Trip Planning

My favorite way thing to do in January is to plan vacations for later in the year. I've spent a lot of happy time during the past few weeks thinking about vacations. 

We've been talking about going to the San Jaun Islands in northern Washington ever since Derrick developed a deep obsession with the movie Free Willy and everything Killer Whale related. (I googled the best place to see orcas and quickly decided that I must visit the San Juan Islands.) I was tentatively planning for us to go this summer.  A few months ago Brandon's siblings started talking about doing a family trip to the Washington Coast this summer as well. So with those two reasons in mind I've started pouring over guidebooks and sketching out an itinerary for a trip to Washington later this year..  It's going to be a fun trip. 

My siblings have also been trying to figure out a time to get together this summer.  We have a group Marco Polo video chat that is full of a lot a nonsense videos to each other about random things. We tried finding a time this summer that we all could get together. But with everyone's crazy schedules and the two babies that are due in May and then June we just couldn't find a time that worked.  I tossed out the idea that maybe we should just plan to get together around Christmas at my sister Lindsey's house in Houston. This has two big appeals.  1. It will be warm there. and 2. Lindsey has visited each of us at our homes countless times. It's way past time for us to travel to her for the holidays. Right now it looks like that's what we will be doing. 

I also wrote a post about how I handle anxiety while traveling. It's on my travel blog here. Brandon helped me with the picture for the post. We took the picture in the parked car. Brandon photo shopped the arrows on the speedometer and the RPM gauges to look like the car was driving.  

In non travel news I finally went to the eye doctor to get a new prescription. This is something I've been meaning to do for over a year. At first I put it off because I was hoping whatever post-graduation job Brandon got would have vision insurance. Then when we didn't have vision insurance I was waiting until after we moved. And then I was waiting til after life calmed down. And suddenly it had been a over year and I was starting to get headaches.

I called around to a few places and then ultimately decided Walmart Optical was going to be my best option price wise. I planned to order my glasses through Zenni optical so I didn't need to buy them from any particular place so Walmart would be perfect for my needs. Still I was a little nervous before my appointment. I wondered if the optometrist would lecture me on the importance of having an eye exam every year.

I shouldn't have worried.  Walmart Optical was super laid back and totally non judgmental.  They didn't even bat an eye when I asked for the pupillary distance to be written on my prescription (a sure sign I was going to order online.) Now I'm wishing there was a Walmart Dental that wouldn't judge me for my lack of flossing habits.

I ordered new glasses from Zenni and they should be arriving in time for my birthday.

I talked in my last post about how I really liked listening to political podcasts, but about the time the Impeachment Trial started in the Senate I decided I needed to scale back a bit. I decided to try out the Cold Podcast about Susan Powell's disappearance in 2009. My mom had raved about the podcast when it came out last year, but I just wasn't in the mood for it then. For some reason I was ready for it this week. I listened to one episode and was completely hooked.

It was really odd listening to Cold in the middle of also getting news about the Impeachment Trial. I couldn't help seeing a lot of similarities between Josh Powell and Donald Trump. (Narcissism, terrible treatment of women, inability to see themselves as wrong, etc.)  And to hear how Josh Powell avoided being arrested while hearing about how Donald Trump was probably going to be acquitted was frustrating.

On Thursday Charlotte and I had our writing club. We went to the library, and had a good time together, but I was pretty tapped out creatively.  I just wrote lists of ideas for future writing projects.

Friday morning at about 3:00 am Derrick came into my room crying about pain in his ear. I tried all the tricks I could think of, but he cried for a long time before falling asleep on the living room couch. I told him we'd go to the doctor in the morning.  (This exact same thing had happened over the summer and Derrick had had an ear infection then so I was willing to listen to him again.)

In the morning Derrick woke up in a happy mood because he knew he didn't have to go to school. I told Veronica to go get dressed and Derrick thought I was talking to him. He said, "OKAY!!" And happily ran downstairs to get dressed.  A few minutes later he was back upstairs with his roller blades on.  He was roller blading around the house like a maniac. If he hadn't been so miserable the night before I would have made him go to school.

My boss let me take the day off. (Honestly, I can't say enough about how awesome it is to have a flexible work schedule.) I took Derrick to the doctor and he did, in fact, have an ear infection. So we got a prescription for antibiotics. We picked it up at Smiths and Derrick charmed the pharmacist by listening carefully and asking questions as she explained how to take the medicine. He was so excited to take the medicine when we got home.

I'm glad we'd taken him to the doctor because we had big plans for Saturday that I didn't want to have to cancel. We were going to Sun Valley.

Sun Valley is about 80 miles almost directly north of Twin Falls. It has a higher elevation than Twin so it still had snow. All our snow had melted and so the kids were excited to go play in snow again. I was excited because this was our first trip out of the Twin Falls area that wasn't for an extended family get together. Seriously, we had gone to Utah for family related activities in August, in October, in November, and December.  I love our extended family, but it was nice to be going a direction other than south for a change.

We cleaned up the house a little bit and packed our stuff for the trip. Then we drove to Sun Valley.  The first place we went was the official Sun Valley Lodge.

And took this picture.

We looked around the lodge and the other buildings, but all that was too rich for our blood.  We'd packed a picnic lunch, but couldn't see any place to eat it. So we just ate in the car.  Then we parked near Penny Hill and got our sleds out to go sledding on Penny Hill.

My friend Sarah has been to Sun Valley a lot so I asked her for recommendations for what we should do. She recommended sledding on Penny Hill. If she hadn't recommended the hill I'm not sure we would have gone there. It was STEEP and looked HUGE.  No one was sledding on it when we got there. Even with Sarah's recommendation I was wondering if this was really a sledding hill.

As we got closer I could see that there was a smaller hill in front of the big hill. So we didn't have to climb quite as high as I'd first assumed. All the kids were really excited.  We went sledding in Pocatello several times and really liked the big hills there. Twin Falls is very flat and all the "sledding hills" in town were quite disappointing to look at. So I was happy that we could plan this trip.

Here are Brandon and me together.

The hill was much slicker than anything we'd ever been on before. Plus there were several small jumps to watch out for.  Each ride down the mountain usually ended in disaster.  But most of the kids liked it.

I think the kids just enjoyed being able to play in snow again.

Derrick had been the most excited to go sledding, but he didn't like the wild rides. So he and I went for a little walk.  Here's another look at Penny Hill.

Derrick liked kicking the deep snow.  That's Dollar Mountain in the back ground. It's has several ski slopes on it.

I took this video of Brandon sliding down with Lydia. By this point more people had joined us and were also sledding.

Charlotte came over and I took this picture of her. 

We decided it was about time to leave. Brandon started pulling some of the kids on the sleds.

I took this video of him pulling the kids.

One last look at the sledding hill. 

We went back to the car and the kids stripped off their wet snow pants.  I'd brought a laundry basket and so we just put all the wet things in there. Lydia and Veronica each had wet pants so they changed into dry clothes from my back up bag. (It's a good thing no one else needed to change their pants because I realized I hadn't switched out the clothes since this summer.  I had two pairs of long pants and two pairs of shorts in that bag.)  Everyone also changed their socks and gloves.

Sarah had also recommended going ice skating at a park in Ketchum that provided free skating. I wasn't sure how that worked (and I was feeling a bit of that familiar travel anxiety) so I didn't want to commit fully to skating.  I told the kids we'd just drive over there and see what it was like.

Well we found the park, saw the ice rink, saw the free skates and decided that of course we were going to skate. Here I am getting excited. 

Brandon said he didn't want to skate (he broke his arm slipping on ice when he was 12 and so he doesn't feel comfortable on slippery surfaces.)   He helped get everyone laced up and said he'd man the entrance and help the kids while I went out and tried to skate.  Veronica didn't want to wear skates either. This worked out pretty well for me.  I haven't ice skated in years. I do remember going skating at Murray Park with my Aunt Vera when I was a teenager.  I'd loved that day and so I wanted to skate again, but I knew I'd need help. The park had chairs out on the ice to support little kids. I got one of the chairs and had Veronica sit in it.  She acted like ballast to hold the chair steady while I pushed it around the ice.  She got a fun ride, and I got support.   Here we are on the ice.

Charlotte, Lydia, and Derrick all did great. Charlotte and Lydia were a little nervous at first, because they are used to roller skates, but they got the hang of ice skates very quickly.

Here's Lydia.

Close up of Lydia.

Charlotte.

And Derrick.  Derrick was a natural of course.

Brandon took this video of me and Veronica.

Lydia and Charlotte took turns pushing each other around. 

Veronica let me push her around for a long time. I thought that's all she would want. But after a while she said she wanted to try to skate.  Brandon helped get her all ready and she went out a little ways on the skates. I was so proud of her. 

Derrick had me push him around. At one point he dug his skates into the ice and he and the chair went one way while I went another.  I fell down pretty hard. I also twisted my car accident knee a little bin in the process. It hadn't hurt at all during all the treks up the sledding hill or while skating. But after that it hurt.  I went around the rink one more time, but then decided I was done. Then I slipped as I was trying to get off the ice. It like something from a cartoon. Both feet went up in the air and I think my body was suspended off the ground for a second or two before I crashed onto the ground. After that I was really done.

I bet you are wondering where all the skates were.  They were just in these racks right by the rink. Everything was basically on the honors system. The skates were labeled with the size and you picked them out yourself.

The building had offices and a large hall for gatherings.

Outside the kids decided to try hockey. They were pucks and sticks that they could use.

Here's all four kids on the ice.

Veronica was very cold so I helped her get her skates off and we went inside to warm up by the fire.  The other kids stayed outside and kept playing, but gradually they each came in to get warm. We ate the rest of the food we'd packed and got ready to go.

Sun Valley had been great and we were definitely be back again. We got home around 4:00 and everyone took baths.  Then, in honor of the kids new found interest in hockey, we watched the movie Miracle about the 1980 Hockey Team that beat the Russians in the Olympics.  That movie is LONG so I fast forwarded through a lot of the talking parts and we mostly just watched the hockey.  The kids loved it.

Sunday was a good day. I sang with the choir in Sacrament Meeting. We sang a really pretty arrangement of If the Savior Stood Beside Me. Oh and that reminds me,  I forgot to write this in my last few updates. Derrick has started asking me to sing him bedtime songs. This is a big deal. He hasn't wanted me to sing to him for years.  And lately he's started singing along to the songs!!!!!!  He knows the words to I am a Child of God and A Childs Prayer. It's super sweet and shows me that Derrick has been paying attention all these years.

In the evening on Sunday I went to the Fireside for the Self Reliance classes for our stake.  In some ways the evening felt like a meeting that could have been an email. I already knew I wanted to sign up for the "Start a business" course, but I had to sit through a whole bunch of talk for the personal finance, find a better job, and get an education courses. I was in a pretty bad mood by the end of the night, but I still am optimistic about the start a business course.

On Monday Veronica brought home a 100 days of school project.  She had to choose some small objects to glue into a giant picture of the gum ball machine.  We went grocery shopping and she picked out farfelli noodles while we were at the store. When Charlotte and Lydia came home from school they helped her glue the noodles on the gumball machine picture. It was a fun group picture.

Derrick was supposed to have a new therapist on Monday (the other one couldn't make therapy work around her 16 credits worth of classes that she was taking at school).  But that therapist had something come up on Monday.  So instead Miss Dana drove over from Pocatello.  I LOVE Dana and she's one of the reasons I wanted to stay with this company when we moved. She went with Derrick for two hours and then came back and talked with me for about half an hour.  It was so good to talk with her.  She is so encouraging.

On Tuesday something happened that I'd been hoping to avoid all month - Lydia got sick.  Every January for the last few years she's got sick for about a week.  I was really really really hoping that this time we could avoid that. I bought her a long coat to keep her warm outside and I made sure she was eating healthy.  But she still got sick on Tuesday.  She said her throat hurt and she had really swollen lymph nodes.

So she stayed home from school.  I went to work, but I left a little early so she wasn't home alone for very long.

Derrick's new therapist, Miss Emily, came on Tuesday.  I like her and Derrick did too.  They went to the park, but later had to leave because it started raining really hard.

Meanwhile I took Charlotte to her girls activity for Primary.  She had a good time.

I was hoping that after a day of rest Lydia would be feeling well again.  But she wasn't feeling well on Wednesday morning.  Charlotte was having a rough morning too. I let them stay home and then I took Lydia into the quick care for a strep test.  I was hoping it would just be a quick process like our office in Pocatello, but it took FOREVER.  And then the test turned out negative.

The only good thing that came out of the morning was that we stopped by Walmart and bought the kids Valentines Day Cards/candies and some little gifts for our family Valentines Day party.

We picked Veronica up from Kindergarten.  When we got home I was so tired.  I helped the kids get lunch and then I laid down and took a nap on the couch.  The girls set up a Mall in their Frozen doll house.

Here's the clothing area.

The shoe area.

The purse area.

The checkout counter.

And the dads' waiting area.

Wednesday nights are the night Brandon doesn't come home after work. I was doing okay with the kids, but I really wanted them to go to bed early.  (Especially since Charlotte and Lydia hadn't taken naps at all even though they'd stayed home from school.)  Usually I have an alarm go off at 7:30 to signal that it's bedtime.  But this night I set an alarm for 6:30.

We had dinner early at about 4:30.  Then we did bath time as usual.  After we sat down in the living room and read Harry Potter for about an hour.  I was worried that my plan for an early bedtime wouldn't work if Derrick wan't tired.  But at 6:20 he started asking to go to bed.  When my alarm went off at 6:30 he happily went downstairs and let me help him into his pajamas and tuck him in.  Veronica went to bed pretty easy too.

Then I went into Charlotte and Lydia's room and said, "You know, I want to keep reading.  Let's stay up an extra hour and read some more."  So we read for another hour while they were in bed.  At 7:30 the real bedtime alarm went off and I told the kids it was "way passed their bedtime and to go to sleep."

I can't believe I actually pulled it off.

On Thursday everyone went to school and I went to work for a little bit. My boss was out of town so technically we were closed, but I had a few things I needed to get done that I hadn't been able to do on Wednesday because I'd taken Lydia to the doctor.

That afternoon I took Veronica with me to an office for the Department of Health and Welfare. I was in the middle of trying to figure out something for Derrick's insurance and I'd been told to go to that office, but it ended up being a wild goose chase.  I'd eventually solve the problem on Friday (by calling Health and Welfare - go figure- but until then I was pretty frustrated.

That evening we read a lot of Harry Potter.  We made it through the Final Task and then started in on the scary stuff where Voldemort comes back.  I was worried about how the kids would handle it, but they did really well. Lydia sat by me and braided my hair the whole time.

She also braided her hair

On Friday I went into work to take care of processing some payments before the end of the month. We were still closed and my boss wasn't even there. I loved sitting in the quiet office doing things with money. The process was more complicated that usual and I had to make a spreadsheet to keep track of everything. I also got to use my new 10-key calculator to make sure everything balanced in the end.  Everything came out perfect and I was so proud of myself.  I love doing this kind of work.

A few weeks ago we signed up to participate in the SPARK autism research study. Part of the process was to send in DND samples from Derrick, me, and Charlotte.  The collection kits for me and Charlotte had arrived and Derrick was eagerly awaiting his.  I'd told him that we'd have to spit in the kits.  Derrick thought that was amazing and he talked about it a lot.  I even had to write an email to his teachers at school to give them a heads up in case they were wondering why Derrick was suddenly taking so much about spitting.

His kit showed up on Friday. Derrick, Charlotte, and I took care of spitting into the sample collection tubes.  Then Derrick went with me to drop the boxes off in a mail collection box by the store.  He had so much fun leaning out of the car window and putting the boxes into the mail box.

Friday night we read a little bit more of Harry Potter (So.Much.Exposition).  After that the kids had a dance party in the living room.  Lydia's ear started hurting so I took her to the store to buy ear drops.  Those ended up not helping so around 10:00 we asked our neighbor Adam to come help Brandon give Lydia a blessing.  After that she fell asleep.

On Saturday we had pretty much nothing planned. My biggest goal for the day was to straighten the living room rug that had been looking more and more crooked.  I ended up rolling up moving all the furniture and damp mopping the floor really well before rolling the rug back down.

Then I decluttered the book cases and decorated for Valentine's Day. I really like how it looks.

Charlotte and Lydia had another set of twins come over to play. Those girls brought their skates so all the kids were skating in the basement while I worked.  Brandon made everyone macaroni and cheese and hot dogs for lunch.  Then the kids all watched the Parent Trap - which was a pretty apt movie for two sets of twins to watch.  After the other twins went home we sat down and read the final 30 pages of Harry Potter.  Then we took it back to the library.

Meanwhile Brandon went to a free lecture by a Shawn Willsey.  He is a geology professor at the College of Southern Idaho. I saw his book Geology Underfoot in Southern Idaho at the gift shop at the science center when we were there a few weeks ago.  I checked the book out from the library and really liked it. I'd also listened to a podcast with him as a guest.  So when I saw he was doing a lecture at the Twin Falls County Museum I told Brandon that he should go.  Brandon really enjoyed the lecture.  Most (all) of the audience was retirees. Brandon and the professor were the only millennials there. 

Brandon bought the book and got it signed.  He got home about the same time I got back from the library.  He showed me the book and I laughed because I'd literally just returned my library copy. I'm glad he bought the book because it's going to come in handy a lot this summer.

After dinner the kids took quick baths and then we watched Ground Hog day for movie night.  That movie never gets old.  

When I helped Derrick get ready for bed he showed me the "Christmas Tree" that Veronica had helped him decorate that morning.

After we put the kids to bed we watched the movie Greenbook. It was excellent and I've been thinking about it ever since. 

Today we had Stake Conference. We went to the Stake Center and sat in the very back on the stage again.  The kids were pretty good.

After church I didn't have much to do.  We had a nice afternoon just hanging out.  Brandon and I went over some guide books about Washington that I'd picked up at the library and planned out a lot of our route of for our trip later this year.

I'm looking forward to that trip as well as other all the other little things that will happen this year.

Thanks for reading.