Family Ties

This blog is only being written because I am having a sleepless night. Jeph, Grant and I have been busy for about 2 solid weeks, and are all dealing with colds this week. Jeph and Grant are deep asleep, but my medicine hasn't had the desired effect yet.


My sister and neice (Jana and Mara Kate) came to Bristol for a short visit last week because my brother-in-law was away speaking at a Science convention. We did all the normal stuff; went shopping (oh how we love our Kohl's), visited a couple of friends and of course went to La Carreta, a favorite almost-too-authentic mexican restaurant in town. We really missed Tara, Michael and the kids while Jana was here, too. Alley called a couple of times and hated missing out on the family being together without here. They really need to work on that technology of beaming peoples places (Kane, any word on that at the Science Convention? ;-)

Jana and Mara Kate left town from my Mom's Friday around noon. I was there telling them bye, then I headed to Wal-Mart to pick up a few groceries and headed home to finish getting ready for Jeph's family, who arrived later that afternoon.

Jeph's Dad (aka Papa) had a meeting not too far from Bristol and decided to drive the couple of extra hours to come stay with us for a night. He brought a Christmas Teddy Bear for Grant. (Papa: Grant isn't fully aware of where the bear came from, but he has gladly accepted it into his group of favorite toys) A couple of hours later, Jeph's sister, Shari; her husband, Jim and their 3 boys, Gabe, Christian and Caleb, arrived. They had planned separately to come for a long weekend visit to see us. Papa left on Saturday morning, going back home to be with Jeph's Mom because she was not able to come this time. This is when the fun started. (Papa, I am just kidding!) We really had fun the entire weekend, with everyone....this part of the week made us miss Nana, Ron, Jennifer and Cierra even more than we usually do. We mentioned that it has been a year since we've seen our niece, Cierra and that's just too long. C'mon techno geeks!... :)

We spent Saturday afternoon at a friends house making tamales....the real thing. It is a huge, long process...something you only want to get into about once a year, so you make hundreds of them at a time. Because there is so much work involved, our friends prepped everything before we came and then taught all of us, along with several other families, how to roll them. The recipe was for 350 tamales, but I am pretty sure we made more than that. It was really more about the fellowship for most of the people there, but we did learn something new and we were sent home with enough tamales to last us for....awhile! :)

Sunday morning around 3am Grant woke up with a fever of 101. It didn't take long to realize this was because the poor little guy has 3 molars poking through all at once. Needless to say, on top of the fever, none of us got much sleep through the night. When I woke up, we decided not to take him to church while he way trying to cope with the pain. Jeph, Jim, Gabe and Christian were going to go...and leave Shari and I here with the 2 youngest boys. Not too long after this decision was made, Grant strongly attached himself to his Daddy, not wanting him to leave his side or set him down at all. In the end, we all stayed home. Jeph went through Psalm 150 with us, while we all sat around our living room and each had our drink of choice; coffee or hot chocolate and marshmallows :) While it isn't biblically optimal, we definitely made some good memories and got a chance to talk to the boys about things on a deeper level than we otherwise would have during their visit.

After church, we ate lunch together and all the boys headed to the park, leaving Shari and I at home. We thought Grant could use some fresh air...something to distract from his hurting gums, and the boys all needed somewhere to burn energy that you cannot burn inside, especially inside here! While they were gone, Shari and I decided to make a new recipe together..... and on our 3rd batch, we finally perfected my Grandma's cream puffs! It turns out a very key step was left out of my copy of the recipe! Providentially, my Grandma was home and I was able to call her and straighten it out :) After the cream puffs were finished and cooling in the fridge, we made reheated tamales, chips and salsa, and quesadillas for dinner. The boys retreated to our bedroom to watch a movie that Uncle Jeph rented for them while the adults (and Grant) watched some of season 2 of The Office (the best sitcom currently on TV), Except for the teething, we had a great visit, even though our house is a bit crowded for 8 people. (Another thank-you to Uncle Jim for his voluntary store-run for Grant's motrin and tylenol....and extra water....it saved Jeph a trip...and we appreciated it VERY much!)

I have several original-art pictures up on my fridge right now, left over from our weekend. I have some very sweet nephews who are thoughtful enough to spend their time creating pictures for me. Christian drew a turtle and a tree, his 2 favorite things to draw. Caleb put the blue marker to good use by drawing me 5 beautiful pictures of 'oceans' :) Looking at them reminds me of what sweet boys they are and also helps me look forward to the day when Grant will draw pictures for his Mommy (or his "Heidi" as he has been calling me the last few days...I think he is trying to be like Jeph).

We love all of our family very much and we, too, feel 'blessed beyond reason' to have them!