Holiday Fun

I always feel like the holidays go by way too fast.  The 2015 holidays were no exception.  Here it is the 2nd day of 2016 and I'm wondering where the last two weeks went.  Here it is in pictures!

Making homemade pretzels on New Year's Eve! 

Temple Square Lights!

Smoked Turkey for Christmas Eve dinner.

Fun breakfast cereal for Christmas from Grandma Harrison!

Star Wars VII in IMAX 3D with all the Duersch cousins!  (Yes, that whole row is us.)

Utah Jazz Game!  (Thanks Brenda!)

Grandpa Oborn doing a handstand; part of a crazy game Isabel got for Christmas.

Minion Oborn cousins!

New Year's Eve with our favorite framilies!

New Christmas clothes!

Oregon (A week late & still working on the pictures)

As I type this we are driving across the Nevada desert heading home from a fun extended weekend in Oregon.  We spent the past few days celebrating our one nephews birthday and our other nephews baby blessing.

We left our house last Thursday morning and headed out for a long day of driving.  The plan was to drive the entire 12 hours from Stansbury Park, UT to Medford, OR in one day.  However, car sickness and a bit of a late start had us finding a hotel a couple hours from our destination in Klamath Falls, OR.

After a good night's sleep and nobody feeling like they were going to vomit anymore, we finished the drive.  I''m so glad we were able to drive through part of Oregon during daylight hours.  It is so beautiful and green!

Friday we spent the day with my brother & sister-in-law, Clint & Michelle.  We got there a day earlier than everyone else so we could let the cousins play a little and so I could hold baby Eliot as much as his parents would let me before the grandparents arrived and invoked their grandparental rights.    We spent part of the day at the park and going out for ice cream.  (Ice cream is an Oborn tradition, and if you don't have at least one serving of ice cream on an Oborn vacation it just doesn't seem right.)  Friday night we had a pizza party and let the kids watch a movie while the adults spent the evening talking and catching up.

One of my kids' favorite parts of the trip was gathering the eggs from Clint & Michelle's chickens.  I'm pretty sure the chickens were glad to see us go so they could have a little more privacy.  Cole and Isabel were so excited to think the chickens were laying that they went out about every 30 minutes to check.  I'm sure it was a bit disconcerting for the chickens.

I loved hearing Oliver (my nephew) say Isabel's name over and over again.  When the kids were watching their movie he kept sitting up, looking over, pointing to her and saying "That's Isabel!"  I think it was maybe a bit surreal to him that this girl who was usually just in a picture hanging on his refrigerator was actually there in person.

Clint & Michelle also have a couple of bee hives.  Jarad and Cole both enjoyed learning about how to take care of the bees.  We captured a picture of Cole wearing the beekeeper suit, but my arms were full of baby Eliot when Jarad took his turn in the suit, so no pictures of him.  
 
The food Clint & Michelle had for us was amazing too.  We ate like kings!  I'm pretty sure Michelle spent the better part of the week in the kitchen or at the grocery store preparing for us to come. Thanks Michelle!

Saturday brought more family in as we prepared for Eliot's blessing on Sunday.  We celebrated Oliver's birthday and helped Clint spread some mulch in his yard.   Once again, totally jealous of the green in Oregon and the cool things they can grow there. (I need to learn to work with and embrace the things that can grow well in Utah.)

Sunday was Eliot's blessing day.  One o'clock church was a blessing for us this day as we took the morning a bit slower to recover from the hustle and bustle of the past couple days.

Sunday evening we left Clint & Michelle's house and spent the night in Reno, NV.  We knew driving the full distance home in one day was something we just didn't want to attempt.  The drive from Medford to Reno was another beautiful one.  We drove past Mount Shasta and through the Shasta-Trinity National Forest in Northern California.  Once again, I was glad we were able to drive most of this in daylight hours as it was so gorgeous.

So, here we are at Monday and nearly home again.  The trip seemed way too fast.  I don't get to see my brothers and their families nearly enough.  I'm looking forward to August when we are all going to meet up in Glacier National Park for a week of fun!

Riverton 5K

Back in December, as we gathered at a family party, Jarad's mom told us all of her plans to train for and run in a 5K race.  It was one of her goals for the new year and would be the first time in her life that she would run a 5K.  She invited any and all of us to join her.  

I had run a couple of 5Ks previously and loved the thought of running with family.  Jarad, Cole and I all signed up for the race.  In all honesty, I was nervous about Cole running the entire distance, but he was adamant that he wanted to run.  He has some issues with his legs that make running kind of difficult.  His legs tire faster than most other people's do.  It turns out all my worry was for naught.  Cole finished the entire 5K in just over 32 minutes and averaged a 10 1/2 minute mile.  He ran the entire distance and crossed the finish line just 2 minutes after I did.  It was such a proud mom moment for me.  I know it was a hard thing for him, but the look on his face as he crossed the finish line was priceless!  

Jarad's mom also ran a great race.  She crossed the finish line to win second place in her age group and had accomplished her goal of completing her first 5K.  It was such a fun time with the family as we ran together and cheered one another across the finish line.  

This is a post I have been dreading for quite some time now.  In all actuality, I should have posted part of this back in February, but I was still in denial.  The other part of this post really could have been posted nearly two weeks ago, but once again, I had to work through some denial before I was ready to put this in writing.  So, here it is.

There is a quote floating around out there somewhere about friendship.  It talks something about having such close friends that no matter how much time has gone by or how many miles are between the two parties when they get together it's as if no time has passed.  Our family has been lucky enough have two families in our lives that we feel this way about. The first is the Larsen family.  They moved to Arizona about 5 years ago, and we have indeed found this sentiment to be true.  We can go for weeks and sometimes months without hardly any communication, but get us in the same room together and it's as if nothing has changed from five years ago when we spent at least some portion of nearly every weekend together.

When the Larsens moved to Arizona, they left us and the Starrs behind in Utah.  Our three families have done quite a bit together.  The Dads (Jarad, Todd & Trent) grew up together.  The Moms (Jen & I) waited for Todd and Jarad while they went on LDS missions.  Trent was on at least 50% of my dates with Jarad.  Sometimes he had a date, more often than not he didn't.  He kept Jarad and I honest during those dating years.  When Trent came home from his mission, Jarad and I helped him search for the right "Brooke" to come into his life.  (Trent dated about four girls named Brooke before he married his wife, also named Brooke.)  When the right Brooke came along, we were thrilled!  She fit right in with all of us.  Brooke and I were both only girls in our families, and after she and Trent moved just a few miles away from us, we became more like sisters.  Our kids know that if Brooke or Jen said it, it was just the same as Mom saying it.  I could list about a thousand things that each of these two ladies has done for me over the years, but that's probably another post in and of itself,  And, I'm not sure my heart can take all those memories right now.
  
This past couple months we've said our goodbyes to the Starr family as they headed off for a new job and new adventure in Ohio.  The selfish part of me wants them to hate Ohio and come running back to Utah.  The kinder, less selfish part of me is excited for them and their new adventures and maybe even a bit jealous of the new things they'll get to see and do living back east.

So, I guess this post is really just a big shout out to two of the best families in the world.  Thanks Larsens and Starrs for being our framily.  Thanks for being the kind of friends that time and distance can't change!