Sorry I've kind of neglected this blog for the past few weeks. I put most of my writing energy into trying to write 30 posts in 30 days for www.51centadventures.com. I made it to post number 20 before I ran out of steam. Twenty posts in less than a month isn't bad considering I wrote only 3 posts on that blog between September and March. I hope to finish up the 10-15 posts I still want to write about things in Yellowstone in the near-ish future, but first I need to get caught up on this blog.
So let's get to it.
Spring is here and I am THRILLED. This winter wasn't as bad as last winter, but I'm still so glad that the weather has warmed up. I feel like I'm waking up. I'm especially glad to see flowers everywhere. I took this picture of flowers on the ISU campus.
And these are some crocuses that I planted last year. I'd bought them at Winco for like $2, because that's all I could afford last fall. I wasn't sure if they would bloom, but they did. Though, as you can see from this picture we have a much better crop of dandelions in our yard.
I was in kind of a bad mood as we drove down to Salt Lake on Friday night. Parking for the trip had given me a bit of anxiety. I have a problem where I start imagining all sorts of problems that I need to pack for and then I start imagining even more problems and soon I'm just an anxious mess. And so I was pretty "keyed up." Everything the kids did was bothering me, and Brandon's driving was making me nervous. (Brandon is a very safe driver so I know that something is wrong with me if I start getting worried when he's driving.)
We were planning to drive down to Salt Lake and meet up with my parents at a ward party. But as we got close to Brigham City I said to Brandon, "We should stop by the Bear River Migratory Bird Place." He thought that sounded fun so a minute later we took the exit with the sign for the refuge. I'd been thinking that we'd stop at the visitor center, but that closed at 5:00 and this was about 5:30. So we stopped at a little rest area down the street. It had a beautiful view of the mountains.
There was an observation tower near the start of the auto tour road. We got out to climb up that.
We made it to the hotel and I checked us in while Brandon waited in the car with the kids. I asked the front desk staff if I could have a garbage bag because we'd had a "messy emergency" in the car. They gave me one with no questions asked.
We got the kids into the hotel and I gave Veronica a bath and helped her into pajamas. Then Brandon and Derrick went to the store while the girls and I watched Trading Spaces on TV. Brandon and Derrick came back with Lynn Wilson Burritos for dinner, Fabreeze and multi-surface cleaner for the car, and pedialyte for Veronica. After our quick microwave dinner, Brandon went outside and cleaned up the car and I hung out with the kids.
Veronica threw up a lot that night. I slept in the same bed as her and felt like I was only half asleep the whole night. I just lay there waiting to spring into action and hand her the garbage can any time she made any noise.
In the morning we got dressed in church clothes, had breakfast at the hotel, and then headed out to meet up with my parents at the Jordan River Temple Open House. Both Brandon and I have been to this temple a lot. We came here as teenagers to do Baptisms for the Dead and we both received our endowments in this temple. So you would think we would know how to get to this temple. But NO! We were driving around for a while before I called my parents to find out the exact address. I had no idea how far south this temple really was.
The temple was very pretty. I couldn't take pictures, but there are official pictures here. Afterward we took a group picture together.
We had a good time at my parent's apartment. My mom washed our dirty things in her washing machine which was super nice. The kids played outside for a long time.
We went back to my parent's and picked up the kids. Then we headed back to the hotel. I was pretty tired since I hadn't slept well the night before. Veronica seemed to be doing well so I was looking forward to a better nights sleep. But a few hours after we put the kids to bed I heard someone throw up. And it wasn't Veronica. It was Lydia.
Brandon was a champ and took care of throw up detail for the night. Neither he or Lydia got much sleep.
We were planning to go to church with my parents on Sunday, so we started getting dressed in our Sunday clothes when we woke up in the morning. But I quickly realized that church was a bad plan. We had assumed that something Veronica ate at pre-school was making her sick. But now it seemed we had something contagious on our hands. Lydia was laying huddled in blankets, Veronica started throwing up again, and it was probably only a matter of time before the other two kids got sick.
I texted my parents to let them know we wouldn't be going to church with them. Brandon had left his church clothes there when we changed after the temple open house so we still needed to stop by to pick those up and say goodbye.
Brandon took the "well children" down to breakfast while I hung out with Lydia. When they came back I went down to breakfast. Then we got into the car and drove to my parents.
We said a quick goodbye and started driving back to Idaho. Thankfully no one threw up during our three hour drive.
Charlotte started throwing up within an hour of getting home. Derrick was crying about something trivial so Brandon asked him if he needed a nap. Derrick said yes and then went to sleep for 5 hours. Brandon fell asleep on the floor and Veronica snuggled up with him. I put Charlotte and Lydia (who was also still throwing up) into bed with me. We had a long nap until one of the kids threw up and I had to wash the sheets. The girls went back to sleep, but I stayed up and watched Tasty cooking videos which was a really odd choice considering how much throw up I'd dealt with during the last 48 hours.
By about 6:30 that night everyone was awake and feeling sort of better. Brandon and I knew none of the kids were going back to sleep any time soon so we just decided to have a movie night until the kids fell asleep again. We picked three movies that the kids had never seen before. First we watched the movie Twister with the kids. We skipped the scary opening sequence where the dad gets sucked up by the tornado so the kids wouldn't be too traumatized. They were still a little scared of the movie, but overall they loved it. Derrick wanted to watch the "tomato" movie over and over again during the next week.
The next movie was The Tourist. We had planned to watch Inception next but the Tourist was boring enough that the kids were ready for bed by the time it was over. It was after 11:00 pm.
The next day I called all the kids schools and told them the kids wouldn't be there. The elementary school secretary confessed that she wasn't feeling well herself. We heard about a lot of people who weren't feeling well during the next few days so I guess it wasn't just us.
Monday was a blah day and so we were all pretty happy to go back to our routines on Tuesday. I threw myself into writing and ended up having one of the most productive writing weeks of my life. On Monday I published one post. I published two on Tuesday, THREE on Wednesday, another two on Thursday, and one on Friday.
On Thursday I was supposed to go on a field trip to the fire station with Derrick. The fire station is right next to the school and you'd think he'd be excited to finally go inside. But I think he's afraid of the loud fire trucks because every time I talked to him about it he said, "no fire station" and got really upset. I figured I should go with on the field trip to keep him calm.
Well on Wednesday night Derrick came into my room crying. I tried to get up to help him, but I could tell something was wrong with me. So Brandon got up. He went down in Derrick's room and discovered that Derrick had thrown up all over his bedroom floor. Brandon started cleaning it up. I figured he needed help so I got up. Immediately I knew what was wrong with me. I felt super nauseous. So instead of helping clean up I sat in front of the basement toilet waiting to throw up. I didn't throw up, but I was so cold I was shaking.
I came back up stairs and crawled back into bed to get warm. After a few minutes I got up, went into the bathroom, and threw up. I felt much better after that.
Needless to say, Derrick did not go on his fire station field trip. I didn't feel like taking Veronica to school so she got to stay home too. We stayed home and watched the "tomato movie" while I wrote about Yellowstone.
By the weekend things finally seemed like they were back to normal. Which was good for two reasons. 1. We desperately needed to clean the house and 2. the weather was perfect.
On Friday night we fulfilled one of Brandon's dreams and went on a family bike ride. Brandon's always looked forward to the day when he could take all his kids on a bike ride and Derrick has been asking to ride his bike to the park for weeks so it seemed like it was finally time. Brandon, Derrick, and Lydia all rode their bikes. Charlotte and Veronica each had a scooter. I could have ridden my bike, but I'm no fool. I knew someone would end up wanting to walk home, and that meant someone would need to take care of their bike or scooter.
That night we got the Greatest Showman from Redbox and watched it for movie night. I could see why other people really love it, but it left me feeling luke warm. I really like the music, but I couldn't get into the story. I just couldn't get over how the real PT Barnum was pretty exploitative of the people in his circus. Yet the movie made him seem like such a great proponent of equality.
We came home and I worked in the garden while the kids watched the Greatest Showman one last time before we had to take it back to Redbox. Later I stayed home with Veronica while Brandon took the other three kids on another bike ride (he walked this time).
When everyone came home we got a fire going in our fire pit for the first time.
We roasted hot dogs for dinner.
We went to church on Sunday and had a good time there. After church I told everyone, "I want to go on a Sunday walk, and if that walk happens to include a trail, well that's okay."
We decided to walk up "The Stairs" which are only a few blocks away from our house. The stairs took us up to the neighborhood that is on a hill that overlooks our part of Old Town Pocatello. We've been up here before and the view always reminds me of the model city on Mr Rodgers Neighborhood.
The neighborhood eventually leads to the upper parking lot for the City Creek Trails. One day we'll come back and hike on these trails, but today we just walked to the trail head and then turned around and went home.
This was a cool view on our way back to the stairs.
I was feeling better by morning, but Brandon wasn't. He went to school and made it through class in the morning, but came home during the hands on task time in the afternoon. He had his turn to throw up.
I was at a field trip with Charlotte and Lydia. They went to the Cal-Ranch store to see the baby chicks. Both girls loved seeing the birds.
When we got home the girls could tell Brandon and I weren't doing well. I think they wanted to help so they wrote out the menu for the week all by themselves.
Brandon was doing better by Thrusday morning and went to school the whole day. He even stayed late to make up the time he'd missed the day before. By the time he got home the kids and I were pretty antsy to get out of the house. The kids wanted to go to the park, but I said it was time we hiked the lower portion of the City Creek Trails. We have lived within a couple hundred yards of this trail head for months and I didn't want to pass by it any more. So we set out on another hike.
Back in Fort Rucker I looked forward to attending the Graduation Ball with Brandon when he finished flight school. All my friends would post pictures in their pretty gowns with their husbands in uniform. I often imagined what my dress would look like. I'd been to one other ball with Brandon when he was a specialist, but that had been only 4 months after Veronica was born. I'd been nursing her at the time and so I had to wear a dress that accommodated my postpartum/nursing body. I was looking forward to wearing a dress that fit my post weightloss body.
But Brandon never finished flight school and so we never got to go to a graduation ball. We've made our peace with leaving the Army, but I've always been sad about not going to the ball. I'll admit I was jealous every time my friends posted their ball pictures.
A few months ago I told Brandon that I wanted to do our own Graduation Ball type event when he graduates with his A&P degree next spring. I thought it would be fun to get dressed up and go out to eat and maybe find somewhere to go dancing. Brandon thought that would be fun.
And then I found out that the Veterans Student Services Department at ISU would be hosting a Military Ball for all of Southeast Idaho. I told Brandon that we had to go.
And I set out to find my dress. When Brandon and I went on our walking date at Jordan Landing we'd gone into Ross "just to look" and I'd found a beautiful blue dress with a high neckline with beads at the top. The only problem was the dress was one size too small. So the next weekend I checked the Ross here in Pocatello. I didn't find the exact same dress, but I found a similar blue one. The first dress had been $40 but this one was only $20 so that sweetened the deal.
The dress didn't have sleeves so I knew I needed to do something about that. I have a little jacket that I've worn with other sleeveless dresses, but I didn't like how it looked with this dress. I tried finding a jacket to buy, but couldn't find any. And so I decided to make one. I'd made a "shrug" for homecoming when I was a Sr in high school so I remembered the gist of how to do it. I bought silvery stretchy fabric at Joanns for about $6. Brandon helped me figure out how it should fit and then I cut it and sewed it on Friday. It turned out great!
Brandon wore his military uniform and looked super handsome. Here's a picture Lydia took of us. I'm not thrilled about the angle, but every picture we took at the ball turned out blurry and we haven't seen any from the official photographer yet so this is the best I have right now.
Our wonderful neighbor, Melissa, agreed to trade babysitting with us so she watched the kids at her house for "as long as you want." And we headed to the ball. It was held at the ball room in the Student Center at ISU.
There were many ROTC cadets and active duty service members there, but there were also a lot of Veterans like Brandon. All branches of the military were represented. There were many officers and enlisted members of the Army, but Brandon was the only Warrant Officer.
We did a mix and mingle for the first hour, then sat down and did the "official" stuff like the Pledge of Allegiance, the Missing Man Table, and the toasts. The food was served buffet style, but was very good. I had delicious roast beef. There were some speeches while we ate, and then it was time for DANCING.
It was so much fun to slow dance with Brandon. We said this was like prom only without wondering if you date really liked you. We danced to a few fast songs, including Sweet Home Alabama. We were the only ones on the dance floor during that song and I pushed aside all my self-consciousness and just focused on how much fun I was having with Brandon.
I think I smiled the whole night long. It was so much fun to go on a fancy date with Brandon.
We left the party around 10:30 and were surprised to find all the kids were still awake at Melissa's. They were determined to stay up until we got there. We brought them home and everyone went straight to bed.
I hoped everyone would sleep in the next morning, but Veronica and Derrick were up around 6:40. When everyone was awake we played the cleaning game. Charlotte and Lydia wanted to be on their own team. So we decided that Derrick and Veronica would be on my team, Charlotte and Lydia would be on their own, and Brandon would clean our bedroom and would help Charlotte and Lydia if they needed it. I thought for sure that Charlotte and Lydia would ask for help by their second job, but no they cleaned Derrick's room, half the family room, the living room, took out all the garbages, and swept the kitchen all by themselves. And they beat my team. We had to clean the other side of the family room, clean the girls' room, sweep the entry way, vacuum the dining room, and sweep the laundry room. The girls ended up sweeping the laundry room because they finished when I was still vacuuming the dining room.
We had some coupons for free kids meals at a local restaurant called Elmers. They expired on the last day of April so we had to use them up. We went there as a reward for getting the house clean. And I ordered two hot chocolates for Charlotte and Lydia as a reward for winning the cleaning game all on their own.
The rest of Saturday was spent getting things ready for next weekend. That's when we kick off our Idaho Road trip. But that's another story.
