After our wonderful little tea party, Missy and kids caravanned with us to St. George. Katie and Abby had come with them from Jodie's that morning and they continued on to St. George with us for a couple of days so they could play with their cousins. Rick and Jodie could then bring Katie and Abby back home because they came that weekend for our Lyman Gabrielsen, Jr., Reunion, which Roger and I hosted in St. George.
Anyway, it was to be a wild and crazy fun weekend coming up, with all of our kids coming for the reunion and almost all of our grandkids (Pete was at Boy Scout Camp and Josh was with a student group in Europe).
We loved having the first batch of grandkids here! They swam, hiked, looked for golf balls, had "Book Club," (so cute - one morning after breakfast, they hollered out, "Everyone downstairs for Book Club," then they all read their books).
I fixed teriyaki chicken with saffron jasmine rice for dinner one night. Years ago, Grandpa Gabe gave me the precious saffron (it is the most expensive spice in the world) after he couldn't cook much anymore. He had splurged and bought it when he was in the chef mode, then had saved it and never used it. We used to talk for hours about what we had cooked or were going to cook. When he gave it to me, he said, "You have to tell me what you make with it," and I, too, was hesitant to use it, knowing how expensive it was.
So I told all of this to the grandkids and showed them the tiny saffron stamens and explained how each one was picked by hand and had to be picked in a small window of time, and that's why saffron is so expensive, because there are thousands of them in a spice bottle. They liked the bright yellow color it made the rice.
Maddy asked Sydney and I to play our guitar and uke and sing a duet for her upcoming baptism. I haven't tried to play for a couple years because my hand is pretty stiff, trying to hold the strings down, but I discovered I could play most of the chords in the key of G. I put together a medley, starting and ending with "Come Follow Me," that I could just barely sing low enough to sing the harmony under Syd's pretty melody. I pulled out the uke with the kids here, to practice and to sing some old favorites.
The kids danced and sang with me.
Mindy, Jeff and kids arrived late, late Thursday night - well, actually, early friday morning. Friday afternoon, they all couldn't wait to hit the pool!
Rick and Jodie got here early Friday afternoon, and they headed over to the pool to join them.
Chillin' out, holding little Charlie, storing up for the big weekend to come . . .
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