Grandma & Grandpa Elcock come to Utah

We just spend a very fun 4 days with Grandma and Grandpa Elcock. We all had a great time and I think that the visit was just long enough for Grandma and Grandpa to not go crazy, so that’s a good thing.

Friday was spent at work as normal, trying to get the poor Hyundai back from the shop. Apparently on my most recent gas fillup (they don’t happen all that often anymore), the gas cap broke somehow. So, to make a long story short, I drove around with a leaky gas cap for a few days, got a new one, the new one didn’t vent correctly, and so my car sounded like it had a few mice hanging out in the back, hammering away when I started up the car and then again when I turned it off. My car apparently has a plastic gas tank, so the noises were the gas tank contracting with the pressure, then expanding again once the pressure was released. Fun.

Friday night the girls and Grandma and Grandpa went to Thanksgiving Point. There were baby sheep and goats that had literally been born a few hours earlier. Abby, Grace, and even Gwenyth rode the ponies as well. Friday night we got some take out grub from a local burrito joint, Costa Vida. It was good. Lucy still wasn’t feeling too well (we found out she had a horrible urinary tract infection) so we laid low the rest of the day.

Saturday was the big party. Being St Patrick’s Day and all, we had the whole place decked out in green (even the food). We had the Elcock contingency (us, Susi, Chris Werner) and the Jenkins contingency (Eliece, Jackson, Douglas, Amanda, Karen Beth, Doug & Bev, Amy, Stephanie — I think that’s all). The groups were “segregated” by seating arrangement. I think that the cause was the Jenkins are even faster to the food than the Elcocks are, if you can believe that. We all had a great time. Gwenyth finally got some toys of her own. Julie and mom later went out on one of their many housing hunts. Later on, we went to Tepanyaki Steak House in Lehi. It was great. We got there around 5pm, so there was no wait at all. The girls ate all of their shrimp and then some. I can’t resist scallops when I see them on a menu, and they didn’t disappoint. We were all still decked out in our green, so we looked pretty awesome.

Sunday was church. Julie and I did our thing in nursery (and did it quite well, I might add) while Grandma and Grandpa brought Lucy and Gwenyth home for some fun. I think the real reason was that Grandpa wanted to play some more Yahtzee . . . Sunday afternoon we had some great roast and potatoes.

Today was fun as well. The girls went to school and I worked until about 2:30. We had a quick lunch at Kneader’s. Then Grandpa took Grace to the distribution center where he bought she and Abigail some new scriptures. They were so excited. They’ve both been reading them literally all night. Later in the afternoon we took Abby, Grace, and Lucy to Cabella’s while Julie, Mom, and Gwenyth went and looked at more houses. We saw fish, deer, elk, moose (meese?), mountain lions, etc. Grace asked how all of the animals got there. We explained how people hunt them, so they are shot and then stuffed. There was a little display there of a mechanical guy talking about different things. He was rubber or some other synthetic material, but looked pretty real. Abby looked at him for a while, and said, “Daddy, was he shot and then stuffed, too?” Hmmm.

All in all it was a great time and we really appreciate all the great things we were able to do. We know it’s not easy to come up here, but we had a wonderful time — and the weather was more than cooperative as well. Thanks mom and dad, we love you!

Who’s coming next?

There are more videos coming, but Google video is still “processing” them. I’ll update it in the AM.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/midder/

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