Road Trip 2012

 

 Road trip 2012!  Usually I am having babies in the even numbered years and road trips happen in the odd years but since our family is complete and we had a birthday celebration to attend in Redding, CA we made a road trip out of it.

First stop on our trip was Crater Lake National Park.  This trip was heavy on the National Parks.  We ended up with 5 new stamps in our park passports!   I was hoping Bree would travel a bit better than she did last year on our Yellowstone trip, and in the end I can say she was much better, but that first stop we almost turned around.  Bree and Darcy were monsters to put it mildly.  Not only did they bug us, they disrupted the ranger's speech for about 75 others.  Gee thanks girls.  They were asleep when we took the sign picture so we didn't wake them, hoping they would be happy when they woke up but no go.

You can see Darcy's sour face and Bree wouldn't even look at the camera.  I have no idea how you can be so unhappy at such a gorgeous place but leave it to my girls to find a way.  But since Paul and I are road trippers we told the kids to suck it up and we moved on!

 Lassen National Park was our next stop.  Unfortunately it was too late in the season to be seeing the best of the parks we went to this trip.  All the snow was melted and waterfalls were dry.  I'm sure Lassen would have been impressive a month before.  We barely made it in to see the park because they had a huge fire burning in the north end of the park.  A few days after we were there we heard they shut down the roads we had taken to get in at the south end.  Good thing we hit this park early in our trip.  We got to see lots of fire engines and 2 helicopters with water to dump on the fire.  The smell of the smoke made me want to hop in my engine and head to the fire lines!  I loved that job!

Our next stop was in Dayton, NV to visit Paul's brother Roland and his family.  It was tons of fun getting the little cousins together.  There are 7 of them between the ages of 2 months and 8 years.  I have great memories of playing with Utah cousins every summer and I hope my kids can say the same about their Nevada cousins.

 Roland and Star took us to Sand Harbor Beach on Lake Tahoe for the day.  Absolutely gorgeous!  We swam, or floated, for four hours in the clear water and beautiful sunshine.  What a beautiful place.

 This is Maple, Drew, and Bree out on the lake.  That giraffe floatee was the hit of the day.  It was like pulling teeth to get one kid off so the next in line could take their turn.  As you can see from the pictures, Bree pretty much monopolized it.  Her screech was louder than the others I guess.

 Darcy was in heaven.  I thought she would be fried on the back of her legs but some how we managed to avoid sunburns the entire trip.  Pretty good when you consider we in California in August and swam at two different lakes all day.

Uncle Roland and Aunt Star both took turns paddling around the lake with the kids.  They loved it there.  Darcy still talks about seeing Uncle Roland which is quite a breakthrough for her since she usually steers clear of men.  After swimming at the lake we stayed at a casino in South Lake Tahoe on the Nevada side.  We ate breakfast the next morning at McDonalds on the California side!  We had a "minor" mishap as we were packing to leave and head south to Yosemite.  Let me back up.  We have had a trailer for the past 5 years that we wore out on all our trips.  We decided to sell it before it was worthless and since we didn't want to camp this trip in the 100 degree weather.  The trailer sold and Paul decided we needed a cargo carrier on the back of our Acadia.  He bought the carrier and worked very hard making the platform that would carry it.  Well, in Tahoe, the main weld decided to give way as Paul was packing it thankfully, and the whole thing fell off the car.  He was able to find a guy in town who could weld it for us and we were back on the road after about a 2.5 hour delay.  I thought all was lost but it turned out to be a minor hitch in our giddyap!

We arrived at Yosemite from the east and drove through all the way to the other side where our hotel was for the night.  On the way we saw amazing granite formations and got to walk up some granite hills.  I think they used the same granite in the roads because they would sparkle as the sun hit them.

 Like I said, we exited the park to the west that night and the road was a nightmare!  Never enter or exit on the west side!  There are no amenities at either western entrance for almost 2 hours.  We know, we took both trying to find the best route.  They were both awful and we were lucky we didn't have the trailer behind us.  It seems like such a famous place would have better accessibility.  We finally left the park the next day to the south which was probably the best road, though it put us much farther south than we wanted to be.  But it was worth it.

 This is El Capitan.  Standing at the bottom of it gave me the shivers and brought tears to my eyes.  I'm not sure why.  Its very imposing and just amazing.  We have been blessed as a family to see many of the beautiful sights in our country and they are just awe inspiring.

 The kids, on the other hand, were much happier looking at the ducks floating under the bridge.

 Yosemite Valley.  Amazing, beautiful, gorgeous place!

 We are at Glacier Point here, with Half Dome in the background and the valley down below Paul.  That was a beautiful view of the whole place.

 I think the kids liked Yosemite, though they didn't appreciate it as much as Yellowstone last year.  That park is more interactive and fun for kids with all the animals and the sulfur pools and geysers.  Paul and I would both rank Yosemite as one of our top 5 parks though, along with Yellowstone, Glacier, Grand Canyon, and I say Bryce Canyon.

Here is Mason being dwarfed my a giant Sequoia at the Mariposa Grove in the south end of the park.  These trees were huge!  I think they left an impression on the kids.

 San Fransisco was the next stop on our list.  I had been there twice before but never explored it like we did this time.  We stayed in Oakland so we got to cross the bay bridge a couple times,along with the Golden Gate bridge which you can see in the background of this picture.  We also saw the Oakland Temple where Paul's parents were married, and I made Paul drive around the University of California campus in Berkley.  We ate lunch at Crissy Beach and were able to watch the preliminaries of the America's Cup sailing race with Alcatraz in the background.  That was fun!  Well, for everyone but Darcy.  She had a seagull swipe her first sandwich and then a friendly dog grabbed her second!  Darcy will always remember San Francisco I guess.  We also drove down Lombard Street and up some very steep hills that we tried not to stop on or you might not get going up again.  We spent a little time on Pier 39 but were in a rush to get to AT&T Ballpark to catch the Braves /Giants game.  I was soooo excited when we decided to take the trip to realize the Braves would be in town the same time we were.  It was a really nice park and I think most of us had fun, no meltdowns by little girls anyway, but the Braves managed to lose.  Oh well, I had a good time anyway.

In-N-Out Burger.  My brother in law swears by it so we went there.  Twice.  The first time only Paul ate there and just got a regular burger.  The second time I was brave enough to try and we did some research into the secret world of In-N-Out and Paul ordered a 3x3 Animal style.  Look it up, its legit!  It was an OK hamburger but not good enough for me to vacation in Redding for (that's the location of the farthest north store).

The last stop on the trip was Redding for my Mother-In-Law's 70th birthday celebration at Whiskeytown Lake, near where she grew up.  It was hot!  And smokey from the near by wildfires, but we had a good time.  We swam, ate good food and good birthday cake, and visited with lots and lots of family we don't see very often.  Even Aunt Merrie and Sharron made it out from Michigan for the party!

 Darcy can be uninhibited at times I guess.  We hitched a ride on the boat Drew is sitting on in the next picture to a small island on the lake where some of the little bodies stripped naked to swim since their moms had already changed them into dry clothes for the evening.  Silly moms!  We're at a lake!  We had our own private nude beach!

We had an awesome trip this summer.  It was different, staying in hotels every night.  It was probably tough on the kids staying somewhere new each night instead of having the old familiar trailer to play and sleep in, but I did appreciate a clean room and the ability to shower every day!  Our trip next summer will take place during Paul's work sabbatical which gives us the option of being on the road for 2 months straight!  We are in the early stages of planning and I am already getting so excited!  Tune in next year at this time to see how that trip went!

5kFoamFest

 5kFoamFest was a blast!  I saw an advertisement in the local paper for it and knew I had to sign up.  The only problem was my racing partner was going to be out of town the weekend of the race.  I signed up anyway and had to do some heavy recruiting to find people to race with me.  Finally I convinced my sister Candace and my bro-in-law Shane (Samantha's husband) to join me.  Here we are looking clean and happy before the race began.

 Now when I say "race" I use that term lightly.  For some reason the organizers didn't have a very good flow set up so we kept getting stuck behind people on obstacles, waiting to take our turn.  It was nice to get a breather but it messed up any sort of rhythm.  And I don't think it was even timed, the whole point of this adventure was to have fun and get messy!  Here we are "racing" up the hill at the end of the race.  There was a bottleneck at the final obstacle so we didn't even attempt running it.  Well, we did, we just didn't get very far running ;)  Mason joined me at the very end.  I'm not sure he is very impressed with my crazy races.  He always just looks at me kind of funny, like I have lost my mind or something.

 Climbing the cargo net.  Its fine till you get to the top and have to get yourself over to the other side while looking 20 feet straight down.  Mission accomplished though.

 We thought we were such a mess here, before the last obstacle.  Ha!  Actually, we were a mess.  This was the result of taking an 80 foot slip-n-slide covered in foam face first.  With a big huge mud pit at the bottom.  That was hilariously fun.  I swear we were going about 60 mph!  I got my hand slipped under a cut in the plastic and some how my arm was pulled back out without breaking in half as I'm racing down the hill.  I have a HUGE ugly bruise on my left arm.  I seriously don't know how I didn't end up breaking it. 

 The final obstacle, a foam covered bouncy slide.  I got up from this and couldn't see a darn thing.  The guy with the towel kept telling my "I'm right in front of you." but I couldn't find him!  I must have looked like a real idiot!  Well, yah, just look at me.  Who in their right mind pays money to do this?!

Here we are in all our glory.  What a mess.  It was tons of fun though.  I would do it again if they could guarantee a better flow of the race.  I had so much fun racing with my family this time.  Maybe next year I will sign up early enough so Drew and Mason can compete in the 1 mile kids' race.  My racing for this summer is over now.  Jodi and I decided to skip the Warrior Dash since we already conquered that course last year ;)

Party Time!

 The beginning of July is party time for our family.  We usually have a big 4th of July party and then my birthday is on the 6th.  Darcy's is two days later on the 8th so we hae an excuse to party for about a week straight!  This year was no exception, except for spending the 4th at home, but we still partied for it!  On my birthday we went to my parents house, swam at the outdoor swimming park, Paul and I actually went to dinner - just the two of us - while the kids ate tacos at Aunt Sammy's house, and then we all had a slumber party at her house with Darcy's favorite cousin Ruqayyah!  It was quite a busy day!  And of course we had lots and lots of my favorite dessert, Angel Delight!

 Saturday morning we made it over to grandpa's for his famous pancakes!  YUUUMMM!  Just look at all those happy faces!

 We stayed at my parents' and played in the water and had a bar-b-que.  Mason was loving playing with his BOY cousins!  He is rarely in the company of so many guys to play with.

 Sunday was Darcy's birthday!  Happy birthday Miss 4 year old!  She talked about having a horsey cake since she turned 3 so I put together a horse head with cupcakes.  She wanted a pink horse so she got a pink horse!  She was a happy girl!  She did very well being the center of attention.  I wasn't sure how it would go but it was surprisingly smooth.  Her cousins were there to help her celebrate so that made it all the better!

Grandma and Grandpa found her a pink horse to go along with the gifts from us which were a pink body pillow (all the rage at our house right now), a Cat in the Hat board game, a "Brave" doll which looks just like Darce, and some nail polish and chapsticks to keep her looking gorgeous!  She had a great day with all her family around loving her.  What a special girl my Darcy is!  Some of her favorites right now are:

Color - red and yellow
Food - little noodles (Kraft mac and cheese)
Animal - horse
TV Show - Blue's Clues
Thing to do - play on the trampoline

Happy birthday to my sweet, sweet Darcy!

4th of July

 We love 4th of July!  Well, most of us do.  Mason goes crazy for it but Drew doesn't appreciate it all that much.  Sparklers are fine, the loud fireworks aren't.  I thinks she would be fine skipping the holiday all together.  Mason on the other hand went crazy all day waiting for the fire works.  We only did a few in our street but they were fun.  For the past few years we have been at my parents' for a huge family bash but since the 4th was on a Wednesday this year we spent a "quiet" holiday at home.

 Bree was fearless with the fire.  We will have to keep our eyes on this girl as she gets older and bolder!

 I think Mason had fun ;)

 Darcy was brave enough to hold two at once!

Waiting for dad to start the show!

Great Urban Race

We did it!  My crazy racing buddy and I competed in the Great Urban Race as our race of choice for the summer of 2012.  I think we both agreed this race was much more grueling than the Warrior Dash was last year.  The WD only took and hour.  We were constantly pounding the pavement for 4 hours and 16 minutes for this race.  We finished EXHAUSTED!  But it was awesome!  We had so much fun!  Jodi was amazing with directions and I was outstandingly testy because I was starving.  I'm so lucky she puts up with me.  I thought we worked together well and had tons of fun.  Amazing Race here we come!  We also had some great help from Paul, who was our phone-a-friend.  We put his Googling prowess to work many times to help us figure out our clues.

So the way it worked was they handed us a sheet of 12 clues and we had to figure them out and figure out where each clue was sending us.  Once at the location there were things to do and we had to get pictures of us or fliers at all places as proof we were there.  We delivered some paper products to the Ronald McDonald House, did some yoga at another spot, had a homeless guy take our picture jumping in front of a big 'ol elephant statue in the Park Blocks (whatever that means), Jodi did some math with Paul's help on car stuff (read her blog for better info on that, I kinda stayed away from that one), and I ate a scorpion.  Yes!  I ate a scorpion!  We walked into a tatoo parlor and I was worried we had to get a tatoo.  Nah, just eat a scorpion.  Jodi immediately started backing up when she heard so I ate it instead.  It tasted like crunchy wheat bread.  Now in real life I would NEVER eat a scorpion but when you are in the racing mode pretty much anything goes.  I guess.

We also walked on hot coals at the Convention Center.  It was Jodi's turn to complete the task but I wanted to try it too.  You couldn't feel a thing as you crossed them.  Pretty cool!  We both did well with that one I think. 

From there we went down to Union Station, not at all the best part of town, to catch the MAX back across the river.  While we waited we were accosted by a homeless guy.  What fun!  He thought he gave us some advice that he should be compensated for, whether by money or by other favors (ask Jodi), and he was getting pretty scary before a nice group of women rescued Jodi from him.  I am soooo not a city girl!  I think we scream "country bumpkins" (no offense Jodi) just by looking at us.  That was not at all a comfortable place for us. 

We ended up completing 11 of the 12 clues, which was all that was required.  We wanted to do all 12 but we could not find the darn culinary school and we were running out of time so we finished without it.  I had an awesome time, it would be a fun race to run again because the clues will be totally different next year so its always something new.  I would prepare a little better by studying maps of the vicinity more but I was proud of us and the fact that we finshed 107th, with at least 50 teams behind us.  Go us!

Swimming Lessons x 3

A few months ago Drew was at a birthday party at the pool.  She slid down the small slide they have in the shallow end and she promptly started to flail and sink.  The lifguard had to throw her the floaty thing and told her she couldn't use the slide again.  She was, needless to say, totally embarrassed in front of her friends who all seemed to know how to swim.  I promptly signed her and Mason up for swimming lessons starting the next Tuesday!  They had 1 session of lessons 2 summers ago but I insist on having kids who know how to handle themselves in the water so this just pushed me into getting them started again.  I had plans for 2 straight sessions with Drew and Mason, 1 session for Darcy, and then the free week of lessons for all 3.

 The first day of lessons was oh, so dramatic!  Bree cried at the top of her lungs the entire 30 minutes, trying to pull her shirt and pants off so she could swim too.  Mason was loving being in the water, not sure he was listening to anything his teacher said, and Drew was probably just as unhappy as Bree.  For some reason Drew's butt doesn't naturally float to the top.  It wants to sink and pull her under.  I could see the frustration on her face and she let all of us have it when we got in the car.  She was a wreck!  Drew isn't used to failing at things, she can usually conquer pretty much anything we put in front of her, but this was obviously different.  Swimming wasn't coming easy to her and she was extremely frustrated.  That night I said a prayer with her to help her in this situation.  On Thursday she was raring to go!  She got in that pool and was determined to conquer it.  She somehow trained her booty to float in the water and she took off from there.  It was fun to watch that intense look of determination on her face as she listened to everything her teacher said and tried her darndest to swim.  What an example of determination she is to me!  When all was said and done she was able to move up a level and she is more than capable of keeping herself from drowning if left alone in the water.  I think she even had fun!  Way to go Drew!  I am so proud of you and your fighting spirit!

 Mason, on the other hand, seems to have some natural swimming ability.  He just doesn't have the drive Drew does to improve and move up levels.  That doesn't mean much to him I guess.   He had a great time seeing how long he could hold his breath under water, even when his teacher was talking to him.  Nice, Mase.  The only thing holding him back from moving up a level was the transition from front float to back float.  I mentioned that to him during the free lessons and he said oh, and proceeded to do it perfectly.  Grrrr, that kid can frustrate me.  Maybe I'm just jealous of his happy-go-lucky personality!?  He can totally take care of himself in the water now too.  Yeah!

Darcy was up and down, depending on the day.  She didn't like doing "Blobs" (bobs) but other than that I thought she did OK.  If she started to cry I just let the teacher and her work it out on their own without stepping in.  Sorry teachers!  I wasn't really looking for Darcy to learn how to swim, just be comfortable in the water.  I think she was.  I was also trying to gage how she might react when she is left with a teacher and mom isn't in the picture, like she will be in 2 short months when school starts.  The jury is still out on that, hopefully she will be fine but that will be a one day at a time thing too. 

All in all it was a great experience for me to get a front row seat to watch my kids' very different personalities manifest themselves in the swimming pool.  I think we are done with lessons for the summer but who knows, we may get bored and sign up for another go-round.  But it will have to be when Bree and I can swim too because I think it would be too much for her to have to sit there and watch the big kids swim again without her!

Last Hurrah

 Memorial Day Weekend we took our trailer out for the last time.  For the next 2 summers we have plans that don't include hauling a trailer around so we figured now is a good time to try to sell it.  We went to Honeyman State Park, just south of Florence for our last trip with the trailer.  We met up with Paul's mom, sister, and 2 nephews in the cold rain of the Oregon coast in May.  The kids had fun playing with cousins, roasting marshmallows, visiting with Grandma, playing in the tide pools and discovering star fish and anenomies, and living in the trialer one last time.  Can you tell I am a bit sentimental about letting the trailer go?  I admit I didn't see the need for a trailer when Paul approached me about it 5 years ago, but we have been on many adventures that wouldn't have been possible without it.  I'm going to miss it!  We all are, the kids don't like to hear we are selling it, especially Darcy.

 Our camp.

 Helping dad start the fire.  Bree was right in the thick of things for the first time.  Last year I kept her in the trailer with me since she was so small.  There was no containing her this time.  She wanted to be a big kid!

 Darcy was adventurous and went pretty far out on the rocks with me.

 We are looking at a purple startfish on the side of the rock.  Cool!

 Dad took Bree and Darcy cave exploring while mom took Drew and Mason even farther out on the rocks where we were rewarded with 17 star fish all stuck to the same rock.  Pretty cool!

 It was FREEZING, I wore 4 layers of coats and sweatshirts but for kids it is never too cold to get your feet wet at the beach.

 Or your entire lower body, as Bree decided as she sat in a pool.

Grandma was so cold she tied on one of the towels she brought for the grandkids just to keep warm.