Hobble to The End

My kids love coming to Hobble. Alena was especially anticipating it. Brigham was still sad to be leaving boy cousins and not feeling like entertaining himself. As hard as I had tried NOT to be driving to Hobble in the dark, we had to stop for groceries and we did, indeed, drive through the canyon in the dark. Thankfully Lynne had the lights on and we had no trouble finding it. Molly was literally dragging between Samuel's things, our luggage, us, and all the groceries on the kids laps. I felt worried but we took it easy and made it. Of course Lynne greeted us with all the love but she was incredibly busy getting ready for her broadcasts and her classes at education week etc. so mostly she was a hermit.

We loved the new swing over the creek. We went to church with my friend Anna and then we tried taking a walk near hobble to help pass the day. The girls and I spent some time on their new swing. I didn't get many pictures apparently. We had some yummy food we'd missed in Oman like berries and box mac n'cheese, we had a lovely night chatting with  Dow, Uncle Larry, Aunt Pam and Uncle Jason, Hannah and Becky a little bit when she wasn't sick. That night was one of the highlights of the trip for me. I love a good intelligent, informative conversation, especially when I feel loved and included. I just wished I could've shared it with my family. Brigham and the girls were in bed and I couldn't get Alena to come up and join us.

 

I'll keep most of these small because for some reason they're almost all blurry. We loved meeting up with Wendy and the girls for some fun at the park and some ice cream. We also met up with Anna and her kids although it was an unfortunate situation where the kids just couldn't seem to mesh. 

Samuel and Alena were able to attend Education week. Samuel was all hooked up to room with Michael Rosenlund and Alena went in only for 1 day with Lynne. She was really feeling left out when she had to leave after only 1 day. Samuel absolutely loved Education week and spending time with his cousins and their friends and Michael. He loved the speakers and everything except maybe the dance. We interrupted all his fun one day to give the car keys to him and say good-bye. I was just so happy for him but sad for myself.

The last really important thing I wanted to do was see my brother Dave. His family had been sick or gone most of the time we were in Utah so it was a lovely miracle that he was able to pick us up from BYU after we were carless, take us to dinner and to Thanksgiving point so we could spend time with their family. 

We stayed in a hotel that night and then boarded a flight the next afternoon and flew to Amsterdam. The girls watched movies and stayed up the entire flight so waiting for our next flight which was a couple of hours late, they were so tired they zonked out. It was going to be another rough flight. 

Elise and Sennia got some sleep, Brigham didn't sleep a wink. While this wasn't my ideal, we were arriving very late into Oman so I didn't think it would be the end of the world. Not so, poor kid was so over tired he did some pretty horrible hallucinating a lot of the night. I didn't get much sleep that night as a consequence. 

Everyone but Brigham was up for church the next day but after church it was a loooong Sabbath.