Joy - "When we finally got to Utah, my mom was not in the hospital in Ogden anymore. The mortuary, Allen-Hall in Logan had quickly come to pick her up an hour or two after her death, so she was in Logan. We had planned on going to Ogden, but changed our course to Logan. Then DeWayne called me and asked if we could pick up her white clothing from the nursing home in Ogden. So we did a quick stop through Ogden to the nursing home and got her clothing and her stimulus check."
Superstar ~While mom was in the nursing home, Dad watched us while we played tag in between some trees. I had my hand against the tree and my knee accidentally went up and hit the tree. I still have a bad scrape on my knee for the last two weeks because of that.~
D: We stayed the week with Joy's sister in Logan. It's always so nice when someone in her family is able to make space for us. I know that John-Thomas' favorite part of the week was being able to play the Nintendo Switch at their home. Princess told me her favorite part was playing with her cousin L and that cousin L gave her a necklace.
I had two jobs during the week. First, this was a week I had not intended on taking off of work - I had taken the LAST week off to play with family and recharge. So I had a bunch of deadlines. That week my main deadline was preparing for a case study research program with the World Bank in Russia. I also needed to review a bunch of papers for a special Food Security edition on the impacts of COVID-19 on food systems and prepare for my classes that start TOMORROW and ... yeah. My other, real job though was to provide emotional support for my sweetheart and watch the kids so that Joy could spend the time she needed with her family preparing for the funeral and just being family.
It was actually a lot of fun, listening in to Joy and her siblings talking about their mother and planning things out. Seldom have I heard such laughter and joy among a group of people discussing a funeral.
Joy: "We were all that kind of people."
Superstar ~During the first three days, if we hadn't known we were here for a funeral we still wouldn't know until the night before the funeral. Most of the time we were staying at Fran's house and playing with cousins, aunts, and uncles. At first there were only a few people, but every day some more people came in until at the end there were a Bunch of people in the house. We set up a 'Grandpa Golf' game where we tied pairs of golf balls together and slung them at poles, hoping to loop the balls around the poles. We also got to play a lot of boardgames, which I was very excited about.~
Joy: "I thought it was cool that he played chess with my brothers. That's a Lazenby tradition. Really. You played chess with Uncle Matthew, too, didn't you, last time we were there? That's a tradition among the boys!"
Superstar ~I played three games. Uncle DeWayne and I each won one game and I beat Uncle Doug.~
D: It really was wonderful to spend so much time with folks.
Joy: "I got to go see my mom at the mortuary the day we got there, which was still the day that she had died. Thursday I put her temple packet things on her and had a good conversation with DeWayne at the mortuary. He'd like me to become the president of the Joy Watson Fan Club."
D: I am more than happy to share the title with you, or be your vice president. Either way.
Joy: "My other siblings were kind of quiet. I was so excited to see Mari (right). We went to dinner on Thursday night at Liz Sedwick's home. I stayed a little later than my family and Mari and I had a really good conversation when she took me home. I was so happy to learn that her and DeWayne have really been able to make their marriage work and that they are happier now than they were before. My heart needed to know that."
D: It was nice to see how happy all the couples looked. We pray for Joy's siblings often and their marriages and children. We may not get to see or talk to them all that often, but we love them and think about them a lot.
D: There are two main reasons why we go to Logan. The first is family - Fran, Dustin, and Elona. The second - and it's a close second ;) - is some Chinese food known as "tiny spicy." It's a sweet and sour chicken from Mandarin Gardens that is just out of this world wonderful, and a tiny bit spicy as the name implies. So John-Thomas got his first taste of tiny spicy. He LOVED it. He ate three helpings that night. He ate leftovers for breakfast the next day. He wanted it for lunch, but I said no. He ate it for dinner! He ate so much tiny spicy that Uncle DeWayne joked his blood was now 1% tiny spicy. And he asked for more "red chicken" every day. We did get some more the last day to enjoy with everyone in the park before we started driving home.
Joy: "The third reason to go to Logan is the ice cream at the Utah State University creamery. Princess had her heart set on that."
D: Right! And since Elona was buried just across the street, we got ice cream twice. Superstar and I had fun at the creamery. They had set out some blue tape on the floor to show where your party was allowed to stand to keep everyone six feet apart. So he and I pretended to be Indiana Jones and jumped from square to square to avoid the deadly traps. Cousin Christopher was also a great babysitter and a favorite friend to little JT. Princess spent a great deal of her time on the trip reading the Fablehaven series - made it almost all the way through all five books. Here she is reading in the hammock.
D: I was also very pleased to see how our nieces and nephews have grown - not just in height, though we did discuss Christopher's amazing 6'4" height. There's been a lot of personal, spiritual growth evident in Christopher and Anna and Sammy. That was heart-warming.
Joy: "Abby was looking like a pretty cute mom too."
D: It was the first time I met her husband, and of course their baby. I like him (the husband). Here is Princess wi
th their child, her youngest cousin.
Superstar ~While mom was in the nursing home, Dad watched us while we played tag in between some trees. I had my hand against the tree and my knee accidentally went up and hit the tree. I still have a bad scrape on my knee for the last two weeks because of that.~
D: We stayed the week with Joy's sister in Logan. It's always so nice when someone in her family is able to make space for us. I know that John-Thomas' favorite part of the week was being able to play the Nintendo Switch at their home. Princess told me her favorite part was playing with her cousin L and that cousin L gave her a necklace.
I had two jobs during the week. First, this was a week I had not intended on taking off of work - I had taken the LAST week off to play with family and recharge. So I had a bunch of deadlines. That week my main deadline was preparing for a case study research program with the World Bank in Russia. I also needed to review a bunch of papers for a special Food Security edition on the impacts of COVID-19 on food systems and prepare for my classes that start TOMORROW and ... yeah. My other, real job though was to provide emotional support for my sweetheart and watch the kids so that Joy could spend the time she needed with her family preparing for the funeral and just being family.
It was actually a lot of fun, listening in to Joy and her siblings talking about their mother and planning things out. Seldom have I heard such laughter and joy among a group of people discussing a funeral.
Joy: "We were all that kind of people."
Superstar ~During the first three days, if we hadn't known we were here for a funeral we still wouldn't know until the night before the funeral. Most of the time we were staying at Fran's house and playing with cousins, aunts, and uncles. At first there were only a few people, but every day some more people came in until at the end there were a Bunch of people in the house. We set up a 'Grandpa Golf' game where we tied pairs of golf balls together and slung them at poles, hoping to loop the balls around the poles. We also got to play a lot of boardgames, which I was very excited about.~Joy: "I thought it was cool that he played chess with my brothers. That's a Lazenby tradition. Really. You played chess with Uncle Matthew, too, didn't you, last time we were there? That's a tradition among the boys!"
Superstar ~I played three games. Uncle DeWayne and I each won one game and I beat Uncle Doug.~
D: It really was wonderful to spend so much time with folks.
Joy: "I got to go see my mom at the mortuary the day we got there, which was still the day that she had died. Thursday I put her temple packet things on her and had a good conversation with DeWayne at the mortuary. He'd like me to become the president of the Joy Watson Fan Club."
D: I am more than happy to share the title with you, or be your vice president. Either way.
D: It was nice to see how happy all the couples looked. We pray for Joy's siblings often and their marriages and children. We may not get to see or talk to them all that often, but we love them and think about them a lot.
D: There are two main reasons why we go to Logan. The first is family - Fran, Dustin, and Elona. The second - and it's a close second ;) - is some Chinese food known as "tiny spicy." It's a sweet and sour chicken from Mandarin Gardens that is just out of this world wonderful, and a tiny bit spicy as the name implies. So John-Thomas got his first taste of tiny spicy. He LOVED it. He ate three helpings that night. He ate leftovers for breakfast the next day. He wanted it for lunch, but I said no. He ate it for dinner! He ate so much tiny spicy that Uncle DeWayne joked his blood was now 1% tiny spicy. And he asked for more "red chicken" every day. We did get some more the last day to enjoy with everyone in the park before we started driving home.
Joy: "The third reason to go to Logan is the ice cream at the Utah State University creamery. Princess had her heart set on that."
D: I was also very pleased to see how our nieces and nephews have grown - not just in height, though we did discuss Christopher's amazing 6'4" height. There's been a lot of personal, spiritual growth evident in Christopher and Anna and Sammy. That was heart-warming.
Joy: "Abby was looking like a pretty cute mom too."
D: It was the first time I met her husband, and of course their baby. I like him (the husband). Here is Princess wi
th their child, her youngest cousin.
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