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.

More Swim Stuff

We are now two weeks into swim team, so a quarter of the way through.  Grace is still on the team and is working on her endurance.

Ethan is still working on diving and Libby is working on making forever besties with the girls in her lane.

Libby has also broken out in a chlorine rash that covers her legs, keeping her out of the pool for the last two days.  Ethan has also had various (mostly not made-up) ailments that have kept him from practicing the last two days, including a horribly sore mouth from his cavity repair.  Sam is not swimming, yet, which is a blessing as he is currently curled up on my bed clutching a puke bowl.  Grace has managed to swim every day except for today, when I deemed it too complicated to get her to swim practice.  She was not the least bit heartbroken.

We also survived our first swim meet earlier in the week. There were three teams competing, instead of the usual two.  There weren't enough parent volunteers, and the entire meet lacked organization, which meant that we were there for over five hours.  Five hours to watch two kids swim in four events each (Grace chose not to compete this time).  At least the kids all have friends there and when that failed Sam always found ways to entertain himself.

We will survive!  Next year, if I talk about signing my kids up for swim team, I would like someone to lovingly break my arm with a baseball bat so I cannot use the computer, thus making it nearly impossible to sign them up.

McCall, For A Few Hours

Michael had to make a quick trip to McCall for work.  He had to do less than an hour's worth of work.  We decided to make a quick trip and take the kids along.

We managed to cram several McCall staples into a couple of short hours.

We have to take the traditional picture on the bear statue. I will continue to make my children do this until they have kids of their own.

We also checked on the civilian corps memorial.  Grace and Sam tried to steal "Bob's" ax.

Libby fell in love with "Bob".  We named him Bob, so that Libby would have a name for her boyfriend.

                                              

Sam is practicing his future creeper skills. The joys of having siblings.

Libby objects to the notion that Ethan likes her boyfriend.  This is not something she can foresee happening.

We, of course, stopped at Ice Cream Alley.  I made the strategic mistake of letting the kids all order single scoops, instead of kid cones.  Michael ate the rest of Grace's.  Sam "saved" his.  I cleaned it out of the cooler the next day.  Soured ice cream is very appetizing first thing in the morning.

We even stopped for cinnamon rolls at The Pancake House. In the interest of not puking, we ordered them to go, and saved them for breakfast the next morning.  These things are huge.  We ordered three, and even half of one, per person, is too much.  Too much buttery, cinnamonny, sugary goodness.

Hard Summer

Summer vacation finally has arrived.  The family has been looking forward to long, lazy days, sleeping in, and a break from the stress of the school year.

Instead I signed up all my kids for swim team.  It’s been rough as they swim hourly starting at 7:30 in the morning, every weekday morning, for the next two months.  We have slowly been adjusting to the schedule but this morning we found out Sam has been cut from the swim team (I swear he could swim better last year) and Grace is on the verge of being cut, partly due to how she is dealing with her anxiety.  In full disclosure I also cried when they told me this, in full sight of a lot of my swim and homeschool friends.  Crying in public always makes me feel awesome.  Grace and Sam have also shed a lot of tears, mostly in private, but not exclusively, and we are only on day four.  I’m almost hoping they cut Grace, so we can just move on, to be honest.

I have a couple garden plots in the community garden next to the pool I planned on working on this summer while the kids swam.  Now I’m not sure how long I’m going to be there each day, or if I’m going to just be sending the big kids on their own.  My plot has also been getting completely over-watered, so my plants are sad and in some cases dead.  It’s all starting to feel a bit hopeless, especially when looking at the neighbors' thriving plots.  My mind chooses to ignore the plots that have been planted but have gone completely to weed already.

Ethan, meanwhile, was hoping to find some sort of employment this summer, so he filled out an application for Sonic.  He was surprised and pleased to get a call setting up an interview (he did say he was under sixteen on the application).  At the appointed time, he brushed his hair, got dressed up and headed down for the interview.  He returned home fifteen minutes later.  He was informed he was too young and was not granted an interview.  He was understandably frustrated, as Sonic had that information before they even called for an interview.

To add to his misery Ethan also found out he has a mouthful of cavities, so he has been spending part of his summer in the dentist chair.

We are only on day four of the summer and we are on the verge of giving up.  Everything seems to be falling apart and our stress levels are intense.  Libby wants to quit swim team as an act of solidarity with her siblings, although it will achieve nothing.  Ethan hates swim team but doesn’t want to quit (no, I don’t understand either).  I’m out more money than I like to admit for Grace and Sam’s registration fees, which I am too tired to fight to get back, not to mention swimsuits, goggles, and swim caps.  Ethan can’t find a job, and Libby is feeding off everyone’s stress.  I really hope we get better at having a nice summer break this year, or we are aren’t even going to be able to get out of bed by the time school rolls around again.

**Also, I am writing this in a word processor and hoping to eventually post it to my blog, because our internet has completely died and I really don’t have the energy to call our internet providers.  Crying at random people is an experience I can only do once a day.

*** It took three days, but we have internet again.  I had a nice talk with Grace's swim coach about how her anxiety was being compounded by a couple older girls who were trying to help, but really making the whole situation worse.  The next day at swim practice Grace was left completely alone (which she needs when she is stressed), and she swam well enough to stay on the team, at least for now.  Also, her coach is a lovely person who deals with anxiety herself.  And I didn't cry.  So that's all good news.  Sam was able to switch to swim lessons, for no extra charge. Ethan still does not have a job but it pretty resigned to waiting until he is older.  The next week of summer vacation may be manageable after all.  And thank you to my wonderful and kind husband who spent time on the phone with technical support and arranged to have a technician come out and fix our internet.