The weather has been amazing this week, and I've been in such a great mood. Coincidence? I think not.
We also had a lot of fun things going on this week. That also makes me happy. We've taken the RV out for a few test runs, we went to some train related events, and we spent a lot of time enjoying the sunshine. So let's look at all the fun things we've been up to this week.
First up, is some of the best news. The RV is fully working and registered. On Monday Brandon took the RV to be inspected for the state safety and emissions testing. We were so happy that it passed both on the first try.
Charlotte and I made chocolate banana muffins while Brandon was gone. We had so much fun working together. She's been "helping" me cook for years, but this was the first time that I felt like she was really helping. I could say, "put in 2 cups of flour." And then she could do it while I found the next ingredients.
While the muffins were in the oven we went outside to take a picture of our plants. The little seeds the we planted at a little activity at the beginning of April have grown very well. Most of the kids planted sunflowers, but Charlotte planted some sort of bean. The sunflowers were the first to spout and Charlotte felt bad about her bean. But then the bean took off and grew like crazy. We had the plants in the kitchen window, and it soon was at the top of the window. Jacque moved the plants outside and staked the bean. Charlotte keeps saying, "My bean is taller than ME."
Here are Derrick and Veronica's sunflowers.
And here is Lydia's sunflower next to the bean. These will be planted in the garden as soon as the weather is consistently warm.
Here's Veronica with all the plants. She loves them too.
Derrick and Veronica love to watch youtube videos of trains and magic tricks. They will sit close to each other and laugh together.
Charlotte has been playing with her dog, Charky a lot. She made him a color and put a bow on it.
We love hanging out in the RV. It's kind of like a clubhouse for our whole family. All the kids love to draw on the white boards.
I love this picture of Veronica peeking out the door of the RV.
Like I said, the weather has been so nice this week. We've spent most evenings outside. Here are the girls playing on a little hill by our house.
When Brandon got the RV registered he also took care of getting the propane tank filled. On Tuesday he checked the propane system and it worked on the first try. I was inside the house working on my travel blog when Brandon came in the house and practically dragged me out to the RV so he could show me how easily the burners lit. He was so excited! And so was I because this meant that everything on the RV worked.
When the kids came home from school we had a quick lunch. Then we decided to take the RV out for a test drive. We brought all of our booster seats from the other cars and set them up on the dinette seats.
Veronica has been fascinated with the lap belt. She's loved buckling and unbuckling it.
The kids were so excited for our little trip. I think Derrick thought we were going on an overnight trip because he made sure to bring his pillow and blanket.
When we drive to Yellowstone the kids will ride with me in the Honda, so this was really their only chance to ride in the RV. I rode up front in the cab with Brandon. We liked how far away the kids were. We could barely hear them.
Brandon was practically giddy. He was so happy to show me how well the RV works. I was pretty happy about it too. I said, "I feel like this is the part in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang when they are driving the car for the first time. We should be singing and waving at everyone we pass."
I thought we were going to just go for a short ride around the valley. But Brandon had other plans. He'd taken the RV up a canyon road a few weeks earlier and he wanted to show me the canyon. So we drove up Highway 39 toward Causey Reservoir.
I've never been up this canyon before. It was so pretty.
Brandon drove us on the little road over the dam. I was nervous about this so I distracted myself by taking a picture.
We came to a parking lot and Brandon parked the RV. We all hopped out to check out the scenery.
Charlotte and Lydia ran to a trail head. We hadn't been planning on a hike (Derrick didn't have shoes and we only had one bottle of water) but the day was so nice we decided to just go for a little hike.
It was so great to be outside on a perfect day. After a long, cold, snowy winter a day like this was heaven.
Brandon took this picture of me. I had a big grin on my face this whole afternoon.
This whole little outing was a nice reminder that we are going to do just fine in Yellowstone this summer. Everyone is going to love it!
Lydia wanted me to take this picture of her.
She wanted a close up one too.
And then Charlotte's turn.
And then Veronica's turn. (I walked off before I realized that she wanted her picture taken and she was still pouty about it when I came back to take the picture.)
Derrick posed for me when we got back to the RV. He was so happy to be going "faster, faster, faster" in the RV.
Here's another view down the canyon.
On the way back over the dam I had a great view of the spillway. The water was rushing like crazy. All the rivers around here are so full. There was a flood warning in effect all week.
When we drove back into the Ogden Valley I made sure to take a picture of the fields full of dandelions. Charlotte and Lydia and I decided to rename this valley Dandelion Valley because there are so many fields full of dandelions.
I love this picture that Lydia took when we got back home.
None of us wanted to go back into the house so we hung out in the RV some more. I started working on the
before and after pictures for the post on www.51centadventures.com. At 4:00 my mom and dad called me on Google Hangouts. My mom didn't want to try to talk to all 5 of her kids on Mother's Day so she'd assigned each of us our own day to talk to her. This was my day. I gave her and my dad a tour of the RV.
While I was talking to my mom I said "tomorrow we are going out to Golden Spike National Monument since it's May 10th . . . . oh my Gosh tomorrow is your birthday Mom!" Until that moment, I'd completely forgot that my mom's birthday was May 10th. I'd been so focused on taking Derrick out to the train commemoration I'd forgot that there was another important thing that happened on that date. My mom laughed pretty hard when I confessed that.
Anyway, on Wednesday we went to Promontory Utah to the Golden Spike National Monument. I've wanted to go to the reinactment of the meeting of the Union Pacific and Central Railroads for years. A few months ago I realized that this was the perfect opportunity. We live less than 90 minutes from the area, neither of us have jobs, and the kids only go to school half a day. We'll never have a better opportunity to go out for the May 10th celebrations.
Derrick doesn't have school on Wednesday and it's an early out day for the twins. So we picked the girls up from school and drove straight out to Promentory. We were there right around noon. The reenactment ceremony was going on out back, but I knew that Derrick wouldn't like being around so many people so we had a picnic lunch in the front of the building.
We ate under the same tree that we'd eaten under when we came here two years ago with Brandon's parents in July of 2015 when Brandon was in SERE. Lydia remembered the tree and the "Juniper Berries" on it. But Charlotte didn't remember anything. But when we went inside the visitor center she saw the replica golden spike and yelled, "I remember this place!"
Derrick also seemed to remember the visitor center. He hurried around the corner and looked at the little diorama of the trains. He'd loved looking at this last time we were here.
We looked around the visitor center and then went outside. The reenactment ceremony was over and they were getting ready to demo the trains. There was a huge crowd of people, the train whistles were loud, and Derrick was not happy. Brandon finally put Derrick onto his shoulders to keep him from running away.
We were able to see the replica train engines driving on the tracks. Here's the 119.
Veronica wasn't so happy about everything either. She tried wandering off, but I put her on my shoulders.
We made our way over to the bleachers that were emptying, and watched the trains from there.
The trains were brought close together, just as they were in the iconic photographs from May 10. 1869.
After the trains stopped we could go up to see them. Brandon took Charlotte, Lydia, and Veronica while I stayed behind and worked to calm Derrick down.
Here's the inside of the cab of the 119.
It runs on coal. One of the workers let Veronica hold a piece of coal. She tried to eat it.
Meanwhile I was succeeding in cheering Derrick up. He still didn't want to get close to the trains, but he wasn't crying anymore.
Brandon came back from looking at the 119. I left Derrick with him so I could go see the Jupiter. Lydia came with me and Derrick followed.
He got really comfortable with the trains and even posed for this picture.
Lydia wanted to pose for a picture too.
And here's Charlotte who had run over to join us by this time.
Here's the cab of the Jupiter. This one ran on wood.
By this point Derrick was pretty happy to be here. We joked that he was fully acclimated. He wanted to pose for pictures with the 119.
And the Jupiter.
After that we headed back to the car. While Brandon had been waiting for me, some lady had randomly come up to Veronica and Charlotte and given them free backpacks. They were so excited. Lydia was super disappointed that she didn't get one too. I felt bad about that because Lydia had been looking at the train like she should have been while Charlotte and Veronica were being slightly grumpy. But they got the backpacks and she didn't. Brandon said not to worry about it. Karma would reward Lydia. And he ended up being right because we later found her a Tinkerbell backpack and lunchbag at Kid to Kid. So now the girls are all set backpack wise for next year.
We drove away from Promentory and made a little detour to the Rocket Garden outside of ATK.
The older kids wanted to look at the rockets, but Veronica just wanted to play in the shade of this tree.
The kids had a lot of fun playing in this section of the SRB (Side Rocket Booster) for the space shuttle.
Brandon had plans to go help his dad with a big project that evening so we had to get going. We got home around 4:00 and Brandon immediately hopped in the jeep to go pick his dad up from work. They were going to drive down the the family cabin in Sanpete County that night. Brandon's parents are trying to sell their cabin, and they discovered that one of the decks had colapsed this winter. So Brandon and his dad went down there to rebuild it.
Meanwhile I hung out with the kids. We had an easy dinner and then spent another glorious evening outside. Derrick loves blowing dandelion tops. He spent a lot of time in the front yard going from seed head to seed head.
On Thursday morning Veronica put her new backpack on and announced, "I have back pack, I go to school." This is the first time she's ever showed interest in school. When we dropped Derrick off at his class Veronica went in too. She wanted to play with the little kitchen they had. I told her that she had to be potty trained to go to school. She wasn't so happy about that.
Brandon usually goes grocery shopping with Veronica on Friday mornings while the other three kids are in school. But that wouldn't work this week, so I decided that we'd all go after school on Thursday. This was my first time taking all four kids grocery shopping by myself in almost a year. The kids were all really well behaved. And actually they helped me since I really haven't shopped at this store much. For example, Veronica ran to the milk aisle and opened the door and said, "we get blue milk!" I never would have figured out which milk we usually buy. Here we are celebrating the end of a successful shopping trip.
We'd bought everyone a bottle of bubbles so after the groceries were put away everyone went out on the front porch to play with bubbles. We also had otterpop popsicles. I loved sitting on the porch and just enjoying the beautiful day. It was nice that we didn't have to worry about humidity at all.
I had the kids come inside while I made dinner. Derrick had made sure we bought more batteries for his Thomas the train while we were at the store. We put those in his train and he built a track and a tunnel for Thomas. He's getting really good at putting those things together.
Then we went outside for more bubbles and more playing and more weather enjoying.
The next day was the twins Kindergarten Program. They have been working on this for weeks and were so excited to finally do it. Before we went to school in the morning Veronica had exclaimed, "I sit on potty, I go to school." Then she ran into the bathroom and used the toilet all by herself. This was the first time she's done that in months. (Usually I have to force her onto the toilet.) When we dropped Derrick off I let Veronica play with the kitchen in his classroom for about 5 minutes. I told Derrick's teachers that Veronica had used the potty so she could go to school. They totally got what a big deal that was and were just fine letting her play for a minute.
I should have asked them if Veronica could come and play in the room during the Kindergarten Program because I was pretty certain she was going to hate being in the gym while the kids sang. She hadn't like the Christmas Program at all. But I was kind of curious how well Veronica would handle everything if Derrick wasn't there. She has what we call Sympathy Autism because she mimics a lot of Derrick's behaviors. When Derrick is freaking out about a lot of noise Veronica will too. I haven't been able to figure out if Veronica really has sensory issues or if she just follows Derrick's lead. I figured the Kindergarten Program would be a good chance to see, so I brought her with me.
At first she didn't want to go into the gym at all. The only thing that got her in there was that Melanie and Justin were there to see Oakley. Veronica LOVES Melanie and Justin and so she wanted to sit by them. But she was still really scared. She did okay through the first part of the program, but I could tell she didn't like the clapping or the feedback on the microphone. By the 4th or 5th song she started crying. I took her to the back of the room, but she was still crying. I was trying to figure out if there was a way I could drop her off in the pre-school without Charlotte and Lydia noticing I'd left their program. Then the school's sherriff officer came over and gave Veronica a sucker and a sticker. That calmed her down enough to sit quietly on my lap. But she still seemed uncomfortable. I'm pretty certain she has some of her own sensory issues.
Anyway, let's talk about the Kindergarten Program itself. It was adorable. The school has two kindergarten classes. Lydia is in one and Charlotte and her cousin Oakley are in another. All three cousins sat by each other on the back row. They thought it was great that they were all together. The kids sang at least 20 songs about seasons, months, holidays, and things they've learned in school.
Brandon and Steve were still finishing things up at the cabin so they couldn't make it to the program. I told the girls that I would film most of it for Daddy to see. So mostly I have video of the program. But I did take a few pictures.
The girls helped with props during a song about mailing themselves to their grandparents. Lydia held up a picture of an icecream cone when they sang about getting ice cream from their grandparents. Charlotte brought her "Aunt Lindsey blanket" to use as a prop when they sang "tuck me into bed at night." They were so proud of their parts.
Here they are when it was all over. They'd done such a great job. They knew every word and action.
After the program we went to their classrooms. Lydia's teacher had put together a whole portfolio of things she'd done since she'd joined the class at the end of November. Lydia was proud to show me her work and the little seed pot she'd decorated for me.
Charlotte also had a seed in a pot and some pictures that she'd done that year.
I brought the girls home with me and we waited for Derrick to come home on the bus. (We figured we shouldn't mess up the highlight of his day by checking him out early.) The girls thought it was so fun to pick him up from the bus, usually they are still in school when he gets home.
We spent ANOTHER wonderful day out on the porch. This day was a little bit windier, but the house kept most of the wind off of us. At one point I looked out into the yard and saw a large box in the ditch. We brought it up onto the porch and the kids had so much fun playing with it.
I would shut them in the box and they would burst out. Later the girls pretended they were kittens and the box was their home. They would come out and want me to pet them. Veronica was a little feral and kept trying to scratch me.
Derrick went back to blowing bubbles.
Brandon and Steve came home while we were on the porch. They had completely dismantled the old deck, poured new concrete supports, and engineered a new deck. Here's a picture of their handiwork.
Brandon took a shower and then it was time for his next adventure. We were taking the RV out for a practice trip. Our anniversary is next week and we'd thought about maybe spending the night in a hotel. Then we were like, "Hey we have an RV. Let's stay in that!" So Steve and Jacque watched the kids and we took the RV out." The only campground near us that was open was the Anderson Cove campground on the other side of Pineview Reservoir. It was a little pricey at $24 a night and no hookups, but it was cheaper than a hotel. Right away we realized that camping with an RV is pretty awesome. Instead of working to set up a tent and get camp ready we could just park the RV and be done.
We went for a walk down to the beach.
This campground is where my stake went for my fourth year of girls camp. Brandon was very nice and listened to me tell him all my girls camp memories from this place.
There were lilac trees everywhere. I've missed these.
We sat on the beach and watched the sunset.
We talked about our memories from the last 10 years of marriage and about some of the things we want to accomplish in the future.
After the sun went down we went back to the RV and had some snacks I'd packed. Then we went to bed. We were both exhausted from the week and ended up sleeping in until 9:30. It was worth paying $24 just for that.
Brandon turned on the stove and made the first meal in the RV.
Egg sandwiches on bagels. They were so good!
We had a ton of stuff planned for the day so we didn't stay much longer.
When we arrived back home the kids were so happy to see us. I took a shower and then we went out on our next adventures.
Earlier in the week I'd been writing about the train museum in Temple, Texas. I read on their website about the plans for National Train Day that Saturday. I wondered if the Ogden train museum was doing anything for National Train Day so I looked it up. Turns out they were offering free admission. So of course we had to do that. Derrick had actually been carrying around a brochure for the Ogden Union Station the whole time we were at Golden Spike. He kept pointing to the pictures and saying go see train on Saturday. He was pretty happy when we finally got to see the train.
The museum was fun as always.
Brandon and I came here on a date when we were dating and we've loved it ever since.
It seems like we always end up with pictures of the kids in the caboose seats. I wanted one with me up there this time.
The kids always love the rail yard.
Veronica loved pretending to hammer spikes.
Brandon put the girls in this coal cart.
As always the best part was the model train layout.
It's so fun to watch the little trains drive around.
We spent a lot of time looking at them all.
Outside the kids were able to go on a little train ride for free.
And then we looked at the big trains.
I really liked how my hair looked with my jacket.
Derrick loved walking between the trains.
After that we ran a few errands, including picking up my mothers day present. Brandon was trying to keep it a secret and even had me go shopping at one store while he took the kids to another. But as soon as I got back into the car with the kids Derrick said, "go buy Present!" And Veronica said, "find Flowers!" So much for a surprise.
This post has gone on for way too long so I'll save the Mother's Day stuff for later. But basically I had a great day.
I'm so glad that this week could go so well. It's nice to feel like myself again.
