In between football, injuries, and Maycember, there were a few calm moments and some other things that were noteworthy. So without further ado, here's the rest of what we did in Utah in May.
Gabe made pancakes. Without fail, at some point in any month, someone will make pancakes.
They finally fixed our ugly garage doors. They switched the top two panels so that the top of the garage didn't cut into the windows. They left it for a week for me to decide if I like them. This picture below is with the larger garage switched and the smaller garage left how they originally installed it. We ultimately decided that this change was acceptable, and this is how they are now (only both doors have the lower windows).
The kids sat up on the balcony where I could keep an eye on them, and I gave them permission to occasionally get up and stretch their legs. Gabe thought this meant he could go for a little walk in the neighborhood near the Tabernacle. But, they were reverent, and they were all there for my talk.
Meanwhile, Brian got to be in business class for his international flight, which meant a little more room and fancier snacks.
We celebrated May the 4th with special donuts from Lehi Bakery. Here's an R2D2 donut.
Droids and a storm trooper.
And now Brian will tell us all about his trip to Bucharest:
Hi. I'm Brian. I went to Bucharest. It was nice.
Ok, but really, Bucharest was an incredible trip, and one I hope to repeat (if only I could take Devri!). In the past, I've really struggled with the long flights overseas (especially going east to west) due to not being able to sleep on the flight, but I decided to try out my brother Ben's recommendation for how to handle things. I decided to just work/play games/watch movies until I got sleepy, take a little nap, and then when I woke up, do it all over again. Basically the idea was to not force myself to sleep and just get rest as I needed it, then stay up the next day until the normal bed time. I'm actually somewhat of a night owl, so while the next day was a little difficult since I did try to work a bit, it was actually doable for the first time. I don't think it would work well for kids, but that was definitely the best experience I've ever had flying. Adobe springing for business class certainly didn't hurt either for the 10 hour flight to Amsterdam and the 3 hour flight to Bucharest!
Bucharest itself was really beautiful, it was so green!
It clearly had a lot of older architecture that was awesome to see, but unfortunately this was just from my window in the taxi so I didn't get to see what it was.
And this is the Arc de Triomphe. Or its twin, hard to tell. It wasn't France but they seemed related so maybe a cousin?
This just in, the crack research team got back to me and it turns out this is actually the Arcul de Triumf. Sorry everyone, I was WAY off. Also, while this biker appears to be nearly 1/3 of the height of the arch, he/she was just normal sized. Sorry for the confusion everyone.
Apparently they have dinosaur museums too!
More shots from the taxi from the airport to my hotel. Let's call this one: a view from a taxi.
A view from a taxi 2: the yellow car strikes back.
Tell me you're in Europe without telling me you're in Europe. I'll go first... (For those that don't know, the water bottle lid being attached is everywhere in Europe, and makes us laugh every time)
After getting dropped off at my hotel, I went for a little sight seeing just around the downtown area I was at. Fortunately there were some pretty awesome sites around. This was literally kiddie corner from my hotel, and Devri could tell you the style of architecture it is, but I'm not her, so let's call it ... mid-century Romanian.
I think this was a government building that had been turned into a museum of some kind. I didn't go in and I can't read Romanian so I don't actually know.
Same building, different perspective. Same Brian also.
At night this got lit up and was really beautiful. I came with a coworker (he had flown out a couple of days earlier but I went later since I was at a work conference the week before), so after work we met up and ate at a restaurant right across the street.
Back to Devri: While Brian was gone, someone got upset and took out his frustration on a wall downstairs. He then got to learn how to patch walls.
More from Brian. This is the view from the Adobe office in Bucharest. They share space with some other companies but are actually expanding there from what I heard. The office space is pretty new too and was quite nice. From this viewpoint, you can see the the Presidential Palace, which is truly massive. That is not just a lot of big buildings at the top of the picture, it's one massive one! I was sad I didn't have time to go see it in person.
This is me eating mici, which translates to "little ones". They are basically just fried sausages. Not my favorite, but they weren't bad. I figured I should try a local dish while there.
(Devri) Gracie provided emotional support while Brian was gone.
After work one day, a friend I'd made at the office, Catalina, walked me a different way back to the train station since it was on the way back to her place. We ran across this little church and went inside, but I didn't take any photos inside to be respectful.
Here's a bust of Naaman, pre-leprous healing. Just kidding, I have no idea who this is, but it was around my hotel and I thought it was cool.
This gem was pretty close to my hotel as well, but was clearly styled after a soviet missile silo or something.
It is actually available to stay in for the night if anyone is interested. I think I read that it's practically condemned at this point.
I don't remember what this is, but probably just another cool building.
I met a lot of really awesome people in Romania. Some of these folks I've worked with for awhile off and on, but this was my first time actually being with them in person for any long period of time. They were just the kindest and some of the most accommodating people I have ever met. Both my coworker and I don't drink alcohol and he was craving kebabs, so they actually went to a restaurant that didn't serve alcohol much to their chagrin (read: disappointment). We still had fun though. This is a picture of my coworker's team that were nice enough to adopt me for the week. I actually was there to interview many different people about their usage of AI and to present to their teams about AI transformation in our organization a bit.
Somewhat amusing sidenote: Romanians refuse to give their credit cards to waiters. They literally just don't trust them with it. Their minds were blown when we told them we do it regularly in the US.
(Devri) While doing laundry, I came upon this shirt of Gabe's. I asked him how he got all this blue on his shirt, and he didn't know. I didn't know either, but now, as I've been writing these posts, I think what musth have happened is that Gabe's color blast clothes got put in his hamper right on top of this shirt. Or his shirt rested right on top of the color blast clothes.
In preparation for Halloween and our trip to Disneyland in October, Rachel is rewatching all of the Star Wars Movies. I invited her and Michael to watch one of the episodes in my room with me since Brian was still out of town.
Brian got back on Friday, May 8, and Rachel and Gabe had their recital on May 9 (in case you forgot). Here they are with their teacher, Janessa. She's amazing!
Brian made it back just in time for Mother's Day. He somehow managed to coordinate with the kids to get me a new Willowtree statue (that they all paid for; he was just the idea man and courier). I love it. He got me alcohol markers and tried to give me a night away in a hotel, but I refused to take him up on it, even though I was pretty tired of running things by myself while he was gone for work. There was just no time to take a day off in May.
The kids were kind enough to take a photo with me. This is the one thing I want ever year for Mother's Day. I love these three so much, and I'm so proud to be their mom.
Brian and his siblings like to fill out these sheets for their mom every year. Here's Brian's.
Brian got a nerve block for his hand/wrist, which still gives him trouble despite surgery 2 years ago. This one did something a little crazy to his eye for a minute. One eye is drooping a bit, but it isn't terribly obvious in this photo.
I mowed the lawn. It always feels good to mow the lawn, especially because a few years ago, it took everything I had to do it, thanks to Afib. Remission is so nice!
After going out to dinner one night, Brian and I decided to hike up to the suspension bridge in Draper. Can you tell we weren't planning to hike when we started the evening?
This sign should be everywhere dogs can go!
Fun facts about baptism fonts: since they are always locked up when the rest of the buildings get cleaned (and only a few people have keys), keeping them clean is a bit tricky. Whose job is it? Our baptism coordinators spray it with disinfectant after every baptism, but the other stake that we share the font with decided that wasn't enough (and we heartily agreed). They wanted to have the baptism coordinators clean it, but I didn't like that idea, and after we had a meeting with our coordinators about the new cleaning procedures (and we took a closer look on the hows of cleaning the font), we decided that we didn't want our elderly coordinators slipping on the wet surfaces and cleaning the font in their church clothes, so now, we, as the stake primary presidency, are taking turns cleaning it after the stake baptism day, and it was my turn in May. I brought Brian and Gabe along to help. Our stake presidency wasn't super thrilled that we are taking this on (they think we do enough), but it's actually kind of fun, and I'm looking forward to my next turn. Gabe wants to help again too!
Rachel got to keep her costume accessories from her "Dare to Dream" performance, and I found her gold laurel wreath hanging out on the counter later. Naturally, I had to try it on, which led to some singing.
One day, I'm assuming it was Sunday, we had popeye pancakes, and Michael got a little perfect dot of powdered sugar on his nose. The kids LOVE popeye pancakes.
Brian had one final work trip during the last week of school, but thankfully it was just a day trip to San Jose. This is where he parked the car. (Brian) I bet you're all glad that we put this in here. Do I have pictures of anything on this trip? Nope. But I have this photo of the parking garage, so you're welcome.
In May, I was a part of two book clubs, one that Armi invited me to, and then in May, our ward started one. Both book clubs read "Theo of Golden" and I loved this quote from it:
The great mystery from May remains why the basketball standard ended up clear over there. Was it the wind? Was it Michael? We may never know. (Brian) I actually know this one! When he's working on the car (he started doing oil changes around this time), he would push the net back to put the car on a flatter surface.
We took Gracie for a few joy rides in the car. The first time we ever took her somewhere with the windows down, she immediately tried to jump out of the window, so we keep her on a very short leash (literally) every time we roll the windows down.
Rachel had an end of school year pool party for her friends. Gabe came along for the ride and invited one of his friends. We also had neighborhood friends join. Here's Gabe with Harrison Arnett.
Rachel is 100% my daughter when it comes to parties. She wanted to have a soda bar, treats, and decor for this. Her drink list was super cute!
Here she is with Sadie and Emery.
Something kind of monumental happened in May. Michael, who decided to seek a "real" hair stylist a year or so ago. He wanted to go to a fancy barber shop where all his friends were going. But then, for some reason, the good stylists jumped ship, so all the kids his age did too, and he asked me to cut his hair again, but he has very specific stylist needs. It was a lot of pressure, but I took my time and double and triple checked with Michael to make sure I was doing what he wanted me to do.
He said he liked it, so I feel pretty proud that my 16 year old is sporting a haircut that I did.
Since Michael refused to stop driving anyway, I sent him with Gracie to Odgen to drop her off with Chelsea, who agreed to dogsit her while we went to Hawaii. I felt a little bad, but I was super pinched for time. Here they are headed off on their adventure. Michael made sure Gracie was securely strapped in so she wouldn't leap out of the moving car.
We did fairly good getting everything packed up and ready for Hawaii. The last thing to do was pedicures, which we opted (foolishly) to do ourselves at home. It took WAY longer than I thought it would, but our feet were nice and soft.
Rachel also tinted our eyebrows at the same time. Don't worry; we didn't look as scary once we washed the tint off.
We went to bed much later than we wanted, but we were all set and ready for our trip to Hawaii the next morning.
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