Last month's adventures took us far and wide. We were able to go to Caitlin's wedding in the LA temple on Dec. 17. It was a beautiful wedding and a fun day. It was a warm day for December, so the rain didn't really put a damper on things, especially since the reception was in a tent. Melanie and Lael had a great time in their Italian plum-colored dresses and they even let me curl their hair. Oliver and Henry were very dismayed when they were told it was an all-day event and they weren't going to get to go swimming until the evening. We finally let Henry go swimming during the luncheon after most of the guests had left. The kids all finally did get to swim the next day. They even went in the main pool, which was heated but would have still been way to cold for me (it is December after all). Erik and I got to meet Caitlin's husband Kevin for the first time right after the wedding ceremony. He seems like a really nice guy (hippie hair and all) and hopefully we'll get to spend some time with them in the future. At the reception, the kids loved the candy table and decorating the car. I had forgotten the glass paint so we had to make due with ranch dressing and mini oreos, but we made it work, although when they drove away the car did smell faintly of salad. Caitlin had lots of friends from college who came out for the wedding so the house was very busy. Kevin and Caitlin came back to open gifts on Sunday. We had a nice, relaxing day on Sunday and ate way too much leftover wedding cheesecake (but it was so good it was hard to resist!). The Lamb's bishop came over and called Lynn to be the Relief Society President, which she seemed to take in stride. I think she'll be great at it. We hung around for one extra day so the kids could play with their cousin Melanie and Lael cried (very loudly) that she wanted to go back for the first hour and a half of the car ride home. When we got back to the Bay Area, we spent lots of time with Ann, Rob, Neil and Allie, Carl and baby Nathaniel. We played a lot of Bang! and went to see a couple movies – Lael loved Tintin and I really enjoyed Mission: Impossible. Ann cooked fabulous meals and we were very well fed that week! We had a very nice Christmas Eve program where everyone got to participate and we opened all the gifts, since Carl and Allie were leaving first thing Christmas morning to go back to Maryland. It was nice to get to see them again and hopefully we'll get to see everyone in August when we have a Swanson family week at the beach scheduled in Oregon.
The morning we got back from LA, I found out that my Uncle Larry had passed away and after much agonizing, decided to go to his funeral in South Dakota. Erik had the week off, so I left him to fend with kids from Tuesday through Saturday and I flew in to Rapid City. My brother Dan drove from Ogden, UT and picked me up on the way. We had to stop by Michael's and pick up a display board and I had sent photos to the Walmart so we picked those up and then we drove the 3 hours to Pierre. We got to see lots of cousins we hadn't seen in decades. We were fed everywhere we went, so that was really nice. My dad arrived at 10:30 pm and I got the rest of the pictures from him and then was up until 1 am putting the pictures together on the display board with my cousin. Her 3-year-old helped by sticking her gum to the display board first thing, so I felt right at home. The next morning was the funeral. It was an unusually warm day for a South Dakota winter, although it was still cold to me! It was nice that the ground was frozen enough that my heels didn't sink at the cemetary. At any rate, it was a very nice service. My Dad gave a talk, we sang several songs and then it was open for anyone to share memories of Larry. His surviving siblings got up and Dan and I got up. Some of the things that were shared were: Uncle Larry was always extremely positive. He was diagnosed with lupus in his early 20s and was on prednisone most of his life, which ate away his teeth and hips, so he had lots of surgeries and fake parts. He had to deal with a lot of constant pain but he always tried to be upbeat. He really enjoyed the time he spent with us the first 8 years of my life when we lived in Iowa with him. He would always call me Emily Dubeen (since I am named after my Aunt Duveen). He told me about how he would drive his Camero with me in one arm and the other on the wheel. He liked his muscle cars. He lived with us in Utah during one of his hip replacement surgeries and Dan was his roommate. His car was pretty dead, so my Dad got him another car to drive back to Iowa. Dan eventually bought a Camero and he and Uncle Larry would talk about the repairs and modifications he could make on it and Uncle Larry really enjoyed that. He was in Utah for my wedding in 1997 and he die cut all my invitations so there was a place for my photo to slide into (he worked in the printing business) and I was glad he was able to be at my wedding. In 2005, he came out to California to visit us and we took him on what was his last camping trip. We got him a cot and put an air mattress on top. He enjoyed being outdoors but I know that trip was tough for him physically. But he was a trooper and didn't complain. After he visited us, he had his leg amputated and after that his mobility decreased and he went back and forth between the rehabilitation center and the hospital. He always talked about what he would do when he got out. The last time I saw him was at the South Dakota reunion in 2007. I would talk to him a couple times a year and tried to remember Christmas and his birthday, which is the same as Henry's - June 10. He always remembered people's birthdays and other dates and although he wasn't able to have kids of his own, he truly enjoyed his nieces and nephews. He loved to make people, especially kids, laugh. Even though I'm glad he's not in pain anymore, I wish I could have done more for him and I do miss him.
I got to spend time with my cousin KD, who I haven't spent hardly any time with in the past 20 years. But it was fun to be together again. She is the only cousin I have who is my age. She is the youngest child of the oldest brother and I am the oldest child of the youngest brother. I look a lot like her family and it was funny when we stopped to get fast food, the cashier asked us if we were twins. We used to get asked that all the time but I had forgotten. She has 5 kids and works full time but was willing to take a day off work to spend with me. We went Goodwill shopping and I bought things like bolo ties and other Western wear, so it was fun. We have been trying to get back since the reunion and we are planning to go back out to South Dakota in the summer of 2013.
I flew back into Oakland New Year's Eve and we went to the City to see the lights and eat at McDonald's. There is now a law in San Francisco that says a child's meal cannot be offered with a toy. So McDonald's did an end-run around the law and is offering the toy for purchase for 10 cents extra that is donated to the Ronald McDonald House. McDonald's is paying me for my opinion about how my children are affected by this law, but it meant we had to eat out at an SF McDonald's. Since the toy is still offered separately, it wasn't any different to the kids, since I just asked them if they wanted it or not. McDonald's also has had to cut down the fries and add apples to meet nutrition requirements. Oliver of course won't eat the apples, but it's a good thing they get less fries. At any rate, the weather was perfect. We walked around and then ate in the very narrow, overcrowded restaurant on Market Street, walked back to our car and went to our friend's house in El Cerrito where we played Bang! and ate Silk Fudge from South Dakota until midnight.
And we've been recovering from everything since then!
At any rate, it looks like we've got more weddings coming up, starting with Emily's sister Sarah's wedding in Utah on March 24, so it should be an exciting Spring! Hope you all survived your holidays.
Emily
