Fun, food and fireworks--part 1

Since we didn't get to see some of Jerel's family at our family reunion last week (I'll blog about that later), we decided to go visit them in Bakersfield for the 4th of July. (Jerel's parents and his sister, Shannon and her husband Paul, live in Bakersfield.) Our main reason to go was to see Shannon. But we were happy to find out that his sister Lindy and family, his brother Boyce and his fiance (Suzanne), and his sister Janel and fam were also there. We had a great time. We mainly swam, talked and ate a ton of food that was bad for us and consequently extremely delicious. It was good to see Shannon. After seeing Randy look so not himself, and completely not expect it when I went up there, I didn't know what to expect when we saw Shannon. She looked better than I anticipated. She has a long road to recovery and is still very weak, but we are trying to be faithful and trust in our Heavenly Father's plan. Her sweet husband was so attentive to her while we were there. In fact, several members of the family served her in so many ways. It was very tender to watch Lindy, her sister, give her a pedicure and manicure one night. Now you need to understand, Lindy hates feet (I am the same way). So to me, this showed a great outpouring of love for her to serve her sister in such a sweet way.

Jerel's family has a few traditions that they do every 4th of July and so it was fun for our kids to see what Jerel did while he was growing up. They start out the morning with a HUGE breakfast that the Young Men's organization in the ward does as a fundraiser. They had pancakes, biscuits and gravy, aebleskivers (a danish food that I was super excited to eat because my mom made these for me growing up), eggs, hashbrowns, sausage, milk and juice. It was quite the spread and lots of good food ended up becoming a theme for the weekend. Later on that day we went to a family friend's house (the Faulkners) with several other families and had a great celebration. When I walked in there was quite the spread of food set out--and I mean A LOT of food! I ate probably more than I should have, and then when I realized that this was just the "appetizers," and that we were having "dinner" in a little bit--I knew I was in big trouble. How was I going to pass up ribs, pasta and everything else?! lol And we can't forget the 7 containers of homemade ice cream, Texas sheet cake, homemade pies, and sugar cookies for dessert. We spent the night playing volleyball, singing karaoke, playing guitar hero, talking, laughing, eating, and setting off our own fireworks. I lost track of how many boxes of sparklers we went through. In California, you can buy and set off your own mini fireworks. My kids thought this was VERY cool. We ended up buying some of our own and setting them off later that night at Grandma's house too. Granted, they aren't as big and amazing as the ones you see in the sky, but it's cool for a bunch of boys to set their own fireworks off. I mean what boy isn't entranced by fire and things that blow up!

On Saturday we just lounged around, watched movies with Grandpa, talked, swam, sang karaoke, watched home movies (Did you know Jerel had a perm when he was like 12? lol) and of course, went out for ice cream. This is one thing that I LOVE about Bakersfield--they have a great little ice cream parlor that reminds me of Leatherby's in Utah. They make all their own toppings and the servings are HUGE. It's worth every penny. Their caramel sauce is just the best ever. Grandpa grilled steaks for us that night, and it was very delicious! My boys LOVED swimming with their cousins and uncles; it was like wrestle-mania in the pool. And we all figured out, a little too late, that Uncle Paul, is a "pot-stirrer." That means that whenever he would start to get attacked and splashed, he would start the charge for somebody else. If you paid attention, you would hear "Get Uncle Boyce" or "Get Uncle Jonathan." At one point I noticed that some of the kids were biting. I got after them and then they called out, "Uncle Paul just bit me!" Too funny!

Sunday and church in Bakersfield is always entertaining. I will have to blog about that later since this post is getting a little long. After church we left for home. A quick trip, but a good one where we got to see family, share love and make good memories.

p.s. I made a slideshow of some of the pictures of our little trip. There's some real good ones in there--I'm surprised I actually was able to get some good action shots.