Play it Again, Sam!

Sam is the man!  Jonny and Jenny spent a week in Utah beginning February 14, 2014, and they brought Sam with them. We all enjoyed holding Sam, playing with him, and admiring his remarkable feats, such as sitting up and eating spinach from a tube.  Jenny and Sam flew into SLC to visit Jenny's parents, the Leathams, and Jonny flew into Vegas to spend a weekend with his men friends in St. George before heading north. 

 

Dave and I drove to Vegas to pick Jonny up at the airport on Saturday and treat him to the lunch buffet at the Wynn.  We caught up on two months of news as we ate our shrimp, steak, fresh orange juice, and other delicacies--we haven't seen Jonny since Christmas.  I had only two plates full of food, mounded only slightly, and I counted that a victory.  This being Vegas, there were elaborate floral arrangements and scantily clad waitresses to add to the ambience.  Dave swears he didn't know he had beans hanging out of his mouth when I took this picture.  It seems to me like a commentary on my blog...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jonny spent all weekend at the Leavitts' home on the Coral Canyon golf course.  He poached himself for eight hours in the hot tub, just talking with his friends.  Dave and I watched the excellent movie, "The Book Thief," exercised in the St. George sunshine, and drove to Zions Park for supper at Oscar's Café.  Our visit to Oscar's was bittersweet, since that was where we ate with Dave's mom and Darrell, the last time we visited with them in St. George.

Jonny rejoined us Sunday morning, and we drove home along the picturesque "back way," through Milford, Delta, and the old mining town, Eureka.  Jonny took picture after picture of Southern Utah (Pine Mountain framed with sagebrush), Central Utah (a railroad train steaming north, with a yellow caboose and a huge American flag painted on its cab), and northern Utah (Utah Lake, with ice slushing in it, framed by the Wasatch Mountains). "I just love Utah!" Jonny always exclaims, when he comes home.

It's always party time when family members visit from out-of-town!  On Presidents' Day evening, February 17, 2014, Camille's family joined Jonny and Jenny, Sam, and Dave and me in Midway.  Our intention was to tour the ice castle was built there this winter.

Alas, the line to the castle was more than an hour long and Jonny's friends had told him the castle looked just the same on the outside and inside.  We decided to let the view from the outside suffice, and to head for the Wasatch Back for burgers, chili, and fries.

Sam had to make do with spinach from a tube.

Camille's children adore Jenny, and she made her rounds, talking with each of the Ebert children.

Jonny knows that lots of truly good things, such as fry sauce, originated in Utah.

It was good to be together!

We spent Tuesday night at a "grown-up's party" at Cinegrill--just Jonny and Jenny, Camille, Dave and I.  Jonny snapped a photo of Cinegrill for Instagram, labeling it "True Americana."  We ordered what we always choose--the lasagna, garlic bread, and big salads with Cinegrill's signature dressing.  We missed Steve, who is out-of-town this week, searching for new customers for Nationwide, and Michael, who is on his "Voodoo Trail" tour in West Africa.

On Wednesday night, we gathered at Camille's house for an Italian pasta dinner, with  two homemade sauces, crusty bread, and a big green salad.  It was actually more eclectic than that--Jonny made Brazilian limonada, and Gretta brought homemade banana Bavarian sherbet and brownies for dessert.  Sam played happily with a box of old toys from Camille's children's baby days.

Mia takes dancing lessons, and she showed us her tutu.

Jenny and Sophia cut up the limes for the limonada.

Camille made the salad.

Sam still gets "swaddled" at night.  Jenny surmises it makes him feel relaxed and safe to be tightly bundled as if he were still a newborn.  Despite kisses and swaddling, though, Sam still wasn't ready to go down, with a party going on!

The fun people talked, laughed, and ate until nine o'clock at night, as Dave arrived from work, Emilie came home from a choral concert, Jono caught a ride back from YMYW, and Annelise finished working on a school project with a friend.  Finally all the parties were over, and Jonny, Jenny, and Sam flew back to North Carolina on Friday.  We were sad to see them go.  Luckily, they're coming home again at Easter.

Birthday Boy

 Ezra turned seven on February 13, 2014.  He chose to have his birthday dinner at Chuckarama.  We were delighted.  Chuckarama always reminds me of my mother, who took her grandchildren there on important occasions.  As she hobbled in behind her walker, with a trail of scruffy-looking family behind her, she always sniffed, "The only thing I don't like about this restaurant is the people who come here!"  I laugh every time I think of that, and I beg Heaven that I can recognize my own blindness!

 

These days Chuckarama has delicious, fresh salads.

It also still has the scones, macaroni and cheese, and mashed potatoes that led Camille, several years ago, to instruct her children that they had to have something green on their plates before they added all that white stuff.  Annelise added green jello.

 What a cute family!

After dinner, we returned to our house and showed the Eberts the demolition of our upstairs rooms.  We cleared away some dust and lit candles on Ezra's birthday cake. Ezra and I picked it up from Schmidt's Pastry Shop earlier in the afternoon, on our way to Toys'R'Us to choose his birthday presents.

Ezra waited patiently to blow out his candles.

Afterwards, he opened his presents.  He chose the gifts I gave him, but he pretended great surprise and excitement!  He also unveiled the nine guns which I had permitted him.  On Camille's explicit instructions, I had steered Ezra away from the video games.  "I don't want your mom to fire me as grandma," I explained. "She'll take one look at a video game and say, 'That Gretta Spendlove, she's got to go.'"

Rootstech and Her--Loving Your Computer

The Rootstech conference on February 8, 2014, was the largest conference I'd been to at the Salt Palace since Comecon.  Comecon was more colorful (attendees dressed up as Catwoman, Superman, and other comic heroes), but Rootstech was more inspiring.  It was sponsored by FamilySearch, the LDS Church genealogy website, and was the largest family history conference in North America.

 

I fairly ran from one presentation and exhibit to the next, trying to squeeze as many treasures into my day as I could.  The speakers touched on most of my treasured hobbies--how to take better photographs to preserve family memories, how to use photographs in making family gifts, how to use ancestry.com and familysearch.org more efficiently to find ancestors; how to make family history come alive.  I dragged home a pack of "finds," including the book "Zap the Grandma Gap" (how to share family history with grandchildren without boring them to death) and a kit from Ancestry.com to test my DNA.  The conference focused on the latest high tech wizardry, as well creative applications.

The Church ran a sold-out family history conference concurrently with the secular Rootstech gathering.  5,000 young people attended, and they had to turn 1,000 away.  Next year, my teenage grandchildren may want to come along!

Dave and I are always looking for new restaurants, particularly Indian ones.  We ate supper at Kathmandu, on 700 East.  It had great naan, curries, and our drink of choice, mango lassi.

We are trying to see all the movies nominated as "Best Picture" for this year's Academy Awards.  We were a bit taken aback by "Her," a sci-fi romance between a man and his computer, including simulated sex scenes and "dates."  Going to such things, I assured David, will keep us young.