Unexpected trip

Two weeks ago Bryant's grandmother, Lucille Pinegar Andrus, passed away.  We had the opportunity to travel and attend her funeral.  Elden, Bryant's grandfather, passed right before we moved and we were unable to be there so we felt very lucky to be able to attend these services.  I met Lucille once before we married and found her to be delightful and warm, sincere and funny.  She definitely had all the "S virtues" that are needed when you marry into the Andrus family : Lucille was sassy, spunky, sweet, severely stubborn, spiritual, selfless and smart in matters of the soul.  I will be honored to use the title "Grandma Andrus"- like her- if I can attain even a small portion of her good virtues.

Of course, being who we are, we could just attend a family funeral.  Since we were going to make the 15 hour drive, and no one anticipated we would, Bryant decided that we would go and surprise his mother.  Marba was not expecting to see us until next year at the earliest.  I think our surprise worked...

  The boys also cleaned up pretty well.  Sometimes I am worried that we look like a traveling hobo convention- it is challenging to keep little boys pressed, neat and clean- but this time we did ok.  Everyone had just received some new winter church sweaters and they were excited to wear them to Great-Grandma's  funeral.

On our way home, we tried to get a shot of the older four in a garden in Salt Lake City (Nathaniel fell asleep) but I guess after a few hours in the car there was not an abundance of brotherly love. However, for some reason, these pictures still make me smile.  A little :-)

And as anyone who has traveled with children know, it is inevitable that one (or more) of the children will take it upon themselves to become a human volcano.  Besides the smelly messes that result it also creates really cranky kids.  How to you solve that?  Throw the kids in a tub during the middle of  a snow storm and tell them to chase each other.  Voila!  No more cranky kids!