Godspeed, Elder Smith!

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* Disclaimer: my normally boring/I-often-don't-leave-my-house-for-days-at-a-time life has been very exciting lately, so much so that I'm a bit behind on blogging about all of the fun. AND there are more adventures happening soon, so my goal is to get a bit caught up this week, even if it means letting the dishes and laundry pile up. I know, I'm dedicated. So I'll start with our recent trip to see Smiths and then jump way back to the beautiful Izatt-Lindsay wedding from before Christmas.

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So, we took a road trip to Utah this past weekend - 'we' being my lovely mom, my two little darling boys, and myself. I had to leave Chuck home at work, because someone has to finance my jet-setting lifestyle. Our good friend Nate Smith is getting ready to serve a full-time LDS mission (Arkansas Little Rock, Spanish-speaking) and we were excited to share in the experience as he went through the Bountiful temple on Saturday and spoke in church the next day.

After the temple, Reed treated everyone to a wonderful lunch at Marie Callenders, where Courtney and I established our superiority over big Will ('You wouldn't understand, you're like a sub-human'), Heidi used clothing sizes to identify my children's ages and let them jump on furniture ('Hmm, where IS your mom?'), and Clyde proved a much better negotiator than me, since he got dessert despite not eating ANY of his lunch.

Saturday night (after some de-licious Godfather Pizza made by Heidi herself) we had some girl time and played Who What Where, with hilarious results such as "Okay, guys, I think you all can get this one, you just need to FOCUS" and "Hmm, the Exorcist playing volleyball in a forest!" and "See, this is obviously a slavemaster overseeing his slaves picking cotton" and "Oh, this is good. This is VERY good!"
Heidi and I wore matching shirts. What will YOU invent?

Gloria and Courtney!

Heidi and Desirie! This may have been when Heidi didn't recognize Moses.

Will took every opportunity while we were there to demonstrate his dancing skills, especially on top of tables. I swear, I have NO IDEA where he learned this :).

The next day was Sunday, and after a morning full of Open House preparations (I mostly tried to keep my children out of the way) we set off for church. Before leaving the house, Clyde sought out two hands to hold so that his walk would be a bit more fun - thanks Grandma Pam and big Will for obliging!

The soon-to-be Elder on the walk to church. He spoke about charity and it was such a nice talk. This whole weekend I really felt like I was watching another little (oops, younger) brother take these important steps. I'm so impressed with Nate's maturity and willingness to serve the Lord.

Unlike Clyde, Will didn't feel the need to hold anyone's hand, despite Heidi's best efforts.

Then he started heading for big piles of snow, so I stopped taking no for an answer :).

Courtney and Ben were the last to depart for church, and the first to leave afterwards. Some people. I mean, granted, Clyde climbed under the bench and fake snored through the last few minutes of the meeting, but at least he stayed to the end.



Then it was time to walk home! Will laid the charm on pretty thick to get Heidi to carry him and Dez to entertain him the whole way..

Gloria and Pam! We are all SO glad that they kept their friendship intact despite living in different states so that our families can all be so close now!

Open House for Nate after church with lots of family and friends..

We took the opportunity to take some pictures (shocking, right?). Here's Dez, me, Heidi and Courtney. We're very good looking.

Courtney and Heidi are the best..

All four Smith kids!

It just so happened that the Packers-Cardinals game was on during the Open House, so Ben and Will strategically set up the layout of tables and chairs in the downstairs as to not block the TV. It worked. They also left a (narrow) spot open between Will and Nate - I believe as a nod to the absent Chuck, who was undoubtedly watching the game three hundred miles away..

At this point the Open House traffic was a little slow as extended family began to leave and the after-church crowd had yet to arrive, so we got a little creative in the picture posing. Don't mind Clyde there; he was feeling really photogenic all day and kept weaseling into all the pictures.
Awesome, right? Courtney and I can now say we've participated in one of these awesome 'circle of heads' pictures, and my mom now knows what we're talking about.

Speaking of my mom, here she is with Nate! We were so glad that we could make it down for such an important weekend and bummed we couldn't stay longer.

Baby Will and big Will sneaked in one last snuggle,

Heidi and I sneaked in one last picture, and then baby Will sneaked in one last opportunity to drool on Nate's suit. And tie.

Thanks so much for having us, Smiths! We'll see you in April for sure - until then, look at the glass door to your right - Will left you a little something:

Love you all!