some sneaky family time

I added an extra day and a half to my quick wedding trip so that I could hang with the fam.  My grandma came up from Cedar City for Mother's day, so once again, I got lucky enough to be with all the women in my family at the same time:  my mom, both of my grandmothers, and all of my sisters.

We gifted each other a "free pass" for Mother's Day.  Usually, we all (including sisters) try to do something thoughtful for each other on Mother's Day.  Not that we don't enjoy it, and some of my favorite Mother's Day presents have actually come from my mom and my sisters (of course, as well as my kids and David.)  Emily has surprised me with incredible flowers on more than one Mother's Day.  But, this year... we gave each other a pass from having to be creative and invent something new.  We decided we'd rather spend time together as much as anything, so we went on a huge Mother's Day date and took the grandmas out to dinner at the new City Creek Center in Salt Lake.

It was a gorgeous night.  We had an incredible meal, did a little shopping and enjoyed the weather.  It was one of those perfect temperature Salt Lake nights, where just after a little rain, the humidity and temp are exactly matched to your body.  You can't feel the air at all - it's not warm, not chilly, not breezy, not stuffy.  It's just perfect.
On the way home, Melissa and I nearly wrecked the car on the freeway craning to see a complete double rainbow stretching across the entire East bench of the Salt Lake Valley.

I also got tons of "Sloaney Baloney" time.  Jessica (sadly) got very sick and in a feeble effort to keep Sloan healthy, dropped him off for Melissa and me to tend for a couple days.  I got to clock some serious nephew time.  I'm so glad too because he is growing like a weed and refuses to be a baby.  He wants to be a kid worse than any baby I've ever met.

(I promise that goose-egg on his head was there before we got a hold of him.)

...and a little Kate time too.  I love my little Kurt-Cobain-hair-look-alike. 

...even some time with my Dad, the eternal model helicopter engineer.  He keeps buying these "for the grandkids."  We're glad he has an excuse to buy toys and that he likes fixing them after he wrecks them.  Dad is awesome.  I had to ask him for a 4am ride to the airport.  I felt bad asking any of the moms to get up that early on Mother's Day, so my poor dad got the job.  He was there on time, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, excited to do it.  I took the 6am flight home so that I could go to Mother's Day church with my own kiddos.  Pulled into the driveway about 5 minutes before it was time to drive to church.  No worries - I showered and put on my dress and heels at 3am so I was ready to go.  Perfect end to a perfect weekend.  Thanks to David for making it happen.