Since today is Thanksgiving, I thought I'd write a blog post about one of the many things that I am thankful for, family. I'd like to post about an experience that I had over the weekend.
Saturday morning, November 20th, my mom asked me if I would like to go down and visit my grandma. I knew that this would be the last time that I would be able to see her. My parents, but especially my mom, have been going down weekly to see her and support her and she was nearing the end of her life. I have so many fond memories of my grandma. I'd like to share a few of them here.
For the longest time one of my Aunts took care of her. My aunt and uncle, along with my grandma, live in Salem Utah. It's a little city near Payson, which is just South of Spanish Fork and Provo. I remember going to visit my grandma on occasion while she lived in Salem. There was a beautiful pond just outside the home that she lived in. We used to go and feed the ducks and watch the kids play. We had a few of our family reunions there. We would get together and have barbecues and the kids would play games. One of the games that I can remember was with PVC pipes and small marshmallows. We would run around shooting them at each other and see would could avoid getting hit, as see who would get hit them most. Good times...
For most my life Dorothy Wright, my grandma, lived in Provo Utah. It was easy to get to and just down the street from both the MTC and the BYU football stadium. When I was little, my brothers, cousins and I would go fishing in her backyard. She had a little stream that we thought we could catch fish in. To the end of a sturdy stick we would fasten a long piece of string, a paperclip and some cheese and throw it over the fence. We would spend so much time there thinking that we had bites and that we almost hooked a fish or two. Little did we realize that there probably weren't any fish in there at all.
One of my earliest memories of my grandma was when I was about 3 or 4. My family and extended family were always pretty close. We used to visit my grandparents quite frequently. My grandma on my mom's side was Grandma Wright. My grandma on my dad's side was Grandma Young. Well, when you're 3 you pick up the funniest things. I thought "Wright" was actually "Right." I ended up thinking, and possibly calling them Grandma "Right" and Grandma "Wrong" for some reason. I think it had to do with the fact that my Grandma Wright always had cookies and other things that she gave us, while my Grandma Young only had lemon drops and nothing else. Although I didn't like the lemon drops that much at first, I grew to love them and like sour candy to this day.
There was always something to do at grandmas place. She had a closet that had games packed in there from floor to ceiling. I remember wanting to count them to see how many she had, but never got the chance. My grandma also taught us as little kids how to make bread and how to keep things clean by cleaning up while you were working. She also did dishes the old fashioned way. Even though she had a dishwasher for a number of years, she washed them all by hand to save water.
Yesterday morning, on the 22nd of November around 6:30 a.m., my grandma passed away. Even if all of my grandparents have passed away now, I can say that I knew each of them pretty well save one, who passed away when I was about 4 or 5. In this short blog post I just wanted to thank my grandma for the life that she lived and all the lives that she blessed while here on this Earth. Including mine. I know that I will see her again someday. I love you grandma!!!
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Several years ago I was able to serve an LDS mission in Milan Italy. I was there from March of 2001 through March of 2003. It was one of the best experiences of my life for a number of reasons. In particular, it helped me to prepare for life itself as I moved forward.
One of my goals was to go back to Italy. I wasn't sure when I was going to be able to, but the opportunity presented itself once I graduated from college. One of my friends and I were talking about vacations and she mentioned about wanting to go to Europe. She then remembered that I served a mission in Italy and asked if I wanted to go back someday. I said yes, that I would love to! She then said that we should go once I graduated, and I agreed. We spent the next few weeks trying to get people to come. Only two girls were able to come for one reason or another.
I knew that this time in Italy would be different for number of reasons. The biggest was that I would be able to enjoy Italy from a whole new perspective. I have kept up on my Italian fairly well, but I wasn't sure how it would be one I got back there. At first it felt like I was a little hesitant in talking, but it soon seemed to flow naturally.
The trip, which the girls named "Gelatofest", was a lot fun and eye opening to me for several reasons. The cities that we visited on this trip were Milano, Genova, Cinque Terre, Pisa, Fiorenze, Siena, Roma and Pompeii. Each city was incredible in so many ways. I would have had more time, I could have spent days, if not longer, in each city.
From this trip I learned that trips really help you to get to know people. (It's not often that you get to spend 24 hours with people.) I learned that know matter how well you think you may know someone, there is still more to learn.
Here are a few of the pictures from a few of the cities that I went to:
Milano
Genova
Cinque Terra
Pisa
Florence
Pompeii
Rome
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