Let's start with Utah

Hey there, blog. It's been a while. Since our last chat, I've been to Utah and back, then out to Ontario, Vermont, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Ohio, and Indiana in one gigantic 2-week adventure with family and friends and more family. Crazy.

I'm not a fan of travelogue blogs, so I don't want to dump all of that here, but I do want to highlight some of the traveling just to put the experiences in context. This post relates to my Poulson family reunion in Utah.

We had a lesson in Relief Society today about strengthening family relationships. We talked about a lot of things, but the two words I heard more than any others were "time" and "sacrifice." Relationships take work. Especially family relationships. You don't get to choose your siblings like you can choose your friends. I support my family's efforts to get together and build new memories together. Here are a few of my new favorite Poulson family memories:

A couple of us went to dinner together before the reunion officially started. Matthew was on something that night, charming the wait staff and making a royal mess of anything within grabbing distance. A grandfatherly waiter was especially attentive to Matthew, bringing him his own plate and a little spoon. At the end of our visit, we were getting up to leave, and Matthew put out his arms and leaned towards the grandfatherly waiter, just asking to be held. The man was touched by the gesture, but told Matthew that he still had too much work to do :)

The next night was a potluck BBQ at my sister's house. I liked seeing my nephew Scott rock the pogo stick. It was also fun to see a few nieces and nephews as adults. I wished (just for a moment) that I could be raising my kids at the same time my older sisters raised theirs, wondering how that might have changed my relationships with them. I pondered on the reality that my siblings and I are getting older. The next generation is beginning to enter the stage I kinda just got comfortable claiming as my own.

Saturday morning, I had the unique and momentous experience of being baptized for a few of my ancestors in the Jordan River Temple. I had been researching these people for some time, preparing their information so that proxy baptisms could be performed for them, but I didn't feel any particular connection to them during that research. Things felt strikingly different once I saw their names on those temple cards. I started to cry. Not for joy, not for sadness, but something else. What was it? It kinda felt like anticipation and relief. Relief? Something like that. But not my relief. It was powerful. Anyway, the feeling grew even stronger as the baptisms were performed. At one point, a male ancestor's name was spoken and a distinct feeling came: "Frankie." It's hard to explain how, but I got the impression that Franklin preferred to go by Frankie. I was so glad to have had that morning in the temple with some of my family.

Saturday evening, we spent at a bowling center with arcade games and a heap of other activities that I was far too chicken to try out. Yeah, I blame it on my age, but I'm pretty sure I just have no taste for extreme sports. I got to bowl with some of my favorite people on this planet. Sean saw my score and said I should join a league. Then I told I him was using bumpers. Bumpers make it SO much more fun. Matthew was loathe to be separated from me, so I was grateful to Kinzie and Rachel and Kristin for sweeping him away and keeping him happy. He's such an easy-going kind of kid until he sees me and can't get to me :( I enjoyed the arcade a lot. Air hockey, especially. Pretty much everyone gave all their tickets to Atticus who was thrilled to take home a few prizes. I think my older kids would have loved being there with us that night. I started to miss them.

Sunday was a laid back day with church and another potluck dinner. This time we met at Heidi's house. Heather revealed the answer to her guessing game and everyone got prizes. Woo hoo! I like prizes.

It's a good thing I bought a new suitcase at IKEA to truck home all my prizes and IKEA treasures. Sunday evening, I got to Skype with the kids at home. It made me miss them a whole lot more. Mike's family arrived in time to join the chat and the cousins just giggled and looked at each other for a while. Then they started talking. I want my kids to have good relationships with their cousins. My favorite part of the night, though, was playing "Mafia" with my parents, Erin, Heather, the Bennetts, and Mike's family. Ella can be sooooooo sneaky. She can lie most convincingly, and my mom can't. I mean that in the best possible way :)

The journey home was lame. A cell phone would have been nice. Better weather in Chicago would have been nice, too. Oh well. We're already talking about the next reunion in a couple years...Disneyland in California!