Our Trip to Anaconda

It was an odd turn of events which made it possible for us to see 5 of our 6 children this week! We have waited . . . and waited for Kaytee and Josh’s home loan to close. Finally she called to report the closing would be scheduled on Valentine's Day so we grabbed our painting supplies in anticipation of a trip to Anaconda to help them settle in and get the interior of the house at 721 Oak Street painted and the wallpaper stripped. On the way, we planned to see Michael, Lilly and Zachary in Provo before traveling onto Ogden for an overnight visit with Kelly and Gary . Then David called to say Jan’L’s grandfather (Clare Reber) had passed away at his home in Santa Clara – so they were coming to “celebrate his life.” After the funeral, David and Jan’L indicated they wanted to stop by Stacy’s to say “hi”  It was such a treat to see all the faces of our children – David, Stacy, Michael, Kelly and Kaytee – one-by-one in a matter of a couple of days.

Kaytee’s house – which is 13 loooooooong hours from St. George - is 3-bedrooms with a full basement, built in 1919. In the tradition of Anaconda it doesn’t have much of a yard – and nearly the entire house is Pepto-Bismol PINK (supposedly made popular in her day by Eleanor Roosevelt who is said to have had the interior of the White House painted in this, her favorite color). Our time in Anaconda was EXTREMELY busy and exhausting as we moved what seemed like hundreds of boxes and lots of furniture, painted the kitchen and the stairwell to the basement (a warm tan with white trim - well, actually a color called Lonesome Dove), demo-ed a couple of cabinets and rode herd on two rambunctious pre-schoolers and a 3-month-old puppy.  

With all our coming and going, here are some of the things which happened during our week on the road:

·         The odometer in Dad’s truck turned over to 100,000 miles in Pocatello!

·         It was freezing cold with lots of snow so I don’t want to hear anyone from Anaconda asking - in June, July and August, “how can you live in St. George?”

·         Kendi got her drivers license.

·         Kelly gave me her “old” iPhone 4 which did not work well because she had spilled something in it, but Dad got me an appointment at the City Creek Apple Store. It took the tech about 30 seconds to “clean out all the gunk”. I got a pretty new cover and am happy to finally have some 21^stcentury technology all my own!!! Thanks, Kelly!

·         We had breakfast with Larry and Karen Harris with whom we served in Guyana and got caught up on all the mission news.

·         “BYU forever” . . . a message I left on Whitney’s University of Utah stuffed bear did NOT make her smile. (NOTE to everyone: Whitney does NOT have a sense-of-humor when it comes to her alma mater).

·         I helped our extreme couponer put away her “stash” – a total of $6000 worth of merchandise for which she paid $500, remarking as we sorted and stacked, “I got so much better at it as I went along!” By my calculations, that still figures out to be 30¢ per item – although Kaytee’s goal is always FREE!!!

·         Dad discovered Clark and Kensington paint – recently named the best paint in America by Consumer Guide – sold at Ace Hardware!

·         Adyn, who says she hates bananas, LOVED Grandma Linda’s banana bread, although her momma didn’t tell her what it was until she had eaten most of a half of a loaf!!! Now she wants her momma to make her some more!

·         Skylar, in her little 2-year-old voice, shouted down into the dark basement of her new house, “Monster, where are you?” It was so cute.

·         Princess, the Postma’s Akita puppy learned to go up and down the steps to the girls’2^nd floor bedroom. It was hilarious to watch as we coaxed her from the bottom to the top and from the top to the bottom, but she finally figured it out.
*          We stopped in Idaho Falls to say “hi” to Grandma and Grandpa Sappington.

·         We stopped at Temple Square looking for Alicia Phagwah who was called from Guyana to serve a mission there.We finally found her in the South Visitors Center.She was so happy to see us.

·         We took Zac shopping for some much needed shoes. We were pleased to find a 2-for-1 sale – and two pairs of shoes he liked and which actually fit!

When it came time for us to say goodbye to our Montana kids, a teary-eyed Adyn begged us not to go. Grandma said, "don't be sad ... we'll come back for your birthday" to which our adorable 4-year-old granddaughter responded, "OK, it's Saturday!"