Gatrell Family Gathering

My mom is the oldest of 8 children in her family. My mom's side of the family is...big! But that is something unique and special, I think. I remembered growing up, living out of state, and coming to Utah to visit my cousins. That was the COOLEST thing ever! There were lots of cousins. Some cousins my age, older ones, and even some younger. As a teenager, I was a pen-pal with one of them (LOVE YA MEAG's). I learned to love the relationship I had with my cousins. Its just cool to have so many. (contrast-my dad's side of the family-I have 2 cousins. 2! He only has a sister, so TWO cousins.)

Here is the latest stat as counted by cousin Clorinda:

Grandma and Grandpa have 45 grandchildren, and 70 great-grandchildren and so far, only 23 of the cousins have had children. 30 cousins are married. There are a total of 26 grandsons and 19 granddaughters. There are 37 great-granddaughters and 33 great-grandsons.

I like to think I am a little wiser as I have grown up. I have now amazingly cool relationships with my cousins still, some cousins have kids, and I know them, and I have cool relationships with my aunt & uncles.

Through-out it all I have two amazing grandparents. Amazing is such a weak word to describe them. Many people know Wallace and Ruth Gatrell of Farmington, Utah. But I am proud to call them my grandparents.

With a large extended family, its a LOT of work to get together. We've gotten together for my grandparents wedding anniversaries, 50 and 55? correct? There have been MANY weddings, and one funeral that brought family together.

Two years ago, talking with my aunts, it came up that Grandma would really like to see everyone (in state) around Christmas time. So I put together an awesome Christmas party. It was a great party, LOTS of work but FUN. Decided to throw a big party EVERY-OTHER year. GREAT idea. Big stress every-other year. Well guess what! PARTY TIME!

This time, Grandma turns 90, and we did it after Christmas. Some of my Aunts and Uncles from out of state came in just for this event. So the Gatrell Family Gathering of 2011 was a GO! Date. Time. Place. Food assignments. Slide show of old photos from Grandma's.

Bam! PARTY>>>

92 people made it to the Gatrell Family Gathering!

Potato Bar

The COOLEST kids' play area. Lots of toys, games, coloring. Almost an un-organized/organized/contained area for the kids to play while adults could talk. The Wii was in the other corner of the gym. PERFECT!

4 Generations of family were together that evening.

It was special! I know my grandparents are old. They've both had recent health problems, and I don't want the next time this many people are together is for a funeral for one of them.

My grandparents were VERY appreciative for the work and planning put into this party. They enjoyed themselves and being with so many loved ones. My kids enjoyed seeing family, being around many cousins, second cousins...or whatever they are. I want my grandparents to have happy memories in the last few years of their lives. I want my kids to have these memories. I want them to have relationships with their first or second cousins. I want them to say "Remember that one time we got together with our cousins".

It was worth the stress! (there was a building scheduling conflict-grr- and 3 hours before the party was to start, i sent a massive text to everyone telling them the location changed. Someone didn't do their church job correctly. I got moved to another church so the young men could play dodge ball but thankful I had a friend who had an eye out for me and let me know. I still owe her some cookies.......)

One cousin made it out to Utah from Colorado who was just in a car crash in November. He was lucky the accident didn't take his life.

He broke his nose and cut it open most of the way up, broke the upper radius of his left arm, fractured the right side of his pelvis, ruptured a lung, and suffered various cuts and bruises. Fortunately, he was wearing his seat belt. He did not suffer any brain injuries or paralysis.

It was exciting to see him.

The teenage cousins hung out, cause they are just cool like that! :) But they did what I did with my cousins as a teenager, just hung out, talked, and it was awesome for me to see that happen with the next generation.
We later found out my Grandpa Gatrells' sister in law passed away that evening. She was experiencing health problems, and peacefully passed. It put a new light on the meaning for this gathering, and appreciation.

It was a great night!

Better get ready for the next one in 2013!

Christmas Day

Christmas was great! I only took pictures in the morning at our house. Christmas was full of family and fun!

Stockings-yes. I need some stocking holders. I have a fireplace! Why aren't they hanging? Next year!

New Pj's for Christmas~

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve we went up to my brothers house. Sophie tried to show Papa Jack how to play on my phone. Sophie feel down going down the stairs out our front door. Do you like that shiner on her forehead? My silly nieces.
Sophie checking out the cookies.

Sarah & cousin C checking out the cookies!


The cookies for Santa!

My handsome Charlie. Broccoli-good. Healthy food!

Then a little movie time with cousins.

Temple Square

We picked one of the coldest days in December to head to Temple Square with some friends. Sarah was invited to a 'late-over' with a friend, so she didn't join us. Kinda a bummer because I don't have a cool night-time picture of her at Temple Square. Oh well.

We tried to check out the food court at the new City Creek Center. MAJOR disappointment. 1 place was open-McDonalds. So the kids got McDonalds for dinner. It was cold, but a fun trip overall.

Winter Program

First graders at Bountiful Elementary held a Winter Program. The three first grade classes sang lots of cute songs and were dressed in red, green and white. They did such a good job and Sarah LOVED all the songs they sang.

The kids' made the wall decorations-cute reindeer. Sarah's is up there....hmm, the in the middle of those three is hers. Luckily the phone kept Sophie entertained. And Jimmy helped keep B entertained. (cell phone picture) Then we went back to Sarah's class to see her graham cracker house, a present and a Christmas card. I love first grade! Sarah has an AMAZING teacher this year and is learning SO much!

Red Rock Preview

College football season ends. Womens College Gymnastic season begins!

The University of Utahs' Red Rocks gymnastic team held their preview night in December. Its like an intersquad meet. It was open seating and CARL is amazing to save us some seats. We sat REAL close to the bars event and enjoyed watching the Red Rocks compete and perform. There is some TALENT here....Could it be the year for a national championship? Maybe. Lets first conquer the PAC-12,

Cell phone pic of Nansy after her bars routine. After the meet, there was team autographs. We got team autographs on posters and trading cards. Its fun to see the gymnasts up close. We have our personal favorites, so it was fun to say "hi" to them. GO UTES!

Nansy and Stephanie

CoLo

I know them by name....too bad they don't know me by name. Why am I not facebook friends with each of them? geez.

The Great December Windstorm

So many thoughts race to my mind as I think about the Great Windstorm of December. Lets see if I can get it down without sounding too scatter-brained!

KSL: Hurricane-force winds wreaked havoc in northern Utah on Thursday, blowing over semitrailers, toppling trees, downing power lines, forcing the closures of more than a dozen schools and creating extensive property damage across Davis and Weber counties.

Our Thursday morning (December 1st) began when Jimmy & I woke up to wind blowing outside. Blowing-what a weak word. Gusting. Swelling. Huffing and puffing winds from the east. Old windows & east facing bedroom equated to NOT MUCH SLEEP. Will the kids wake up? Did we leave anything out that could blow away? Was the roof going to blow off? Will a window break in? Were any branches going to fall down? Fall on the house? Fall on the vehicles?

Oh-that CURSED carport canopy in the back. We have NO garage and plenty of JUNK (can I blame heredity?) We haD a carport canopy in our backyard to hold our garage things-some camping supplies, the grill, bikes, kids' toys, lawnmower, tools, coolers, old tile, and MORE. That bloody thing was man-handled by the wind storm! Much of the time from 2am till 11am was spent worrying about that STUPID thing. Really. Was it going to blow away? What can we anchor it to so it won't go anywhere? It got ripped and bent. TRASHED. I finally took down the stupid thing while Jimmy was at work. The damage was done. The thing was gone. So I didn't have to worry about it flying away even more, I took down what I could until Jimmy got home to figure out what to do next.

Salt Lake barely had a breeze. Business as normal for folks there. But not in Bountiful or Davis County.

By 6 am, our power went out. I started texting my friends to see if their power is out and if we were still having exercise group at the church. No exercise group. Too scared to go outside. Slowly everyone around us lost power. again-NOT wanting to go out, many of us were not sending our kids to school. Okay kids, get dressed. Have some breakfast. Lets play some games and puzzles. I listened to the radio for any updates. My friend in Woods Cross had heat, power, and cable TV. We went down to her house to play and hang out while she went to work. Here is my first picture from our adventure out. I can see this house out my kitchen window. I think the tree got the gas line to their house.

We stayed at my friends house most of Thursday. We enjoyed dinner with them-good MOVE. I heard the fast food places were PACKED. If you had power, you had business! I was VERY thankful we could hang out there. Thanks M&L

We slept at Jimmy's parents house Thursday night. No school Friday. No power to part of the schools in the district and damage to schools.

Friday, Jimmy went to work, and I adventured out with the kids. I heard the cemetery had a lot of trees down, so we went to check it out. A guy was nice to take our picture together next to this tree. We walked around. wOw. Check this out. CRAZY!

Grandpa Burns' grave is fine! Road is blocked north of his headstone.

Finally Friday afternoon we got the carport canopy JUNK covered with a tarp and got things tucked in. Here are the sides of the canopy laid out. After being out of the house for so long, we were READY to just be home. Even without power, nothing feels like home. I think the house got a little colder than this.

With the help of my father-in-law, we got the generator running and ran an extension cord down to the furnace and got the furnace some POWER. POWER=HEAT. We played many games of Connect 4 and slept in our house! We kept the heat up to 70 degrees until the gas ran out of the generator at 1am.
Ashley enjoyed cold oatmeal next to a heater in the kitchen.


Saturday. I was DONE. I had enough of this situation. People around us were getting power. But WE didn't have power. It was like their Christmas lights were mocking us. I was stuck in this mess, trying to take care of my kids. We were checking on Aunt Mary, making sure she was holding up okay. We needed groceries. It was just a stressful situation that I didn't have control over. I was an emotional wreck by now. What mattered is that my family was safe, protected, warm and fed. Yes. We were safe, protected, warm, fed, and even had plumbing. But I was D*O*N*E! Done with this little game of no power. I wanted to get back into our routine and not worry about this. Plus my phone was not holding a charge, dying. It was wore out and that was a major frustration!


Luckily I was able to drop the kids off at a birthday party in Woods Cross. I needed the break and I was able to go to the Rec center to exercise. ahh. Much better. After I had my little break, we returned home to hear a power company was down the street repairing the damaged power line. I went down to take a picture. I didn't know where the power line was broken, but soon found out. Follow that truck!

Thank you Murray City Power guys. Thanks for repairing the damaged power line.

55 1/2 hours of NO power. Shoot. The stuff in the fridge is GONE. Freezer-most of it is bad. Throw it out.

Sunday morning was the Great Clean Up. It was a miracle everyone wanted to be a part of. Church was cancelled. People went out to clean up the downed trees and debris as another wind storm was threatening to come in Sunday night.

The city opened up the dump and trucks, trucks, trucks, and trailers were out all day Sunday cleaning up the city. It was exciting to see. Jimmy, his dad, and his brother went out and worked. It was a miracle. There was more than moving trees going on. It was people helping people. People came together to help.

(I enjoyed doing laundry and being HOME!)

Sometime, I will have to add the story of Jimmy getting his truck stuck at the city dump. He couldn't get his truck out of 4-wheel drive Low and he got stuck in some mud. He was not alone when this happened. He had a truck full of other guys in the ward with him.....I heard there is picture of this experience! The Sunday wind storm fizzled out. Nothing really happened.

I am glad we are through that experience. Days following, you could see National Guard vehicles aiding in the cleanup. You can still see tree stubs in the ground. Its much better now it is in the past.....

The kids made up the missed day of school.

I got a new cell phone (that charges-faster than the other one).

We had no real property damage-besides the stupid canopy.