Missing Grandma

So a few weeks ago when I went to Safford, my mom gave me the things I inherited from my Grandma Udall. I didn't want much...a piece of jewelry maybe, a tablecloth, but most of all I wanted a tin cup. That may sound silly to those of you who didn't grow up playing at their house, so let me enlighten you. Grandma told us that when she was little, there was a tin cup attached to the pump at school. During recess they would all take turns pumping the water and drinking from the tin cup. She said the water always tasted so cool and delicious from that tin cup. So she always had two at her house...and as far as I can remember we fought over who got the tin cups. Because, she was right, the water seemed to taste better from them. I always wanted to be the first one to the kitchen so I could claim my tin cup. Anyway, I got one from my grandmother, I also got a pair of earrings, a tablecloth, and two glass serving bowls that came with one of her old kitchen towels in between them, so they wouldn't break. I brought my stuff home and put it all away except for the bowls and the cup. When I got to the kitchen I put a little water in the cup and took a drink, I pulled out the towel from between the bowls and smelled it. Then I cried. I miss her. I miss her humming in her kitchen when she was wiping off the counters, I miss drinking water from a tin cup in her house, I miss the way she said, "Hello this is Udalls" when she answered the phone, I miss her smell. I miss my Grandma.

Road Trip to Vegas!

My parents were driving to Las Vegas for my nephews play, and we had time so we jumped in too! And it was a BLAST! Dena, Lela, me, Randon, and my parents drove up together on Thursday. This is us in the car on the way. We had fun with cheetos as you can see.
Leslie and Brian drove up on Friday, and Jacob came Saturday! We had so much fun swimming together and playing in the mountains and shopping! Isaac (my 5 year old nephew) was in "The Wizard of Oz" and he was one of the Lollipop Munchkins. SO ADORABLE! While he was getting his make-up done for the show, his little brother Easton didn't want to be left out so Lisa put some make-up on him, too. This is them in their munchkin make-up. Randon and I got a room to ourselves, but everyone else blew up air mattresses and had a sleep over in the front room. We stayed up late every night and never got enough sleep! But we had lots of fun.









Sunday we did a really neat family activity where each person took a turn in the spotline and everyone went around and said what they loved about that person. We all felt really good afterwards. It was a really great trip!







































And of course, here is Easton in his Spider man mask. He is OBSESSED! He was so cute being a super hero the whole time we were there.

San Fran Trip!

(Beware: This is a SUPER LONG post...if you don't have the time or the constitution to make it through, I suggest you just skim). So Thursday evening we drove to Pheonix and then flew to the beautiful San Francisco! We had such a fun time! (And it was already payed for :). Our first day there, our digital camera battery died...SO UNFORTUNATE, and we totally didn't bring the charger. So we bought a really cheap (really crappy) disposable. So you might notice a change in the quality of our pictures from the morning of day one, to the afternoon. It was awesome! Everywhere we went there was a trolly or cable car to take us there! We sat, stood, and hung on for dear life! It was so fun!

Hanging onto the Trolly...I got to ring the bell.The tall building with the Flag on top is our Hotel.
This is a front veiw of our Hotel.We just couldn't get over how people park sideways on HILLS!
A gorgeous building...We can't remember what it's called.

Day One:
Fisherman's Wharf and Peir 39. We took the Blue and Gold Fleet Cruise around Alcatraz and The Golden Gate Bridge. Absolutely gorgeous! It was a cloudy day so it was kind of chilly but it was so beautiful.

AlcatrazThe Golden Gate BridgeA cool view of the CityGoing Under...Under....And onto the other side!Coming back around we got a closer view of Alcatraz.

Then we ate at the Wipeout Grill, which was very delicious.

Then we went to the Aquarium of the Bay, where we saw... An Octopus,HUGE star fish, some beautiful jelly fish,

...and various other underwater animal life. The coolest part was, we got to pet a sting ray and a leopard shark.

Then we hit up China Town. It seriously is it's own little community. Everyone speaks chinese, (some people ONLY speak chinese) and everything is written in Chinese.

So when we went to this little restaurant to try some dim sum (sp?) and the menu was in chinese and the lady only spoke broken english...it was quite an adventure.Last but not least, we climbed Lombard street. The most crooked street in the world. And let me tell you it was tough! But the view at the top was worth it!The Start of the Crooked Street...however, we started two streets down...so we climbed three really steep hills to get to the top.

The Top...gorgeous view of the city!

Day Two:

We went to the California Academy of Sciences...I'm not gonna lie, it was kind of a let down. We saw all the same aquarium animals that we had seen the day before. Except the Sea Horse, which was pretty cool. However, out front they had these two peeps dressed like an octopus and a jelly fish...I thought it was fun so I snapped a picture.
They also had a Rain Forest Dome that had beautiful butterflies everywhere. One landed on this lady next to me so I snagged it to take a picture. They were so beautiful!

Then we headed to the Expoloratorium, which was SUPER fun and and lots of cool things to play with. Most of our pictures didn't turn out because it was dark. Here is one of us sitting in a really BIG chair.And one of Randon playing in the colorful lights!

Next to the Exploratorium was the Palace of the Arts. A few big, beautiful buildings that we both fell in love with.

After a little rest and relaxation at our hotel we headed back to Fisherman's Wharf. We stopped to get this caricature drawn. I asked a passerby to take a picture of us with our artist and the idiot didn't get me in it!

Last for the day we headed to Ghirardeli Square for some chocolate! We were both exhausted by the time our trip was over, but neither one of us wanted to come home!

Girls Camp 2009

The theme this year for camp was, "Oh the Places you'll go!" It focused on our divine nature as women and all the neat things we will do in life! AKA: College, Mission, Temple Marriage, Families, Service in the Church and in the community, etc. So our ward was, "The Adventures of Indiana Janes!" It was fun because we played on the names of the movies. For example, "Search for the Temple of Covenants!" and "Raiders of Knowledge" and "Service Crusade" and "Search for the Celestial Kingdom". It was a lot of fun. Whenever there was a roll call we would make up silly words to the Indiana Jones theme song. And as stated in the previous post, I felt the Spirit very strongly and was reassured once again that my Heavenly Father is aware of me and Loves me. HOORAY for Girls Camp! This is a picture of our ward flag.



Sister Gunnell, my girls, and me.













Sonora, Mattie, Stephanie, Flor, Hannah













Jackie and Lara. These ladies were so much fun!