California

Ryan's grandma passed away in February. She was 94 and had outlived her husband, all three kids, and her friends. Her grandkids decided to get together at her house for a BBQ during the summer as a final goodbye. As Watsonville is a 13 hour drive (without stops) from home, we figured we might as well turn it into a vacation trip. Elizabeth had to stay behind to work, so we were a family of 4 on a roadtrip. We left Wednesday afternoon and drove to Willows, CA. This made us about 2 hours from the Oakland Temple so we could do baptisms Thursday morning. The Oakland Temple has some special significance in our family. Ryan was sealed to his family there, and I don't think has been back since then. It's a beautiful temple, and we do enjoy being temple tourists. Their baptistry has the steepest, skinniest stairs we've ever encountered.

 

                                  

After my picture taking frenzy, we took a tour of the temple visitor's center. Then girded up our loins for big city traffic to see the Golden Gate Bridge. We've taken the girls before, but Annie and Maddie didn't remember it. We were so close. We could see San Francisco from the roof top garden. We might as well go.

We had to cross two toll roads to get there. We drove across the bridge before getting out of the car to take pictures. We need proof that we are adventurous parents and took them. Again.

When we arrived, the Golden Gate Bridge disappeared into the cloud bank. 

Wait, the Golden Gate Bridge is orange?

The clouds started to clear out a little.

It was a bit more visible when we walked back to the van.

Then we drove the rest of the way to Gilroy, California. While it is about a half hour away from our true destination of Watsonville, hotel prices were less than half. The good news was that there is a Kannely Lane IN Gilroy, so of course we had to go find it. Ryan did examine the sign closely. How hard would it be if the sign "accidentally" found its way into our van? Probably not that hard. But we did leave it. We already have a street sign from this very road in our house. 

I was told this sign (below) was retired, and is not ill-gotten gains.

I took another picture of the street sign from the other direction. It's a nicer view, but my family was too squinty-eyed from the setting sun to take a picture from this direction.

It worked out that we stayed in the same hotel as Michael and his family. We had a picnic dinner at Mt. Madonna with them. And then the next morning we all went to an old Catholic mission- San Juan Bautista. Again, this is somewhere we've been before, but it's been a number of years, and Annie and Maddie didn't remember it.

Catholic chapel. They really are ornate and attractive. Sometimes I wish our church buildings were more interesting to look at.

We were wandering around and there was a museum volunteer who was very excited to share the history of the mission. Tour guides cost extra, but this fellow was happy to give us a short extra narrated tour on his own time. And took a group picture of all of us.

Me: Ryan- why would you position the camera so it looks like the palm fronds are coming out of Annie's head? 

I made him try again. And like the nice husband he is, he complied.

Afterwards, we went to Gizdich's for pie and lunch. Lunch took a very long time to get made, so we ended up eating about half of the pie before our sandwiches arrived.

We, oddly enough, bumped into Ryan's cousin Collin and his Aunt Paula while we were there. They were picking up pies for the BBQ the next day. Once our appetites had been satiated, we visited with family at Grandma Skip's house. It was weird and sad to be there when she was not.

We had one last stop before the end of Friday. We went to Martinelli's for cider sipping, and to purchase drinks for Saturday's BBQ. They do a free tasting, which we haven't tried before. They have a lot of flavors I've not had the pleasure of sampling.

Whew. Friday done.

Saturday morning we went to the beach. 

This is Ryan's using seaweed like a whip.

The only right way to make jumping pictures is to make videos and then stop the videos at the best point of the jump. We had some fun.
                                            

I wanted in on the fun.

Sometimes my hair is just too much.  I pulled my hair into a ponytail and we tried again.

We had the BBQ lunch. Collin did an excellent job cooking us the traditional skirt steak on the charcoal BBQ in the backyard. We filled our bellies, and exchanged stories and memories. Then we went through pictures and Christmas ornaments and other odds and ends. People grabbed special items with good memories. 

There was one last photo session in front of Grandma Skip's house. It was a brand new house in the 60s and she had raised her family there. 

I think this was recreating a cousin picture from sometime way, way back when.

And here are all of the Oakes cousins, minus Brian.

Spring Formal

Every year our stake puts on a formal dance for the youth, formerly known as the Laurels and Priests. Also, the dance was formally known as "Mormon Prom" or "Mo Pro." With the dissolution of the names of the Young Women groups, and the injunction to use the full, proper name of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, we are left with the unoriginal name "Spring Formal." Blah. 

Now that Annie and Maddie are 16 they were excited to go, as they had seen Elizabeth do. Emma got stuck in a rough spot with Covid happening her Junior year and I don't think she ever went to the church formal dance. She did go to high school Prom though her senior year, masked as we all still were. Being the cheap er, financially responsible family that we are, we were able to reuse Emma's formal for Maddie. Meaning we only had to purchase one formal dress this year. Whew. But Emma's dress was very, very long on Maddie, and it required some hemming. Cutting and sewing fancy fabrics make me so nervous because they are so slippery and tricky to work with. I complained online.

This dress had a diagonal layer that gave me some grief at the hemline. At the dress's proper length, it is tucked into the side hem. But three inches shorter, and I had to figure out how to make it properly drape into the bottom hem. It took me several tries before it didn't look awful.

Annie and Maddie have reached 6 months of driving independently licensed, which means they can legally drive friends. (Ahem, legally. They possibly, maybe have taken a couple of friends from the church to the school after seminary so people aren't stuck walking to school in the morning.) But driving friends to this dance was going to be a big deal. They haven't driven my van (the only vehicle big enough to drive everyone) in months. The added pressure of it being full of friends, to an unknown place and driving back late and in the dark was a lot to ask. But Annie stepped up and said she could do it. The night before the dance, Annie and I made the drive to the dance location on the far-reaches of Yakima so Annie could see where she was going. I drove there, and Annie drove back. 

The day of the dance, I did a deep clean on the good ol' minivan. It was going to be holding kids in their finery and I can't remember the last time I vacuumed it. I took the van to the car wash, then brought it home and emptied all the garbage that accumulates over time. Used water bottles, used tissues, candy wrappers, baggies, socks, a sweatshirt, papers, granola bars, all of it. I even cleaned out the cubby between the driver and passenger seats because.... why not. I found disposable masks in the bottom of it. That's how long it's been since I cleaned that out.

After the kids got home from school, we began the process of curling hair. I spent at least 45 minutes, but possibly close to an hour, curling both heads of hair. They have so much! Maybe someday I will insist they learn how to curl their own hair. Annie still wanted a pony tail, so this was my first try of something just a little more fancy than her usual low pony tail. Thanks Pinterest.

The girls had a "first dinner" because the dance also had a dinner but it wasn't starting until 7 pm. Then friends began to show up and we took some pictures.

Alex, Maddie, Jaxon, Kennedy, Noah, Annie

Kennedy did not attend the dance with Jaxon (they are 2nd cousins), but they got paired up for picture taking. Both Jaxon and Kennedy met up with their dates in Yakima.

They look so grown up! Sniff.

Then the 6 of them climbed into the minivan and they took off! For some reason, it was really hard for me to watch them all drive away. I knew Annie was nervous. I stood there in front of our house and waited to watch my van take off down the freeway. And away they went.

Once at the dance, they met up with more of the Sunnyside group. Jay and Bethany competed in the district track meet in Yakima, and then got ready for the dance at the house of someone from the stake gracious enough to open their doors to sweaty teens needing a place to shower and change. 

They did less dancing, and more eating, playing games, and hanging out around the property. They did stay to the bitter end (Annie's words) before making the drive back home. They dropped off Jay and Bethany, then everyone else was able to make their own way home. It was a late night, with the girls coming up around 11:50 pm to say goodnight and they had made it home.
 

New Gravel

The time had come for an upgrade for our driveway- long overdue gravel. Our driveway is so long, so purchasing 5 dump trucks of gravel is no small request. This was the year, we said. We were going to make our driveway as smooth-ish as possible, filling in potholes and the various wear and tear of living. We've been in this house since 2012, so it was more than time.

Ryan talked to the business about the length and width of the job, and we set up a day for delivery. They estimated 5 truck loads would be needed. The driver and truck arrived, and immediately called Ryan at work for instructions. Um, hello? I am here and can talk. Even when I went outside, the guy would not talk to me about the job. I don't know if it was because Ryan set up the delivery, or just don't look like a responsible party, or what. But it gets my dander up a bit. I was THERE. I could point to how far we wanted the gravel to go. I tried to explain we wanted probably two dump truck widths of gravel to go down our driveway. This is a new experience and I wasn't exactly sure how wide that would be, but it would be a start. Maybe I need to learn to be more assertive. The guy made three trips and said he was done. I felt like we needed more gravel laid on the driveway as it was not wide enough to cover. He thought it was fine.

I was right. Ryan came home and we discussed. He called the business back and we ordered two more loads. It looks so much better now.

I have spent a bit of time shoveling gravel around, to spread it nearer edges and smoother in other places.

It looks good. Also, the weather is really nice. I got out the shorts for running and fun socks. The gravel is still really dusty, blowing dust around as we drive. Plus all of the dusty footprints we leave inside. I will be glad to see some rain to wash the dirt down.

 

Ashes

In the end, my father's remains only stayed the weekend with us. I didn't like having them at my house one little bit. I texted my sister over the weekend, trying to come up with a game plan for the disposal of the cremated remains. I refuse to have them scattered at my house. I do not want any kind of daily reminder of him. I looked into prices of having the remains placed at a cemetery, and what goes into getting a permit to scatter them in a public place. He liked Deception Pass, but that's a long drive and looked to be a little complicated to be able to legally spread them there. My sister suggested she could spread them at her house when she planted trees in the spring. I think she expected me to also spread them at my house so it would be a 50/50 split, but again.... No daily reminders please. So in the end I took the box to the post office and shipped them to my sister. 

Proof that I am a hard-hearted person, leaving the box in the shed. 

I succumbed to curiosity before going to the post office. The required box for mailing human cremated remains is about 3 times larger than it needed to be. There was a length of brown paper scrunched in to prevent the remains container from rolling around too much. It was not as much packing paper as I would have expected the funeral home to use for safely mailing remains, but oh well. They were the budget option, so I shouldn't complain. 

Ultimately, there's not much left after the cremation. It could have been a bag of flour just looking at it.

 I taped the box back together again, with my sister's address covering mine. I belatedly realized it would have been cheaper to have originally have the remains mailed to my sister, but decisions needed to be made in the wake of the unexpected death and confusion of it all. 

The drive to the post office was my last moments with my dad. About 6-7 minutes of me yelling at the box sitting in the passenger seat. I guess some things needed to be said. Saying how he had made me feel. Calling him names. I don't swear as a rule. It's not something that appeals to me. But there was something immensely satisfying about calling him the south end of a donkey. Words matter, and there was something cathartic about those particular words. He had to just take my anger and not angrily justify himself, something he was unable to do in life.

Once I made it to the post office counter, the guy lead with "I'm sorry for your loss." Then told me that this particular box would have to be sent certified mail, implying the extra cost. I said I knew that, and I paid the $107 to mail the box to Iowa. I was done with it, and I was glad to be.