Ison Cousin Chick Chat

This is the house.

This is the house that housed the chat... the chat that was planned by the Ison Chicks.

Thank you Godfrey's for being wonderfully, gracious hosts and for letting us take over your house for the weekend.
This is the car.
This is the car, that carried us to the house... the house that housed the chat... the chat that was planned by the Ison Chicks.

This is the room.

This is the room where the Ison Chick's chatted... and visited and talked and laughed and cried... and ate chocolate and played games and stayed up WAAAY too late!

Ok, so my idea was to do a "House that Jack Built" type opening. It got confusing and repetitive and so that's all I got. :)

Saturday evening when we arrived, the Godfrey's and Martha were just getting back from Bear Lake and Boy Scout camping trips (Todd is a scout master). We sat down together and enjoyed a lasagna and garlic bread dinner.

At some point, Martha realized she had forgotten her skirt for church, in Bountiful. A trip to the mall was decided.

We spent several hours looking and wandering the mall. Martha found a skirt that suited her and then we spent the remaining time in "Forever XXI" and "Ti pan"... until they turned the lights out on us.

Tiffany, I thought of you when we went to Ti pan. Emma, we found mustache earrings for you. :)

When we returned home, we chatted some... but felt guilty each time we did. Did we really have to wait until the official Ison Chick Chat started? Impossible!!! We were grateful for the 1:00PM church time the next day... even so, I was a little droopy. :)

After church, we got ready for dinner.Personal pita pizzas were on the menu for the evening. YUM!We chose our individual ingredients and made our personal pizzas to our own liking. Mine had a bit of almost everything. I was excited to taste the fresh tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, basil, feta and alfredo sauce. Others arrived and we sat down for dinner together. After dinner, we broke out the junk food.

I think Aunt Lora Dawn was asking, "Do we have enough chocolate?!"Uhhhh, I think so. We toasted to all of you who wanted to come, but couldn't be there. We missed you, but made sure we ate your share of junk food. We started our chat by playing a candybar game. The bowl was passed around and candybars were chosen. We revealed what question would be asked according to what type of candybar you chose.

Almond Joy= What brings you joy/happiness?

PayDay= What would you do with $200?

Crunch= Tell us about an accident or car wreck you've been in.

Butterfinger= Tell us about your most embarrassing moment or something funny that has happened to you.

Hershey kisses= Tell us about the qualities that attracted you to your husband or something you love about him. If unmarried, tell about what kind of qualities you are looking for in a husband. What's on your LIST?!Some got brave and told about their embarrassing moments... risking it all. After the candybar game, we restocked our goodies and broke out the get-to-know you type questions. This helped to continue the conversation and share things we might not think of without a prompt. We laughed... we cried... we shared a range of emotions in between.

At some point, we shared what we admired/loved/liked about each person in the room. It was nice to hear and share about one another. We have an awesome family... love them so much!

It was so much fun to have Abbey there. It had been WAY too long since we last saw her. It was good to hear about her mission, her latest happenings at the Y and really just get re-acquainted overall.

I know she possibly felt some awkwardness about not really knowing us, but was glad to hear that we had come "highly recommended" by her sister Emma. She also admitted to me that she had a "back-up plan" with her roommate who dropped her off.... "If it gets weird, text me and I'll come get you". :)

Notice the clock on the wall... yeah, that's the right time... 3AM!Before saying good-bye for the night, we tried to take a group picture. After several attempts with setting the timer, these are the best I got.Alisha-Arielle-Abbey-Martha-Megan-Rachel-Shegay

LoraDawn-Jocile-Jana

I'm so glad we made the drive to Utah. It was fun to see Martha... and to hang out with all of you awesome Ison Chicks!

Until next time... what's our next excuse to get together and gab?

Tiffany, I think we need to plan a house warming or reception of some sort. What do you think?

Utah Weekend

Tawnya called me up one day and told me she and her family would be driving up from Arizona to Utah, for a friend's wedding in September. She asked if I thought it would be a good idea to gather mom, sisters, cousins and aunts to have a GIRL'S WEEKEND. I thought it was an AWESOME idea!

She made arrangements for us to stay at her in-laws and worked out the details for lunch and dinner.

Mom, Amber, Daisylyn and I, drove down to Orem, Friday before school got out. We got in late and spent the night at Josh's parent's house.

The next morning, Josh and Tawnya got up early to run a 6K race, while the rest of us got ready for the day and played with the kids.

I hadn't seen Maliah, since they moved in January. She had grown up so much. She now RUNS and is starting to talk up a storm. She will repeat almost anything you say. Be careful. :)
She is also very friendly and happy. She gave me a BIG hug and kisses, as we arrived the evening before.
Daisylyn and Maliah liked sitting on the fireplace together.

At one point, Maliah patted a spot next to her and yelled, "Ky! Ky! &%#@*". Interpreted, I think that meant, "Kyrick, come sit by me, RIGHT HERE!" He did just as he was instructed.

Cute.

As I was trying to take pictures of Maliah and Daisylyn, Kyrick kept jumping in front of me and saying, "Take a picture of me doing ____. Take a picture of me and ____." He couldn't get enough of the camera.

Here he is with his Grandma and Grandpa Clawson's dog, Cloe.

Next up, IKEA.

I was an IKEA virgin, never having been before. Too bad I didn't have money to spend.... lots of fun stuff in there. I think the kid's section was my favorite, but maybe I need to go back, just to make sure.

We met cousins; Emma, Rachel and Megan there.

Cute ice cube trays.... had to take a photo with Brinton in mind.

Of course my Mom found some puppets that HAD TO be adopted and come home with her.

Mom, Daisylyn, Amber & cousins; Emma, Rachel & Megan.

For lunch, we met at Mimi's Restaurant.

Aunt Angela and her friend Brenda (from England) came to have lunch with us too.

My grilled cheese sandwich & fries were ok, but if I ever go back I'll be having the Quiche Lorraine, with fresh fruit and bran muffin. It looked SO good.

Daisylyn enjoyed her Cheerios, Saltines and Goldfish crackers, along with some of her mom's fruit and bran muffin.

The remainder of our visit, we spent at Rachel's house.

We had fun talking and hanging out, but also wrote Grandma Memories for Grandma Ison to have and read..... over and over.

Rachel made 2 types of soup for dinner; a salmon chowder and an Italian pasta soup (can't remember the name). I had the salmon chowder. It was soooo yummy!

Aunt Jana, Uncle Kevin, Chanel and Arielle joined us for talk and dinner.

After dinner, we broke out the snacks.... and most importantly CHOCOLATE! We toasted our chocolate to Martha, because she couldn't be there with us. :)

"To Martha!"

I had brought down some "conversation starter" questions. After dinner, we started the questions around the table and had lots of fun answering getting to know one another better.

We wrapped up in blankets and headed out to Rachel's back patio, as questions and chatting continued late into the night. :)

Around midnight, the party broke up and people headed home. Mom, Amber, Daisylyn & I stayed at Rachel's for the night.

Thanks for letting us sleep in your cozy beds Bryton, Nathon and Katie! And thanks to Rachel and Todd for being such gracious hosts.

It was a relaxing, satisfying, wonderful weekend.

I LOVE my family!