Tuesday, September 6, 2011

:::Utah, Part 1 of Part 1:::

I think I emailed Heidi three days ahead of time and asked if I could come stay with her family for a week-ish-ish on my way to Texas. Bless her eternal soul, she said yes, even though her own life is extremely busy. It all seems like a dream now, like I was never really there. I think I was, though. I'll have to look at pictures to remind myself.

Here are some things that I love about Heidi and her family:

1. They are super into bikes. They ride their bikes what I would consider to be completely asinine distances for fun, and for the practical necessities of day-to-day life. I think it's cool. I'd like to ride a bike like that one day (even though I think it's asinine).
2. They have one car that the whole family (three kids, two adults) use (see above re: bikes). I was there for a week and I never heard an argument about who got to use the car and when. Instead, I watched them compromise, adapt, and sacrifice to make the car situation work. This was seriously impressive to me. Heidi lives in Orem, but her sons work down at East Bay in Provo. One goes to work at like 6:30 am, and the other at 11:00. Plus, her husband has to be taken to work, plus, there's the normal errand running, last minute life finagling that happens on a constant basis. They make it work. I love watching them sort out the car schedule. It was a huge lesson to me in family togetherness, selflessness, and solving problems without dramatics.


This post is being interrupted by the necessity of keeping two small children entertained with a Scooby Doo movie...

2 comments:

Jill said...

I haven't ridden a bike in so many years that I really shouldn't even try to figure it out. That seems sad to me.

I am seriously impressed that Heidi's family can share one car so easily.

michelle said...

That is seriously impressive! We've done one car, but it was not fun for anyone.

I have big plans to ride my bike more now that the weather is cooling down!