Monday December 18, 2023
Now that we have a new vehicle, we’re hoping to leave for Arizona tomorrow. So the theme for today was tying everything up before we leave.
The kids did a good job of vacuuming out the old Sequoia, and we transferred the things that needed to be moved from the old to the new.
Before we left on this trip, I had hoped to get all of my grading for the semester done, but that didn’t happen, so I had to bring a big pile of things with me. Well, today I hoped to finish it all, but that didn’t happen either. I did get some good work done, but it’s really tricky with everything else going on.
One of the best moments of the day was when I snuck away from everyone to go up on my Mom and Dad’s balcony to watch the sunset. The sun actually sets in the west, over Utah Lake, and the view from the balcony is to the mountains (north and east), but the light of the sunset on the clouds above Mt. Timpanogos was stunning. And I just sat and watched as the sky darkened -- turning from a pinkish-gray golden hour to a deep blue. It was good to slow down for a bit and just watch the process of nature unfold.
One thing that’s been great this year is that River has found a true love for Christmas lights. She’s always ooh-ing and ah-ing about what we see. We had hoped to take her up to Salt Lake to see the lights, but because of construction up there, we decided just to take her around town. The lights at the Orem City Center are really great, and Riverwoods is always awesome as well.
One side note: Christmas light photography is really tough. The lighting is really tough to get right. But it’s a great challenge and opportunity to get better.
After the lights we went to see Grandma Neubert one more time. She is so sweet, and we had a really nice visit.
I wish I could say at this point that everything is awesome. And we really have done some great things and learned a lot. But over the past couple of days, we have all gotten really irritable. Everyone is just one everyone else’s nerves. I think the kids are a bit frustrated because they have just spent a bunch of time hanging around waiting for us to do the car shopping or the car buying. We’ve also just been together for a LOT of time, and I think we are all realizing that that is going to be the norm for a long time. I think everyone needs to step up their game by being more respectful and more tolerant. If we don’t it’s going to be a long, long, long six months.
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