2012 Vacation Day Four: The open road

Monday July 2nd started out right at midnight for Brandon.  He and I had laid down for a quick nap at 10:00 PM.  At 12:00 he got up and started packing the jeep.  He started out by laying out our brand-new car top carrier on the living room floor.  Then he figured how to fit 2 pack-n-plays, 4 sleeping bags, many small blankets, 2 camp chairs, tons of back up diapers and wipes, and an air mattress into the 15 square feet of space.  Once that was figured out he took it all out, fastened the carrier onto the top of the jeep, and put everything back.  Then it was time to figure out how to get everything else to fit in the jeep.

At 2:00 am I woke up and "helped" Brandon finish playing Tetris with our stuff.  Actually he was so in the zone he really didn't need my help.  I brought things out to him and mostly stayed out of the way.  Around 2:45 we got the kids up, gave the girls bottles, and put everyone in the car.  After a quick prayer for safety we started driving.  We were on the road by 3:00  

We left early because we were going to be travelling on I-80 and we wanted to get as much of boring Wyoming out of the way before the kids woke up.  Lydia fell right back to sleep, but Charlotte stayed a wake for a while.  We made it all the way to the Little America before the sun came up and the kids really woke up.  We stopped at the Little America because one of the many signs said there was s play ground there.  The girls got out and played on the play ground for a little bit while I nursed Derrick.

We changed the kids diapers and got them all dressed.  The girls love to help throw away their diapers.  Brandon gave each of them their diaper and walked with them over to the garbage.  It was so cute.  The diapers were so big they had to use both their hands to hold them.  And they were so serious about doing their job.  As soon as both diapers were thrown away the sprinklers came on and started getting the girls wet.  I just sat in the car and laughed as Brandon picked them up and ran them back to safety.  

We also had breakfast.  We always have bagels and cream cheese on the first day of our road trips so that is what we had.  The girls didn't really like the bagels, but they loved the orange juice we brought.  

There was a beautiful sunrise as we finished getting everything squared away.  Then it was time to be on the road again.

Brandon was getting tired so I took over as driver.  This was actually the first time I've driven on one of our road trips since our first one to Yellowstone.  On that occasion Brandon got us lost in 5 minutes and I was hitting every pot hole.  We decided to always play to our strengths and keep me as navigator and Brandon as pilot-in-command.  But this was an exception because we were in Wyoming and there really was no way we could get lost.  We went through the tunnels in Green River, and that was about the last interesting thing that happened for a few hours.  

The girls road in the car really well.  I think they could sense we were heading some where fun.

They were content to play with their toys, stare out the window, and eat the treats I kept passing back to them.

As far as I know Derrick slept most of the time.  But he might have been playing with his sisters.

Wyoming is a boring boring state when you are on I-80.  There is nothing.  Further compounding the problem was that the radio stations are also boring.  If I had a station there I would play crazy dance music to keep people awake.  But all I could find on the radio was a bunch of slow jazz and talk.  It was so hard to stay awake.  After an hour of driving Brandon took over again and I slept.

Eventually we made it to Rawlings and found a park so the girls could run around.  Charlotte wanted her doll with her and Lydia wanted a book (not pictured) with her.  There was a big train that the girls could play on. They had fun throwing rocks at it.  There were also some fun slides.  We stayed at the park for about an hour.  We finally left when Charlotte fell off a small rock wall she'd climbed up.

It was close to nap time so we gave the girls bottles.  Charlotte fell asleep right away.

Lydia stayed up and ate Twizzlers.  You can see that the girls had stolen our hats.

Here's an example of how boring Wyoming is:  This mountain was the most interesting scenery to show up after hours of driving.  It's also an example of how smoky the air was from the High Park fire in Colorado.

The girls were still hanging in there, but they needed more toys to keep them entertained.

The last 45 minutes to Fort Collins were the hardest.  Derrick was crying and the girls were whimpering.  We would have stopped to let them run around, but we weren't sure we could get them back in the car again.  We just pushed on.

I was driving as we entered Fort Collins.  This was a mistake because suddenly Brandon needed to give me directions.  After back tracking once we finally found my sister Emily's apartment.  The kids were so happy to get out of the car.  It was about 1:00 and we had been on the road for 10 hours.

After eating lunch and talking for a little bit, Emily and David took all the kids outside to play while Brandon and I took naps.

David is working on his Masters degree at Colorado State.  They live in on campus housing.  Their little courtyard has it's own playground.  It has sand in it and the girls loved playing in the sand.

They had a good time getting to know their cousin Asher again.

This is really the first time all three of them have been able to play together.

Back in the apartment Brandon, Derrick, and I continued to take naps.  We were very grateful that Emily and David would let us catch up on our sleep.

After Brandon and I woke up we went and checked into our hotel.  Emily and David would have let us stay in their living room, but we knew we would be too road weary to want to worry about setting up and air mattress and the pack-n-plays.  So I'd made reservations at the Comfort Inn.  They provided us with a King size bed and two roll in cribs. The room was so big I couldn't get a picture of both cribs at the same time.  

We went back to Emily's and had some amazing BBQ pizza.  I can't believe how much I ate.

Then Emily and David took us to old town Fort Collins and showed us around.

It was a really cute city.

Emily says that they have free concerts in this area on Friday nights.

Last year Emily got a picture here with our other sisters so we took a picture here together.

Emily also wanted to go in the store so we left the guys with 4 of the 5 kids and went inside.

Then we went to a little splash park.  Charlotte was so excited to play in the water.

She ran around with Asher and tried to touch all the water she could.  She screamed, jumped, shrieked, and had the best time of her life.  Lydia on the other hand was fast asleep in the stroller.

Derrick was awake and enjoyed watching his sister play in the water.

Charlotte just kept going and going and going. She'd squeal every time the water came out of the ground.

Even Bridger had fun in the water.

I think this park made the whole car ride worth it for Charlotte.  (By the way, her shirt says: I'm on vacation)

Lydia woke up, but she didn't want anything to do with the water.  She just stayed with her Daddy.

It started getting dark and a little cold so we put the kids in the car and we all went to the hotel to swim in the pool there.  Based on the girls earlier behavior I expected Charlotte to enjoy the pool while Lydia wouldn't want to get in.  But instead they completely switched attitudes.  Charlotte was scared of the deep water and didn't enjoy being in it at all. Lydia on the other hand couldn't get enough of it.  

Both girls did enjoy when we would stand in the middle and say "one, two, three" and then lift them out of the water.  But soon Charlotte got scared of that too (which is why Brandon was out of the pool and took this picture.)

Asher and Bridger both loved the water.  Emily said it was the perfect temperature for them.

Lydia started standing on the edge and would jump into my arms.  She did this again and again.  Charlotte just sat on the edge and kicked her legs in the water.  Brandon entertained Charlotte by showing her how he could swim.  He was a few feet away from her when she decided to copy Lydia and  jump into the water.  The only problem was there was no one to catch her.  She went right into the water and sank.  Luckily, Brandon got to her quickly and she was just fine, but she was done with the whole swimming thing.

And what did Derrick do?  Well, he sat in his chair and watched us the whole time.  I had him in a swim diaper just in case we felt it would be safe to have 5 kids in the water with only 4 adults, but we never felt that safe.  He was just fine watching us.

We went back to our room and gave the girls a quick bath in the tub.  Then we put them in bed.  They fell asleep immediately.  

 I was worried that they would have a hard time sleeping in the same room as us, but that wasn't a problem at all.  Derrick fell asleep pretty fast too (he slept on a blanket on the floor) and so Brandon and I were able to get to sleep without any drama from the kids.  Thank goodness too because we were tired after such a busy day! 

2012 Vacation Days 1 - 3: From a different perspective

I learned to be a writer from my Dad.  I've watched him write for my entire life.  No matter how busy he is he still makes time for writing.  In school he'd go over my papers and help me edit them.  He even showed me how to type with one hand. (Which is how I type all the time now that I have kids)  My dad has written in his journal every day for YEARS.  He sends e-mail copies of his journal to his kids on a weekly basis.  Because of that I can give you a detailed account of what Charlotte, Lydia, and Derrick did while we were gone. 

Friday, June 29, 2012

I took the day off from work today.  So we slept in and went to the gym at 7:00.  I swam today, since we will have three little grandchildren here tomorrow.  Rhonda went to her Roots Magic, Family History class down at the Church’s new facility in Riverton at 10:30.  Then Valerie brought the twins and Derrick at 11:00.  As she was carrying stuff in, Charlotte sat in her car seat, which Valerie had just brought in.  Lydia wanted to sit, too, but the seat was not yet brought in. Derrick’s jagged base for his car seat to click into was in the house, so she sat in that, even though it must have been terribly uncomfortable.  Brandon then got off work and came at 12:00 Noon.  We then watched a random episode of Get Smart and they snuck out and the children were none the wiser.  Rhonda got back at 1:00.  Our wonderful three days with three of our grandchildren had begun!  

Lydia is one to have “projects” to work on.  At first she carried around Rhonda’s address book, until it popped open and all the pages came out.  Later, Lydia found Rhonda’s knitting needles and carried them around.  We didn’t feel that was too safe, so later we hid those.  She also liked to collect paperclips.  I even called her my paper clip girl. Charlotte wanted to play the piano and wanted a chair put up to it.  We have learned that our chair will tip over if one of the twins leans back on it, while standing up.  So we turned it with the back to the piano, but Charlotte turn it around right from the start.  When she played low notes, I’d say, “Scary song!” and she would laugh.  Then when she’d play the high keys, I would say, “Pretty song!”  And she’s also smile..  She likes to get down on the floor and move the pedals.  

We had quesodillas for lunch.  Then we got out the cribs and the girls took naps.  They were both very intent to help set them up because they were tired.  They were the same way tonight as we set up Derrick’s crib.  Rhonda and I took naps too, with Derrick sleeping between us.  When we woke up, I took Derrick out to the porch swing  – what I’ve done with all boys so far, except Knoxx, sadly because I haven’t seen him yet. (And that’s our fault!) I had a nice talk with Derrick.  As far as girls, when Charlotte and Lydia were this age, I couldn’t sit with them on the porch swing at all because of the loud, menacing, and barking dog of our back door neighbors. 

Later, after the girls woke up from their naps, Rhonda brought them out as well as a blanket and toys.  There was a nice feeling out there for a long time.  We had dinner.  It was spaghetti.  Rhonda eventually learned to spoon feed Lydia and she just kept eating and eating.  

Later in the evening we all went on a walk around the block.  When we were on the busier street of 4620 West, we sure got a lot of stares.  I couldn’t tell if it was for the twins in a twin stroller, or for us being a middle aged couple with three little children.  When we came back to our house, our across-the-street neighbors, Stela, Luis, and their six-year-old boy Estevan came over and visited with us for a while. When Charlotte thought we weren’t looking, she grabbed handfuls of dirt out of our birdbath and dumped it on ground.  As we were going in, we saw the three-quarters-full moon.  I pointed it out to the girls.  Lydia went back out as soon as she came in and wanted to see it again.  We got everyone to bed by 10:00 PM and then Rhonda and I cleaned up the house.

Saturday, June 30, 2012

Before the grandchildren were up, I was able to write an outline of the events of yesterday.  That was good since I knew I’d have no time to write it all down as soon as they woke up.  When they did wake up, we ground wheat with Charlotte and Lydia looking on.  This was for pancakes and waffles.  We mixed up the batter as they each took turns dumping ingredients in, after I measured them.  This was the most anticipated event for me. Lydia watched as the bubbles popped. It seems like yesterday the their mother Valerie was telling me to turn them over because the little bubbles had popped.  

After breakfast we went out to the porch swing.  It was very hot so we decided it was time for the girls to go in the little pool.  Rhonda blew it up more and then we filled it with water.  We also put the sprinkler on and the girls went by it.  Lydia did it the most though.  Derrick woke up from his nap and Rhonda brought him out, too.  I put Derrick’s foot in the cold water and he didn’t like it one bit.  After lunch we put the girls and Derrick down for naps.  I tried to figure out how to put all the baby car seats in our car.  Stela, our neighbor came over and helped Rhonda put them all in.  

At 4:00 we went to my Mom’s.  Getting in the building was interesting.  There was a man with a walker going in at the same time.  That probably scarred them the most, but then he activated the automatic door and Charlotte and Lydia had to move out of the way.  It was almost as if they were saying, “What kind of house of horrors are you taking us into?”  Needless to say, by this time they were both screaming and crying uncontrollably!  The young woman at the front desk tried to make us feel better by saying how cute the children were.  When we got to my Mom’s floor, she could hear us coming from way down her hall.  Once we got into her apartment, the girls were able to settle down very quickly.  They were glad to play with her toys and then they discovered her organ and they both sat on the bench and had fun playing it.  Later they found some TV remotes and talked to each other as if they were cell phones.  When it was time to go, neither Charlotte nor Lydia were very happy about that.  So they cried as we were leaving, too.  As we were getting the children in the hot car, we saw my Uncle Dave Martin and my Aunt Peggy coming to visit my Mom. 

When we got home, dinner was in the oven and smelled so good.  After dinner, Rhonda gave the girls baths and then we put them to bed.  We stayed up with Derrick and watched the news about the fires that are burning throughout Utah.  Well, two of the three days of the wonderful weekend are over.  Valerie and Brandon come back tomorrow night.

Sunday, July 1, 2012 

We started this day of with eggs for breakfast.  We got ready for Church but despite our efforts, we were late for Church.  We walked in just as the Sacrament hymn had finished.  The Priests had to wait a second before saying the Sacrament Prayer until we got seated.  Derrick stayed in the meeting the whole time.  Lydia, too, but Charlotte had a melt down and Sister Thaxton took her out.  

After Sacrament meeting, Charlotte and Lydia went to nursery.  We waited about five minutes to make sure they would stay in, and they did.  While we waited, we looked at Billy’s missionary plaque and pictures on the ward’s bulletin board.  Derrick saw the pictures and was looking intently at them.  I said to him, “That’s your uncle!”  We went to Sunday School and Derrick slept through that.  I was walking over to Priesthood and Derrick was still asleep.  Someone stopped me to ask me a question, while I was standing right under the bell.  Just then it rang.  Although it was very loud, Derrick didn’t even flinch!  He then slept through most of Priesthood meeting.  Wow!  He already knows how to be a high priest!  

After we got the girls from nursery, I had Derrick in his seat and carried that with my left hand.  I grabbed Charlotte’s hand with my right (paralyzed) hand.  It was very crowded as we were walking down the hall. I had walked ten feet before I realized Charlotte wasn’t with me.  She even started walking out the wrong door.  Fortunately I grabbed her hand again and directed her the right way.  

At home after lunch the girls went down for naps.  Derrick slept on either my shoulder or Rhonda’s lap as we sat in the cool family room in front of the swamp cooler.  I made Shepherd’s pie and put it in oven for when Valerie and Brandon got back.  When the girls woke up, then all of us were in family room.  The twins were opening and shutting our Thermos picnic cooler.  They did this over and over until one of them got her fingers caught in it.  

Their Mom and Dad got back at 6:00 PM and we all sat down to eat dinner.  By 7:15 they were all packed up and ready to go home.  Charlotte gave me a hug as she was in her car seat.  We waved good bye to them all.  We had a wonderful time with three of our grandchildren!  After that, we were in a daze the rest of the evening.  Fortunately, I had the wherewithal to write down an outline of the last two days of their visit.  They are all driving late tonight over to Ft. Collins to visit Emily’s family.

2012 Vacation Day Three: Just like old times.

If Brandon and I have one weakness it's that we can't resist the allure of a road we haven't yet traveled.  So we made an important decision on Sunday.  We wouldn't go back to Salt Lake on highway 6.  Instead we would go West along Interstate 70, through the San Rafael Swell, and then head North at Salina.  These maps show the difference in the two options.  The first route was shorter.

 But the second route was one we had never taken before so it won out even though it was longer.

 My parents had told us to take our time so we didn't feel any pressure to go pick up our kids from them.  We slept in until about 8:30.  Then we got ready for church and drove to Green River (we'd already missed the beginning of church in Moab)  For some reason the Green River ward started at 10:00 instead of 11:00 so we actually only caught the last 20 minutes or so of church.

Then we headed off on I-70.  The road got fun right away and we came closer to the swell..

 Based on one of the brochures we'd randomly picked up on Friday we decided to go into the swell and explore it a little bit.  We decided to go to Black Dragon Canyon.  You can see it in the middle of this picture.

 First we had to go through a gate.  (It's what the brochure said to do)

 After a quick costume change we were ready to go exploring.

 But soon it became apparent that we were in the wrong canyon.

 We kept exploring the wrong canyon for a few more minutes, but the trail was hard to follow and the canyon was really really muggy.  So we back tracked.

 And then drove another 1/4 of a mile and came to the real Black Dragon Canyon.

 This one wasn't muggy at all and the trail was so wide we could have driven the jeep through it.

 The canyon walls were so interesting

 It was amazing how the canyon could be so different than the other one.

 Brandon enjoyed playing around.

 Finally we came to some pictographs or petroglyphs. I don't know which is which and I usually just end up calling any rock art petrographs or pictoglyphs.  (Native American art is not my thing at all)

 The canyon continued so we did too.

 We stopped for a snack and had our traditional butterscotch pudding.  We like to eat this when we hike around in sandstone because it's the same color.

 Brandon and I remarked at how much fun it was to pal around with each other like we used to before we had kids.  We love our kids, but we also love exploring with each other and not needing to worry about the stroller or diaper changes.

 There is a frog in this picture.  Can you find it?

 According the the brochure there was a cave up the canyon.  But the brochure didn't say how far up the canyon it was.  We kept hiking and hiking and hiking.  Finally we got sick of saying, "after this bend in the road we will turn around."  We decided to take a picture together and hike out.

 I posed while Brandon set up the timer.  As I looked back down the canyon I suddenly could see the mouth of the cave.  We had walked right by it!

 We hiked over to the cave and passed this rock that had stone mud cracks on it. I've heard of this and seen pictures, but it was the first time I ever saw one in person.

 Then we came to the cave.

 It didn't go very deep, but it was still neat to see.

I

 According to the brochure this is where the Black Dragon was rumored to live.

 After the cave we hiked back out to the jeep and started driving through the Swell.  The Swell was basically impassible until the 1950's when I-70 was proposed.  And we could totally see why.

The rocks rise up and create a natural barrier.  Even if you can get through a canyon the swell is a huge maze of rocks.

 We went through the swell and soon came to Castle Valley. These are the Castle's of Castle Valley. I wish we could have had more time to go see these up close.  I feel like the more I see of Utah the more I want to see.

 At one rest stop we saw a dust storm rise up.  We got out of there before it blew onto the road.

 Then we drove through a long canyon with pine trees.  I didn't get a single picture of it.  We turned north at Salina and went up to Levan.  On our way to Levan we passed this fire buring on a mountain.  This is the only fire we actually saw on our whole vacation.

 The last 50 miles seemed to take forever, but soon we were at my parents and back with our children.  They were happy to see us, but they weren't in a hurry to leave my parents.  They all had had a great weekend together.   

My parents fed us all dinner and then we packed up and went home.  We put the girls to bed around 8:00 and then we stayed up and started packing for the second part of our vacation.  It's good that we were able to spend 3 days with just the two of us, because we would have our kids with us constantly for the next 7 days.