. I was amazed that they could remember it!  In addition they had the closing remarks which was the best part! Among other things, Jonah validated what we had said about “The Repenting Bench”  helping to create siblings who are best friends and added how much he liked being in our family. Noah quoted the “Theodore Roosevelt Quote” which most of our kids have memorized to a T.  It was so appropriate since a lot of the Entreprenuers there have been in the “Arena” a long time and have sturggled to do great things for buisness in LA.

I’ll include the quote below, which so aptly applies to both Jonah and Aja who have been traveling through Europe for five months with five kids including putting their kids in Spanish schools and on Spanish swim teams and Noah who has just completed a Master’s Degree in buisness at USC along with his incredible, supportive wife Kristi who had their fifth child duing the second year of Noah’s program, which was hard enough without the fact that the baby needed emergency heart surgery at birth (and is thriving)!  

How we love these couples (and all our other children and thier spouses’) for their efforts to be “in the arena.” (To our children: whoever handed that person your camera to catch all of us together on that memorable night, will you please send it to me? I’ll slip in in here for great memory’s sake!)

Here is the quote:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

On Saturday afternoon, we took off for the airport  where Rick headed for Las Vegas to speak at a Young Single Adult Confernce for 1400 YSAs and I headed back for Salt Lake to greet Julie and Eli, Zara and Dean who were flyiing in from NYC to stay with us for a couple of days and then leave Zara and Dean (3 and 9 months) for a well-deserved bonus vacation with Eli’s company to Costa Rica for 9 days! (They will  be joined by Noah and Kristi who work with the same company). 

If this week was soaking in grandchildren, I have a feeling that we will be drenched in the next!