Sunday, December 6, 2009
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Grandpa Bushnell You Will Be Missed
Monday, December 15, 2008
Bushnell Wiest Merger - Mexico Trips Old and New
Grandpa and Ann married - Bushnell/Wiest Party - Ann/Clint Merrill/Lucille Cruise - Bushnell/Wiest First Mexican Riviera Cruise
Clint died nearly eight years ago. Lucille died two and a half years ago. Ann and I have been married for approximately for a year and four months and we have had a most enjoyable relationship with her kids and my kids. They have known each other since they were young. They have become good friends and the grandchildren have accepted her warmly Ann is known by my grandchildren as Ann for the older grandchildren, Grandma Ann by the younger grandchildren and Grandma by the tiny grandchildren. They all love her. She is very warm and sweet with them. Her kids have accepted me whole heartedly. Annette’s down syndrome twins have felt that I was probably Clint.
Melissa and Steve have a son that is two years old and he is the apple of his grandma’s eye because he is the first child of Melissa and Steve. He is a very charming little boy and we have enjoyed him very much. Ann become silly when he is around, she is just a silly grandma.
Without much background and I will probably add to this as we go on but I have got to start getting more of this stuff down. Just before we got married. In April 1998, we brought all of our married kids together with their spouses for kind of a party, or a celebration. It was one of the most enjoyable parties that I can remember. Everyone was there except for Doug and Sherrie, and Bill and Pam. They just had a wonderful time. Ann and I sat back and watched them as the evening progressed and after they had their dinner. They were having such a good time; they were talking in different groups, laughing, and remembering things that we had done together as they were growing up. Different ones mentioned our trip with our children to Mexico. There we were five of the Wiest kids, Clint and Ann, three of the Bushnell kids, Merrill and Lucille. All of us blondes in Mexico. We went to Mexico city and saw the sites there and saw the pyramids and the famous Museum. We did a lot of site seeing. The first day that we were there, it was in the summer time, the kids were all in their short pants rather than long pants and the Mexican people especially the Mexican kids were so shocked to see all there blond kids together and especially to see them in short pants. And so they reacted in a very interesting way. The boys in particular got lots of Cat calls, from the Mexican young men, because they thought they looked kind of prissy or feminine in their short pants. The boys didn’t need anymore then that. For the rest of the trip they wore their long pants and carried their short pants back to Utah.
We had a wonderful time on that trip. We spent time in Mexico city, in Tasco, in Mazatlan, and we became a very close two families at that time and that relationship persisted until the present time. When Clint died because of a heart condition and when Lucille died because of her heart condition.
Pam and Annette even though there is ten/eleven years difference in their ages have become sisters. Pam the little sister and Annette the big sister. On this trip to Mexico they roomed together and just became really close. Bruce and Doug have always been close. They are the ones that started our relationship when they were just kindergarten boys. Until then neither of us had met the other parents, we knew about them, but we hadn’t met them. Well these boys were so close all the way through grade school, high school and college. They separated long enough to go on missions, came back and finished college together. They are the ones that started this close Bushnell/Wiest relationship.
During this party that I was talking about, where we brought them together to tell them about our marriage. They had such a good time, that as they were leaving the party, different ones said, “That was so much fun, let’s do it again.” And them someone said, “Let’s save our money and go on a cruise together and we’ll have something to look forward to for the two families.” Well, Ann and I listened to them with warmth and good feeling, because of how compatible they were and so we decided that we were going to take them on a cruise.
Pam hadn’t had a vacation since she had started having her babies and she now has six and little Annalise will soon be two. Steve and Missy had never been away from Wyatt. He is nearly two. Karie and Bruce have had a couple of separations from their kids, but none for quite some time, I don’t think that they had ever been away from Peter. Ned and Marianne had gone on some short trips, but that hadn’t had a real vacation away from all of the kids until little Mckenzie was two or three and she’ll be four this month. So it just worked out for everyone for all of us to go together, the Bushnell/Wiest kids and their spouses. It was the first time that Annette and Richard had been separated from the Down Syndrome twins, who are now 11. So it was the right thing to do. They didn’t want to go on a long cruise; they wanted to have the trip, but they didn’t want to be away from these small children for more than a week. So we settled them on a one week cruise that left form Los Angeles the San Pedro Harbor on a Sunday, we went down what’s called the Mexican Riviera, down the Pacific Ocean, to Puerto Viarta, Mazatlan, and Cabo San Lucas. Those were the 3 ports of call. The ship was a huge ship called the Carnival. And we were a little apprehensive when we signed up for the cruise because we weren’t sure, that maybe the food would only be average or not so good with 1900 passengers there may be lines and problems that way. When we got on the ship, we had purchased for each of them an outside, ocean view state room. They weren’t luxurious, but they were very nice; they had good firm beds with a big picture window looking out into the ocean. We were given state room, because we had signed up early. We were on the land side, so we could not only have the ocean when we were out in the middle of the ocean, but we were also able to see shore and land at the places that we were coming to. In that one whole week, we just had a wonderful time. The kids relaxed and recognized that they were going to have a good trip and that their kids back home would be all right.
Each one of them had made arrangements for people, parents, grandparents, older siblings, or nieces to take care the kids that they had left home.
Annette and Richard left there four children Jeffery 15, Natalie 12, and the twins 11 and Jeffrey took care of them except for they had a neighbor women come over and sleep with them over night, so that they would have someone older with them during the night. The older kids just did a beautiful job with the twins. They decided that if they we did that kind of trip again that they didn’t want someone else, outside of the family and they’d be glad to do it by themselves.
Gary and Sharon their children are a little older and Jessica who is 19 was the one in charge and the other three Scott, Kevin, and Angelo were in her charge and they got along just fine.
Bruce and Karie left all five of theirs at home with Josh and Jodie at home. Peter had a good time and had no concerns about leaving them. Brooke was still on her mission in the state of Washington, so she wasn’t able to be involved in taking care of the kids.
Ned and Marianne left their kids with a neighbor girl, 21 year old girl, I think that she was married, and she had started tending their kids when she was just a young teenager and they got along just fine. They had the Frampton grandparents near by in case they needed any help with the any of the children, but there were no problems.
Mark and Dana left four children at home and there was a neighbor women in her thirties who hadn’t married and who just loved Mark and Dana’s kids and they got along just fine too. They also had right there in Salt Lake, Dana’s parents, the grandparents, so that there was no problem there.
Pam and Bill handled their six in a very fine way. They took the three oldest Steven, Kristina, and Danielle out to Eager and they stayed with the grandparents Sloan’s. And the three young ones Jeffery, Michelle, and Annalise stayed in their own home, in their own beds. And Bill’s niece, Monica, came and lived right there with them and they got along just beautifully.
So the mothers and dads were able to relax and have a fine vacation.
Melissa and Steve knew that it was going to be difficult to leave little Wyatt, their little child, their little boy home, but they had here in Provo some of Melissa’s sisters and her dad and mother. They had it worked out so that Grandpa and Grandma Cole’s slept at Steve and Missy’s home and then they different one’s took care of Wyatt and he thought they life was very good. He had a good time with his aunts and his grandparents.
When I realized what we had done in lining up this cruise. That we would take all of the parents of all of our wonderful grandchildren on the airplanes and onto the ship that if any catastrophe occurred if the plane had gone down or the ship had sunk, we would be leaving 47 beautiful grandchildren without parents.
Grandpa Bushnell, I wondered why I’d do such a thing. I was never a worrier with my kids. I just knew that we had votes and we knew what we were going to do and we just knew that everything was going to turn out all right. As grandparents you just don’t have a vote. The parents that we had taken onto these airplanes and onto the ship were the ones that took care of them and raised them and were responsible for them. And I did have a little uneasiness when I realized what we had put into motion. But I also was practical enough to know that if we could get to the airport safely we would probably return the children and grandchildren without any mishap. That is exactly what turned out. We teamed up so that different ones of us rode together from the Provo area. Steve and Missy, and Ann and I rode together. Sharon and Gary and Annette and Richard rode together. Mark was already in Salt Lake. Bruce and Karie and Ned and Marianne rode together. We all got the airport in plenty of time. We got our luggage checked, went to our gate and immediately we started relaxing and getting ready for our cruise.
I had a dream one night several weeks before it was time for us to go. The dream was the Missy was going to find it so hard to leave Wyatt that we may have trouble getting her into the car and up to the airport. My dream was that Steve and I got on each side of her and picked her up by the elbows and carried her to the car with her legs turning and this was just a dream. Then I woke up and when we went out to rendezvous with them and then go on to Salt Lake, they live in Lindon, they were ready. Missy was just fine and we made sure that we didn’t wake Wyatt, we left him asleep and his grandparents were there for when he woke up.
On the ship, the ship was just a gorgeous ship. It was a huge new ship. Well, it was just like a city. The dining rooms and the Tiffany area, where they would serve cafeteria style anything you wanted if you missed your dining sitting, just worked fine. There were no lines. The very last morning when we had already put our luggage out, we went to breakfast. Most of the people on the ship went to the Tiffany deck and there were a few lines then, but not bad. The food was fabulous. Just you couldn’t have expected better. We had been on cruises before. Ann, Clint, Lucille and I had gone on a very deluxe cruise up into the Balkans and we thought that the food couldn’t have been better , the food was just as good on the Carnival ship that we went to the Mexican Riviera on. Nobody held back. All of us had wonderful meals, but most of the dads at least for the first several days ended up ordering two entrees. There was nothing wrong with that. In fact our waiter said if you want shrimp and you want steak just order an entre of shrimp and what goes with that and then order another entre of steak. Most of the dads did this until we got the point that we were just esaciated with the wonderful food. We had lobster one night and I remember that with the Lobster several of the men ordered Steak or Prime Rib as a separate entre after we had the Lobster. It was just a wonderful food situation. If we didn’t get up in time to go to the dining room for breakfast we would go to te Tiffany deck and just have anything that we wanted. I think that I probably ate more omelets than I should, but I seemed to feel pretty good now and we are three weeks away from the cruise.
Ann and I thought that it was just wonderful the way the kids, these dads and moms, socialized and intermingled. Some couples would be together one day and other couples another day. Sometimes there would be four going off the ship together and one time there were ten going off the ship together. It was in Mazatlan. Mark knew of a very nice hotel that they had stayed in once before. They all went together and did their shopping. All of the mommies and daddies had to buy something to bring back to each child. And so they had a lot more interest in shopping than Ann and I did. One time Missy and Steve and Mark and Dana and Ann and I went together on a site tour. It was just very pleasant, everyone had a lot of fun and everyone was just happy.
The programs and entertainment on the ship were good. We just had a marvelous time, a wonderful time. And now that we are back home and as soon as I knew that everyone had a chance to be home form the airport including Bill and Pam in Arizona and then called everyone to make sure that they were home and that they were in charge of their kids and then Grandpa relaxed. We have wonderful memories of the trip. It is time now for us to get together for a potluck dinner or something to look at the photos from the trip. We had three or four professional photographers. Gary is just an unusually proficient photographer and he likes to do it and he has good expensive equipment. Mark likes to take pictures and he has good equipment. Steve like to take good pictures and he has good equipment. And Ned likes to take good pictures and he has good equipment and so Ann and I are looking forward to seeing the pictures of us doing different things on the cruise. Ann and I had to decide whether to take a camera or not and we decided, “Why take a camera?, we’ve got these real photographers and the others had good cameras and equipment so they took pictures too. Richard and Annette took pictures, Bruce and Karie took pictures. Everybody had good camera equipment except for Ann and I and we didn’t take any. We’ll have plenty of pictures I am sure once we get together. It has been a most gratifying thing to see how well we have meshed and consolidated our two families. Each of us feels very comfortable with our step children and grandchildren. If you want to use that term, we don’t even think about it.
