AZ or BUST!

Wow...lost in the drafts. This is from September 2012.

This weekend Dan, Princess Caitlin and I hauled it down to Arizona for my sweet grandmother's funeral. It was such a wonderful experience, great to see family (and one awesome friend!) and celebrate the great life this classy lady led. Seriously, she's amazing.

But this adventure started some 600 + miles away in the little land of Utah. Caitlin wanted to take the first driving stretch and we all agreed she'd drive to St. George and Dan and I would split the last 6 hours. Well, she had a boy texting her, who will not be named [and is now her husband], and since texting/driving is not allowed, she was having me text him back. No big deal. WRONG. She quite literally dictated every spelling and punctuation mark to me. Freaking hilarious.

Here's an example:

A: Yes, period? [referring to the punctuation mark]

C: No, put yep!

A: One p, or two p's?

C: Who puts two p's after yep?!

And just a few other funny things she said...she slept most of the drive home, so the funnies only happened on the way down.

C: I like safety...and aggressive driving.

Enough said.

C: If there's no bathroom, there's no me!

This one quite literally killed me. We were talking about the time our dad had taken us to the daddy/daughter camp out, and of course they don't have indoor plumbing out in the boonies. Princess Caitlin doesn't do anything without indoor plumbing, and even the plumbing at Camp Lomia is questionable. So after explaining why in her 9 year old mind she could not use the outhouse, she came to the conclusion that she does in fact hate camping, and will never go camping without indoor plumbing. Then came the above statement.

That was Friday. We had the funeral on Saturday, and it really was a lovely service. In all honesty though, I am very glad we were able to make it. It was so nice to hear all these great things about her! You have to understand one thing about her: she is an intensely private person, and not one to go about talking about herself. That's just not who she was. But she was the most amazing person ever. I attribute my love of nuts (especially cashews) to her, because whenever we would visit them, she and my grandpa would always send each of us home with a little sandwich bag (not the kind with the ziploc, the kind that folds over) full of nuts.

We went to her house after the funeral to go through a few things and decide if we wanted any of her stuff. She had this awesome mirror hanging on her wall. It has this ornate rose/flower design going around the frame, and it's a nice long oval mirror. Instant love. INSTANT. And to make this even better, my dad had already asked for it a few years back, and said I could have it!! SCORE!!! So when I refinish it (the frame is in gold) I'll post a picture. Dan also got my grandpa's set of the Church History books. They were from 1945!! Definitely a treasure. He was so cute, he said "Now I have to get home and build our bookshelf!" and also reminded me that we're not sharing those with anyone!

We also found quite a few, okay a ton, of pictures around her house. So many old photos of she and my grandpa. They were adorable to say the least, and at the moment I can't find them. But, they will show up in a few weeks I'm sure and I'll have another photo dump to add to the posts.

I miss them so much every day. It's so weird to think I only have one set of grandparents now. I've had 2 for the majority of my life. I count myself very blessed in that arena. Each day, it makes me more grateful for the plan of salvation and my knowledge and testimony of it. I am so blessed to have one more person rooting for me on the other side and helping me along this crazy journey.