I Don't Know What to Title This Post

This past weekend I attended my grandma's funeral. Lois Taylor Dayton. At the risk of sounding crazy, I had really been looking forward to it! My grandma was an amazing woman: she was strong, beautiful, giving, sweet, loving, funny...just so many wonderful things and I will miss her like crazy. But she was also 101 and had been without her husband for nearly 10 years. We may not have been ready to lose her, but she was ready to go. The funeral was wonderful. It was such a blessing to be with SO many loved ones and to feel my grandma's spirit during that whole weekend. I love nothing more than family gatherings and with my grandma's passing, the reunions of that generation will most likely become less frequent and so I wanted to take advantage of being with everyone this weekend. Especially my brothers. There are so many of us that being all together is rare, but everyone made a huge effort (like flying in from China) so it could happen. I was also honored that one of my Uncles asked me to accompany my sister-in-law singing a song he wrote about his mother. I've always loved my Uncle Lyman's music and his song was so beautiful. I've been listening to it constantly, and he said I could share the demo recording with you. Unfortunately, I don't know how to put a song on here out of my itunes folder... Awesome. If anyone wants to teach me how, I'll let you. In the mean time, pictures!

Most of my immediate family that came at the cemetary.


Of course it's impossible to get a decent picture of everyone, but at least this is all 12 kids with my parents.


My parents in the receiving ling.


The pallbearers: 8 of her grandsons.



Choir rehearsal for the 47 of the 49 grandkids and spouses that were there. We sang the closing song, "Oh, What Songs of the Heart." Or, for some of us, we tried to sing the closing song. There wasn't a lot of sound coming out of my mouth.



This isn't everyone that made it---many had to leave directly after the funeral. But here's the family picture we got of Lois Taylor Dayton's kids, their kids, grankids and great-grandkids outside the church.


*Awesome photos courtesy of my awesome cousins, Damian and James*

My New Best Friend

I love her. I can't get enough of her. She makes my life so much better. When I'm having a good day, she makes it better. When I'm having a bad day, she helps fix it. When I feel skinny, she makes me look amazing. When I feel...not skinny, she boosts my esteem. She's the best thing that ever happened to me.

She only has one drawback. She makes me a little lazy. See, I have this thing where I really don't like the process of washing my hair. It's so tedious and time-consuming!! Blow-drying isn't pleasant. Styling is hard. But with my new best friend, I don't have to do it nearly as often!


Bless the makers of my new best friend, Dry Shampoo!

That's an actual picture of me. If you think I look different...it's cuz I'm basically a new woman with this dry shampoo. Now, instead of washing my hair three times a week, I'm down to two!! Stop judging.

In other news: the April issue of The Barrel is out. Hooray! I would read it for the pretty, spring cover alone (which you can't see because I failed in trying to put the button on this post) as I'm currently longing for warm weather and pretty flowers, but there are actually fun articles as well! Bonus.