Bazail Cousins

I took a little detour from regular life to drive up to Sarah and Roland's new cabin in the hills near Park City.  It's going to be beautiful!  It feels like you're on the heaven side of civilization.  Afterwards, we went to lunch and I brought Alex and Lincoln back to Kaysville for a little cousin time.

These two are amazing at what they do.  Sarah will have this cabin feeling like a cozy, modern spa retreat.  She is an incredible designer.

Tricia and Jim took the kids to Boondocks, which was pretty much the highlight of their lives.  I think they talked Tricia and Jim into a lot of extras!  ;)  It's a good thing they stayed so long, though, because Araceli had offered to have the Young Women over to watch "Once I Was a Beehive."  She knows I always say yes to hosting.  Plus, she cleaned up the basement and got it all ready for the girls, so it's a win-win.  I loved having a table of popcorn and licorice waiting for me when I got home from teaching, not to mention all the darling girls.  I even snuggled in to watch part of the show with them.  Alex and Lincoln has a sleepover at our house, once the young women had cleared out, and were up and at it the next morning to send the Dopp kids off to school.

The rest of us breakfasted at Granny Annie's with Tricia and Jim, then they took Alex and Lincoln and Tizzy back to Boondocks!  What is with these grown-ups who have unlimited energy!?  They are amazing!  Thank you so much!!

We'll take Alex and Lincoln anytime we can get them!  They're wonderful kids, and we love 'em!

Bazails Are Here!

With Sarah and Roland in town, as well as Tricia and Jim in the vicinity, we planned a day at Cherry Hill, a sleepover and a day at Boondocks on the generous Tricia and Jim.  It's harder than you would think to fit fun into the summer, what with life happening too.  So I found myself on the way to Cherry Hill with a less-than-stellar lunch.  My Instagram caption was: "I wish I were the girl with the neatly packed, organic picnic basket, towels and swimsuits for every kid, and a jug of cold lemonade.  But I'm not.  I'm the girl with the dashboard full of hot dogs, asking myself questions like, "How can I make a swimsuit for Tizzy out of this hat?" And "I wonder how old this Sprite is?"

I laughed about that one all day.  In actuality, I don't wish I were the girl with the neatly packed picnic basket.  That is the girl who is silently screaming on the inside while she outwardly tries to project success.  Or at least that's what I tell myself.  For the record, at age 43, I am quite satisfied with who I am.  Perfection is for the dogs.

 I will say, though, that these two are pretty darn perfect.  And so were our two days of Bazail Bliss.  I loved seeing Alex and Lincoln again.  I missed them!!

 Trajan and Micaela

 Day 2:  movin' on up from hot dogs.  This is the picnic I packed to take to the revelers at Boondocks.  Tricia and Jim were such good sports.  The kids had a blast at Boondocks!

 Where is Tizzy??

This little spitfire was too little for Boondocks.  She stayed home with me to repair violins.  She loved it.  I think her exact words were:  "Mom!  Dad doesn't make all this noise when He does HIS work!  And he cooks dinner and you don't, 'cause you're always doing THIS!"  Tziporah loves to rant and rave.  She is hilarious.

Bazail Brunch

Sunday morning, we were all set up for the Bazail Brunch.  Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?  Sarah and Roland and the boys came down from Park City in the festive holiday rain.  Not the weather we like in Utah for Christmas, but it was snowing in the mountains, so hopefully Roland will have some good snow this week for skiing.  In the meantime, delicious Marie Callendar's quiche, funeral potatoes, red jello, a ham, and desserts as far as the eye can see.  Maybe the rain isn't so bad after all.

 When five-year-olds get their own food.

The must-have Coke Nog, and plenty of it.

TZ has Tricia's cancer pose...see below

Halfway through the party, I got a call from Jenny Neeley's phone.  It was Aracei.  "Hi Mom!  Jenny picked me up and I'm going to have a sleepover at Grandma's with Neeley.  I forgot to say bye!"  The real truth:  She sneaked out early, because I had told her she couldn't leave until 2:00.  Saying good-bye would have foiled her plan.  Better to ask forgiveness than permission, because honestly, we hadn't even noticed she was gone.  Oops.

Emily was sick all weekend, so the Kings missed all the festivities.  But here are the rest of the cousins, doing their git exchange.  I'll really have to step it up next year.  Sarah doesn't relate to the concept of a ten-dollar limit!  Lol

Coco couldn't resist giving Tricia this dog pillow in honor of all the rescue dog pics Tricia posts on facebook.  It will look perfect in her oceanfront condo!

My only King cousin...

unless you count Roland, which would make sense.  We talked a lot about Cuba and how the Cuban-American community in Miami is reacting to the news.  Older generation:  angry.  Younger generation:  hopeful.  Kings and Bazails:  eager to travel back to the 1950's before Cuba changes, and that will probably happen rapidly.

Tricia had some skin cancer removed from her chin, so she struck this pose in all the pictures.  We were all teasing her.

Our godsons, Alex and Lincoln.

Festivities were temporarily interrupted for church, where I played my violin for the kids as they sang.  So fun!  But back to the party...the King After-Party commenced at 4:30 and we lounged around eating and...eating...and recovering from eating.

And Scott came home!  He was relieved to see the house still full of people.  We did it just for him, so he wouldn't feel like he missed out on all the fun. ;)

Josh and the kids made it over.  Yay!  Emily, hope you're on the mend.  Horrible timing!  

"What happened in Vegas...came home."  #falseadvertising  Glad to have you home, though, Scott!