Emmett's and Ethel's

My mother and I.  Now you know where I get my stunning good looks.

I don't get to see my mom Kathi as often as I would like since she lives so far away.  Okay, so maybe Boise, Idaho isn't that far away...  but it's definitely a day's drive and we both have hectic and wildly unpredictable schedules.  So you can imagine my happiness when I found out she would be in town for a few hours.

Of course anything good in life requires a bit of work.  And freeing up my schedule turned out to be harder than I thought it would be.  Towards the end of September, my mom called to say that she would be in Utah October 13th and she wanted to do dinner with Brian and I, my uncle Greg and his family, and possibly my newlywed cousin Tyisa who just moved to the state.   It was still weeks away, so we figured it would be easy to get the night off.

Well, we were right.  Brian and I both submitted time-off requests that were accepted.  Wednesday the 13th was a go, but I couldn't help feeling like it was all too easy.  Sure enough, my mom called some time last week announcing that Jim had to fly to Hawaii for business, yada yada yada, the trip was being postponed a day and now she needed us to get Thursday the 14th off.

Easier said than done.  Our new schedules had already been made and we were both closing Thursday night.  I tried talking to work about it, but there wasn't much they could do to change the schedule.  The only option was to get somebody to cover my shift.  I made a few calls to my fellow coworkers.  Fail.  I put up a notice on the board.  Fail.  Finally, just this Sunday, a coworker offered to take it.  She felt like she owed me since I took one of hers when she was sick a while back.  See?  Karma.  What goes around comes around.

Tonight at around 5:30 my mom and Jim showed up in his shiny blue truck to pick me up (Brian was stuck working).  We drove down to Lehi to a place called Emmett's and Ethel's.  It's supposedly world-famous, so surely you've heard of it.  They do burgers, hotdogs, and shakes mostly.  My uncle picked the place because he's obsessed with their milkshakes, but in the end, couldn't get off work either and didn't come.  Tyisa bailed too.  So it was just my mom, Jim, Aunt Krista, her daughters (newborn Sylvia and toddler Stasha), and myself. 

Nobody had milkshakes.

Afterward,  we stopped by Krista's house and at around 8:00 Greg came home.  We visited for a while, talking about everything from sex boots to women in moo moos.  Not sure exactly how conversations with my family always end up so bizarre, but I guess that's what I love about them.

It was a short visit, but definitely worth the sweat and tears it took to get the night free.  I don't see Uncle Greg's family very often, and it's always nice to hug my mama.

And I got a free meal, to boot.

Clockwise from left:  little baby Sylvia, my mom, Krista, Stasha, and big ol' Greg.