October 2010

The month of October was a busy month. We quickly flew to Utah last minute to attend the funeral of my Grandpa Emmett. It was a beautiful service but it was definitely hard to say goodbye. He passed away quickly after the cancer spread to his brain which was nice to know he didn't have to suffer long. It was a peaceful passing at his home with family by his side. I do miss seeing his comments on my blog, it was nice to know at least one person was reading it. 

I had so many great memories living close to my grandparents as a child. My grandpa would always stop at our lemonade stands, he would take us for rides in his 1931 Chevy to get ice cream. I still remember the smell of his cologne when he would give me hugs. When he retired from working, I could almost always guarantee to find grandpa asleep in his chair whenever I would stop by the house. It never bothered him to wake up and visit with me though. He would always squeeze lemon into his diet cherry coke and then stir it with his finger. He made the best homemade ice cream! 

He taught all his children to ski which has turned into all the grandchildren loving to ski as well. It's something our family enjoys doing together as much as we can. I remember riding up the chair lift with my grandpa looking at all the different snowflakes as they fell on our gloves and pants. He would ski ahead of us and then stop and take pictures or video as we skied down the hill. One day I missed school to go skiing with friends but I forgot my money. I knew that if I just waited a few minutes I had a 99.9% chance of my grandpa arriving that morning to go skiing as well. That's exactly what happened! He saved the day and I was able to go skiing with my friends.

Me and my sisters with my grandma at the burial.

My Grandpa would always ask his grand-kids anytime we saw him "What's the answer to the hard question?" and our response was "Grandpa Emmett loves me" so we had that draped over his casket with a bunch of paper snowflakes, knowing he would want to be buried with "snow" since he loved skiing so much. 

 Kauai!

Exactly a week after the funeral Adam and I flew to Hawaii with Merrick and some of his family. This was the first airplane ride for Merrick that was longer than the CA to UT flight.  He did surprisingly well with the help of Adam's dad and wife Rosanne taking him up to their 1st class seats! 

We had great weather and enjoyed hanging out at the pool, playing in the sand, riding paddle boards, boogie boarding, surfing, snorkeling, hiking to our usual Kipu Falls, and dune buggies (just no mud, only dirt). I didn't take very many pictures except for this one day. 

Time to pick out pumpkins!

We have the cutest little pumpkin patch just down the street from where we live. They have tractor rides, farm animals, a little corn maze and of course pumpkins! Merrick loved it here, he would have sat on that tractor the whole time if we would have let him.

Halloween!