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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Gymnastics

Today was another installment of gymnastics down at the PG center. Julie decided to take the camera so that she could record some of the action for posterity. Most of what ended up being recorded was Gwenyth cheesing at the camera. Apparently she does auto-cheese now when you point a camera at her. That’s why there are so many pictures of her.

You can see that the girls need some new gear for gymnastics. Abby’s is at least 2 sizes too small, but she doesn’t seem to mind. In fact, once she got home, she laced her roller skates up and went around the neighborhood like a purple flamingo, long legs and all. I’m not too sure that the neighbors were impressed, but I enjoyed watching her try to navigate the not so flat streets here. Luckily there is grass to break her many falls.

Grandma and Grandpa Elcock are coming tomorrow night for what promises to be loads of fun. We’ll try and entertain the best we can, though we all know why they’re coming. Hopefully they’ll be as excited about seeing the girls on Monday as they seem to be now. The girls are all excited wondering what sorts of fun things we’ll do.

Gwen turns one tomorrow (today I guess, it’s after midnight). Hard to believe. Maybe that’s why she’s extra cheesy.

Oh, by the way, Suns rule.

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

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Hey Vinny

Dave and Marilyn got a new bull terrier a week or so ago. Their longtime buddy, Thor, got pretty sick and didn’t make it. So they got a new dog and named him Vince. It’s crazy that Maddie also died in the same time. But instead of getting another dog, mom and dad are just left with the lovely cat, Lucifer. I’m sure that lovable pile of fluff will fill the void.

We upgraded Gwenyth’s daily intake of ramen noodles by going to Panda Express tonight. We (read: Julie) signed us up to clean the church tonight. So we all went down there and did some vacuuming, cleaning, and whatever else we could. It was fun. Then we watched the spectacle of Gwen pounding the noodles. It was a sight to behold.

We got home around 7:00 and since it was still light outside, the girls went out to play for a bit. The neighbors came over and joined in on the fun. They’re all dressed like it’s the middle of summer. It was pretty warm, I guess. The blood apparently isn’t as thin as it once was.

Here are a few videos:

Update: Apparently Google messed up the videos so now they’re only 3 seconds long. I’ll have to take care of that a little later I guess.

Update #2: I uploaded the videos again, which work as of late Tuesday night. We’ll see what Google does to them tonight.

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