My Dad

My dad is 76 years old.  He decided to cut down this tree. Unfortunately, it did not go well. The last month has been chaos.  At first we believed that dad would be okay, with a few broken ribs to show for his time.  Then his spine injury started acting up and he was quickly moved to a Boise hospital.

He has since undergone surgery and a lot of physical therapy.  He has lost almost all muscle control from his waist down, and is slowly regaining some.  We have no idea how much control he will regain, or if he will be able to live independently, but he continues to make small, steady improvements. The hardest part of this process is the unknown.  Spinal injuries are all different, so we still don't know what the future will hold.

My sister and I drove up to my dad's home in Burns with five of our kids, to pick up a few things.  On the way we found a real, live phone booth!  The phone didn't work but there was the added bonus of an active wasp nest! We also bought some gas station fudge, in exchange for using the facilities. The fudge, and the needed facilities were worth it.

We collected dad's treasures, including this interesting piece of petrified wood.  We also forgot his hearing aid batteries. Thankfully, we were able to buy those locally.

On the way back we stopped at a gas station, in dire need of the facilities, again.  These guys entertained themselves, while other members of our party waited in line for said facilities.

We continue to hope and pray for my dad.  The improvement hasn't been great, but it has been steady.  He will soon be headed to a skilled nursing facility to continue his physical therapy.  He's hoping for a short stay.

We took on the Mormon capital of the world!

And we didn't even visit Temple Square.  That may make us bad Mormons.  I'm not sure but I think we will be forgiven.

Before we even made it into town we stopped and visited our dear friends Whitney and Spencer.  The kids ran around like little heathens. They enjoyed Ethan's longboard (which he brought all the way to Utah with us), explored the park and we spent some time catching up.  They offered us a bunny, we declined, and hit the road.  The kids kept suggesting we visit again; I think the bunny had something to do with it.  We managed to return to Boise without an extra bunny.  Little did we know our bunny would pass away a couple weeks later.  But I digress.

We checked into our AirBnB (which proved to be an awesome choice) and got up bright and early the next morning and headed to Lagoon.  We opened the park and stayed almost until closing.  We went on roller coasters, gondolas, log rides, and then some of us got super motion sick.  It was fun, but also the single most expensive part of our trip, and also the part the kids keep forgetting.

We couldn't pass up the photo opportunity of posing with a giant toilet.

The younger kids rode the carousel while Michael and Ethan rode the new roller coaster, Cannibal, TWICE!  I did a few of the roller coasters, but the very end of Colossus did me in and by this time I was hot and motion sick, so I opted to hang out with the less adventurous.

Michael would like it known he and Ethan rode every roller coaster, except Spider, because a car spinning in circles while coasting on rollers is "stupid".

Before we headed out for the evening we had to go on the giant Ferris wheel. The girls almost chickened out, but they made it.  And they loved it!

The boys did not share the same doubts.

The second day we headed to Hogle Zoo.  There were seals...

...elephants (real and statue), rhinos, and even a polar bear.

After two solid days of being outside and exploring, the kids were getting pretty tired.  I found Ethan teaching the zoo employee in the Tibetan Highlands area how to play Zilch (Farkle), with his younger siblings.  They sat happily like this for half an hour.  They were so happy to be where it was air conditioned and they could sit down, that not even the lure of elephants could pull them away. After the break, we decided to catch the bird show.

It was amazing.  Birds flew directly overhead, they performed tricks and stunts, and there was a fair amount of education thrown in.  At the end, you could give a donation to the zoo by handing it to the white cockatoo.  Of course all the kids had to donate.  It's a pretty clever way to increase their donations, if you ask me.

Our third day we went to the Museum of Natural Curiosity at Thanksgiving Point.  The bad news is our Discovery Center pass now only covers part of the admission.  After some vacillating, we paid the extra money and the kids started exploring.  Grace and Libby got blown away with gale-force winds.

Ethan built walls that toddlers helped him knock down. Of all the science museums we have gone to, this is our favorite.

Of course we had to feed the creepy koi fish. The way they swarm is the stuff of nightmares.

Our last full day in Salt Lake, we visited the library.  We are just those kind of people.  We happened to see these people outside the library.  From the photo they look like window washers, but they were actually dancing on the glass wall.  Books and crazy people?  Yep, we found heaven.

Early Saturday morning, we packed up our clothes, threw everything in the car and made one final stop on the way out of town.  We couldn't leave without stopping at IKEA.  I love how the furniture makes such great use of space.  I am proud to say I left IKEA only $50 over budget. After buying IKEA hotdogs for everyone, we loaded in the car, and made it home.  We had a great vacation, we are glad we went, but we were very glad to be home.