The Trip That Wouldn't Quit

On the ride up

My favorite street name in history. I finally got a picture of it!

Small rental car

I took this picture of Jon coming back from a bathroom break...

And later discovered he'd taken this picture as I was returning from one (same location. We take turns so no one steals our dog and Christmas presents).

Christa, Garrett, and Owen came up for a visit/Tony's Tacos. Ada(!) snapped this sneaky picture of me and Owen having a moment.

ZOMG baby. I made that hat.

Corinne and Kyle's rental was at the top of that frozen hill. Those are our tracks after we got the car back under control. Music and the Spoken Word did not happen that day as planned.

We napped like this. Then when we woke up no one had taken a picture, so I did it myself.

On the drive up to Maddox in Brigham City (the first of the two visits)

Jon snapped this spectacular selfie when he was out hunting. A+

Somewhere in here my mom broke her foot. It was horrible. She fell down the stairs in the dark and laid there in the freezing rain for twenty minutes calling out to us while we partied inside. She could hear us, but we couldn't hear her. Penny kept barking, Lassie-style, and we kept yelling at her to shut up (Jon: "If I have to go in there ONE MORE TIME I will KICK HER ACROSS THE ROOM"). Needless to say, I will feel like a terrible person for the rest of my life. We spent several hours in the Heber City ER that night where she was diagnosed with "a bad sprain on one side and possibly a small fracture on the other." She had to get TWO MORE opinions before it was determined that her tendon had separated from the bone, and another two to determine that she actually had TWO broken bones in there. A MONTH AFTER IT HAPPENED. WHAT THE ACTUAL %^$*

Oh my Joseph. Sweet, dear, precious Joseph.

One day I curled Annie's hair, then I looked over at her in the car and she'd put her hood up. It was so beautiful that I forced her to let me take a portrait with my iPhone when we got back to her house. Corinne saw the picture, busted out her professional camera, and took portraits of us both. This was the photo that started it all; others (better ones) are on Corinne's blog here (Annie) and here (me).

Triple nap

I made one for Dash and one for Jon. So many opportunities to say "snood" this trip!

BCC party!

Kyle, Gunner, Jon (and snood)

Sluuuuuurp

Chocolate fondue!

A couple of days after Christmas, Poppie caught pneumonia. He has given the family a dozen false alarms in the past, but still, I took an extra day off work than I had planned so that we could stick around in case there was any news (and spend some more time with him). I'm so grateful that we did because two days after we got home to Arizona, he passed away. It was back to Utah the following weekend for the funeral. This time we flew.

Christa picked us up at the airport (Thanks, Christa!!) and we killed time at the BYU art museum before meeting Annie and my mom at Bombay House for dinner. At the museum we went into a very orange room, sat down on some poufs, passed the baby around, and talked for an hour and a half.

This would have been a very cute picture if Jon had known to touch the screen to make it focus.

Before...

After.

I thought this was a cute picture of my grandma's cat until I looked at the background.

Jon and I helped my dad and Sweetie clean out Poppie's closet the night before the funeral. There wasn't much in there for the less-than XXL crowd, but this vintage cashmere tweed Stetson fedora (with a feather in the side!) is juuuuuust riiiiight.

It was a beautiful service. And I didn't even screw up the closing prayer!

I hate to be that guy that takes and posts pictures of his food, but this was the best crepe ever so this is both an advertisement and a reminder to myself to go back to Savory and Sweet next time I'm in Orem.

Our flight was delayed by over 24 hours on our way back, but we finally made it home.

NICE TRY, FOG.

Other stuff that happened (between the two trips combined):

• Maddox (twice)
• Summerhays Fish and Chips (thrice)
• Tony’s Tacos (only once?!??!?)
• Scones at The Hub (thrice)
• Dance Family Fun (twice)
• My mom commenting that my electric toothbrush sounded like a didgeridoo, Steve disappearing down the stairs and returning 60 seconds later holding a didgeridoo.
• My mom on a motorized scooter leaving a wake of destruction in the grocery store. I have never laughed harder in my life.

[Scene: Getting ready to stop at a gas station on the way back from Kaysville – I was driving, but I hate driving in heels]
Me: I can’t wait to stop so I can take my boot off.
My mom, forlornly: I wish I could take *my* boot off…

• Us knowing when my mom was awake in the mornings: “I heard Velcro!”
• Corinne pointing out that Gunner is basically Hodor.
• Me winning rock-paper-scissors against Steve, declaring “I knew I would win; men always pick rock!” and Kyle chiming in, “It’s true! I won an office-wide tournament by that logic!”
• Me: “…And there was nothing left but a nail and a beer bottle.” (This joke was the perfect culmination of a rowdy conversation concerning this blog post followed closely by a game of Mafia. It was one of the proudest moments of my life. I still sometimes snicker about it to myself.)
• Me to Annie: "Hey, cool bra."
• Me draping my arms over aloof Dash's neck and singing "Stay with Me" in Meryl Streep's voice as he tried to wander off.
• Jon tasting my crepe and instantly exclaiming "I like it!" in Rapunzel's prince's voice.
• Annie warning me to not throw Charlie's tennis ball over the fence; me immediately throwing it over the fence.
• Corinne's autocorrect fail/improvement: She tried to say they were having an "emergency plunging situation" at the condo, but what she actually sent to Annie was "emergency plunging sensation."
• Steve being asked at the 11th hour to bring a salad to a work function, him texting Annie the next day "I think no one likes my salad because it's literally all still there." :(
• Jon and Corinne's disastrous car-hug. He dropped her off at the condo (one of four times we said goodbye to her between Christmas and New Years), they leaned in for the hug, someone went the wrong way, and they smacked heads. Corinne notified me immediately afterward via text, and ten minutes later Jon walked into Annie's house with wide eyes, shaking his head.