It was my dear friend Rachael's hour of need! What could I do but go to her? (I do have to admit here that she's had at least two other hours of need during which I was sadly absent. But I am mending my ways!) Rachael's son was getting married and, thanks to Seb's flight benefits, I was in a position to hop on a flight to Edmonton and make myself useful. I brought Goldie (also on the flight benefits this year, as you may recall) to make herself useful as well.
Meanwhile…the rest of the family went to a Nielson Family reunion in Fairview at this place, Hideaway Valley Lodge. I, of course, didn't see it in person, but it looks like a cool place. Sort of four houses joined together by a big sport court/common room in the center. So when they cooked dinner, for example, they were doing it in four different kitchens and then just bringing it all out into the common room to eat. I guess it worked pretty well?
Even with only 7 of the 9 siblings there, and lots of grandkids missing too, I think there were probably 120+ people at the reunion, so it was a huge undertaking for Sam's mom to plan it all and carry it out. I felt bad not to be there helping. But my kids gave a great report and said they had such a fun time! It was cool for them to make connections sort of across the generations—like my girls making friends with some of the "older grandkids" who were never the right age to play with them as cousins—but now they have tiny kids of their own (the great-grandkid generation) whom they appreciated my girls taking care of, and they got to know my girls that way.
Clementine made friends with Emmy, one of the great-grandkids
Sam's mom had people organized into groups for child care, dinner help, and other activities, so all the older kids got chances to help with the younger ones. Ziggy really liked playing with Maxwell (who is a service missionary right now, so I guess he's "Elder Johnson") in the "nursery."
I…don't really know what this is, just that each person in my family contributed to it
Teddy had some good times playing ping-pong until they learned they weren't supposed to use the ping-pong table, haha.
My girls taught a little ballet class for the little grand- and great-grandkids, and they had a performance at the end. I heard it was a great success.
(Little Peter there on the left is so cute. He looks so serious. My girls told me he just kept saying worriedly to everyone, "Stop dancing! Stop dancing!")
Apparently Gus's favorite thing was using Timothy's wheelchair. Timothy has spina bifida, and he is super fast and amazing on his crutches, so he kindly let the other kids use his chair sometimes, and Gus really loved it. He was proud of how fast he got at wheeling himself around!
The other favorite thing I heard about was the "store." Kids got tokens for helping out, being kind, working on meals, etc., and then they could buy all kinds of fun things at the store. My kids came home with cute little tiny animals, slinkys, fidget toys, candies, etc. which they were so proud to tell me they had bought all by themselves!
So! Goldie and I missed out by not attending, and we were sad about that, especially because Sam's mom thinks this will likely by the last reunion she will attempt. But we were glad everyone else had such a good time!
And now…switching gears with this lovely picture of towering clouds seen from the airplane window…we will rejoin Goldie and me on our way to Edmonton.
Because United has no direct flight from SLC-YEG (that's Edmonton airport, for those less "in the know" than I), we had to fly through Denver, which was all to the good, because we could meet up with Sebastian there! He wasn't working that day but he kindly came to the airport anyway on his day off, just to see us! And he brought his girlfriend Whitney, whom I'd been dying to meet anyway! (I say 'I' because Goldie had already met her on another trip through Denver!)
Whitney was darling and just the nicest. We got to have lunch together and talk a little before we flew out, and it was so good.
Our flight to Denver was easy to get on on standby (lots of available seats), but the next flight to Edmonton was iffier. We didn't think we'd make it because there were "-4 seats" available 🤔 and the next flight later in the day was looking even worse. So I don't really know how it happened, but somehow we not only got seats, but we got seats together! That part might have been due to Whitney, who works in customer service for United and seems to know everyone at the airport. The gate agent said, "You're Whitney's friends?" and we were like, "Yes! Yes! Her VERY good friends!" and then there we were in adjoining seats.
We were really happy to get on that first flight rather than the later one or not till the next day, because there was lots to do to help Rachael and the later we got there, the less helpful we'd be!
(We took a picture of Daisy by the cracking pillars at Edmonton airport last year, so of course I had to get one of Goldie too.)
Rachael had lots of family around (Goldie and I slept at Rachael's nice neighbor's house) so even just feeding the masses until the wedding was a big job. (Of course, we were part of the masses! I guess there's some sort of weird arithmetic there where if no one came to help, there'd be much less help needed…haha…but I like to hope that Rachael still came out ahead…somehow?? At least I did because I got to be with Rachael…)
But I told Goldie this was a "working trip" and it really was. We were basically busy from morning till night every day. Chopping, mixing, planning, cooking, cleaning up—and we didn't help that much with the decorating-the-church part, which other people were working on. We went to bed feeling very satisfied each night!
I don't mean to imply we didn't have fun! We had tons of fun, in that quilting-bee/barn-raising sort of way (I imagine). I love Rachael's parents and feel like I'm one of their kids, having spent sooo many years eating their dinners and going to their family home evenings, babysitting their kids with Rach, studying at their house, going on day trips, and even traveling to Russia and Germany with them. And I've gotten to know James' siblings over the years too. So it was fun for me to catch up with everyone, almost like a mini reunion.
James got out his magical Taiwanese shaved ice machine and the shaved ice was as delicious as ever
Goldie's first try of it!
Cherry tree for the cherry-lover
Games with the teenagers
Goldie peeled and chopped till her fingers about fell off. I think it was 30 pounds of carrots? She was the BEST worker. Everyone commented on it.
Scalloped potatoes in process there on the left. Carrots on the right.
And a boatload of carrots with lemon parsley butter ready to go (an old 4-H recipe from when Rachael and I were in a club together with my mom as our leader!)
We did a wedding dinner for 130+ at the church, and it was truly delicious if I do say so myself! Goldie and I were so proud because every element of the meal was really good—and how often does that happen when you're cooking for such a big crowd? Usually you have to settle for "only pretty good…but easy!" This food felt better than that!
You can't really see it in its glory in this bad lighting. But yum! (We don't claim the ham, actually. We didn't do the ham and it was just…pretty good. Haha.)
The decorations were a whole day's work by themselves. We didn't even help much with that. They turned out beautifully, though!
The church is in a pretty spot by a little lake. Very picturesque (though hot that day! But not as hot as it was in Utah!
After the dinner we made millions of fruit skewers (At least 600, I think) for the reception. We'd cut up the fruit earlier. Rachael didn't give us guidelines but we decided to do them in rainbow order, and aren't they pretty? It was perfect because we had every color. And of course once we started, an army of Relief Society society sisters came to help, so it went really fast. And another friend of Rachael's made the cutest little individual-sized cakes to serve!
We had to let down our standards after we ran out of some kinds of fruit. Until finally…
…we were forced into innovative solutions like my all-strawberry skewer (Goldie disapproves. No one appreciates Great Art at first).
Anyway, the wedding was all just lovely. It was beautiful to see so many people who love Rachael and her family coming together to help!
The day after the wedding we had to try to get home the same way we'd gotten there…on standby…so, not wanting to make Rachael wake up at 3 am😩 we took an Uber to the airport. But we didn't get on the first flight and the next wasn't till 4 pm! We resigned ourselves to 10 hours of reading and sitting around at the airport. But then…Rachael called and said she'd come get us! So we had a bonus day at her house after most people had left, and it was actually quite wonderful.
We arranged all the leftover flowers into vases to put around Rachael's house
And we made lunch, and went on a walk to the lake, and stopped at the dollar store where Rachael bought us some Canadian kit-kats and other delights.
It couldn't have been better, really! We worried about the possibility of having to call Rachael to pick us up again if we didn't make the late flight (and then having to get up at 3 am again, ugh)…
…but in another Travel Miracle we made it on the flight, made it to Denver (Goldie is astonished)…
…and Seb (who was working) finished his flight just in time to come and give us a hug and help us get onto our next flight.
Goldie filled her poor water bottle one last time (as you can tell from this picture, she kept tossing it up in the air and…not catching it), and we were the last passengers to get on the last flight of the day, in time to get back home by midnight and reunite with our long-lost family…
…who were utterly thrilled to see either us, or the Canadian kit-kats we were bearing!
No comments