Less Than 48 Hours in Utah

It's crazy to think how much John and I used to travel.  Before we moved to Michigan, I think we were generally going somewhere at least once a month, and they were pretty big trips.  I can't even imagine now going diving at least three times a year--that feels like a dream now.

Something I learned with my other children who served missions:  take advantage of that "last" opportunity to see them do something before they leave, because chances are, they won't do it when they get back.

Example:  When Mark was rowing his freshman year at Michigan, I only went to one of his regattas (guess I was too busy traveling?). I told myself that it was okay--he would be rowing for three more years at Michigan.  He never rowed again after coming home from his mission.

Example #2:  I never went to one of Hannah's concerts at BYU.  Not that that was a great loss--the concerts at Interlochen were much better than anything I've seen come out of BYU.  But I told myself it was okay--I'd catch one after her mission.  When she got home, she quit viola, started a biology major and never played again.

So as with all things parenting, I pretty much have things figured out by the time I hit Child #4 (exception is Glo's continued snarkiness, although if I had Child #5 with the same condition, I would encourage that child to get a significant other--it definitely helps with softening things out) :-). I was determined to catch Glo in a concert at BYU before she left on her mission, and there weren't many opportunities.

She told me about her Christmas concert.  Not exactly meaty classical fare, but still, I would sit in the audience and watch her up on stage.  One problem though is my calling in Young Women.  I have a president who has directly told me that I am expected to be at every activity (this, when I had been crying my eyes out all day and felt way too emotional to show up and watch a Christmas movie, planned by the Young Men, and asked to be excused).  I knew that if I was to go to Utah, it would need to be sandwiched in between our Wednesday night activities and Sunday morning church.

So I bought a ticket for Thursday morning and returning Saturday afternoon.  Yep, $400 for less than 48 hours.  Law of Consecration, what???

I did have an alterior motive as well.  Being almost 5'10" tall, most of Glo's dresses no longer work for her having gone through the temple.  They are too short.  However, her being my baby, and a girl who looks good in basically everything, she has a LOT of dresses that still have a LOT of wear.  There just so happens to be a fabulous alteration shop in Orem--they do quality work and their prices are terrific.  So I wanted to take all of her dresses in to be altered.  Since there isn't near enough hem on them to make them long enough, I also needed to visit a fabric store to find fabric that I could add to the bottom of the dresses.

Reason #3 for going?  I need another temple dress.  With working at least five shifts in the temple per month, and going to the temple as a patron other times of the month, my temple dress is getting a lot of use.  I've tried to order dresses online, but I can't find one that fits right, and I'm tired of paying return shipping charges.  Some things that Utah has in spades that can't be found anywhere else?  Reception halls, churches, wedding dresses, and temple clothing.

Reason #4:  I wanted to meet Glo's boyfriend before they go their separate ways.  Having boyfriends in our family dynamic is something new and rather exciting, and it's unchartered territory for me, so I thought it would be fun.

Reason #5:  I needed to get away.  With John's job in jeopardy, our misery and worry is all-consuming.  I've been losing weight (not always a bad thing), not sleeping, and just carrying an overwhelming feeling of melancholy throughout my day.  If nothing else, Hannah makes me laugh like no other, and Glo just makes me happy.  I knew that John would be working on his court case day and night, so I just wanted a break from it all.  Selfish I know, but necessary for the soul.

I considered leaving earlier (and just calling in sick for the Wednesday activity), but last minute changes to my ticket were costing $600, so 48 hours it was.

I just about died when Hannah popped out of the car to pick me up at the airport.  We had just said goodbye a few days earlier at the end of Thanksgiving break, but I wanted to just collapse in her arms from relief.  Not having a mother who gives a damn about me or my life, and no other family, it's been hard to shoulder all of my stress myself (not wanting to share any of it with John).  But I knew Hannah would listen--she's a really terrific listener.

Yes, that's a gingerbread cookie hanging
out of her mouth ;-)

Plus, I brought her fresh baked gingerbread cookies from the activity the night before, so she was willing to eat and drive while I just talked.  And then we went into a ghetto Cracker Barrel on the way to Provo, and we cried over our chicken fried steak as I shared my suicidal thoughts and loss of hope.

Thankfully though, while waiting for Glo to come out of class, we stayed in the car and talked some more.  And started laughing.

I've complained to Hannah that all of the photos of her on Facebook are goofy or ugly.  And what if some parent is FB stalking her because that parent hears about her from a boy?  I mean, I've been there too many times to count, and I know how we mothers work.  Having a profile picture of her standing next to a Michigan Stormtrooper at a hockey game in a big winter hat and glasses isn't exactly what every mom wants to see....  So, we sat in the car and I tried to take a cute selfie of her...and which point she asked why I didn't just take a picture of her.  Why a selfie in the car? #CarSelfiesAreDumb  But by this time, we were laughing so hard that it was impossible to take any kind of picture.

One of my favorite pictures of Hannah and me, like EVER.  And I would like to point out AGAIN, that we do NOT share any physical characteristics in our faces except for our eyebrows.  That's it, folks.  She does NOT look like me.  Her beauty is ALL Kennedy <3

Glo came out, and I noticed that she had a new piece of jewelry on.  She rocks cool jewelry--rings, earrings and necklaces mostly--and I'd never seen what she was wearing around her neck.  As I got a closer look, I could see that it was the state of California on a gold chain.

"Wow, Glo, where did you get that cool necklace?"

"Oh, Ethan gave it to me."

*mic drop*

And after that, it was the weird back and forth of picking them up from classes, dropping them off for classes, driving into Orem to run one of 500 errands, and driving back--this seems to be my lot when I come for a visit--but we did manage to get some Chick-fil-A on campus for dinner before Glo's dress rehearsal.

So funny thing.  Glo had naturally assumed that she would be able to buy a ticket for me for the concert.  The CHRISTMAS concert.  Nope.  Every ticket to every performance was sold out the first day the tickets went on sale in October.  So here I'd flown across the country to catch her last performance before her mission, and I could have just live-streamed it at home....

So I decided that I would at least catch the dress rehearsal and call it a day.  I was hoping to meet Ethan Sulik (Glo's boyfriend which makes it very confusing with our own Ethan), but I do believe he was doing everything in his power to hide from me.  He hasn't had the best experiences meeting girlfriend's parents before.

I was pleasantly surprised to see Hannah's Gratitude turkey on the wall on the way to the rehearsal.  I had given her the idea, but holy smokes, she sure ran with it!  And it was very cute seeing some of the feathers that I knew were added by my children, or people who love my children....

Someone added a second turkey.  Very cute!

Hannah even wrote this original poem, telling her residents what to do...along with blank feathers and pens hanging underneath.  From what I hear, she is the BEST RA!

I took Glo to the hotel that night (one of my favorite things in the world is to stay in hotels with Glo), and the next morning we headed to Black Bear Diner in Orem.  I love the food there...and Glo does too which is kind of a miracle.  And once again, I'm reminded of why I love Glo.  It's little things like her drinking the creamers at the table like John taught her to do.  We split a plate of two eggs, two pancakes and two slices of bacon.  It was perfect.  And at the end, I bought a peppermint-topped chocolate cream pie that I thought we would eat sometime in the next day...but more about that later.

It's crazy to think that the girls have an actual
photo with Jason Mamoa!

I convinced Glo that we had time to head to the alteration shop (earlier rather than later), and for the reasons I mentioned above, we were in and out in 30 minutes.  I want to tell the owner that she's a great bargain for what she's able to do, but I don't want her to raise her prices.

Each girl had some classes around noon, but I think they each skipped at least one so that we could go catch the movie Instant Parents at the theatre.  It was fun to head into the movies in the middle of the afternoon with my girls.  Glo naturally got a pretzel.

And we knew that dinner with Ethan was looming, and Glo had a call time for her concert that night, but we needed to find missionary shoes, and do a little more shopping.

Thankfully, we found one pair of Rockports on sale, and two other pairs at the Sister Missionary Mall.  But I quickly looked up availability and prices on Zappos, and found one pair cheaper.  Seeing as it's going to be hard to get all of Glo's stuff home anyway, I didn't want her to have to bring mission shoes home as well so I'll just order them.  But we're set on sizes and color, so I was happy.

Hopefully, Glo will skip the socks and hat
on her mission ;-)

While there, I figured we would also try on a couple of dresses.  Hannah's favorite dresses on her mission were these simple to wear/easy to wash dresses that practically sell at cost, so we got two of those for Glo as well.

Then it was time to pick up Ethan for dinner.  Not that he couldn't have driven himself, but like the Kennedy herd, we travel in a pack ;-). I was seriously about to crawl out of skin with excitement to meet him--a completely foreign feeling that I never felt with my boys' girlfriends (analyze THAT, Dr. Freud).  And as soon as I saw him, I fell in love with him.

Yep, he is a terrific guy.  I could see it in how he gravitated toward Glo.  In how he treated her.  In how he looked at her.  In how he wants to be touching her when he sits by her.  It was like all the things that I wished for my girls when they were little were coming true in him.  My heart seriously melted.

And he was great at dinner.  He kept up with our fast-paced conversation, and when I asked him if I could ask him some hard questions, he very quietly and humbly responded "yes".  He was well-spoken and kind.

And in all honesty, I had to be brutally honest in only the way that I am (sorry, John and children, for embarrassing you so many times).  I told him that he had set the bar as far as boyfriends go.  That when I wished for how my girls would be treated by a man someday, he had checked all the boxes.  That I couldn't even believe the things he would do for Glo.  And again, he quietly and humbly said, "Thank you."

I couldn't really eat through dinner (see stomach problems from stress in above paragraph), and when we went to Baskin Robbins afterwards, I could barely make it through my pralines and cream.  But I was happy to catch Ethan looking at Glo how he does most of the time.

So that night was Glo's concert.  Somehow, she and Hannah had managed to wrangle up two tickets for us.  I felt terrible that we didn't have one for Ethan, but I should have never feared--he worked it out himself so that he could be there for her as well.  None of us sat together since they were single tickets, but we were there for the girl.

Ethan, Glo, Hannah and Camille (Glo's best friend who also happens to be a violinist in the Music Education program)

And in one heartbreaking concert, I realized that my time with Glo is coming to an end.  It happens every time one of my kids leaves on a mission, and I take some solace in the fact that this is the last time I'll feel this way.  It seriously broke my heart thinking of all the hours and years we spent driving to Philly together for lessons.  All the naps we've taken together since we had to draw close together after I broke my ankle.  How she calls me "Mama" in her own unique way.  Shoot, I'm crying all over as I type this.

After the concert, we headed back to her dorm.  Glo had bought Ethan a mini Skee-Ball game when we were at Barnes & Noble because apparently he likes Skee-Ball.  I watched them for the next hour, setting it up, and laughing, and playing together.  Without permission, I asked Ethan if he would like to come to the temple with us the next morning (before I flew out).  He had tithing settlement scheduled, but in the time we were sitting there, he rescheduled it so that he could come.  I was so happy.



We had to be up early the next morning to get to the temple before driving to the airport.  Once again, it was such a beautiful experience to be in the temple with my kids. Hannah had a date that night and was rather nervous about it, so we had stopped to get her some antacid.  Like I said, she always makes me laugh:

I love the Provo temple.  When John and I first went out to BYU, we went to the temple every Tuesday morning, and after Ethan was born, we went once a month.  It always feels so nice to walk in, because I still know where everything is and how to get around.  Funny thing though--the man at the recommend desk asked Hannah to step aside, because it being December 1, her recommend had just expired eight hours earlier (on the last day of the month in November).  Thankfully, they still let her come in, but it was funny (and rather poignant) to think of heaven and our families someday if some of us don't live worthily and can't come along for the ride.

Check out the sign!  Also, we couldn't find a single parking space, so I took a "disabled patron" spot.  I was running short on time, and if I'd missed my flight, my finances would have been seriously disabled, so....

Ethan was a perfect gentleman, saving us seats in the chapel and walking with Glo.  And they went up to the prayer circle together.  And when we were already in the celestial room (because Baby Glo still needs a lot of help to get through the veil), he waited right next to the door for her. *swoon*

When we got out, I told Ethan that he was welcome to come with us to lunch, but he would then need to ride with us to the airport.  He told me that he was up for anything, so he came along.  And while driving along I-15, he asked the weighty question, "So what did your husband do to win you over?"  Everybody knows that I can talk about John for a day and a night and a day, and I did.  And it reminded me of the really terrific guy I got as well <3

I wanted to weep as I said goodbye to those three kids at the curb.  The time was too short, and for those two days, I'd had time to regroup and realize that life isn't all bad.