This first few pic are out of order bc I added them later after editing out a face for privacy. But I just had to include it because I love nothing more than Aaron with a baby. We saw Parker and wife Kelsea on Friday afternoon. This is my great nephew, Rowan. Son of my nephew Parker (who was born when I was in high school. My sister was a voice instructor and assistant Choir director and she wore baby Parker on her back to work every day. Now Parker’s a father with a son the same age who looks exactly like him. Blows my mind a little to see Corbin and Quincy play and pass him around like I did with my friends during lunch period.
We kicked off Independence Day with a Willardson “family reunion” breakfast in Daybreak, hosted by Great Uncle Tom (Rob’s brother) and Aunt Valle and Aunt Stacey (wife of Rob’s late brother, Bruce) for everyone in town, since most of Wini and Drue Willardson’s living children were in town. We ate breakfast and heard from Rob (Lynda was at home), Great Aunt Karen (Rob’s sister) and Great Uncle Steve who are serving a full time medical mission in the salt lake mission office reviewing mission papers with medical and mental health needs, and Great Aunt Stacey (missing Bruce who passed 8ish years ago). Great Uncle Jeff Willardson (Rob’s Brother) and Aunt Laurie [Van Slooten] Willardson (cousin to our Arkansas friend Paul Van Slooten) are in Dallas Texas. Each Willardson grandchild introduced their family and we all caught up. It was great seeing a few of Aaron’s cousins that we were in college with and very close to during our Provo Utah and Bay Area California years. Some of Aaron’s cousins grew up with my Carly in San Diego, as Carly’s parents are best friends with Tom and Valle. So close that they followed them to Utah and are neighbors in Daybreak as empty nesters. Carly and I are 2nd Gen Willy/Pendleton besties and her mom often jokes that I am Carly’s Valle to her Kathy. My kids got to meet some 2nd cousins and 2nd cousins once removed (? I think?) and this was the first time many in the family were meeting the twins in person. I love these Willardson gatherings so much! We lived near Bruce and Stacey (of Walnut Creek, Ca) for a while and being a fellow extrovert, I made quick bonds with Aaron’s aunts and always felt like I fit in with Valle and Stacey’s families. It was really great to see them.
Aunt Valle and Sloane were quick besties.
Cousins upon cousins tossed footballs and ran around the Daybreak island together. We later got this text from cousin Kate’s husband Rob (who is cousins with Arkansas friends Bob and Shelly Stoker and our neighbor Susan Tuckett). Rob is an anesthesiologist in Salt Lake. Quincy sought him out and they talked a long time about Medical school vs Physician Associate school and cardiology.
It was just a beautiful morning.
I love being a Willardson.
After breakfast, we went over to Rob and Lynda’s with Aaron’s siblings and gathered outside for Aaron’s mom to come join us for a family photo. I don’t have it yet, but here is one of my family with both of Aaron’s parents. After the photo our family went inside one by one to he grandma Lynda a hug before we left. Corbin, Aaron, and I were last and she teased Corbin about his trendy hairstyle. It was hilarious and we have been quoting her all week. Then she said to Aaron and I that she looks at her family and sees that she has so much to be proud of. I agree!
We left daybreak and went back to Mark and Melinda’s for a big barbecue. Melinda’s sister Andrea lives next door to her in American Fork and we visited with her family a bit. Their son enters he MTC this week and will be serving with our friend Jacen H in Japan.
Everyone worked all week to get Grayson swimming independently. He’s so cute. Grey is especially obsessed with Corbin and now they face time often 😂
Grayson and Hadley look just like Taylor and Garrett. And little Cal is blonde just like Zack. Taylor is expecting her fourth baby and we wonder if her children will continue to follow the same pattern as her siblings. Maybe she’ll have a curly redhead like Brock!
Cal and Rowan are only 3 days apart. Yay for babies!
Pool twinning
That night we went to Stadium of Fire in Provo.
I have some thoughts about this.
I know Provo is a diverse place, but we really didn’t see it at the stadium of fire. There wasn’t a brown person to be seen and it was noticeably weird. We lived all the red white and blue outfits in the crowd. Utah is very patriotic and such a great place to celebrate the fourth! It bothered me to see so many MAGA hats and shirts. Regardless of your feelings about the POTUS or political affiliations, maga paraphanalia is a threat and symbol of racism to minorities and members of marginalized communities. America is beyond the point of being able to claim “it means something different to me.” It is a racist campaign. Refusing to learn and understand or empathize with the people hurt or feel emotionally or physically threatened by MAGA is an act of white privilege. I had a really difficult time celebrating the land of the free with my brown daughter sitting smack next to a someone wearing a t shirt about English being the “only American language” and so many maga hats in front of us. This is not an America I am proud of. Hard fought for freedom of religion and speech also include hard taught for freedom-to-be-a-jerk. The story of Agency is not new, I know. If I were a person of color, I would have felt unwelcome. Sitting in the stadium was hard for me. I just can’t make sense of so many displays of Christianity and racism on the same outfits. It all just felt really icky to me and I didn’t feel like cheering because I didn’t want to be associated with it. I haven’t explained maga to the twins yet and they don’t know that a shirt with an American flag, a greater than sign, and a Mexican flag is racist, but someday they will. My older kids noticed all of it and defensively moved the twins down our row to seats over by Aaron. To people who can’t relate and haven’t had the experience of being told they don’t belong somewhere, I’ll ask, please check your privileges.
The other thing I didn’t love were all the little little girls with fake eyelashes and hair pieces in dance uniforms. As we walked through the stadium to our portal, we passed hundreds of tiny dancers in preparation to enter the field. Corbin and Quincy and Reese laughed “are we on an episode of Dance Moms right now?” It sure felt like it! Haha. Some people love it, it’s just not for me.
Ok that’s it for negative commentary. I held my peace at the event, but had to speak it somewhere.
Rascal Flatts to the rescue. Great music. Sloane even turned off her noise cancelling headphones during the concert and sang along.
The fireworks and drone show? Amazing!
No one loves America as much as Bear Willardson. That kid knows every word to Grand Old Flag and he belted it out gleefully. Happy Birthday America!
On Saturday, aaron went fishing with his dad and Soren and some of the guys. Reese, Quincy, and I drove down to Payson. Cadence C received her own endowment and called to invite us to be there. Quincy cane for support and did baptisms, which felt courageous to her because she made the appointment and participated in the ordinance with a bunch of people she’s never met before. I think this bravery and confident independence is another little blessing of having a temple so close by and being able to attend frequently.
It was good to hug on Mardee and meet some of her and Spencer’s gigantic family! Reese whispered, “imagine having an endowment session filled almost exclusively with your own family members.” I pointed out that the kindred feeling is there on ward temple night and I hope she’ll get to come experience that before she goes back to school. It was a lovely morning. Cadence will be serving a mission in Lisbon Portugal in October! We loved hugging her one more time before these friends part ways again.
The fireworks and drone show? Amazing!
No one loves America as much as Bear Willardson. That kid knows every word to Grand Old Flag and he belted it out gleefully. Happy Birthday America!
On Saturday, aaron went fishing with his dad and Soren and some of the guys. Reese, Quincy, and I drove down to Payson. Cadence C received her own endowment and called to invite us to be there. Quincy cane for support and did baptisms, which felt courageous to her because she made the appointment and participated in the ordinance with a bunch of people she’s never met before. I think this bravery and confident independence is another little blessing of having a temple so close by and being able to attend frequently.
It was good to hug on Mardee and meet some of her and Spencer’s gigantic family! Reese whispered, “imagine having an endowment session filled almost exclusively with your own family members.” I pointed out that the kindred feeling is there on ward temple night and I hope she’ll get to come experience that before she goes back to school. It was a lovely morning. Cadence will be serving a mission in Lisbon Portugal in October! We loved hugging her one more time before these friends part ways again.
We went back to mark and Melinda’s and hung around awhile visiting with cousins before going to the airport to fly home. Reese went up to Bear Lake with a mission friend and comes home in a few days. Taylor and McCoy convinced Quincy to stay in Utah until the 16th and go to Lake Powell with Mark and Melinda. McCoy won’t be there the first few days and is very relieved Tay will have some help with the kids on the houseboat. Q is very excited to go to Powell. We were all surprised by Corbin and Soren’s response to her not coming home from vacation with us. As soon as the decision was made for her to stay behind, they didn’t leave her side. Corbin was on the phone with Q a lot on Sunday, and she told me yesterday he texted her from FSY a few times as well. I’m glad they’ve become so close. I snapped this pic and it’s a good representation of their interactions lately. Someone always wrestling someone.
Cousin Brock and cousin Zachary had much to say to Reese about post mission dating. Zach represented the newlyweds and Brock gave his perspective after being home from his mission for a year and dating a lot. They joined forces with Quincy (who has been living up her single life for almost a year now) for a bombardment of advice. Reese was open to all their opinions.
Q took us to the airport and then drove the van (named Nana) to my sister Amy’s for dinner.
Corbin spent over an hour (and nearly missed our flight home) trying to hunt down Jennica M’s cell phone. She had flown home with Caleb and Roman earlier in the day and left it in the airport. She and Caleb sent him on a wild goose chase between terminals and help desks, lost and founds, and a real run around with airport support on their courtesy phones. No success, sadly, but he did help Jennica file a lost or stolen item report with airport security. Corbin cares deeply and aims to serve anywhere that he can make a difference. He has such a big heart and wanted so badly to bring home good news to the Millers and even skipped dinner at Shake Shack in the airport with the family to retrace her steps with Jennica on the line (via Caleb’s phone) to go check under all the chairs in another terminal for her. I took this photo when our family was boarding and I had to go track him down to make the flight. He was committed! Caleb later tracked the phone’s location in Oregon. Lol.
It was a wonderful trip! We came home incomplete and we are really feeling what it will be like in September when the girls are off to school. It’s extra quiet with Corbin at FSY. The White and Miller boys all came by for late night haircuts (so they’d be “looking fresh” for fsy) before they left, and Ryan came by during Aaron’s lunch to hang out with us yesterday. The children have a fresh stack of library books and a fort constructed in the living room (it’s raining outside) and even with Bear on the ukulele, it still seems too quiet, today.
Corbin spent over an hour (and nearly missed our flight home) trying to hunt down Jennica M’s cell phone. She had flown home with Caleb and Roman earlier in the day and left it in the airport. She and Caleb sent him on a wild goose chase between terminals and help desks, lost and founds, and a real run around with airport support on their courtesy phones. No success, sadly, but he did help Jennica file a lost or stolen item report with airport security. Corbin cares deeply and aims to serve anywhere that he can make a difference. He has such a big heart and wanted so badly to bring home good news to the Millers and even skipped dinner at Shake Shack in the airport with the family to retrace her steps with Jennica on the line (via Caleb’s phone) to go check under all the chairs in another terminal for her. I took this photo when our family was boarding and I had to go track him down to make the flight. He was committed! Caleb later tracked the phone’s location in Oregon. Lol.
It was a wonderful trip! We came home incomplete and we are really feeling what it will be like in September when the girls are off to school. It’s extra quiet with Corbin at FSY. The White and Miller boys all came by for late night haircuts (so they’d be “looking fresh” for fsy) before they left, and Ryan came by during Aaron’s lunch to hang out with us yesterday. The children have a fresh stack of library books and a fort constructed in the living room (it’s raining outside) and even with Bear on the ukulele, it still seems too quiet, today.
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