Our Trip to Texas to Meet Ivy Jane

At Kristi’s request we went to Texas a few months after Ivy Jane was born
And they waited to bless her until we were able to be there.

Blaine and Gwen met us at the airport and Gwenie ran right up to us to give us a big hug and told us how excited she was to see us again. I couldn’t help but compare this visit to our Minnesota visit, where the first thing Gwen did when I looked at her was cry and she cried until I brought out the Elmo toy I had brought for her. About halfway to their home she started enjoying the toy and stopped crying.

It was fun to see how different Ivy Jane was from Gwen and Ben.
I remember when Gwen was born, she had tons of black hair sticking up all over her head. Here was this tiny baby with a full head of hair. Ivy Jane has just a bit of fuzz on her head and it looks like her hair will have a bit of red in it.
My babys were all born either bald or with just a small fringe of hair like Ivy’s :)


I couldn’t believe how much Ben had grown from the last time we had seen him, which was at Christmas just a few months before. What a sweetheart he is. The next morning at breakfast he asked his mom for a nana (Banana) and when she gave him the nana he hit the tray on his highchair with his arms and yelled Yeah! Yeah!!!!!! And then said Thank you. It was fun to see and hear him do this. When he was here at Christmas he didn’t talk or walk, but this visit he was doing both.
Children grow up to fast.

I remember thinking when my own children were little that they would never grow up, that I would never get to eat a hot meal, I would always have to carry a child on each hip AND a Diaper bag everywhere we went. My grandmother Bentley, who Bentley is named after tried to tell me that I would miss all this one day, to try to enjoy each moment while it was here, I thought she didn’t know what she was talking about, I remember telling my mom how glad I would be when the kids were all grown up and I wouldn’t have to worry any more. I can still hear her laugh as she said to me “Honey, you will never lose any of these worries, these worries will only increase as your children get older, chose friends, marry and have children of there own, as this happens you will have more things and more people to worry about” Sighhhhhhhh, How right she was. But even as right as she was, she didn't mention that your sorrows Joys increase also, but that's life and that is what we were sent her to do, gain experience and knowledge, and that we do and sometimes if we really pay attention we gain a bit of Wisdom in addition. :)

The day of Gwens blessing was a fun day, hectic but fun. We attended all three meetings that day, As Kristi left Relief Society to go to Young Womens, she took Ivy with her, I didn’t really stop and think much of that until I heard Ivy start to cry, I turned around thinking I would go get her, that Kristi must have been bringing her in to me when I saw that Ralphie was holding Ivy and just walking out the door, so I stayed in Relief Society. Little did I know that Ivy’s binkie was lost, and poor Ralphie struggled with Ivy until Relief Society was over. We all went into Sacrament Meeting, Ivy calm once more as the Binkie had now been found. Ivy was actually blest in the dress that her Grandfather Genessy had been blest in, it was a dress that had been made by her great grandmother Genessy and she looked like a little Angel in it. Another thing that really impressed me was that one of Kris and Blaines neighbors showed up for the blessing, this neighbor is not a member of our church but wanted to come and see Ivy blest, she had attened her own church and then came to ours. After the blessing and we returned home Kristi changed Ivy into the dress that she herself had been blest in, that dress had been given to us by Ivy’s Great Great Grandmother Selma Bentley.
So, on the same day Ivy had a Grandmother present there in person, a great Grandmother and a Gr Gr Grandmother there in memory and spirit. Also Ivy wore a beautiful little bow that had been made for her by a neighbor of mine and also A friend of Kristi’s.

In the early evening a group of Kristi and Blaines friends came over for dessert
All in all it was a wonderful, (if hectic) day. A very nice thing that happened was that another friend of Kristi’s actually wrote down the blessing so that Kristi will be able to keep it for Ivy, Where would we be without good friends

After being in cold Utah, it was great to get to Texas where it was warm.

Kristi kept us very busy, each day she had something planned for us to do, I couldn’t help but marvel at how she would pack the kids up, herd us all out to the car, and away we would go. For the first few days that we were there it was quite stormy but even so it was still warm.

I got to taste my first Round Rock donut, they were very good, so good that we stopped there on another day and bought a whole dozen plus a dozen donut holes, I think Gwen ate all the donut holes and still wanted a big donut :)

A few things we did, we went to see a movie with Blaine, “Mall Cop”, it was a fun movie, We ate buttered popcorn, I love buttered popcorn.

We went to the Alamo and the River walk, As we were leaving one of the exhibits at the Alamo we had to get the stroller up about 4 stairs, Blaine and Don were struggling with it because they were steeper than most steps, when a young man, who had very long hair, tattoos and body piercings almost everywhere, he was really a kind of a scary looking dude, stepped up and picked up the back of the stroller helping us to get Ben and the stroller up those stairs.
We told him Thanks and he smiled and said “no problem” then he moved on.
It taught me a great lesson to not be so judgmental about how people look.
That evening we ate at a little place on the River walk “Rita’s on the River” If I remember right, it was Mexican and was actually very good.

Another day We went to a little park and then to a place to eat called the “Shady Grove” They had great onion rings.
We also went to a little Nature Center where they had a fun little sand pile where we, errrrr I mean the kids could dig for dinosaur bones :)
I think that was that day that Ben was stung by a bee, Gwen and I were just going on a train ride when KIris ran up with Ben who had just been stung, the poor little guy was crying and Kris said “Mom Bens been stung by a bee, what should I do?” lets face it, I am not good in emergency situations, especially when someone I love is involved, but I remember learning that you should put a little mud on a bee sting to help draw the venom and sting out, BUT that was in the old days I guess, luckily the woman sitting right in back of me told Kris “:get the rest of the stinger out, go get a little ice and put the ice on his eye to help get the swelling down and help with the pain. Her suggestion certainly made more sense than mine. Bens eye remained very red and swollen through the rest of the day but gratefully the next day his eye was much improved. What a blessing it is for us that there are people around who can remain calm and collected during emergencies.

Kristi took us on a little Hike, to see Mt Bonnell, it wasn’t really supposed to be a
Bad hike, instead of using the stairs to get to the site we chose a little trail that we thought we could push the stroller up to the top, but alas too many rocks, So grandpa and I took turns trying to carry Ben up the trail. Oh my gosh, that cute little kid is build solid and after only a few steps we were breathless, So Kris ended up packing Ivy in her little sling carrier, and Ben on her hip, while Don and I huffed and puffed up the trail, I thought I was going to drown in my own sweat, I still get tired just thinking about it, and this from the girl who used to run up and down the mountains in Bingham Canyon as a young girl. I guess somehow I’ve let myself get a little out of shape!!!

There is a good side to this day, Kristi took us to The Whole Foods store in Austin and we had some Gelato. Laugh if you will but when she said we were going to get Gelato I thought we were going to get Jello, I’d never heard of Gelato before. It turns out that it is Ice Cream, and oh boy you should have seen some of the flavors that were offered, I just had to try the Avacado Gelato and by dang if it didn’t taste just like Avacados, but I ended up chosing double dark chocolate instead, I’m no dummy, I want my treats to actually be a treat :)
I couldn’t believe how fun that store was, we went over to the fresh fruit section and sampled all the fruits that they had out to sample, I was going to buy a watermelon for us for a treat that night when Kristi reminded me that Blaine doesn’t like watermelon. I don’t understand how someone can actually dislike watermelon, oh well, I don’t like jalapenos and Blaine seems to love those so I guess we are even.

For Easter I almost didn’t take Kris and Blaine a box of candy, they are such good little dieters, I really didn’t think they would eat it, but some of the best entertainment we had while In Texas was watching them decide who got to eat what candy, and they were trading and negotiating for the candy they each wanted.
While in Texas, we ate out a few times, Kris and Blaine took us to a little place in Austin called the Hula Hut. If you can believe this it is a combination of sorts of Polynisian and Mexican food. It was interesting and I would have loved to try the Avacado thing that was a special on the menu for a different day than we were actually there so they didn’t have any of that, I got pork and pineapple tacos, I mean what can you do to Pork and Pineapple, I thought I was safe, what I didn’t know was that they put red hot peppers into the mix. The best thing I can say about them was……….. My sinus got cleaned out that day along with my tear ducts.

Another interesting thing we did in Austin was go to see Bats fly out at Dusk,
I think they said there was a million bats that would fly out and by August when
All the baby bats were hatched there would be over 2 million bats fling out each evening. These bats live in an underpass of a very busy street, I didn’t believe there could actually be a million bats living there but when they started to fly they just kept coming out from that underpass and there were clouds of bats all over
In the sky. They help to keep the bug population in Austin down. I can’t remember how many pounds of bugs they said each bat would eat, but it was a lot.

Kris told us the theme for Austin City was “Lets Keep Austin Strange”
We saw that logo on T shirts, signs etc. Maybe that’s what made Austin such a fun and interesting place.

One thing we were able to do was offer Kris and Blaine an evening out while we were there. So one of the evenings towards the end of our stay They went out to dinner just the two of them, and then I could hardly wait to hear what fun thing they decided to do after dinner, would you believe they chose to walk through a bookstore??????? THIS from the daughter who would literally drag me by the hand past bookstore when she was younger.

All in all it was a wonderful visit and we have many memories of the places we went and the things we did with Kris, Blaine, Gwen, Ben and Ivy Jane.

One little note, Ivy Jane was named after her Grandpa Genessy, his first name is Ivan, hence she is IVY, The Jane part of her name covers a lot of ancestors too, she has a Grandmother Genessy and a Great Grandmother Bassett named Janice and she has a very beautiful aunt named Janie.

We enjoyed our trip to Texas to meet our newest Granddaughter
Ivy Jane Bassett, and to get reacquainted with Gwenie and Ben