Happy 5th Birthday, Mei!

 Miss Mei is a whole five years old today! She is so fun. She is always up for adventures. She is helpful and pulls up a chair to help with things I’m working on. She loves to learn. She is generous and thoughtful and creates and gives sweet gifts. She encourages making extra loops around roundabouts. She breaks into song mid-sentence. She has to dance if she hears music. She is adored and special and we love celebrating with her.

Happy 12th Birthday, Alex!

Today is Alex’s 12th birthday. He is an ideal kid. He is fun and happy and helpful. He plays with everyone. He has deep and wide interests, knowledge, and skills. I regularly ask him questions about things I don’t know because he learns and retains so much from the nonstop reading he does. He is really interested in typing right now and practices as often as he can. Recently he has started looking so old. It’s pretty unbelievable to me that he is already twelve.

In Memory of Gramma Neil

 

While sitting on the bleachers at Alex’s baseball game tonight I got word that my Gramma Neil had passed on.

I last saw Gramma in March 2020. She had recently moved into an assisted living facility. We walked around and she greeted *by name* every single person we passed. She told me their stories and it was shocking how much she knew about people. She listened and remembered them because she cared. This is the same way she loved me.

While growing up we would regularly go to Papa and Gramma’s house in Phoenix and I would pack a bag so when I asked my parents if I could sleep over I was prepared and a lack of toothbrush could not be used as an excuse! I am so glad I grew up close (in more ways than one) with her.

I started calling her regularly toward the end of 2020 and she was as witty and kind as ever, although if I called her too late in the day she would chastise me and say I needed to call before she took her teeth out. At the end of one call she said, “Don’t repeat anything I said! I’m an old lady! I’ll haunt you if you tell anyone!” I laughed and laughed; she’s crazy and she would do it.

(The following part is an excerpt of a letter I wrote her in 2016 when she and Papa celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary.)

Gramma, thank you for taking me to the salon so I could watch you get your hair and nails done. Thank you for letting me make lists and go Christmas shopping for the whole family and meticulously keep track of how much you had spent on someone so we would know who else needed another gift so it would all be fair. Then thank you for teaching me how to wrap those gifts. Thank you for letting me have sleepovers at your house. Thank you for always having ginger ale in the fridge and cookies in a tin under the cabinet. Thank you for having a pantry with such a distinct smell that, when I smell it now, I am immediately taken back to reaching way up to the top for the cups that had all of our names written on them in permanent marker. Thank you for being a food pusher, because now I can claim it is genetic! Thank you for your generosity. Thank you for letting me be your favorite grandchild, although that can be our little secret. Thank you for your regular check-ins. Thank you for rearing my Dad into a great man. Thank you for spoiling me in a perfect Gramma way. I love you so much.

Happy 2nd Birthday, Rhys!

 Even though Rhys is telling everyone he is one he is, unfathomably, TWO today. He is a master of menace. He loves ducks and dogs, as long as he is the one doing the approaching. He is trying to potty train himself (Sam is encouraging this and I am a diaper-hugger). His vocabulary is exploding daily. He can be found pulling off his shoes, running toward danger, and cracking up while doing it. I love him so much. It really hurts to think that it has been two years since I first met him. It is going by too quickly.

Thirteen Years!

Wow! Today is our 13th wedding anniversary. It is unbelievable to me that we have been married for so long because I don't feel nearly old enough. I am beyond lucky for marrying Sam. He is steady and exactly what neurotic me needs. We are not perfect but our marriage is happy and full of love. I hope we have decades of growing old together left.

Happy 8th Birthday, Declan!

 Happy birthday to this beautiful eight-year-old! Declan is fun, loud, and observant. He has the fastest feet and climbs like a ninja. He is adorable and I love his unique expressions. His teeth are falling out at a rapid pace but he gets cuter while he sleeps so it's balancing out. He is quick-witted and goody, generous and kind and wise. He reads constantly, in crazy places usually, and is truly a genius. Today he was baptized and it is amazing to see how much he knows and learns as he grows.

Happy 10th Birthday, Edison!

 Today is the day! Edison is ten! On his first birthday I described him as being in perpetual motion and that is still very true. He is always up to something: playing, helping, eating, reading, bike riding. He is hilarious and brings loads of laughter to our home. He is sincere and thoughtful. He notices people and is a great friend to everyone. He is super rad and we are obsessed with him.

In Memory of Grandpa Hilton

 My Grandpa Hilton died this morning at the age of 90. He has five living children, each of them brilliant and beautiful. My Mom is one of those five and she adored her father. He was PhD smart, comedian witty, lovingly spiritual, and a special sort of carefree wacky. He was perpetually cheerful, an incredible listener, and a brilliant talker. He had jokes and stories and dance moves that were so bad they were good.

I visited him many times when I was young and my grandparents lived in Las Vegas. We would drape a towel across the branches of a tree and spend hours eating pomegranates from his bountiful trees in the backyard. We spent so long out there that the juice would soak through the towel and drip onto the grass below, our fingers stained deep red. If we were lucky we could sit in the kitchen and he would harvest the fruit for us at the kitchen table, with the edge of the newspaper folded up so the arils didn’t escape to the floor. When I was in 4th grade we moved to Utah for six months so my Dad could help my grandparents build a home there. We rented a house nearby their future home. I lived upstairs, my grandparents lived downstairs. I don’t think the house had air conditioning because my room was always sweltering so I would head to the basement for the crisp air and a board game.

Traveling didn’t seem to be an issue and he attended more Westwood High School graduations than I did as he watched my seven siblings and me walk. He attended my temple endowment, wedding, college graduation, and even traveled across the country to New York for Alex’s baby blessing. At every event his camcorder would be looped around his hand, his lens trained on the action. He probably has more minutes and moments on tape than anyone will ever watch.

He could sit back calmly, or fall asleep even, in the midst of absolute pandemonium. He was seemingly unfazed by his 26 grandchildren running into and out of every area of his house and yard. Perplexed by our ability to inevitably tangle Newton’s Cradle, but calm and patient.

He would eat Shredded Wheat for breakfast. The giant biscuit kind without any redeeming frosting that makes it more than throat-stabbing straw. He performed exercises on the floor in the morning and flutter kick exercises will always make me think of him. He was always serving others in small ways but completely dedicated himself in big ways as well: he served a mission as a young man in Houston, and later served multiple missions with my Grandma. He served for years in the Mount Timpanogos Temple.

He was brilliant and his brain was a Rolodex, from nuclear physics to the gospel of Jesus Christ. He was faithful, kind, and happy.

I am going to miss him. I love him. He loved me. He told me and showed me.

Updated to add: If you want to read more (especially about the 58 years before I met him), the obituary can be found here.