Right after Christmas we had the opportunity to fly out to Dallas very last minute spur of the moment to visit Aaron’s side of the family. We flew out of the Provo airport on the airline Breeze. It was a good experience. It was very different from flying out of Salt Lake since there are only 5 gates total at Provo versus a million at the Salt Lake airport. Our flight was an early morning one. Getting to the airport really early is one of Aaron’s non-negotiable rules so we woke up at 3am and left our house at 3:30 am to drive to the Provo airport. Our flight was at 7 am and we got there at 5 am--we got there in plenty of time. We met up with Aaron’s sister Susan and her family at the airport, too. Here we all are in our seats awaiting takeoff:
Josh had to work a bunch of days over Christmas break so he joined us in Dallas two days later.
This visit from the whole family was kept a surprise for Grandma and Grandpa Mancil. They had no idea we were all coming for a visit/family reunion. Here is Aaron and Susan surprising Philip:
We were there for three days so it was a quick trip, but the whole entire family was able to get together. Grandpa Mancil isn’t in the best health so it was nice to go for a visit and have everyone together. Everyone found a place to sleep between Jill’s house and G&G Mancil’s house. They live really close together so we could walk in-between the houses. It was a good visit. Aaron and his Dad:
Susan’s kids our (niece and nephew) Jason and Emily both are married and brought their spouses and both of their cute babies. I don’t know why I am pulling a weird face, but Lexi crawled up into my lap and fell asleep. I loved it!!
We made sure we got one lunch in at El Fenix with the whole entire family. El Fenix is a family favorite:
Matthew approved of El Fenix:
I am bit a embarrassed to say we hit up Buc-ees a few times while we were out there. Their cinnamon smoked cashews are so good! I had the kids stand by the mascot for a picture:
Then the Buc-ees employee took my phone and told me to get in the picture with all my kids....I didn’t tell her two of them weren’t mine, but whatever we are all family, right?!--haha!
It was a good visit. Grandma M. and Sarah:
Shockingly enough Sarah and Noah had never held a baby before. They had so much fun playing with Lexi:
and Kennedi:
Josh worked until Friday night so he was able to get a one way 5am flight out to Dallas Saturday morning. I didn’t want him to have to park at the Salt Lake airport so Aaron and I had him take an Uber to the airport. He had to get to the airport by 3 am to make his flight. I wasn’t sure if there would be an Uber around right away at 2 am so I told Josh to try and get an Uber at 1:30am to make sure he would be able to find one right away. The poor guy was so tired. He got an Uber at 1:30am and got to the airport by 2:30. He checked in and waited for his flight. Unfortunately, the airplane he was supposed to take was having to mechanical issues so it got delayed. First the 5 am flight was delayed until 6am. Then it got delayed until 7 am. After that they told all the people on that flight that they might want to think about rebooking. Ugh. Josh was so mad. Everyone went over and got in a HUGE line including Josh. This was Josh’s place in the line after an hour.
He sent me this picture--poor guy. He had gone to bed at 9:30pm and woke up at 1am. So at this point he had been up since 1:00 am, was tired and was losing some patience....
I made this meme and then sent it out to everyone asking, “Who pulled the most annoyed face the best?”. Josh didn’t think I was very funny, but I sure did--haha!
He got through the line and was finally able to talk to someone at the counter, but by the time he got to the front of the line all the other morning flights had already left--DOH!! The only flight left would leave that afternoon at 4 pm--ugh. He called me to see what he should do after getting out of the line. It was frustrating because there was an appointment to get family pictures done that afternoon that he would now miss. We were scrambling trying to figure out a solution when amazingly enough while he was on the phone with me they were able to fix the mechanical issue on the original plane so it started boarding. It took off about 30 minutes later a whopping 3 hours late, but I still call that a win. Poor Josh was super exhausted, though. We got to go and pick up Josh from the DFW airport, but on the way out to the airport Aaron wanted to stop by and grab a Muchaco from Taco Bueno. Taco Bueno is a fast food chain just in Texas, but Aaron loves it. It is what he ate for lunch every day throughout high school so it holds a warm place in his heart--haha! We all ordered a Muchaco for lunch. A Muchaco is a taco, but instead of a hard shell it is wrapped in a soft, fried thick flour tortilla resembling a very thin scone if that makes sense. Aaron also ordered two additional bean burritos, too. That was his high school order--a Muchaco and two bean burritos and he was super skinny way back then. Let me just say teenage metabolism is a thing Aaron and I both miss--haha! Anyway, I do have to admit that it was pretty greasy, but good. Matthew gives it a thumbs up, too:
Josh finally made it to Dallas in enough time to say hello to G&G Mancil then go and get ready for pictures.
Jill’s husband Jeff is a doctor and has a beautiful new office. That was the location where we did all the pictures. Poor Josh just crashed in-between picture takes--poor guy!
Here’s a sweet sibling picture with Aaron, his sisters Jill and Susan and his parents Philip and Elizabeth:
Here’s all the grandkids minus Daniel since he is currently serving a mission on Omaha, Nebraska. We did print out a picture to be held up of him so he could vicariously be in the pictures, too:
Here’s the whole entire Mancil family (even Daniel if you count the picture of him inside the family picture):
We were able to grab a few individual family pictures, too which was nice. Here’s my kids:
Our family:
The kids:
An 11x14 picture of missionary Daniel taped to a clipboard--haha!
Josh:
Matthew:
Noah:
Sarah:
While we were in the Dallas area Aaron did take us around to show the kids the house he grew up in in Plano. It was super rainy while we were driving around, but here’s a few pictures. Here’s a view of the garage taken from the alley at the back of the house:
Here’s the front of the house he grew up in:
We also drove by his elementary school, his middle school, his Granny’s house and some other places he loved to hang out while growing up. He had fun telling us about each place.
Sunday morning Aaron and I were able to watch Daniel’s mission trainer's homecoming talk via a Zoom link while we were in Texas. His trainer lives in Southern Idaho so I think it was pretty cool we were able to hear him speak. He talked a bit about the person he and Daniel were able to baptize before he came home which was pretty cool.
Monday morning it was time for us to head back to Utah. Here we are saying our goodbyes to G&G Mancil:
Saying goodbye to everyone else even the babies:
When we got back home I think Matthew was about Familied out and wanted to go back to his group home. We took him back that evening. He was able to spend New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day with his roommate Mason. Their staff took them out and they had a fun time doing a lot of activities. Here’s some pictures his house manager sent to us:
We spent the next evening, New Year’s Eve with Blaine, Erin and Drew Einzinger. We played some games and ate a bunch of yummy food. Sarah and her friend Beth Einzinger were here for a few hours before they went to a different friends house. Josh was supposed to go with a bunch of friend’s out to the Salt Flats for the evening. However, he realized the drive out to the Salt Flats is about 2 hours which means the drive back would be 2 hours. If he celebrated midnight out there the soonest he would be back home would be 2 am and he had to leave for work at 6 am the next morning. He ultimately decided to hang with us instead so he could sleep a few more hours before work the next morning. Noah hung with us, too. It is fun because they are old enough to play games so we can have a bigger group of people to play with. At midnight Drew and Noah went outside to bang some pots and pans to celebrate. We then had some sparkling cider. Bring on 2025!!
The following week we had a big Clearfield Walk In clinic group lunch. Our boss wanted to take us all out to lunch to tell us thank you for all we did before the clinic opened and while the clinic was open before it permanently closed at the end of December. We went to a authentic Mexican restaurant in Layton called Spanglish. It was really good. We all got some guacamole and chips and salsa for an appetizer. I got a meat burrito for the main course. Our boss even let us order some dessert. I chose a fruit cup hoping it would be like the fruit cup we got from the Spanish family that took care of the missionaries (Josh) in Chicago when we went back to visit after Josh’s mission. I was not disappointed, however, it was huge! The picture doesn’t even give it justice. This thing was MASSIVE!! I had to try and bag it up to bring it home since there was no way I was going to be able to eat that all myself! It was really good, though. It was cut up cucumbers, pineapples, mangos, cantaloupes, honeydew, covered with tajin and chamoy. They were a bit spicy, but yummy! I am sad that the Walk In Clinic is permanently closed, but I am glad I got to work with some amazing ladies while it was open! I will still get a chance to occasionally work with them doing mobile clinics, but not nearly as often.
Last week a group of us from the Walk In clinic got together to have another one of us, Talea, teach us all the things about sour dough. She even gave us all our own starter.
I have been experimenting. Here’s the first sourdough loaf of bread I made. It was yummy!!
It made the best avocado toast!!
My family all loved it and that first loaf didn’t even last a day before it was gone. A few days later I ended up making two more loaves.
It paired well with our lasagna dinner. YUM!!
Last Tuesday I had to work a morning clinic and an afternoon clinic so I ended up working an 11.5 hour day. Ugh!! It was long, but I will definitely appreciate the paycheck when it comes. However, I was not around for Sarah’s care center dance performance. Her dance teams go and perform at a few care centers before their big dance recital. This was the first care center performance. Aaron went with her instead. He said she did a great job! Here’s a picture of her performance team:
Sarah has had the opportunity to be a dance teacher this year for the youngest performance team. She loves it!! She was on the sideline while the younger team was doing their dance helping them remember what came next:
Last Thursday Aaron unexpectedly got the day off since Jimmy Carter died. All Federal employees get the day off of the funeral of a past president. I had to work that morning down in Draper. It was just a quick TB read clinic for a new class of Department of Corrections officers and was going to be a short clinic. Since was going to be short Aaron just came along with me and was just going to wait in the car while I did the clinic. Unfortunately, there was a mix up on times for the class and they weren’t going to come in until an hour after the clinic was scheduled. DOH! I had to wait inside the building until the cadets got there so poor Aaron had to wait out in the car for about 90 minutes. Good thing he was a patient guy--haha! After that I had to go back to the office to turn in all the paperwork. After that I was free for the rest of the day. We decided to go and do some Top Golf. However, it was FREEZING!! The wind is usually blocked by the building, but this time it was coming from the other direction and just so cold! We decided to only play for 90 minutes. I was terrible. However, I did end up winning one game. I lost all the others, though. It was fun. Here’s Aaron playing:
The game I won!!
I am really bad at this, but it is still fun to play.
Sarah’s friend has a neighbor that will go raid the dumpster outside the Frito Lay plant. He gave Sarah a huge boxful of different packaged chips that he picked up there. I am a bit turned off by the fact he got them from the dumpster, but Sarah assures me everything he picks up is clean and packaged. I guess they only though the misfits in the dumpster. The kids have been taking them down the past few days. Here’s all we have left:
Noah got a personal blender for Christmas. He has been loving it. He has tried all kinds of concoctions and loves it. I don’t know what was in this one, but it was good. It had strawberries, Kale, pineapple, etc.
In other happenings Aaron started as a temple worker last Friday. He got set apart last week and had his first temple shift last Friday. He said it was awesome. He got trained in a few areas and looks forward to being trained in the other areas. He even ran into one of Daniel’s friends, Dawson, who started as a temple worker the same shift. That was pretty neat. He will work the Friday afternoon shift.
Sunday Sarah got put in as the Oldest Young Women Class president. She also got asked to help plan Girl’s Camp this year. She is a bit overwhelmed, but I am sure she will be great.
In Daniel’s mission every month they have a special ‘Why I Believe’ missionwide fireside. During this meeting they invite new members to come up and tell everyone their conversion story and why they believe. Daniel invited his friend, Eddie, to share his conversion story and he accepted. We got to watch from a link at home which was awesome. Daniel got to say the opening prayer:
Here is Eddie telling his story. It was awesome to listen to!!
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