Christmas 2010

So Thanksgiving ended, and finals came and went without much to say.  Every couple of days I would get updates on how my Grandma Sherry was doing, and as everyone was getting excited for the holidays, I was kind of bracing myself for my grandmother's death...but let's not dwell on unhappy subjects.  We had a ward Christmas party.  Here I am with my roommate Zach Smith.  I inherited that sweet red cardigan and that Halle Berry...I mean...holly-berry tie from my Grandpa Art, who passed away before my mission.  I was feeling the spirit of the season for sure.

Santa came to our ward Christmas party!!!!  My roommates and I got a picture.  Back row left to right: Brett Anderson, Joseph Naylor, Zach Smith, Kyle Anderson.  Front row left to right: Trevor Anderson, Santa Claus, Me.

So...as one last act of brotherhood before the holidays, and Trevor's departure to his mission in Arcadia California, we took some sweet pictures with fake mustaches...yeah...Merry Christmas to you...

So I left Provo for Wyoming, and got to see Ebin's baptism.  My dad baptized him, and we all were thankful for the early Christmas present.

So for Christmas Eve, my mom had gone back to California to be with Grandma Sherry, but the rest of us went out to eat at the Rib and Chop House in Cody.  Ebin and Rhiannon attacked me.

She is a forward little girl!!!

This was one of my favorite pictures of the night.  We had a great Christmas Eve, except for the fact that Mom wasn't there.

Here is the tree on Christmas Eve.  We woke up Christmas morning, opened presents, and then my Dad and I decided that since Grandma Sherry was doing better than expected, we would head down to California to see her for maybe the last time.

We got to California and my mother decided that she needed some time to relax and suggested we go to Disneyland.  I didn't need much convincing.

Disneyland was decked out for Christmas, but it was super crowded!  We were part of a record breaking 100,000 people in the park that day...it was still magical though.

My dad insisted that we eat some corn dogs, and we sat down in an eating area, and all of a sudden a bunch of characters came over to take pictures with us.  Here I am with Tigger.

Minnie Mouse came over, too.  We were then surprised to find out that the eating area we were sitting in were only for paying customers that had paid to eat there where all the characters would take pictures for you...oops.

We took the classic picture with the castle...which we do every single time we go.  We must have dozens of variations of this picture.

What was really cool was the way they decorated the castle at night to look perfect for Christmas.  It was a crowded day, but still fun.

With my grandmother in failing health, we decided it would be appropriate to take one last trip to the temple with her.  We headed to the Los Angeles temple for the most special memory of the trip.  We spent some time together as a family in the celestial room and reflected on the blessing the gospel is in our family, especially in light of the stage of life my grandma found herself in.

Grandma Sherry made it through the whole session without any problems, and I was honored to push her in a wheelchair through the whole temple.  It was a memorable Christmas that my family and I will cherish.

Abby

So around the time of Thanksgiving, I started to date a girl named Abby.  She is an 18 year old freshman that I got along with really well.  Spoiler Alert: It didn't work out, but we had some good times together.  It was a good learning experience for me, because I came to the realization while dating her that even though nothing was wrong, it didn't mean it was right.  She is a great girl, but we just weren't right for each other.  We broke up at about the end of January 2011, but are still friends and are on a first name basis still haha.  No but seriously there were no hard feelings, mainly because we had signed a variation of a prenuptial agreement that applied to a dating relationship.  I am still waiting for her to return the bracelet I bought her for her birthday.

Thanksgiving 2010

So, at the last second, we decided to head down to California for Thanksgiving.  My grandma, Sherry, found out that her cancer was back, and decided that she would not take treatments.  The doctors told her that she probably wouldn't make it to the New Year, which was hard for the family to hear, but we trusted in her decision and decided to make the most of the time we had left for her.  While we were there we went to the Richard Nixon presidential library in Yorba Linda and I got a picture with Winston Churchill.

My dad is a USC graduate, so we are huge fans, and got to go to a game over the weekend.  We lost to Notre Dame, and it was pouring rain, hence the poncho, but we had fun regardless.

So the picture is blurry, but this is the first Thanksgiving I was home from my mission.  It was good to be with family on the holiday, and my Grandma ended up getting out of bed and everything to come downstairs and eat with us.  The rest of the time I spent on my Grandma's bed giving her back massages and head scratches watching Pride and Prejudice with her.  It was great to spend the time with her, even if she slept for half of it haha.  

Dad, Lacey, and I headed down to the beach for some pictures.  Dad was participating in No Shave November.

This is at Nixon's library.  His middle name was Milhous...ha.

Back to BYU

So after Lacey's reception there wasn't much left to do but wait to get back to school.  The time finally came for me to head back to the Y and reunite with my old friends.  I moved into an apartment with Brett, Kyle, and Trevor Anderson, Joseph Naylor, and Zach Smith.  It was good to be back at school and socializing, although we all took some time to adjust.

Left to right: Kyle, Brett, Me, and Trevor are closer than ever and had some great times Fall semester.  They have been my best friends since I was ten, which definitely qualified us to be the representatives for the yellow team in a stake relay race...we lost...but we were the only people with matching shirts.  WIN!

Lacey's Big Day

By far the largest event of the summer was Lacey's wedding reception.  She got married in May, but she wanted me to be a part of the festivities so they waited to have their reception until August. I was best man, even though I had met Chris only two months before.  Everyone kind of played their stereotypical roles.  My mom was stressed out trying to do everything a fought with my sister about how things should look.  My sister wanted things in a certain way that no one else found appropriate.  My father threatened to not pay for anything numerous times.  It was everything you could hope for in a Hollywood wedding.  At the end of the day though it turned out great and everyone was happy.

I tried not to show up my new brother-in-law, but what can I say?  I totally swept Lacey off her feet.

Here is Mama just shaking that stress away.  Lacey had an 8 hour playlist of music, even though we told her no one would be dancing for eight hours.  I think the dancing lasted an hour and a half...

Both grandmothers attended the festivities.  Here we are with Wilma, Dad's mom.  She uses a cane and has arthritis in both knees, but we danced a little.  When I say that I mean that I helped her walk back from the bathroom, and I was groovin' while she kind of shifted weight from side to side.  She couldn't go to church the next day because her knees hurt too much.  I felt bad, but she said it was worth it.

Here we are with Sherry, Mom's mom.  She doesn't need a cane, and doesn't have arthritis, so we were lighting up the dance floor the whole night.  Since I had no love interests there, the women of my family, now including Anna (Rhiannon) were my dance partners of choice.  

It was a special day that gave our family a lot of good memories.  We all breathed a sigh of relief that Lacey was finally happy.  This picture of Sherry and me is one of my favorite of the whole day.  Great times.

Summer Nights

So after the Disneyland trip and seeing my grandmas in California, I was back in Powell, Wyoming for the summer.  I worked full time with Dirk Cozzens doing some roofing and painting, but when I wasn't having fun with him, I was doing exactly what this picture shows: hanging out with my sister and her family.  I got to know my niece and nephew, and we had a lot of late nights camping out in the front yard making smores and drinking Capri Sun.  It was good to see my sister happy after she spent a few years finding her way.

Disneyland

So one of the ways to adjust to being home was going to Disneyland as a family.  As this blog will surely demonstrate, my family is a Disney family, and we hold Disneyland to be a sacred place in our family's history.  Naturally, only about two weeks after being home, we spent two days at the happiest place on earth.

We had to have a new family photo, and what better place than in front of the icon of the Magic Kingdom.  

My mother and I on her favorite ride, Peter Pan.  I thought I was pretty cool in my Argentina soccer jersey.

Pinocchio greeted us on Main Street

This trip definitely helped me to adjust to home life again, and it was a great way to make some good memories with my family. 

Homecoming

So let's start at the beginning.  I got home from serving my mission in Argentina on June 22nd, 2010.  I was greeted at the airport by my dad, Mike, my sister, Lacey, my mother, Page, and then by two little children Rhiannon(left) and Ebin(right) who had become my new niece and nephew.  My sister married Chris Huhnke in May 2010, a month before I got home, and he has two children from a previous marriage.  It was a strange day with a lot of emotions.  I was super happy to see my family, while at the same time having no desire to be there...if that makes sense.  It took me some time to adjust to being back home, but that is expected I guess.

Summary

Ok, so I am starting this blog, after having been inspired by someone special in my life, to hopefully do a better job at recording important events that happen to me, and I guess throw in some deep personal emotions that only the confines of this blog will ever hear or see.  So let's start with some basic information.  I am Sean Gilmore.  Ok that pretty much sums it up.  Writing in this thing is harder than I thought it would be...I have been sitting here for half an hour.  I hear that it is hardest to get started, and then after that you can get going pretty well.  So anyway, I kept a journal on my mission, but at the end of my time my entries became shorter and less frequent.  I haven't written in it once since I have been home, which is one of the main reasons I wanted to start this little gem up.  So instead of writing boring entries to summarize the past 10 months, I will use pictures to give a rough idea of what life has been like from June 2010 up to May 2011.  Alright, posterity, be prepared to read, laugh, cry, love, and all manners of other verbs in the near future, because here comes highlights of my random yet relevant life.