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On this episode, Darren and Paige recap the crazy year of 2022 with major surgery, COVID, three college graduations, two weddings, and constantly changing travel schedules.
They say when life gives you lemons you should make lemonade. Making lemonade is not always easy or possible. For us, we found ourselves single in our 40's with kids at home and starting life over again. Luckily we found each other, online no doubt. When we began blending families, schedules, traditions, and laundry, we discovered lots of lemons. Our podcast is a reflection on how we get through the hard times and enjoy the good times on our new journey together, all with ten kids in tow. Sometimes when life gives you lemons, you make lemon squares. Lemonade might come later.
Hello, this is.
Darren and this is. Page.
And this is.
Where Lemonade.
Where we talk about
what happens when life through you lemons.
You make some lemonade.
Meaning some weeks it's lemons.
Yes, some weeks it's just lemons.
Yeah.
On today's episode.
We're going to unpack 2020. Two.
You're using that buzzword. I'm back.
I know how good a.
Job we're so trendy.
All right.
It's been a long time since we podcast
and we really apologize for our listeners
out there,
but we are dedicated. It's a new year.
We're dedicated to do it every week.
This year
it's already missed the first week.
We're so sorry.
Like, yeah, people have just been,
you know, I've had people
in crisis mode because Page and Aaron
have been podcasting.
Well, you know,
and you're going to
find out why we kind of stop for a while.
It's been it's been a really hectic year.
It has been a hectic year.
Should we just dive in
and unpack all this stuff?
Well, yeah,
First thing to unpack is four of our
ten children got engaged in 2022.
Is a busy year for engagements, right?
It was.
And two of those four
actually got married.
They did three weeks apart. Thank you.
Matthew, Indiana and Jake McNally
for making our October as chaotic
as it possibly could have been.
It was awesome, though.
It was a fabulous October.
It was fun. It was fun. Driven.
It was fun with So let's go
let's just go through the year.
Is that the best way to do this?
Let's do it.
All right.
So let's say we kicked off the year
with a little birthday celebration for me.
My birthday's in January, and page
two took me to Palm
Springs and I went, Huh? Yes.
I gave that trip to you for Christmas.
Right.
And I had planned you know,
I planned a little trip to Palm Springs.
I, you know, reserved
a couple of shows and.
And you open it up on Christmas
and you're like, what are we old?
And I knew you were going to say that.
I know these were old.
People go. To vacation. Oh.
But true. Is it true or not?
Is it true or not?
Well, actually, I think
I think a lot of old people live there.
But I don't know that a lot of old people
go there for vacation
like we saw a lot of people our age. Yeah,
I guess we.
Saw a lot of. These were old.
You don't live there.
Oh, you know what, though?
It was a lot of fun.
We actually had a lot of fun.
It was actually a really fun place.
It was? Yeah.
There's lots to do in Palm
Springs, out in the desert.
We went on a Jeep tour in the desert.
That was really fun.
And up some slot canyons up there.
That was a lot of fun and
we went to a back door was a back door.
No VIP. Sounds really. All right.
It was a VIP. No, it was a VIP.
Behind the scenes.
Behind the scenes. There we go.
That's behind the scenes of the zoo
in Palm Springs,
which was really kind of cool
because we had a guide for us
to take us around the zoo
and we got to go in other places
that people didn't get to go
and we got to feed a giraffe.
It was I got. To hang out with them.
What were those walls? Wallabies.
What are those?
The Wallabies. Yeah, Wallabies. Yeah.
They're like just jumping all around
us. Yeah.
So it was a fun trip.
That was when COVID was still a thing
because you know, it's
not a thing anymore.
And it doesn't exist anymore
because we're ignoring.
It. Don't you remember?
We went to the first restaurant
we went to.
They said,
Do you have your vaccination cards?
And we were like,
No, no.
I think we found them on our.
They're on our phone. Yeah, yeah.
Because we were like,
I didn't know that was a thank you.
We still had to show.
Oh, and we took the gondola.
Yeah, yeah. We went to the top of
whatever that Piqua San Simeon.
No, no, I don't know. I don't know.
But it was pretty cool
because we were down in the desert
where it was 80 degrees or so,
and just take the gondola up out of palm
Springs and there was no other ground.
So we took our snow
gear with us and had a snowball fight.
Was fun. It was fun.
All right. So that was January.
And then in February,
you decided to head off to Sedona?
I did.
I did my girls trip with Jill and Eileen.
And then I went straight from that trip
to Utah for Zoe's birthday.
Which I missed this year.
Yes. They were upset with you.
I was upset. Well,
this is a little problem.
Here's a tip to all of you
that have grandchildren.
Don't go to every grandchild's birthday
for the first five or six years,
because if you miss one,
you're in trouble.
You get called. Out.
And I got called out by Emma.
Emma, that I wasn't there for Zoe's
third birthday because I've been there
for all of her birthdays.
Well,
I don't think this year we're going to
be there
because we're, we're kind of a little
we're going there, but not for birthdays,
so we're going to anyway.
So we're going to I think we're breaking
the cycle this year.
Yeah, we're going to break half of Yeah,
well, but we have to be there
for Emma's eighth birthday
because she's going to get back to that.
That's a big deal. Definitely. Definitely.
Well, not your first grandchild,
I guess you spoil them.
That's right.
And then in February, drumroll.
Paige had.
Surgery.
I had my big surgery,
which we've we podcast did about this,
but this is just a little rundown.
But yeah, so I had my part of my colon
taken out that was super fun.
And I got some white hair
during the month of February and March.
But we You're welcome.
I hit our deductible.
Nice. Yes, you did. You get her medical.
So the rest of the year was just cake.
And I was. Like. Yeah.
So doing it was, you know, it
wasn't, it wasn't as bad of a recovery
as we thought it was going to be.
It was actually pretty,
pretty chill recovery.
And it's good now.
It was well,
it was kind of a chill recovery.
It was it was tough.
It was tough for not just you.
It was tough for everyone around you, too.
Yeah. Because we were worried about you.
And then we went down
to Southern California
to go see Paige's mom
at the end of March. So.
And this was right at the very end of
when you could travel again.
So we kind of
had your eight week recovery, and then we
we went down to Southern California
at the end of March to go see your mom
and your sister and Delon and Alex. Yep.
So that was a fun that was a fun.
I'm done with recovery time. Yes.
And just a little a quick little trip.
Yep. So and then April,
April, we saw Journey and Toto.
Oh man, that was awesome.
That was it was some friends.
That was super fun.
Oh, my gosh. That was so fun.
If you get a chance
to go see Journey in concert, do it.
Yeah, they're really good.
Oh. Awesome.
Yeah. Yeah, it's actually a lot of fun.
Toto, one of the lead guys
came out with his walker to get on stage.
He literally did.
That's just not even a joke.
And then they sat him at a piano, and
he played the piano and sang couple songs.
You know what?
They're getting old
because we're all good.
This goes back to Palm Springs.
We're all lonely.
Yeah, Not that old.
Oh, my gosh. Look,
I do need to get my hair.
Hair dyed.
I got a little gray coming up,
but not that much.
But April was actually a busy month
for us, too, because Andy and Jacob
graduated from BYU, Idaho.
So we drove.
We drove, didn't we?
We did.
We drove to Idaho for their.
Graduation
and there was a big snowstorm, was it not?
It was a snowstorm.
It wasn't huge.
But yes, we were driving and we were.
Driving, you know, so it's a little bit
of white knuckle driving for about.
Yeah, there was.
About probably 3 hours of the 12 hour
drive up there.
And then we had a big
we had some big plans for Andy
and Jacob right after their graduation
for graduation, President
Jacob and I both served
church missions in Brazil,
So we were pressing up our Portuguese.
We had to show off to our wives,
the beautiful country of Brazil.
And so the idea was, was right
after graduation, we would come home,
we get packed.
Andy and Jacob would meet us in Houston.
I think we were flying through Houston.
So so we we left Thursday, drove to
I don't know if Wednesday, Wednesday
drove to Idaho.
Thursday was their graduation.
We drove home.
We drove home Friday.
This is very quick trip.
You know, when we were driving home Friday
in the car.
I started.
Getting started feeling sick
and we're like, oh, it's like, oh, we're.
Supposed to leave Monday.
We were supposed to leave
Monday. Saturday.
You woke up.
You were really sick.
We decided to test you for COVID.
Because Why? Because why do we do that?
We did that because at the time.
I couldn't get back into. The U.S.
We didn't have to test to go to Brazil,
but we had to test to get back
into the United States.
So we tested you had
we did like what, three or four tests
because we're like, are we.
Surely this test is. From. Yes.
So that was on Saturday.
We were supposed to leave Monday.
So that trip was.
Off and I called Jacob
and the on Sunday they were going
to fly from Salt Lake to
meet us
through San Francisco and then head down.
And the plans changed.
So they were homeless.
They didn't have a place to live
for that week after their graduation
because we were going to be in Brazil
and then they were going to go back to
their new place that they had just gotten
a brand new job in Austin, Texas.
What a logistics nightmare for them
and for us.
So, yeah, I tested positive for COVID
and that canceled the whole trip.
Yeah.
And then three days later,
you tested positive for COVID one.
Yeah, You got it.
Yep. So we had the most boring.
It was it was a little challenging.
Yeah. That week, spring break,
because Sam was off.
We had made arrangements for everything.
The other kids were with their mom,
which Sam went to Disney World
with his sister
because we were supposed to be in Brazil.
So we were at home.
Yeah, it was kind of a bummer week,
but and we were sick,
so we were kind of like
looking at each other.
Are you going to go get water for us or
can you give make some soup for.
This type of thing?
You were a lot sicker than I was.
I didn't. I didn't get it that bad.
But we ended up
we ended up at the end of that.
We going out to Bodega Bay.
Bodega Bay
and doing a small little hike out there
to get out of the house
and to get into some fresh air.
It was really nice. Don't worry.
We were inside.
We were outside.
Never came in close contact with anyone.
Right?
If anyone.
We don't want to get any emails
about this.
We were not spreading COVID, don't worry.
No, we weren't.
And I felt really bad for Andy
and Jacob because, I mean, we had bought
packages
for river cruises and jungle cruises.
I mean, the whole. Thing,
it was all planned.
It was all it was.
We had just we had started packing. And.
We'd gone
for two years without getting COVID.
And that was a major.
LEMON Oh, it was a horrible and that.
Was a really bad. LEMON Yeah.
And then we were supposed to go straight
from Brazil to back to Utah.
We were flying straight to you
to for Julianne's graduation.
That's right. And so we ended up flying.
We flew, right?
We fly.
Yeah, we flew from here.
To Julianne's graduation,
which was two weeks after Jacob's.
Yeah.
So once again, we were not
we didn't have COVID anymore.
You know, not contagious and. Contagious.
We were fine. So.
So we went back to Utah for Julianne's
graduation, which was which was lovely.
It was lovely.
And I felt bad for Jacob and Andie
because that was her graduation present.
So we we went with the trip
on a trip with them
later on in the year in November,
and then not to Brazil,
because that was right after I looked at,
Hey, let's go to Brazil.
Then during Thanksgiving,
right after a very contested election.
I'm glad we didn't go.
There was a little bit of rioting.
And now, I mean, now
it's pretty chaotic down there.
So we're glad that
we got to go somewhere else with them.
Which well,
but I feel bad because Julianne's
graduation present was also a trip
that we were going to do at Thanksgiving.
Yeah, with. Julianne.
But because Andie is a teacher
and she only has so many days off of work,
she had the whole week
of Thanksgiving off.
So we had to bump Julianne's trip a week
because Joanne's job
is a little more flexible.
We did bump Julianne's trip
for Andie and Jacob's trip.
So sorry, Julianne.
You've been great and very understanding.
Yeah,
we'll figure out that trip, Julianne.
Yes, we will.
All right.
So that leads us through April.
What a chaotic four months.
There was a lot.
I mean, you had major surgery.
We both got COVID and we were traveling
and changing travel plans constantly.
It seemed like, Yeah, yeah.
But then we
you always have to have you always have
to have something in the works.
What are you talking about?
You have to have a plan.
You have to have a trip planned ahead
so that you can say,
Oh, I'm looking forward to something.
I you know. What?
And it can be simple.
It could be a simple, Hey,
we're going to go to Mendocino Coast or.
Yes, I don't have to.
I feel like that makes me sound
like some kind of like
housewife of Orange County or something.
I don't have too housewives.
I also housewife people.
I do not have to. But you're right.
Even if it's just
even if it's just an overnight trip, one
night someplace for you and I to go to.
I mean, I do like to have something
to look forward to.
That something doesn't have to be a big.
Trip.
It does not. But big trips are nice.
Yeah, I'm not sure why so.
And we and we just.
We'd already spent the money on a trip
to Brazil, so we had travel credits.
Well, we'd also we also had travel credits
from other trips that we canceled.
Yeah.
With Iceland and. Yeah.
So I had to,
I had to use some, some travel.
That's right.
We had to use, we had to use this
was for the from the Iceland cancellation.
Yes it was.
And we had to use this seven night
stay anywhere.
At a Category five hotel.
Anywhere in the world.
Anywhere in the world.
We had to use it by the end of June
or we lost it.
Yeah, well, we're not dumb.
We're not going to lose a seven
night stay.
Oh, hello.
So. So we looked all over the world.
We did for a for a really good category
five Marriott Hotel.
Those are hard to find. Yes.
Because sometimes a category
five is like a courtyard.
Yeah. Depending on the place.
And sometimes a category
five is really nice.
So we found a really nice one in Portugal
and that's how we ended up in Portugal.
And what a lovely trip.
And Portugal's,
I mean, that was the resort we stayed
at was off the beaten path,
which was kind of nice.
We had our own beach to ourselves.
The weather was absolutely wonderful.
Yeah. And the food was incredible.
You check out our check out our podcast
on Portugal.
In fact, we even podcast it from Portugal.
We did. That's right.
So you can see me.
I was all burnt
because we went to the beach. Mm.
Because your skin's like, transparent.
I put sunscreen like a vampire.
A sun hits them
and it's like burn immediately.
But now. So yes, Portugal was lovely.
And then another trip
to Utah for Mitchell's first birthday.
You can't miss the first birthday,
even though the child's
never going to remember
their first birthday that we were there.
Oh, but the other kids remember. Yes.
So I got back in the good graces of Emma
because I showed up for Mitchell's
birthday. Yes.
Yes, you did. So, yes,
Another trip to Utah.
And then July we stay home. Finally, we.
Stayed home and we had a lot of visitors
come to us, which was great.
So the joy was fun.
People came and visited family.
We needed a break
from running around and visiting kids.
And so and then right before school
starts in August,
we decided to take the three
youngest kids,
which are now not little kids anymore.
My goodness, they're huge.
All grown up.
Now to 116 year old
and to 17 year olds now.
Yeah,
we took them to Alcatraz to drop them off.
They wouldn't keep them.
They wouldn't keep them.
No, no.
So, yeah,
that was a fun trip to San Francisco.
We went to Alcatraz and Chinatown,
and that was fun.
We were there during one
of the one of the moon festivals,
I think, which was kind of fun.
It was fun.
So. So hanging out in our local area
was always, always good.
And it doesn't cost that much
to head over to
either. Oldtown SAC or San Francisco.
It's kind of fun. It's very cool.
And then let's see, September
I had a girls trip with
some of our daughters,
so a couple of our daughter in law didn't
weren't there for the trip,
but we got to go.
We were It all came about
because of Joseph
and his amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
My kids growing up.
We watched that with Donny Osmond.
If you haven't seen it,
go watch it, Donny.
You didn't
watch it. You're obsessed about it.
Just tell the truth. Yes.
And my kids, my daughters especially,
have good
memories and have it all memorized.
And so we saw that it was going in to the
what's
to a con to account theater in St George.
So we decided with our kids
that live there in Utah,
we the girls, we had a little weekend
in Saint George hiking and.
Well, this was this was right before
the two weddings that we had in October.
Yeah.
So it was kind of nice
because you got to spend some time
with your future
daughter in law a little bit more.
Makayla was there, so that was super fun.
We had a great time. That was awesome.
So in October.
October, boy, you kids,
it was funny because they said, Well,
dad, we're we're almost having one
in September and one in October.
So it's really two months.
It was three, three weeks apart.
They were three weeks apart.
But yeah,
so a wonderful trip out to Georgia.
My gosh, Matthew and Anna's wedding.
Gorgeous. Oh.
Oh, that was.
That was almost a lemonade
or illuminate moment.
Oh, yeah. We were worried about the rain.
Because there was a hurricane
that came up the Gulf
and the remnants of that hurricane
were hovering over Georgia.
And we were literally looking at the rain
every day.
It was an outside wedding.
It was a great venue.
Just this cute, oh, plantation
home, just wonderful.
But it wasn't big enough for everyone
to come inside for the wedding.
So we were trying to find other venues.
I was calling all over the place
to church buildings
and Marriotts and and convention centers.
Everything was booked solid, so.
We just prayed. A lot of praying went on.
And it ended up being a beautiful day
and absolute.
Beautiful, absolutely gorgeous day.
And then three weeks later,
we had Jacob McKinley's wedding here
in the Sacramento area.
And two days before their wedding,
it once again an outside
wedding at our friend's property
in Lincoln and.
Down.
Rain was expected for their wedding.
We're like, seriously?
But that's Mother Nature
teasing us here in California.
Yeah. And we didn't at once again,
we didn't have a backup.
You think we would have learned
our lesson? But there was no backup.
We were just praying once again
and beautiful day like that.
So, yeah, we could have fretted about it
and but we didn't.
We, we said, Hey, it's going to be.
We said, if all else fails, we can bring
everybody here to our house and.
Eat. Food, eat food.
But yeah, it all worked out great.
It was both
weddings were absolutely lovely.
And we got to New Daughter in law's.
It was.
Oh, they're great.
They're great women.
Yep, they are.
I love calling them daughter. Yeah.
And they each bring their own uniqueness
to the family, which is wonderful.
It's exciting.
They are fabulous.
Oh, and then November.
I love November.
I rarely saw you in November.
Y footloose, baby.
I got to cut loose.
Footloose. All right, so, Sam, our
ninth child, right?
And the one that's with us
100% of the time.
He was Willard in the play.
Footloose
at the musical, Footloose at school, at.
His high. School, at his high school.
And there is one person
that made every single
every single
performance except for one
page. I went to every single performance.
What do you. I thought you missed one. Oh.
No, I did not.
I went I went late to when I was like,
Oh, you want to play?
I went to every scene.
Everyone who didn't make it to everyone.
You didn't make it to everyone.
I went to three. Yeah.
What do you mean?
Who didn't make a difference?
No, someone made it.
Except for one was a marilyn.
No, David. David got.
Sick. No, He missed the last.
He missed the last two
because he was sick. Yeah, He's.
Trying to make it to everyone.
And Sam stole the show.
Oh, he did. He was so. Good. Awesome.
It was so
he was the comic relief in the play. He.
He had such great stage presence.
It was. He was so good.
Check out our YouTube channel.
Will put up some clips of the show
up there.
He was fine.
I was shocked.
I was like, That's my little Sam up there.
He was stealing the crowd.
Oh, man.
He found
he found his his calling with that.
He loved being on stage.
You know,
he knew how to work the audience.
It was it was wonderful.
It was great.
So, yeah, that was the
that was the middle of Thanksgiving lot.
And he
of course, we hadn't seen Sam for a month
because he'd been practicing
and rehearsing the play.
And then and then we headed on a wonderful
trip, the graduation trip for
Andy and Jacob to no other than
Amsterdam.
Now, I said, Guys, really,
You want to go to Amsterdam in November,
Amsterdam and Germany and Brussels?
And I said, It's going to be cold and wet.
And Paige said,
And there's Christmas markets there. Yes.
Which was a trip
that we had planned to Christmases ago
that we had to cancel because of.
COVID. Hit COVID.
So I didn't even know when they
when they first
said they won
because we said, pick your second trip.
If we're not going to Brazil,
where is your second place you want to go?
And Andy really wanted to go to Amsterdam
and Germany, and I was like, okay, great.
And then I start like, you know, Googling,
what should we do?
And I'm like,
Oh my. Gosh, Christmas market.
So and then once Andy found out there were
Christmas markets, there was nothing
I could do to convince him to go to Hawaii
or Puerto Rico or some warm place.
Nope.
Instead, we got on our rain gear and our.
It wasn't too bad.
The weather wasn't too bad.
It was chilly a few days and it rained.
It didn't rain as much as we thought.
We had to bundle up. Yeah,
we had to bundle up.
But Christmas markets. Oh, my goodness.
They know how to do it in Germany.
In Korea, incredible Christmas markets.
So much fun.
So we we went to several several places
Amsterdam, Cologne, Germany,
Brussels, Belgium
and and a couple other small towns Brugge
and get into a wonderful trip with them
and we got to spend some time with Andy,
our daughter in law, who we're continuing
to get to know and love even more now.
It was great.
And if you are planning
on going to Christmas markets in Europe,
give us a shout
because they are not all created equal.
No, they are not.
In fact, check out our YouTube channel
where you're going to see some
some travel logs
on on the Christmas markets.
So and the highlight of
it was Felice Navidad in German.
You got to check out that podcast.
That was pretty funny.
All right, December,
how could we keep traveling?
We had to go watch the grandkids
in December and to meet
my future son in law.
Yes. Yes.
So our sweet little Julianne fell in love
and got engaged.
Well, he was he wanted to talk to me.
And I said, okay,
where we go up and watch the grandkids for
what was that, three days or so?
Yeah, four days.
I got to spend some time talking to Boyd,
who is Julianne's fiancee, where
he asked me if he could marry my daughter
after I talked to him for a while.
It was wonderful. He's a great guy.
And and then we left it at that.
And then he calls us up afterwards
and says,
I want to propose to her on Christmas Day.
Because that was her childhood dream
to get proposed to on Christmas Day.
So he wanted to surprise her
because he had told
she was coming home for Christmas
and he had said, I can't go with you
and I can't go to my parents house
for Christmas because I have to work.
And so he wanted to surprise her
so that was that was kind of a nightmare.
Poor guy.
He was flying in on Christmas Eve night
and then he was going to be here
only for Christmas Day, surprise her,
and then fly back the next day.
He was in the middle of that southwest
nightmare.
It wasn't just Southwest the first day,
but it turned into a nightmare.
So, yeah, his first card, his first flight
was canceled on Christmas Eve.
And then he called me up and said,
Well, I'm not going to make it
until Christmas Day
because we had it all arranged
where he was going to do it,
and we were going to,
you know, get Julianne there
for some lame excuse that we made up.
And then he called me and said,
I got to push the time.
I got another flight for Christmas Day
and I'm not going to get in
until like 11 or 12.
And so we arranged all that
and I hung up the phone
and tried to make some arrangements.
He called me back.
3 minutes later,
my Christmas flight was canceled, too.
He said, I'm getting on a train
from Salt Lake City
to Folsom, California, to Sacramento.
Yeah.
He hopped on the train at like midnight
and got here at 3 p.m.
the next day
and came here, showered, changed and and.
At 4 p.m.
proposed to Julianne
at Temple Hill in Sacramento.
It was wonderful.
I hid in the bushes.
I got some great pictures which I will
post the couple on our Facebook site.
You can see those.
I also I was I was hiding in
the bushes, taking pictures.
Not creepy at all.
Not creepy at all.
And then I hopped out of the bushes
and scared Julian a little bit
and then took
some real good pictures of them.
And then you left
because they want to be alone.
I sat on the bench with them for
a little bit to talk to him a little bit.
Now, I left. He did. Not. I ran away.
So as you can see, it was a crazy 2022.
It was.
And there were a lot of there were
a lot of lemons thrown at us, frankly.
Yes. The surgery was probably the biggest.
LEMON The COVID.
Cold. The biggest.
LEMON Yeah. We got a little kind of down.
Yeah, we did.
We did. But
two weddings, four engagements.
Next year, we got two weddings down,
and Alex are getting married
and Julianna Boyd are getting married.
So we've got and
they're not a month apart, which is great.
Yes, they're several months apart,
But, um,
so we're very excited to get more in-laws
in our family, too.
Son in laws.
We're very, very excited.
We love both of them very much.
And we plan on making a lot of lemonade
this year,
hopefully not as many lemons this year.
Hopefully
this will be a a little bit easier year.
But we must have we make
a lot of lemonade.
If you like today's episode.
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And but most of all.
Go out, make some lemonade.
You bet your baby.