The Garn Family Goes to Washington

This is what we have been up to for the past couple of weeks. We made this "Giant Overwhelming To-Do List" of things that needed doing before our house could go on the market.

As you can see we pretty much did it all!!
(editor's note: We did do it all, and a ton more, and thanks to my Mom, cause without her we couldn't have done even close to what we did!!)
And so . . .

Our house is on the market!
(click on the picture to see our listing on Realtor.com)

The kids have this week off from school and with the house ready to sell we decided it would be a good time to get away. Saturday morning we got up early and left for Washington DC. We were glad to be getting out of town before a storm dropped 6 inches of snow on Saturday. The drive took about 9 hours, which included stops for eating. The kids did great!





We stopped for dinner at the Cheesecake Factory which is a favorite of ours and a place we would usually not "waste" on the kids, but this was vacation and a special occasion. Unfortunately, Sam had a huge BLOWOUT poopy diaper that got literally on every piece of clothing he had on (including socks and shoes). Given the choice of buying expensive clothes for him or rummaging through luggage in the car I decided that having him wear a pink sweatshirt of Lucy's and a diaper was best.

After all of that we arrived at my cousin Bob's house. He and his wife Suzy are saints for being willing to take in a crazy family of six.

Sunday was church and family day. We drove to my Uncle Byron & Aunt Hazel's home in Alexandria, VA. It was great to have a visit with them.

Finally, we drove up to the temple where my Aunt Nadine and Uncle Bob are serving a mission in the Visitor's Center. The temple was beautiful all lit up. We had a great visit and Lucy took a quick liking to Uncle Bob (who doesn't?).Now we are ready to see the sights of our nation's capitol. More to come . . .

Lucky Seven

Seven must be a lucky number for this dude.

Max turned seven this week and was treated like a king. Breakfast in bed, out to lunch with mom and Sam (not Lucy per his request...) and dinner with the family at the traditional birthday spot, Red Robin. Wow, do you think food is important to this kid? I wonder where he gets it from...
So if all that wasn't enough, today he had his friend party. He wanted a DRAGON party, so we went with the whole medieval theme complete with saving the princess and all of her accessories. The boys had a great time and were very well behaved. Sometimes it is scary thinking of 10 boys in your house for two hours, but they were really delightful. They played a ton of games, had pizza and cake and ice cream, and of course battled with their new swords. Max said his favorite part was opening presents, so we might only do that next time. He is so glad to be seven, and we are glad he is ours to spoil!One quick story about Max. Byron was reading to him the other night before bed when Byron noticed it started to get quite stinky. He asked Max if he needed to go to the bathroom and Max said "Yeah" and hopped up to go. Byron said he came back THREE seconds later. Byron asked him if he already went. He replied, "no, it was just my underwear pulled up too high." Haa! What a great kid!

Can you say SPOILED?

We can. Dang spoiled. This is where we were last week. This is where our kids werewith this amazing woman.

Yeah, it ruled.

Byron had a conference at the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas. His conference, air fare and hotel room paid for. It was rough. Actually I still can't believe we were there! It is an amazing concept to me, we are so dang lucky.

The resort is located on a tiny island called Paradise Island. We decided that while we were there it was almost Paradise Island. It was uncharacteristically cold and windy. Now, lest anyone thinks I'm complaining, let me inform you I am not. I am just trying to explain why I came back from a 5 day trip to the Bahamas just as pasty white as your average midwinter Michigander. Believe me, I would NOT complain about a five day trip anywhere without kids, let alone to the Bahamas. It was absolutely wonderful, relaxing, rejuvenating, and downright fun. Just not in the sun.

We had two views from our corner hotel room.
We chose to look out the second one the most.

Byron had conference every morning, afternoons off, conference in the evenings, and nights off. That meant sleeping in for me, reading in bed, running OUTSIDE, and hanging out by the pools waiting for Byron and for the sun. This is how he typically found me. These were all the people who were joining me. Wimps. It wasn't that cold, it was in the 60's!

We took a ferry across the harbor to Nassau to do some shopping in the markets and found some yummy Bahamian food: conch fritters (mostly fritter, little conch).
We had a great time exploring the resort and all the marine life. We decided the sharks are much better to watch in the cool aquariums they have all over, not at night in the open pools just next to your sidewalk path. Cool, but creepy. We also had fun finding different places to eat and just being able to talk instead of shoving food into four other tinier mouths.
Friday the sun did come out for about an hour and a half. (Yes, we took a picture, it was thrilling!) We cheered, we warmed up and we did some sweet waterslides and rides. Saturday afternoon the sun came out and smiled down on us and amazingly enough, the clouds didn't come back. We actually applied some sunscreen, swam in the ocean, and soaked up what sun we could while trying to not get blown away. Sunday when we woke up to leave for the airport, it was all blue skies, not a cloud to be seen, with a nice island breeze. It was the Paradise Island we knew existed. Just our luck.
I guess we'll just have to go back another time...

He's the Man!

So Byron has outdone himself again. He is always the greatest in regard to help around the house and with the kids. I mean
THE GREATEST.

For example, a couple of years ago I went to the temple one night with a friend who's husband was on call so Byron was going to cover watching their kids if her husband happened to not get home in time. Well sure enough her husband was stuck at the hospital so she was bringing her four kids over to add to our three. Great kids, but not the typical dream night for a guy. My friend described it the best when she said something like this: It doesn't get much better that I can leave my kids with not only a pediatrician AND worthy priesthood holder but someone who will make homemade sugar cookies just because it would be "fun". That's right, he thought it would be fun to do sugar cookies with everyone while we were gone. I told him he was insane and to have fun with that. When we came back the house was spotless and I asked him if he decided not to do the cookies. Oh no, he did them, he said it was fun. Yeah, ok.
Things like this happen regularly. So it wasn't surprising when he decided to make cinnamon rolls with the boys. Once again, I was the scrooge not wanting to spend the time or make the mess, but he did it all without a blink of an eye.(These cinnamon rolls were DIVINE by the way, no surprise.)
But like I said, this is normal. But he has branched out over the past couple of weeks. We have been working to get our house ready to sell and he has become a regular plumber and handyman (crack and all...no picts, this is a family blog.) He has replaced two bathroom faucets, the kitchen faucet, the disposal and two toilet seat covers. This is a big deal, since we really aren't the fixer-upper types. I have been so proud. But what is even a bigger deal and makes me even more proud is that he landed the perfect job in the location of our dreams. That's right, we're moving back to Mesa! We found out just before Christmas, but as things are getting more solidified, we are still finding it hard to believe. So once again, Byron has outdone himself, not that anyone's surprised...