September 6, Friday
After the boys left for school, I finished up a few things and Michael took me
to the airport. I walked over to
the gate and sat down and looked up and Melanie Bond turned around and looked
at me. What a tender mercy to see her! I've been trying to connect with her for
ministering and I was just talking to Julie about her last night and how it's
been hard for us to get together and there she was. She was so happy that she
was going on a girls’ weekend. When we
got off the plane, we saw Mary McClure. She had been helping with flowers at a
wedding this week and was heading home. I asked her if she minded if we got a
picture so that was fun.
Emily picked me up and we drove over to campus. We went to the
Cougareat and Nathaniel and Audrey met us there. Everybody got something from a
different place. Emily said she wasn't hungry so she got a couple of tacos at
Taco Bell, Nathaniel got a meal from Choices, and Audrey got chili from
Wendy's. I was so excited to try the brisket. The elote corn was fantastic and the roll with butter
was amazing as well. We had fun sitting there chatting over lunch.
Audrey had to get back to work and eventually
Nathaniel had to get to class. Emily and I walked through the bookstore and
then walked to the Brimhall building.
I was just going to peek in to see her newsroom,
but her boss saw me and asked who I was. In fact, she asked, "Emily, who
is your friend?" Which was sweet because obviously I'm her mother and too
old to be just a friend but that was cute. She told Emily she should show me
the studio area and have me pretend to be an anchor. That sounded like a ton of
fun and Emily loved the idea so we did it. She got me a mic and she gave me her
earpiece and they got me all set up. They weren't going to record it, but I was
on the monitors and everything and Emily's boss, Melissa, even took pictures of
me in the control room. They could only do one at a time so Emily went first so
I could see how it goes and then it was my turn. Emily took some pictures and
video of me while I was doing it. When I was done, she laughed and said,
"So, you're basically a natural!" Some of the girls in the newsroom
came out and complemented me. Melissa sent Emily all the pictures and videos so that was really sweet of her
and I thanked her many times, as well as the control room guy who set
everything up.
After that, Emily gathered her camera and tripod
and we walked over to where they're constructing the art building so she could
get some B reel video. By then, Nathaniel had finished his class so he came
over and met us. We were joking that I was Emily's unpaid intern and I carried
the bags while she dealt with the equipment. She went to multiple spots to
record.
Emily was
trying to find a spot that was shaded for both her and the building so that she
could do a video and she found a spot on a little pathway which was a great
spot but it ended up being a little difficult because people kept walking by.
She took a few minutes to write her script and memorize it. Nathaniel and I sat
there talking for a while. Once
Emily was ready, I stood there and helped her and gave her encouragement and
advice. We had to pause quite a few times for
people walking through. I got some video of her doing the video.
After she was done
there, we walked all the equipment back to the Brimhall building to her
newsroom. Then we walked over to the Talmage building. I just love that building. I have
so many great memories there and I really loved it. I showed them the auditorium where
I had church with Michael and told them that was the first place I ever laid
eyes on him. We got a picture in front of Po from Kung Fu Panda. I also had to
take some pictures of the benches and tables because they were fantastic. They
replaced all of the old benches and they had a lot of cool sitting areas. I did
see some of the old benches in the hallways. That was such a fun time in my
life.
We walked through the library on the
way to the Wilkinson Center. They have a café in the library which is crazy to
me. Emily says that's where she gets her shrimp tacos. We picked up some cinnamon bears in the BYU
Store and I also got Gameday shirts for Michael, Daniel, Jonny and also for
Nathaniel and Audrey. We paid for everything and then headed to the car. On the
way, we walked past the ballroom and Emily saw Eli sitting there. Eli is the
one that she does ballroom dancing with and she talks about him a lot so that
was fun to meet him. We went to the car and Emily dropped Nathaniel off at his
house and then we went to the hotel so I could get checked in. Then
we headed over to the mall to go to The Cheesecake Factory. Nathaniel and
Audrey went back to their house and Emily and I went to Bath and Body Works so
I could buy some prizes for the baby shower games tomorrow. Then we stopped to use the bathroom and went back to
Emily's car and drove over to Nathaniel and Audrey's house. They showed us the
nursery and it looks really cute. Karen and her sister had put up some pretty
wallpaper with a cute green leaf pattern. I gave them their card. We played a
couple of games that were movie related. The first one was where you had names
of actors and you had to connect them to the actor on the pile but that was
really hard to do and we quit after a couple of rounds. Then we did another
game where you start with the name of an actor and then you have to name a
movie that they're in and then next person has to name another actor from that
same movie and then you go around in the last person who is able to properly
name something is the one to get the card. I did great on the first game and
won, but Nathaniel kicked our butts on the second one. By then it was almost 10
PM so I
asked them if we could have a prayer and Nathaniel asked Emily to say it and we
said her goodbyes and Emily drove me over to the hotel.
September 7, Saturday
I'm
so grateful I was able to go on this trip! Emily showed up at 9 AM as planned with all
the stuff I had ordered from Amazon so I had to get everything put together. I
bought some baby toys and gowns and crinkle books and also bought a gift bag
and I got everything organized. I had bought some pens and pencils for the
games and I already had the printed games in my binder that I brought from
home. Emily had bought them some gifts as well and put them in one of them gift
bags that I brought. We got everything organized and I double checked the room
and we went to Emily's car. I dropped off the keys in the lobby and we headed
to the Eldredge's. Karen had almost all the
food ready and I got all the games and pens and pencils set out. I had brought
some little signs that I use when I'm labeling the food at luncheons to give
people instructions. There were probably 15 people or so at the baby shower. I had a form where the people could fill out
predictions about the baby and give advice and I asked everybody to fill that
out and I collected those. Then I had another one that was a getting to know
you game and you had to find somebody else who has the birthday the same month
as you or whatever. Then there was a third one you had to answer the questions
about Audrey. Later, I had a word scramble and everybody seemed to enjoy that. Karen was
grateful that I did that and everyone seemed to enjoy it. Audrey got a lot of
cute things. We had fun
talking to everybody. After most of the
people left, Audrey and I got the stroller out of the box and put it together
ourselves. Emily helped by bringing us stuff. I joked that she was now my
unpaid intern. Anyway, we took it out to the car and it fit so that was a
relief. I told her she might want to keep the box just in case her and
Nathaniel decide they want to get something different but I think it's going to
be a fantastic set for them.
Nathaniel called Emily and wondered if we were going to meet up. I asked Emily if she would pick him up on campus where he was studying so I could help Audrey get everything in the car and then we met them at the mall. We walked over to the Brazilian fest that was on the north side of the mall. People were dressed up in all the Brazilian shirts and there were ladies walking around with sequins and feathers. It was a pretty big deal. Nathaniel was excited to try the Tucano’s. They had a stand and they were handing out food pretty quickly. It was so hot outside and there wasn't much seating and a lot of it was in the sun so we went back into the mall and walked to the food court to eat our food and get some drinks to go with it. We sat and ate for a little while. It was getting close to 2:30 PM and Emily was getting nervous about me waiting too long to go to the airport, so I finished eating and said goodbye to Audrey.
I told her that I know she is going to
be a wonderful mother. Emily drove me to the airport. The flight was pretty bumpy at the end and
I started getting very nauseated. I was so relieved when we finally touched
down. Michael picked me up and took me home. I ordered some pizza and we picked
that up on the way. I helped the boys with some tasks and then we had a family prayer
and everybody went to bed.
What a wonderful trip! We can't wait to meet our grandson!
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