Busy Saturday

Saturday was such a busy day.  It was good that we had Friday to recuperate (and when I say recuperate, I mean do the laundry) from our vacation because we got in to the full swing of activity on Saturday.  Amy mowed the lawn.  Kind of a funny story related to that.  Chris approached the girls with, "I've got a job for you if you want to earn some money."  Amy called dibs and then found out it was mowing the lawn.  "Ohhh."  Still, she realized after coming home from vacation that her financial coffers were amazingly low; Chris helped her get the lawn mower started up for the first time of the season, and she was off.  Our lawn is still mostly brown with a few little spots of green grass trying to poke through, so the first run through was incredibly dusty and dirty.

Priority number one was to hook up the trailer in order to get mulch.  With the trailer good to go, our first stop was Home Depot to purchase bagged garden soil to replenish our garden boxes and..lumber.  We are going to build some new garden boxes in the bottom corner of our yard.  Last year, we tried planting there and it was just too wet as that is where all the yard run-off goes.  I couldn't even get zucchini to grow!

We returned to the house with the soil and lumber after realizing that the garden material store a mile from our house was closed to the public on Saturday.  Bummer.  Off to Longmont we go, though we happily found a new place on the outskirts by the old sugar mills.  Lucky since we ended up making a second trip once the first load didn't quite cover all the beds in the yard.  Chris and I dug up our pine tree in the front yard to situate it better.  Its root ball was beginning to come to the surface.  Here's hoping we did more good than harm by digging up all the nasty clay/dirt, replacing it with better soil, and settling the root ball back underground.

In the middle of this, an lawn aeration guy stopped by and asked if we wanted to have our lawn aerated.  Since we do it every Spring, and he already had the equipment, which saved us from having to rent an aerator, we said, "Sure."  Chris had to stop and locate a few sprinkler heads for him to avoid.  Once the tree was done, the girls and I started unloading the mulch from the trailer.  I had them "fluff" the existing mulch so that the new bunch would blend in better.  Amy and Misha were excellent workers.  Kristen...not so much.

And while we were doing this, our friend Adam arrived to add more insulation to our attic.  Good thing the girls and I were keeping busy because Chris then had to help Adam get setup in the attic access in our bedroom.  Chris covered all of his clothes in our closet with drop cloths and had to move all of mine on to the bed to be out of the way.

We finished unloading the first load of mulch.  Chris and Amy headed back for a second load while Misha and I got started on the garden boxes in the backyard.  Each year we have to string off one-foot squares to accommodate our "square-foot gardening" plan.  Genius!  Genius would be figuring out how to block it off in an easier fashion.  Misha was mostly only sticking around to help burn the ends of string so they wouldn't fray.  Whatever keeps them helping.  I planted peas and was happy to see my volunteer onions growing.

When Chris returned with the mulch, I took over the garden work, and Misha returned to the front yard to help.  It was getting late in the afternoon and Chris finished up work so that he could get ready to go the Priesthood Session for General Conference.  All of a sudden I hear yelling.  I figured it had to do with Adam in our attic, but I wasn't too alarmed.  Unfortunately I should have been.  The hose transporting the insulation to the attic had burst and insulation was now flying all over our closet and bedroom.  Chris grabbed his garage vac and spent the next hour and a half cleaning up the fluffy mess.  He missed his meeting.  Chris took pictures of the insulation in the attic.  He missed the opportunity of taking one of our insulated bedroom.

Such a long day and somehow in all of this my house became a disaster zone.  I just wanted to have a shower, but I couldn't until the bedroom was put back together and Adam left.  It was one of those days of major accomplishment.  Now to have the grass green up so that our yard actually looks good.  Here's one of the mulched front beds with a tree that is soon to be minus one large lower limb.

Oh the Fun We Had...Day 7

We looked forward to a vacation for so long, had a great time while away, and all of a sudden it was time to go home...but, oh, the fun we had.  We love to explore new places together.  Uhhhh, let me rephrase that, Chris and I love to explore new places together; our daughters are game if a swimming pool is involved.  They hiked some pretty heavy-duty trails on this adventure; they earned their pool time.   Funny thing though, after spending nine hours by the pool yesterday, they weren't interested at all in going to the pool on Thursday morning while Chris worked and before we checked out.  If you can believe this, we all slept in.

Chris had a phone meeting Thursday morning.  Because of that, we didn't make it out for breakfast until 10:30 am our time.  We drove to a nearby Village Inn--not quite the buffet of yesterday, but the food was good.  Chris worked after returning to the hotel while I packed things up.  I'm pretty sure the dirty clothes were taking over.  Once I was finished, I took my camera and ventured around the resort taking pictures and enjoying the 80 plus weather.  The grass was green, flowers were blooming, and trees were covered in leaves.  I knew Colorado wasn't close to this stage of Spring, so I enjoyed the beautiful morning.



I was on my way back to our room when I came upon Amy and Kristen.  Kristen had made a little book of pictures for her Great Grandma and wanted to find staples at the front desk to bind it all together.  They had declined my previous offer of posing for pictures, but now that they were out of the room, they were happy to oblige.

 We checked out the gift shop and found this great hat.

Chris was just finishing up work as we returned to the room, and we quickly loaded up our rental.  We drove about 30 minutes to the Outlet Mall at Anthem and spent a couple of hours shopping.  Chris met up with one of his co-workers who brought him a nice little surprise (an iPad 3), and later he had a little fun at the Bose outlet store.  My purchases were nowhere near as exciting, in fact, mine were all for the girls.

We had a quick, late lunch from Subway and then started back toward Mesa to meet up with Chris' Great Grandma.  She's a witty, eighty-eight year old lady who's still sharp as a tack.  We enjoyed the beautiful afternoon in the courtyard of her apartment building.  Chris brought ice cream from DQ and I showed her some of the downloaded pictures from our vacation.  It got really funny when the girls took pictures of Grandma on the iPad and then started morphing the pictures.  When Grandma saw the pictures she laughed at the crazy faces the girls had made.  Pretty funny.  Misha showed her the Starwalk app on her iPod which totally amazed Grandma.  I'm sure she could be savvy with technology if given the opportunity.

We arrived a little later than planned at Bev and Quentin W's, but felt it important to spend as much time with Grandma as possible without wearing her out too much.  As we were driving over to Gilbert, we saw a small car with "Cheese and Princess" in big letters on the rear window.  Obviously they loved their aliases.  Kristen remarked, "I would not eat a Princess with Cheese!  Who does that?"  Silly kid.  After a few mishaps reading a map (that was all me), we finally arrived at W's home.  Just in time for dinner.  We ordered dinner for the adults from....Pita Jungle and pizza for the kids from Pizza Hut.  No complaints from anyone.

Our trip was coming to an end.  We had a late flight out of  Phoenix at 11 pm our time (9:55 pm local).  Good thing the girls had a couple of days to recover.  We said our goodbyes to the W's and were on our way.  We made good time to the airport after gassing up and had plenty of time after dropping off the rental car, riding the bus back to the airport, and checking in.  It was a full flight with twenty plus young men from a baseball team filling many of the seats.  Luckily we sat far enough back in the plane that they didn't bother us.  All of the girls slept.  Misha sat in the middle and then stretched out on Chris and I while we also dozed a bit, and Kristen and Amy slept on each other in the seats in front of us.  We had a near miss with Misha and her drink as she flailed around a bit.  No sense saving it for her.

As we arrived in Denver, Chris sped ahead of us in order to retrieve our car, but we caught up to him as he boarded the train to the terminal.  Unfortunately, Amy was the only able to get on the train before the doors slid shut.  Kristen had a horror-stricken look on her face as she felt we were being left behind and immediately started crying.  It was well after midnight and beyond any point of reasoning.  As we stood waiting for the train to come back, she started dancing around.  I asked her if she could wait, but knew it would just be crazy to make her try and hold it.  I told Misha to stay by the train, but not to get on if it came while we were gone and rushed Kristen to the bathroom.  Luckily, we made it back in plenty of time to board the train together.  It was packed and even more so when a pregnant lady and her husband pushed their way on.  I braced myself with my feet, hung on to my girls, and we were off.

As we exited the train, Amy was waiting for us in the terminal.  Chris had gone to get the car.  With the time it took for us to get to the terminal, our baggage was arriving on the carousels as we came up.  One, two, three, four, five, six bags, and a car seat.  It was pretty slick.  We took the elevator up to the sixth floor where Chris picked us up.  The girls slept all the way home and quickly found their way to their own beds.  Oh the fun we had....

Oh the Fun We Had... Day 6

900th Post!

Chris and I hiked this morning.  When given the option, all of our girls declined.  Boooo.  We hiked North Mountain.  We've hiked South Mountain before because it is close to Chris' Dad's home.  "North" was rather benign to begin with, at least that's what we thought.  Perhaps we were only just leading up to the base of the mountain before it got nasty.  Seriously, I had to stop before we even made it to the top because my heart was trying to beat right out of my chest, and I felt as though I could throw up.  It was steep.  We turned around and made our way all the way down the paved path.  I believe there were some spots where the incline was at least 30%--my treadmill only increases to 15%.  We reached the bottom, crossed the road, and had to climb another hill to get back up to our room.  Great workout.

We ate breakfast at the Pointe in Tyme restaurant.  We were given four free vouchers upon check-in and then they comped Kristen's breakfast.  Not too shabby since we all had the breakfast buffet.  Chris had driven the rental car down to the restaurant so he could leave for work immediately after breakfast.  The girls and I went back to the room to prepare for a day at the pool.  

We had reserved cabana #3 which included padded loungers, a table and chairs, a fridge, a phone, six water bottles, and a tv.  It was nice to have a shady spot to spend the day and keep an eye on Kristen.  I took my iPad with me and finished a book and periodically ventured out to take pictures.  The girls had a fabulous time swimming all day.  We weren't supposed to bring our own food in, but we had left-over pizza and Pita Jungle food that we didn't want to waste.  We ordered nachos and Icees from the Cascades Cafe throughout the day.  Even though Amy applied sunscreen, her cheeks started to pink up by the afternoon.  So nice for her to lay down and sleep for about an hour and a half.

Kristen's swimming was much improved throughout the day.  Amy and Misha were kind enough to swim with her for a lot of the day which helped to enhance Kristen's skills.  One time I overheard Misha say to Kristen, "Don't tell me what you can't do, tell me what you can do!"  Hmmm, do you think she's heard that before?  For those times when Amy and Misha went to the other pool, Kristen made friends with other little girls.  Two of them were twins--Grace and Charlotte.  They were four and adored Kristen.  After awhile, Kristen grew tired of them following her around and came back to the cabana to watch tv for awhile.  They followed.  At least she wasn't lonely.

Our friend, Bev W., and her kids joined us at the pool after her kids got out of school.  Chris finished work and met us by the pool as well.  We had the cabana until 6 pm and made full use of it throughout the entire day.  My girls were sooooooo tired from a day of swimming--and probably two shades darker.  They much prefer swimming over hiking any day.

We left the pool around 6:15 pm and returned with Bev and her five kids to our room to change and get ready for dinner.  We decided on Chipotle.  I think Bev was glad to have Chris and I along.  Her baby had missed a nap and was tired and hungry, and trying to juggle him with four others required more than her two hands.  Chris and I were happy to help.  Our kids are pretty self-sufficient in a restaurant, though we remember those days when eating cold food was the norm.  She finally boxed up her food and planned to eat it at home.  We returned to our hotel and Bev headed home, with plans to meet up again on Thursday at their house before we left for the airport.

The girls were soooo tired--in a happy way--and quickly drifted off to sleep.

Oh the Fun We Had...Day 5

No hiking.

Did you hear my girls singing the "Hallelujah" chorus?

We left St. George after breakfast on Tuesday morning for Las Vegas and then off to Arizona.  Chris had to work for the rest of the week and needed to be in Phoenix for part of the time.  We were just lucky to tag along.  We dropped the van off at the rental car return in Vegas, hopped the bus to the airport, and made our way to our gate after checking in.  Kristen was slowed down a little as she tried to take in all of the limos at the airport pick up area.  I had to scoot her along.  Our flight was rather short and after another bus ride to the rental car center to pick up a Rav 4, we were on our way.

Misha at the airport in Vegas.

Our first stop after leaving the airport was Arizona Mills mall for lunch at the Rainforest Cafe with Grandpa and Grandma Kline.  It was a rather noisy place, I don't think I would opt to visit again.  We enjoyed a quick lunch with the grands and tried on some crazy head wear.

After lunch, we were on our way to the hotel.  We were staying in the North Phoenix area close to Chris' work and checked in at the Pointe Hilton Tapatio Cliffs Resort.  Such a lovely place completely built in to the side of the mountain.  Chris checked us in while the girls and I waited and then we made our way to our room.  The roads throughout the resort were curvy and up hill and down hill and narrow.  We finally found our building with a parking spot right out front.

For the first time on this vacation, Chris and I were not sharing the same room with our daughters.  Misha said, "You have such a lovely room, I wonder where we are going to sleep?"  Luckily they had a pull out couch in the living area and we used cushions to make Kristen her own sleeping area in the dining room.

Chris worked for part of the afternoon while Misha vegged on the couch watching "How to Train Your Dragon".  Amy and Kristen checked out the grounds, and I unpacked.  I would have really loved to have a washer and dryer in our room, but no such luck.  The dirty laundry was multiplying like rabbits.  It was nice just to have a little quiet time though.  After Chris finished working, we headed down to the swimming area for a little refreshment.  The temperature was in the 80s.

Kristen hadn't swam much since last summer and was a little tentative in her swimming, but she was excited to jump in and get moving.  She quickly improved.  Amy and Misha took off to explore the pool, testing the slide along the way.  We all ended up in the hot tub.  Ahhhhhhhhh!  Delightful.

Again, the girls were happy to veg at the hotel.  Chris and I went off in search of a Little Caesar's Pizza and returned with their dinner.  Amy was kind enough to babysit while Chris and I headed for a Tuesday-night date.  We went to his new favorite restaurant in Phoenix and now one of my favorites--Pita Jungle.  I ordered a chicken wrap made on Lavosh bread.  It was huge.  I ate half of it plus some hummus and pita and was completely stuffed.  Loved the food, hated that feeling.

We returned to our hotel to find Misha zonked in her bed (good thing we made the pull out bed before we left) and Kristen pretending to be asleep in our bed.  One great thing to wearing your kids out on vacation is that there are no complaints when we say that it is bed time.  We had to call down for extra blankets, which seemed to take forever to arrive.  Once they were dropped off, we made up Kristen's bed and turned the lights out.

Oh the Fun We Had...Day 4

Having hiked pretty intense hikes the two days prior, our children were NOT happy about the prospect of hiking on Monday morning.  Not happy at all.  We started them out right with a hearty breakfast.  We have now made a rule that Fruit Loops are not a good breakfast food and will certainly not sustain you through a hike.  Call me a Fruit Loop hater if you will, but they are worthless as a breakfast food.

We have learned that if you give Kristen a notebook and crayons, she will occupy herself for hours coloring and making up stories.  She had only brought a few sheets of paper on vacation, so we stopped at Target Monday morning to get Kristen a notebook.  While checking out, Chris was in line with the girls waiting to pay.  Ahead of him, a young student was buying supplies and came up short.  Chris stepped in, surprising both the student and the cashier and offered to pay.  As he walked out the door, I caught up with him and he said, "I don't know if the girls noticed what just happened..." and went on to explain what he had just done.

So when I had the chance later, I asked each one separately if they had noticed what happened at the check stand.  All of my daughters said, "Dad paid for the person's purchase."  They noticed.  And it just reinforced what a wonderful man their dad was.

We brought along snacks and the remainder of our lunch from Sunday and headed out.  We made a quick detour to Tuacahn, but didn't see much from just driving up to the entrance.  We were impressed that there was a Performing Arts High School on site though.  We continued on to Snow Canyon for another FUN day of hiking.  Amy was so thrilled about the prospect that she stayed in the car for our first hike to see the pioneer names on the mountainside.  She was a tad bit grumpy.  I will admit that in the shade, it was rather chilly with the wind blowing through the canyon.  We bundled up, saw the pioneer names, and then quickly headed toward the sunshiney side of the canyon.  We opted for the Hidden Pinyon trail and set off.  Funny, again, how my kids complain about being in nature and as soon as they get there they are finding cool things to explore and huge rock formations to climb on.  Come on, kids, we're not gonna make life boring.

We followed the Hidden Pinyon trail to where it took an offshoot to the Hidden Pinyon Overlook.  Amazing.  I can just imagine coming up over the hill as a pioneer after traveling for days and weeks through scrub and boring scenery to see Snow Canyon.  It would have been beautiful.  It was beautiful.  We climbed on rocks, trudged through the sandy trail (the only part I didn't like about the hike.  I had a half a cup of sand in my shoes and socks when I was finished) and enjoyed the awesome rock formations.  We finally reached the overlook and rested a bit.  The girls' "resting" meant more climbing and exploring--it meant more picture-taking for me.

Chris and the girls set off on a hike up.  I am not a big fan of heights--it's the getting down part that I really don't care for.  Apparently Kristen isn't a big fan of heights either.  Chris said she was a trooper.  We planned to meet up at the petrified sand dunes.  I arrived a lot sooner than they did climbing on the lower rocks but finally heard them coming.  We were pooped and it was lunch time. 

We drove toward the sand dunes and found picnic tables for a quick lunch similar to Sunday's.  It was just the right amount of food.  The girls were anxious to be off to the dunes.  What they didn't seem to realize was that walking in sand was ten times harder than hiking.  We spent about an hour at the dunes, returned to our car trying to remove as much sand from all kinds of parts, and drove back to St. George.

The St. George temple was our next stop.  We enjoyed the beautiful grounds with green grass.  The trees were already blossoming and flowers were abounding.  Spring was here.  After the temple, we found Brigham Young's house and took a tour.  Learned some interesting things about his last days.  He was almost 280 lbs and spent nearly 85% of his time on the upper floor of his home because he couldn't navigate the stairs on his own.  He died shortly after the completion of the temple.  My girls learned about chamber pots and were happy to live in the 21st century when they weren't required to empty said chamber pots as a daily chore--and clean them out by hand.  Nasty.

We jumped back ahead to 2012 and found "Krave", a serve-yourself frozen yogurt shop.  We've never spent so much money on frozen yogurt before, but when you have the option to fill your container yourself, some got a little out of control.   It was yummy.

We took the girls back to the hotel and they were content to relax and watch tv.  Chris and I were happy to oblige and have a little alone time ourselves.  We drove around St. George and decided that we really liked this city--maybe when we are ready to retire.

I was very happy to see a Brick Oven franchise in St. George.  It was my favorite restaurant in Provo.  We obviously had to have dinner there on Monday night which then necessitated that Chris and I take a walk after dinner.  Follow that up with another trip to the hot tub and pool and I think this day was called complete.

Oh the Fun We Had...Day 3

Sunday.  I was up early.  It usually takes me the longest to get showered and apply my makeup (though I think Amy is starting to rival me).  However, we didn't wake Amy and Kristen up until 7:30.  They could have slept a lot longer.  We ate breakfast at the hotel where English was not the language of the day.  Another interesting people story.  As we were leaving the hotel on Saturday, an older couple was arriving and we held two doors for them as they hauled all of their luggage inside.  As we left Sunday morning hauling all of our luggage back out to the van, we encountered this couple twice.  First at the elevator where they opted to take the stairs instead which were by our exit doors.  We reached the doors before they did and they just stood and watched as we tried to get our luggage out the two sets of doors.  Interesting.

We planned to drive back to Zion National Park and attend church in Springdale just outside the park at 10:50 am.  Amy had missed the Young Women General Broadcast the night before, so Chris downloaded the talks on to his iPod and we listened as we drove.  It was great for all of us to hear the messages given; I think my girls will always remember the talk about getting their "shiney" on.  We paused the broadcast at various points to talk to our girls about different concepts and how it is possible to be away from church, driving, and still feel the spirit of Sunday.

We passed through a lot of towns...dumpy towns.  In one such town, Kristen quietly remarked of a house, "THAT is a dirty house."  The yard was unkempt and full of junk, garbage and all kinds of stuff.  We passed a state trooper parked at the entrance to one town on our way up to Bryce.  "He" was sitting in an old GMC Jimmy, that's why we took note of it.  On our return trip to Zion, the Jimmy was parked in the same spot with what looked to be a mannequin sitting in the front seat.  Effective, as we watched the cars behind us slow down.  And I loved Misha's comment as we neared the national park again, "Amy, we're in Zion."

We arrived at church just in time for Sacrament Meeting.  It was fascinating as we watched a tiny salamander climb up and down the curtains at the front of the chapel.  We headed back in to the park to a picnic area for lunch where we also changed in to our hiking clothes.  We had rolls, lunch meat, apples, carrots, cheese, Capri Suns, licorice, and Oreos.  We hadn't brought a cooler, but with the ice and water in the hydration packs, it worked perfectly to keep everything chilled.  Favorite picture of Misha for the day.

We started our day with a very short jaunt up to the Court of the Patriarchs overlook:

Named for three towering figures of the Old Testament, these sandstone cliffs hold court over Birch Creek Canyon and this section of the Virgin River.  In 1916 Frederick Vining Fisher, a Methodist Minister, gave the religious names to the peaks.  Today it is not hard to imagine how the grandeur of this view could inspire such reverence.

The peaks are named Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (left to right).  I wish the sky had been blue for greater contrast, but it was overcast for most of the day.  Perfect for hiking.

Before starting out on the Emerald Pools Trail (we hiked to the Lower, Middle, and Upper Pools) we made a pit stop at the Lodge. Our kids may not like the idea of hiking, but once we get going, they have a lot of fun exploring and climbing on rocks and forget that they are actually exercising. I don't know how far we ended up hiking, but it was a beautiful day and we just had a great time together.

I love the look of laughter on Kristen's face above and sweet sisters below.

Stunning, huh?

These two had hiked on ahead of us and perched themselves up on a huge boulder.  Kristen was happy to be the first.  It was a popular place to take pictures.  We had to coax our girls down after the crazy photo so others could have a turn.

Hand rail at Lower Emerald Pools.  Incidentally, this is the same type of hand rail that you'll find on your ascent to Angels Landing.  I have hiked it before and know what it is like to get to the top.  I will not allow my girls on that hike for many years to come.

On our way back to the car.  We passed four deer on the other side of the bridge, nonchalantly eating without a worry for all the tourists passing by.

We had planned to hike more via Riverside Walk, but you know, we were all tired and Chris made a happy decision to turn back and let the girls practice skipping rocks by the river.  No one was disappointed to miss out on the hike.

Misha wore this same pink-striped jacket that Kristen is wearing the last time we were in Zion National Park.

We left the park around 5:30 pm and drove back to St. George.  We opted for dinner at Olive Garden--a family favorite.  We happily realized that our hotel was just a short block away.  Chris left me to pay the bill and went over to check-in a the Marriott Towne Place.  By the time we were finished, he was already back. It was a small room with an even smaller bathroom area.  Fun two nights ahead.  We took the girls down to the heated pool and hot tub for a little relaxing time.  The hot tub was delightful for me, but the girls jumped back and forth between the hot tub and the much cooler pool.

After returning, we all settled down to rest.  That is kind of hard to do when you don't want to go to sleep as early as your children.  They were so tired, they fell asleep as Chris and I watched "The Blind Side" on tv.  We, however, did not even make it all the way through before nodding off.  Such a fun day.