The Anniversary and Family Reunion

We felt so blessed and honored to be a part of Nathan's Mom and Dad's special 50th Wedding Anniversary.  Very amazing to me.  I personally have never had a great relationship until my husband and even at our worst it's still pretty great.  It's always felt unattainable to me to have this kind of relationship this long so you can imagine the sheer admiration I have for his parents.  Very special and sacred to me.  As are they.

We arrived on campus at Weber State for their party.  I was both excited and sick to my stomach.  I can't speak for everyone else in the family but I'm sure curiosity was on their lists.  It was a beautiful setting.  Very elegant decorations around the room.  My favorite part of that setting?  The smiling faces in the crowd all lit up.  So many of these people had not seen each other since they had lived in South Africa.  The energy in the room was bright and happy.  Filled with an abundance of stories and cherished memories.  I enjoyed it immensely.  But nothing, to me, could compare to the joy that filled my husband as he swapped memories with old friends and you could see him relive a big part of his life.  It was.....humbling.  It showed how much he misses his home in South Africa.  It made me so happy to see his happiness.  I was thrilled to meet each and every one of his friends and family that day and watch our children interact with all of this as well.  Our youngest took quite a shine to her sweet uncle who if he grew tired of her chattering on so never showed it. We left the party that day with happy hearts and memories.  It was magical.

In anticipation of having to wake up early the next day and travel, we opted for a small dinner, little television and a lot of sleep.  Packing was easy as we packed light to begin with.  The excitement building to see family we hadn't seen in over eight years and meet new family grew.  But it was easy to sleep that night.

The next day, Brittany and Dyllan especially, were all bright eyed and bushy tailed.  We packed up the van, checked out of the hotel, ate a fairly light breakfast and hit the road.  The travel from northern Idaho to Great Falls Montana is tremendously beautiful.  Many times Nathan and I would remark this is a good place to retire someday.  We could hide quite happily here in the foothills and mountains.  Just a relaxing, gorgeous scenery.

When we finally hit the Canadian border, sooner than we thought, I had this weird feeling that something was wrong and of course not knowing if it was big or small I, being me, had a tiny panic attack to myself as to not spoil the atmosphere of the car.  After about twenty or so are we there yets in the last hour alone ( thank-you Catie ) our border patrol noticed that Nathan had not signed his passport.  First thing that pops into my head, "And there it is!."  She was merciful and allowed us through.  First thing that pops out of Brittany's mouth, "We got away with it he he."  Onward to Magrath and not quite finished with the are we there yets and now of course we've added bouncing up and down ( me not Catie ) we arrived safe and sound at my parent's home.  Greeted with open arms, a teary Mother, and a nephew we met for the first time.  Wonderful way to begin.  We introduced miss Catie to their french bull dog slooowwwly.  We weren't sure how she would react ( the dog not Catie).  She was a rescued kennel dog.  Although Catie was happy and nervous herself but mostly just happy to be around cousins and a dog.

In the backyard Dad in his genius imagination and creativity had built a tree fort consisting of a single man tent that he could sleep in and also a zip line that went across the backyard.  Fun anticipated.  He also managed another larger tent near the fence, I for one was hoping all the kids would fit but alas, they didn't.  Good to be home.  See those Rocky Mountains, smell that air, look at all that beautiful flowing wheat ( allergies anticipated ), and yum raspberry bushes bordering the garden.  Finally!  We can relax!

Was hot but dry, not like St Louis with her sticky heat.  Quite enjoyable.  We spent a lot of time getting to know our niece and nephew as well as watching all the cousins interact with each other.  I was also curious what Grandpa would think of Catie, she can be such a ham.  Before we knew it, it was time for the Remington Family Reunion.

 Was so great to see family I hadn't seen in a long time and how their families have grown.  There were so many people to meet we didn't stand a chance meeting them all but I was going to try.  The first day was simple.  We had to opportunity to visit the Remington Carriage Center in Cardston, Alberta.  There was soooooo much to see!  First off was our carriage ride around the property.

 A family dinner and program filled with musical talents and reminiscing.  It needs to be said that the roast beef served that night was the best we've ever had anywhere!  The next day was a big family breakfast followed by tubing down the river for the teens and a kids carnival where they would play games and earn pennies to spend at the country store for toys and candy.

 The kids said the water was cold.  What do you expect when you're in the foothills of giant, majestic mountains and tube in a runoff river?  My parents most of this time were working hard to fix lunch for the whooollllle family.  That's a lot of food for a lot of people!  They did an amazing job, food was great. Since this was at a school the kids had a playground at their disposal the entire time and that's good because following lunch was a family auction.  We bid a few times but we lost all of our bids.(happy to help drive up the price Sandy)  After the auction there was a time of story telling from older family members about our ancestors.  So precious.  I feel so honored to be a member of this family heritage.

Onwards exploring Salt Lake City and Provo

It was so brilliantly wonderful and magnificent to sleep in ( to us anyways ) and be able to attend the Salt Lake City Pioneer Day Parade!  The city was just bustling with a fun energy.  We expected the traffic to the square and were delighted to find parking so easily.  It was a very warm day already by 9am so we tried to find a shady spot to enjoy the parade.  It was very hard to find but we managed to watch the beginning of the parade for about a half hour or more in the sunshine before our sweet five year old begged for shade again.  Thankfully we were obviously near lots of tall buildings that were still casting their shadows so all we really had to do was move back a ways.

I loved the creativity and colors of all of the floats that attended.  You could feel the excitement of the marching bands getting ready to perform and also performing.

After about an hour or more our five year old, Catie, decided she was thirsty, and hungry and bored so we worked our way across the street back near the beginning of the parade seeing if that would at least help the boredom.  Very clever parade to keep the horses and wagons on the opposite side some of them spooked really easily my favorite was a dancing horse that started dancing as soon as one of the marching bands began to play.

It was shortly after this that a horse drawn wagon with two occupants drove their way up to where we were standing and our youngest in her excitement was waving at the horses and horse riders going by.  The man driving the team noticed our eldest daughter's shirt that said St Louis on it and asked if that's where we were from and mentioned that his nephew was just about to leave the MTC to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the St Louis area.  Small world.

Again our miss Catie reminded us she was hot, hungry, thirsty, and bored so we made our way across the street for some soft serve to cool down and some steps to rest on in the shade and although we had now migrated to where most floats and bands were waiting to make it to the starting line it allowed us to visit with some and take pictures.  One of our favorite floats was for family history where each corner of the float had a computer with a large computer screen showing individuals doing family history work online.  Then out would pop an ancestor to shake their hand from the screen it was adorable!

After we had finished our soft serves we made our way over to see the Salt Lake City Temple.

The visitor's center, the tabernacle, basically temple square in Salt Lake City.  Since it was Pioneer Day it was considerably busy.  At the end of touring and on our way to Provo to let the teenagers check out BYU campus where Dad once attended, we bumped into two very interesting individuals.  A sister missionary from Cardston, Alberta ( where we were headed after our SLC visit) who was speaking to an elderly gentleman who served a mission in Pretoria, South Africa ( where my husband grew up).  What a small and amazing world we live in.

We finally managed to make our way to Provo and almost didn't recognize the drive there from Salt Lake!  Everything had grown so much and looked so different it was extraordinary to see how much everything had changed.  Even the BYU campus was hard to navigate at first as it in itself has changed alot over the years but we managed.  Dad had the opportunity to show his children places he had lived, experiences with roomates, where some of his classes were and stories of his teachers.  It was a great experience for our family.

We then headed to another significant event for our family.  We went to a pot luck dinner in the park in Provo with returned missionaries who had served in our ward back home and were now home or attending BYU.  It had been the first time for some of them who had all served in the area together to see each other and our first time seeing all of them since they had fulfilled their missions and returned home to continue on with their exciting lives.  It was a rare and happy time for all of us.  I miss them already.