Hello, this is. Darren and this is. Page. And this is. Where Lemonade. Where we talk about what happens when life through you lemons. You make some lemonade. Meaning some weeks it's lemons. Yes, some weeks it's just lemons. Yeah. On today's episode. We're going to unpack 2020. Two. You're using that buzzword. I'm back. I know how good a. Job we're so trendy. All right. It's been a long time since we podcast and we really apologize for our listeners
out there, but we are dedicated. It's a new year. We're dedicated to do it every week. This year it's already missed the first week. We're so sorry. Like, yeah, people have just been, you know, I've had people in crisis mode because Page and Aaron have been podcasting. Well, you know, and you're going to find out why we kind of stop for a while. It's been it's been a really hectic year. It has been a hectic year. Should we just dive in and unpack all this stuff?
Well, yeah, First thing to unpack is four of our ten children got engaged in 2022. Is a busy year for engagements, right? It was. And two of those four actually got married. They did three weeks apart. Thank you. Matthew, Indiana and Jake McNally for making our October as chaotic as it possibly could have been. It was awesome, though. It was a fabulous October. It was fun. It was fun. Driven. It was fun with So let's go let's just go through the year. Is that the best way to do this?
Let's do it. All right. So let's say we kicked off the year with a little birthday celebration for me. My birthday's in January, and page two took me to Palm Springs and I went, Huh? Yes. I gave that trip to you for Christmas. Right. And I had planned you know, I planned a little trip to Palm Springs. I, you know, reserved a couple of shows and. And you open it up on Christmas and you're like, what are we old? And I knew you were going to say that. I know these were old.
People go. To vacation. Oh. But true. Is it true or not? Is it true or not? Well, actually, I think I think a lot of old people live there. But I don't know that a lot of old people go there for vacation like we saw a lot of people our age. Yeah, I guess we. Saw a lot of. These were old. You don't live there. Oh, you know what, though? It was a lot of fun. We actually had a lot of fun. It was actually a really fun place. It was? Yeah. There's lots to do in Palm Springs, out in the desert.
We went on a Jeep tour in the desert. That was really fun. And up some slot canyons up there. That was a lot of fun and we went to a back door was a back door. No VIP. Sounds really. All right. It was a VIP. No, it was a VIP. Behind the scenes. Behind the scenes. There we go.
That's behind the scenes of the zoo in Palm Springs, which was really kind of cool because we had a guide for us to take us around the zoo and we got to go in other places that people didn't get to go and we got to feed a giraffe. It was I got. To hang out with them. What were those walls? Wallabies. What are those? The Wallabies. Yeah, Wallabies. Yeah. They're like just jumping all around us. Yeah. So it was a fun trip.
That was when COVID was still a thing because you know, it's not a thing anymore. And it doesn't exist anymore because we're ignoring. It. Don't you remember? We went to the first restaurant we went to. They said, Do you have your vaccination cards? And we were like, No, no. I think we found them on our. They're on our phone. Yeah, yeah. Because we were like, I didn't know that was a thank you. We still had to show. Oh, and we took the gondola.
Yeah, yeah. We went to the top of whatever that Piqua San Simeon. No, no, I don't know. I don't know. But it was pretty cool because we were down in the desert where it was 80 degrees or so, and just take the gondola up out of palm Springs and there was no other ground. So we took our snow gear with us and had a snowball fight. Was fun. It was fun. All right. So that was January. And then in February, you decided to head off to Sedona? I did. I did my girls trip with Jill and Eileen.
And then I went straight from that trip to Utah for Zoe's birthday. Which I missed this year. Yes. They were upset with you. I was upset. Well, this is a little problem. Here's a tip to all of you that have grandchildren. Don't go to every grandchild's birthday for the first five or six years, because if you miss one, you're in trouble. You get called. Out. And I got called out by Emma. Emma, that I wasn't there for Zoe's third birthday because I've been there for all of her birthdays.
Well, I don't think this year we're going to be there because we're, we're kind of a little we're going there, but not for birthdays, so we're going to anyway. So we're going to I think we're breaking the cycle this year. Yeah, we're going to break half of Yeah, well, but we have to be there for Emma's eighth birthday because she's going to get back to that. That's a big deal. Definitely. Definitely. Well, not your first grandchild, I guess you spoil them. That's right.
And then in February, drumroll. Paige had. Surgery. I had my big surgery, which we've we podcast did about this, but this is just a little rundown. But yeah, so I had my part of my colon taken out that was super fun. And I got some white hair during the month of February and March. But we You're welcome. I hit our deductible. Nice. Yes, you did. You get her medical. So the rest of the year was just cake.
And I was. Like. Yeah. So doing it was, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't as bad of a recovery as we thought it was going to be. It was actually pretty, pretty chill recovery. And it's good now. It was well, it was kind of a chill recovery. It was it was tough. It was tough for not just you. It was tough for everyone around you, too. Yeah. Because we were worried about you. And then we went down to Southern California
to go see Paige's mom at the end of March. So. And this was right at the very end of when you could travel again. So we kind of had your eight week recovery, and then we we went down to Southern California at the end of March to go see your mom and your sister and Delon and Alex. Yep. So that was a fun that was a fun. I'm done with recovery time. Yes. And just a little a quick little trip. Yep. So and then April, April, we saw Journey and Toto. Oh man, that was awesome.
That was it was some friends. That was super fun. Oh, my gosh. That was so fun. If you get a chance to go see Journey in concert, do it. Yeah, they're really good. Oh. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah, it's actually a lot of fun. Toto, one of the lead guys came out with his walker to get on stage. He literally did. That's just not even a joke. And then they sat him at a piano, and he played the piano and sang couple songs. You know what? They're getting old because we're all good.
This goes back to Palm Springs. We're all lonely. Yeah, Not that old. Oh, my gosh. Look, I do need to get my hair. Hair dyed. I got a little gray coming up, but not that much. But April was actually a busy month for us, too, because Andy and Jacob graduated from BYU, Idaho. So we drove. We drove, didn't we? We did. We drove to Idaho for their. Graduation and there was a big snowstorm, was it not? It was a snowstorm. It wasn't huge. But yes, we were driving and we were.
Driving, you know, so it's a little bit of white knuckle driving for about. Yeah, there was. About probably 3 hours of the 12 hour drive up there. And then we had a big we had some big plans for Andy and Jacob right after their graduation for graduation, President Jacob and I both served church missions in Brazil, So we were pressing up our Portuguese. We had to show off to our wives, the beautiful country of Brazil.
And so the idea was, was right after graduation, we would come home, we get packed. Andy and Jacob would meet us in Houston. I think we were flying through Houston. So so we we left Thursday, drove to I don't know if Wednesday, Wednesday drove to Idaho. Thursday was their graduation. We drove home. We drove home Friday. This is very quick trip. You know, when we were driving home Friday in the car. I started. Getting started feeling sick and we're like, oh, it's like, oh, we're.
Supposed to leave Monday. We were supposed to leave Monday. Saturday. You woke up. You were really sick. We decided to test you for COVID. Because Why? Because why do we do that? We did that because at the time. I couldn't get back into. The U.S. We didn't have to test to go to Brazil, but we had to test to get back into the United States. So we tested you had we did like what, three or four tests because we're like, are we. Surely this test is. From. Yes. So that was on Saturday.
We were supposed to leave Monday. So that trip was. Off and I called Jacob and the on Sunday they were going to fly from Salt Lake to meet us through San Francisco and then head down. And the plans changed. So they were homeless. They didn't have a place to live for that week after their graduation because we were going to be in Brazil and then they were going to go back to their new place that they had just gotten a brand new job in Austin, Texas. What a logistics nightmare for them and for us.
So, yeah, I tested positive for COVID and that canceled the whole trip. Yeah. And then three days later, you tested positive for COVID one. Yeah, You got it. Yep. So we had the most boring. It was it was a little challenging. Yeah. That week, spring break, because Sam was off. We had made arrangements for everything. The other kids were with their mom, which Sam went to Disney World with his sister because we were supposed to be in Brazil. So we were at home.
Yeah, it was kind of a bummer week, but and we were sick, so we were kind of like looking at each other. Are you going to go get water for us or can you give make some soup for. This type of thing? You were a lot sicker than I was. I didn't. I didn't get it that bad. But we ended up we ended up at the end of that. We going out to Bodega Bay. Bodega Bay and doing a small little hike out there to get out of the house and to get into some fresh air. It was really nice. Don't worry. We were inside.
We were outside. Never came in close contact with anyone. Right? If anyone. We don't want to get any emails about this. We were not spreading COVID, don't worry. No, we weren't. And I felt really bad for Andy and Jacob because, I mean, we had bought packages for river cruises and jungle cruises. I mean, the whole. Thing, it was all planned. It was all it was. We had just we had started packing. And. We'd gone for two years without getting COVID. And that was a major.
LEMON Oh, it was a horrible and that. Was a really bad. LEMON Yeah. And then we were supposed to go straight from Brazil to back to Utah. We were flying straight to you to for Julianne's graduation. That's right. And so we ended up flying. We flew, right? We fly. Yeah, we flew from here. To Julianne's graduation, which was two weeks after Jacob's. Yeah. So once again, we were not we didn't have COVID anymore. You know, not contagious and. Contagious.
We were fine. So. So we went back to Utah for Julianne's graduation, which was which was lovely. It was lovely. And I felt bad for Jacob and Andie because that was her graduation present. So we we went with the trip on a trip with them later on in the year in November, and then not to Brazil, because that was right after I looked at, Hey, let's go to Brazil. Then during Thanksgiving, right after a very contested election. I'm glad we didn't go. There was a little bit of rioting.
And now, I mean, now it's pretty chaotic down there. So we're glad that we got to go somewhere else with them. Which well, but I feel bad because Julianne's graduation present was also a trip that we were going to do at Thanksgiving. Yeah, with. Julianne. But because Andie is a teacher and she only has so many days off of work, she had the whole week of Thanksgiving off. So we had to bump Julianne's trip a week because Joanne's job is a little more flexible.
We did bump Julianne's trip for Andie and Jacob's trip. So sorry, Julianne. You've been great and very understanding. Yeah, we'll figure out that trip, Julianne. Yes, we will. All right. So that leads us through April. What a chaotic four months. There was a lot. I mean, you had major surgery. We both got COVID and we were traveling and changing travel plans constantly. It seemed like, Yeah, yeah. But then we you always have to have you always have to have something in the works.
What are you talking about? You have to have a plan. You have to have a trip planned ahead so that you can say, Oh, I'm looking forward to something. I you know. What? And it can be simple. It could be a simple, Hey, we're going to go to Mendocino Coast or. Yes, I don't have to. I feel like that makes me sound like some kind of like housewife of Orange County or something. I don't have too housewives. I also housewife people. I do not have to. But you're right.
Even if it's just even if it's just an overnight trip, one night someplace for you and I to go to. I mean, I do like to have something to look forward to. That something doesn't have to be a big. Trip. It does not. But big trips are nice. Yeah, I'm not sure why so. And we and we just. We'd already spent the money on a trip to Brazil, so we had travel credits. Well, we'd also we also had travel credits from other trips that we canceled. Yeah.
With Iceland and. Yeah. So I had to, I had to use some, some travel. That's right. We had to use, we had to use this was for the from the Iceland cancellation. Yes it was. And we had to use this seven night stay anywhere. At a Category five hotel. Anywhere in the world. Anywhere in the world. We had to use it by the end of June or we lost it. Yeah, well, we're not dumb. We're not going to lose a seven night stay. Oh, hello. So. So we looked all over the world.
We did for a for a really good category five Marriott Hotel. Those are hard to find. Yes. Because sometimes a category five is like a courtyard. Yeah. Depending on the place. And sometimes a category five is really nice. So we found a really nice one in Portugal and that's how we ended up in Portugal. And what a lovely trip. And Portugal's, I mean, that was the resort we stayed at was off the beaten path, which was kind of nice. We had our own beach to ourselves.
The weather was absolutely wonderful. Yeah. And the food was incredible. You check out our check out our podcast on Portugal. In fact, we even podcast it from Portugal. We did. That's right. So you can see me. I was all burnt because we went to the beach. Mm. Because your skin's like, transparent. I put sunscreen like a vampire. A sun hits them and it's like burn immediately. But now. So yes, Portugal was lovely. And then another trip to Utah for Mitchell's first birthday.
You can't miss the first birthday, even though the child's never going to remember their first birthday that we were there. Oh, but the other kids remember. Yes. So I got back in the good graces of Emma because I showed up for Mitchell's birthday. Yes. Yes, you did. So, yes, Another trip to Utah. And then July we stay home. Finally, we. Stayed home and we had a lot of visitors come to us, which was great. So the joy was fun. People came and visited family.
We needed a break from running around and visiting kids. And so and then right before school starts in August, we decided to take the three youngest kids, which are now not little kids anymore. My goodness, they're huge. All grown up. Now to 116 year old and to 17 year olds now. Yeah, we took them to Alcatraz to drop them off. They wouldn't keep them. They wouldn't keep them. No, no. So, yeah, that was a fun trip to San Francisco. We went to Alcatraz and Chinatown, and that was fun.
We were there during one of the one of the moon festivals, I think, which was kind of fun. It was fun. So. So hanging out in our local area was always, always good. And it doesn't cost that much to head over to either. Oldtown SAC or San Francisco. It's kind of fun. It's very cool. And then let's see, September I had a girls trip with some of our daughters, so a couple of our daughter in law didn't weren't there for the trip, but we got to go.
We were It all came about because of Joseph and his amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. My kids growing up. We watched that with Donny Osmond. If you haven't seen it, go watch it, Donny. You didn't watch it. You're obsessed about it. Just tell the truth. Yes. And my kids, my daughters especially, have good memories and have it all memorized. And so we saw that it was going in to the what's to a con to account theater in St George.
So we decided with our kids that live there in Utah, we the girls, we had a little weekend in Saint George hiking and. Well, this was this was right before the two weddings that we had in October. Yeah. So it was kind of nice because you got to spend some time with your future daughter in law a little bit more. Makayla was there, so that was super fun. We had a great time. That was awesome. So in October.
October, boy, you kids, it was funny because they said, Well, dad, we're we're almost having one in September and one in October. So it's really two months. It was three, three weeks apart. They were three weeks apart. But yeah, so a wonderful trip out to Georgia. My gosh, Matthew and Anna's wedding. Gorgeous. Oh. Oh, that was. That was almost a lemonade or illuminate moment. Oh, yeah. We were worried about the rain.
Because there was a hurricane that came up the Gulf and the remnants of that hurricane were hovering over Georgia. And we were literally looking at the rain every day. It was an outside wedding. It was a great venue. Just this cute, oh, plantation home, just wonderful. But it wasn't big enough for everyone to come inside for the wedding. So we were trying to find other venues. I was calling all over the place to church buildings and Marriotts and and convention centers.
Everything was booked solid, so. We just prayed. A lot of praying went on. And it ended up being a beautiful day and absolute. Beautiful, absolutely gorgeous day. And then three weeks later, we had Jacob McKinley's wedding here in the Sacramento area. And two days before their wedding, it once again an outside wedding at our friend's property in Lincoln and. Down. Rain was expected for their wedding. We're like, seriously? But that's Mother Nature teasing us here in California.
Yeah. And we didn't at once again, we didn't have a backup. You think we would have learned our lesson? But there was no backup. We were just praying once again and beautiful day like that. So, yeah, we could have fretted about it and but we didn't. We, we said, Hey, it's going to be. We said, if all else fails, we can bring everybody here to our house and. Eat. Food, eat food. But yeah, it all worked out great. It was both weddings were absolutely lovely.
And we got to New Daughter in law's. It was. Oh, they're great. They're great women. Yep, they are. I love calling them daughter. Yeah. And they each bring their own uniqueness to the family, which is wonderful. It's exciting. They are fabulous. Oh, and then November. I love November. I rarely saw you in November. Y footloose, baby. I got to cut loose. Footloose. All right, so, Sam, our ninth child, right? And the one that's with us 100% of the time. He was Willard in the play.
Footloose at the musical, Footloose at school, at. His high. School, at his high school. And there is one person that made every single every single performance except for one page. I went to every single performance. What do you. I thought you missed one. Oh. No, I did not. I went I went late to when I was like, Oh, you want to play? I went to every scene. Everyone who didn't make it to everyone. You didn't make it to everyone. I went to three. Yeah.
What do you mean? Who didn't make a difference? No, someone made it. Except for one was a marilyn. No, David. David got. Sick. No, He missed the last. He missed the last two because he was sick. Yeah, He's. Trying to make it to everyone. And Sam stole the show. Oh, he did. He was so. Good. Awesome. It was so he was the comic relief in the play. He. He had such great stage presence. It was. He was so good. Check out our YouTube channel. Will put up some clips of the show up there. He was fine.
I was shocked. I was like, That's my little Sam up there. He was stealing the crowd. Oh, man. He found he found his his calling with that. He loved being on stage. You know, he knew how to work the audience. It was it was wonderful. It was great. So, yeah, that was the that was the middle of Thanksgiving lot. And he of course, we hadn't seen Sam for a month because he'd been practicing and rehearsing the play.
And then and then we headed on a wonderful trip, the graduation trip for Andy and Jacob to no other than Amsterdam. Now, I said, Guys, really, You want to go to Amsterdam in November, Amsterdam and Germany and Brussels? And I said, It's going to be cold and wet. And Paige said, And there's Christmas markets there. Yes. Which was a trip that we had planned to Christmases ago that we had to cancel because of.
COVID. Hit COVID. So I didn't even know when they when they first said they won because we said, pick your second trip. If we're not going to Brazil, where is your second place you want to go? And Andy really wanted to go to Amsterdam and Germany, and I was like, okay, great. And then I start like, you know, Googling, what should we do? And I'm like, Oh my. Gosh, Christmas market.
So and then once Andy found out there were Christmas markets, there was nothing I could do to convince him to go to Hawaii or Puerto Rico or some warm place. Nope. Instead, we got on our rain gear and our. It wasn't too bad. The weather wasn't too bad. It was chilly a few days and it rained. It didn't rain as much as we thought. We had to bundle up. Yeah, we had to bundle up. But Christmas markets. Oh, my goodness. They know how to do it in Germany. In Korea, incredible Christmas markets.
So much fun. So we we went to several several places Amsterdam, Cologne, Germany, Brussels, Belgium and and a couple other small towns Brugge and get into a wonderful trip with them and we got to spend some time with Andy, our daughter in law, who we're continuing to get to know and love even more now. It was great. And if you are planning on going to Christmas markets in Europe, give us a shout because they are not all created equal. No, they are not.
In fact, check out our YouTube channel where you're going to see some some travel logs on on the Christmas markets. So and the highlight of it was Felice Navidad in German. You got to check out that podcast. That was pretty funny. All right, December, how could we keep traveling? We had to go watch the grandkids in December and to meet my future son in law. Yes. Yes. So our sweet little Julianne fell in love and got engaged. Well, he was he wanted to talk to me.
And I said, okay, where we go up and watch the grandkids for what was that, three days or so? Yeah, four days. I got to spend some time talking to Boyd, who is Julianne's fiancee, where he asked me if he could marry my daughter after I talked to him for a while. It was wonderful. He's a great guy. And and then we left it at that. And then he calls us up afterwards and says, I want to propose to her on Christmas Day. Because that was her childhood dream to get proposed to on Christmas Day.
So he wanted to surprise her because he had told she was coming home for Christmas and he had said, I can't go with you and I can't go to my parents house for Christmas because I have to work. And so he wanted to surprise her so that was that was kind of a nightmare. Poor guy. He was flying in on Christmas Eve night and then he was going to be here only for Christmas Day, surprise her, and then fly back the next day. He was in the middle of that southwest nightmare.
It wasn't just Southwest the first day, but it turned into a nightmare. So, yeah, his first card, his first flight was canceled on Christmas Eve. And then he called me up and said, Well, I'm not going to make it until Christmas Day because we had it all arranged where he was going to do it, and we were going to, you know, get Julianne there for some lame excuse that we made up. And then he called me and said, I got to push the time.
I got another flight for Christmas Day and I'm not going to get in until like 11 or 12. And so we arranged all that and I hung up the phone and tried to make some arrangements. He called me back. 3 minutes later, my Christmas flight was canceled, too. He said, I'm getting on a train from Salt Lake City to Folsom, California, to Sacramento. Yeah. He hopped on the train at like midnight and got here at 3 p.m. the next day and came here, showered, changed and and.
At 4 p.m. proposed to Julianne at Temple Hill in Sacramento. It was wonderful. I hid in the bushes. I got some great pictures which I will post the couple on our Facebook site. You can see those. I also I was I was hiding in the bushes, taking pictures. Not creepy at all. Not creepy at all. And then I hopped out of the bushes and scared Julian a little bit and then took some real good pictures of them. And then you left because they want to be alone.
I sat on the bench with them for a little bit to talk to him a little bit. Now, I left. He did. Not. I ran away. So as you can see, it was a crazy 2022. It was. And there were a lot of there were a lot of lemons thrown at us, frankly. Yes. The surgery was probably the biggest. LEMON The COVID. Cold. The biggest. LEMON Yeah. We got a little kind of down. Yeah, we did. We did. But two weddings, four engagements.
Next year, we got two weddings down, and Alex are getting married and Julianna Boyd are getting married. So we've got and they're not a month apart, which is great. Yes, they're several months apart, But, um, so we're very excited to get more in-laws in our family, too. Son in laws. We're very, very excited. We love both of them very much. And we plan on making a lot of lemonade this year, hopefully not as many lemons this year. Hopefully this will be a a little bit easier year.
But we must have we make a lot of lemonade. If you like today's episode. Give us five stars on iTunes, Spotify, Google. And head to Facebook and like us. And check out our blog at Where's Eliminated Talk. Where you can leave questions and comments. And but most of all. Go out, make some lemonade. You bet your baby.