Life in My World—Let the Party Begin

Yesterday Calvin and I had two different acts of service to choose between. We chose door # 1 and 240 miles to take our friends to catch a flight so they could go on a cruise. It really shouldn’t get to count as a service however, because Calvin then took me out to dinner.

We came home to Ande! Ahhhh, what a good feeling. She and her roommate got here about 20 minutes before we did. We fixed them dinner and sat down to watch a Christmas movie together. I didn’t even make it until baby Jesus was born.

I have to get up really early every morning, so even on weekends when I sleep in, it’s only 5:00. I love those early morning hours. Not very many people in the world want them and so they’re always quiet and peaceful. This morning I read and prepared for the day, then woke everyone else up so that we could be on the road by 6:45.

We drove halfway to Seattle (Cle Elum) to pick up Ty. Ahhhhh, what a good feeling. He had flown into the airport there and then spent a few days with Ray and Cali. Ray called with a challenge: first one to Cle Elum would pick the place to eat breakfast and the last one there would buy. We bought, even though we tried to trick them by never telling them where on the road we were. What a fun morning. Here is what people ordered:

Eggs Benedict
Oatmeal and a fruit crepe
French toast
Cowboy Benedict
Eggs/Bacon/Toast/Hashbrowns
Pancake/sausage/scrambled egg

There was a whole lot of plate swapping going on.

Then we went to the meat store. Calvin loves this place. One whiff of it and I was ready to go across the street to the bakery. When I was pregnant with Cali I worked at BYU’s meat lab. Who-eee, one whiff triggered a whole lot of old gag reflexes.

The girls and I went to the bakery and since we were still full from breakfast decided to get a pretzel looking thing to share. Hmmmmm. One bite made us glad we had only gotten one for it was as Ande said, “It tastes like I took a bite of shortening with some potpourri sprinkled on it.” To be fair, the bakery has really good things, we just chose a bad thing. I think it was made for dunking.

After dropping Ande’s roommate off we came home to find I had made a big, big mistake. A gentleman had ordered twenty boxes of chocolates through the Neighbor Jane Payne store and I hadn’t seen it. He was wondering why none of the candy had been delivered. Oops. Oops. Oops. Still feeling badly about it even after Brenda and Nesha filled the order. It was a crisis for them and the gentleman. I really dislike it when I am incompetent, especially when it makes things hard on other people.

This afternoon Ande made some caramel for turtles, I made cookies (Ty's eyes got big when he saw me put a pound of butter in them), and Ty and Calvin worked on projects in the shop. It was fun being in the kitchen and visiting with Ande and hearing her laugh. It was also good to hear Ty whistle whenever he came into the house. Late in the afternoon a couple of friends stopped by to visit Calvin just as the clam chowder was hot so they joined us for dinner. We had a good visit.

Tonight we went to The Blind Side. Ande and Ty hadn't seen it yet. They enjoyed it as much as we did.

Abe and Grace fly to Seattle tomorrow and then Ray and Cali will bring them here on Monday, just in time for Ande’s birthday. The party has begun.