Bittersweet

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As many of you know by now, we had to leave town last weekend to attend the funeral of my dear, sweet Grandpa Asay. He was going to be 92 on the 20th. We knew it was going to be the end soon, so we were just waiting. I got the call from my dad last Wednesday, and I was more emotional than I thought, even though I knew it was coming.
Nathan and I had talked about it, and knew we would probably drive out again like we did for my grandma in 2008. Thankfully, the funeral wasn't going to be held until this past Tuesday(the 20th, his bday, also Nathan's). So we had a few days to wrap up things at home and get packed and ready to go.
We decided to open a few Christmas presents early. Mostly because these gifts would help us all on a road trip 24 hours each way. :-) Brooke recieved her most prized possession to date and I have never seen such excitement on the face of that girl. It is a Nintendo 3DS, with a couple games to play, of course.







Charlotte got a movie she had been wanting. She was excited, just not as much as Brooke :-)



I got Nathan the new Toby Keith cd with the song, Red Solo Cup. I think we only listened to it 5 or 6 times on the whole trip. That beat my New Kids on the Block cd that we only listened to twice.


So anyway, our drive out went great and we made it to SLC in record time. We stopped Saturday night in North Platte, Nebraska and met up with Cam and Aliy and their cute boys Sunday in Cheyenne. They were nice enough to drive an hour out of their way just to see us. We visited with them for a couple hours at McDonald's before making the rest of our journey. We checked into our hotel around 7 p.m. Sunday night. After picking up dinner, we were pretty tired and just went to bed.

Monday morning we picked Robin up at the airport. We ate lunch at In n Out, a first for everyone. Not really that impressed, we're glad we didn't get a taxi in Vegas just to go there. Don't get me wrong, it was ok, just nothing to write home about. :-)

Next, we went on a tour of the Conference Center. I was excited for my kids to see where General Conference is and how big it is.






They did surprisingly well, considering the tour guide said it would only take 45 minutes, but instead ended up being more like 2 hours. We were pretty beat after that, so we decided to go back to the hotel to rest until the rest of the family came to town.

We didn't have to wait too long until the Asay cousins from Arizona arrived. Everyone was so excited to see each other, after 6 long months. Everyone needed to get some energy out, so to the pool we went. After swimming for a little bit, dinner was on the mind. After much driving around, we decided on Cafe Rio!! I'm not sure why that wasn't our first choice to begin with! So good! That will be a must visit any time we visit any state that has a Cafe Rio.

Not too much later after arriving back at the hotel, the rest of the family arrived. First the Hall's from Twin Falls, and then the G.P.'s and Lauren from Indy. The kids got jammies on and we loved that Taylor and Charlotte were twins :)


This was pretty much how it was for two days. Kids running up and down the halls, making lots of noise. We had 5 rooms, all grouped together. As far as I know, we didn't get any complaints.



Taylor and Brooke had a sleepover, and this is what they did first thing in the morning when they woke up :)


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To be continued...