Wednesday, November 16, 2011

60th Anniversary Celebration~Park City, UT

Cleos' parents will be celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary next month...what an accomplishment!!!  To help them celebrate, Cleo and I along with his brother & sister in law that flew in from Houston, and his two sisters and their spouses who all live in Idaho and drove down with his parents, rented a condo in Park City UT for the weekend.  We all arrived on Friday afternoon and quickly got settled into the condo before relaxing and catching up for a couple hours.  We decided to just grab a quick bite at a local Mexican restaurant that night and then went back and hung out in front of the fire.  It was so warm and cozy in the condo and it was starting to get really cold and snowy outside.

We stayed up late laughing, snacking and just really having a lot of fun.  Cleo and I and Tom and Cindy were all pretty tired because we'd been up since like 3am EST to catch our flights...but we "sucked it up" and once we got our second wind, we were good.  It was pretty chill and lots of fun.  Once bedtime rolled around, we went to our chosen (or should I say assigned?) bedrooms...got settled (in our case there was some bed swapping going on, LOL!) and snuggled in for the night.  You just never know exactly what kind of sleeping accomodations you will get in a condo rental in a ski resort town and ours was no exception.  There was one main bedroom .. of course for Mom & Dad Cheney..then upstairs there were 2 more bedrooms, one with a queen bed, the other with 2 sets of double bunkbeds and then on the 3rd floor (or attic, really!) there was another set of bunkbeds and 2 single beds.  Somehow, Cleo and I ended up in the attic and Brent and Sue ended up downstairs on the couches...but it all worked out and we really did have quite a few laughs just over the sleeping arrangements.  It wouldn't be a family function without a little "dysfunction"...am I right:???

On Saturday we just ate breakfast at the condo and then us girls went to the Outlet Mall to do a little shopping.  It WAS NOT exactly shopping weather, but we did it anyhow.  It was so cold and snowing and blowing but we were able to get a wheelchair for Mom Cheney and all they wanted for collateral were Tamis' drivers license and her library card...seriously???  Not sure what the library card was all about, but we got the wheelchair and it was free!  After shopping we went back to the condo, met up with the guys and headed to downtown Park City.  It is such a cool little ski resort town, nestled right into the mountains and you can see all the ski runs and chair lifts right from the center of town...if you haven't been, you should go sometime it is that gorgeous!!!  We walked around some of the shops and then headed to Bandits Grill & Bar for lunch.  It was pretty empty because the peak season hasn't really started yet, so we pretty much had the restaurant to ourselves, which was nice.  Our waitress was Liesel from South Africa and she was AWESOME!  She took a lot of teasing from my hubby but she was really a good sport and even brought a super huge, wickedly amazing chocolate and ice cream dessert for Mom & Dad in celebration of their anniversary.  It was a good meal and we all enjoyed it very much.  We then headed back to the condo and just hung out the rest of the afternoon.  There was a little football watching (it really wouldn't be a Saturday without college football, right?) a few caught a little nap...guess who? and the rest just sat by the fire and chit-chatted.

For dinner, Sue & Brent and Tami & Eric bought steaks and we grilled at the condo.  They went all out with baked potatoes, salad, cooked carrots, rolls and steak...it was YUMMY.  I just now realized we didn't get dessert...sad:(  Just kidding, y'all did an awesome job on dinner...THANKS.  After dinner everyone sat around the table and listened to Cleo and Patsy tell their story...about how they met, fell in love, married and started their lives together.  All 4 of the kids then started in on all their childhood memories....you know the "do you remember?" and "remember that time when, etc"....it was really fun to hear a lot of those stories and I know that Cleo and Patsy really enjoyed the flooding of memories at that table.  Slowly, Brent, Cindy and I nudged ourselves away (Eric had to leave b4 dinner to head back to ID) and cleared the table and Brent even did the dishes.  Now that might be an every day occurrence at he and Sues' house, but I was impressed!  The 3 of us then just kind of sat in the living room and let the family of 6 reminisce about the "good ole days"...we wanted to give them their space and some time alone.  After a couple hours of that we all sat together and talked some more about the importance of keeping family ties alive and the logistics involved in that when you all have your own families.  It's not always easy, but we sure try to keep the homefires burning.

Bedtime, night #2:  Ask my husband...he is still that naughty little boy who is the last one to bed, always wreaking havoc and playing pranks on someone.  Lets just say...he shouldn't be allowed a smartphone with access to questionable apps!!!  I'm just gonna leave it at that...use your imaginations :)

Sunday morning was checkout time.  We all kinda woke up at the same time, so once we were showered and ready, we still had a little time for visiting and saying goodbye.  It was a great weekend, filled with lots of laughter, lots of reminiscing and also new memories, great food, great company, lots of snow to provide a beautiful backdrop and most importantly, quality time with the family.  Some of our kids and grandkids felt a little left out, but it was only so that Cleo and Patsy could enjoy time with their 4 kids, uninterrupted and we certainly did not mean to hurt any feelings.









Here are just a few pictures of the weekend, I can't possibly post them all but again just want to say thank you to all of Cleos' siblings and their spouses for coming together and making this such a memorable 60th Anniversary celebration for their parents.  We love you Cleo and Patsy

1 comment:

Marcy said...

And by "assigned" I mean I made the reservations and was in charge, so clearly I need to work on my leadership skills, LOL. And by "dysfunction" I mean while I'm standing in the bathroom after a shower all I hear at the door is "Marcy do you have hot water?" like 3 times...haha, you snooze you lose next time y'all jump in your showers first! My leadership skills may need some work, but my priorities are still in order...cleanliness first!!!