Sam's Birthday

Sam's birthday fell smack in the middle of our family reunion.  We asked if he was okay with celebrating when we got home.  He happily agreed.  While in Rexburg we did buy ice cream sandwiches for all the kids in honor of his birthday and gave him a mini drone.  The ice cream was devoured and the drone quickly broke.  Thankfully, we were able to return it to the local Walmart and get a Batman towel and a couple "squishies" as replacements.  Sam was very contented with his birthday.  A better drone came a few days later from Amazon.

Afton, my cousin, wanting to make sure we celebrated Sam's 8th birthday to her satisfaction, also bought a huge chocolate sheet cake she surprised him with after dinner.  Sam bashfully said, "I like seeing my name on a cake" and "Can we have my birthday at the reunion again?"  I guess I needn't have worried he would feel neglected on his birthday.

A couple days after we made it home, we celebrated with family.  At Sam's request, Libby made a hamburger cake.  It was enjoyed by all, except Sam, who almost never eats the delectable desserts prepared in his honor.

Sam can't have a birthday without superhero merchandise.  He's read almost all the superhero books in the library and can quote all the facts.  When we watch Marvel or DC movies, he is the resident expert and helps the rest of us understand what is happening.  I guess I'm just grateful he gets most of his information from books and not the movies.  It makes me feel like a slightly better mom.

He blew out all eight candles and now it is official.  My baby is eight years old.  He is so excited to be baptized soon.

Reunion

Every couple years my mom's family has a reunion.  This year it was in Rexburg, and although it was a smaller turnout than usual, we had excellent fun.

We loaded the van with all our kids, my mom, and all our stuff.  Michael was very proud of his packing job.  I am posting it here so everyone can marvel at its splendor. We shouldn't have bothered to bring any food.  The amount of delicious food served would make you jealous if I described it all. I will just let you imagine the weight gain.

My cousin's daughter, Afton, who has four kids of her own, became the official hairdresser.  My girls won't let me do anything beyond a simple braid, but for Afton they sat patiently while she conceived and executed elaborate styles:

Libby had this same mohawk braid two days in a row.  She loved it and insisted I watch how it was done, so we could recreate it. I have not tried it yet. I'm a little afraid.

Grace sported a different style everyday.  Everyone fell in love with her hair. They should just be grateful they don't have to brush and braid it every. Single. Morning.

We also got to enjoy some stunning sunsets.  This is the only thing I miss about living in Jordan Valley, OR.  I love sunsets over flatlands!

Just an awesome video Michael took of Libby's true talent.  We are proud, and highly amused.

We were planning on spending a day in Yellowstone, but the kids vetoed getting back in the car. Cousins also begged us not to go. We spent the extra day with our relations, swam in a man-made lake, and were happy.

We are looking forward to seeing everyone in 2020!

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.