More Vacation Story...

Monday, August 1, 2011


Poor planning being what it is, I ended up scheduled for work tonight.  You know, clear down in South Jordan.  And I don't get OFF work until midnight.  Not so convenient for driving back up the canyon to join the family.  But, as luck would have it, Sydney's very first year of girls camp begins tomorrow morning.


So we woke up this morning, just kind of were lazy, and then we went to the grocery store to make sure that Lee and the other kids had food (since I was stranding them without a car for a whole day!)  After a little Mac-n-Cheese for lunch, Sydney and I headed for home with a car full of laundry.  We did some wash, grabbed some Subway for dinner (See?  Totally craving it...), and then I left her home while I dashed off to work.  She stayed up late in my room, finishing up some laundry (thanks, Syd!) and watching "The Little Mermaid".  After seeing the musical, she was excited to compare it to the movie!  Funny girl!

St. George to Kamas!

July 31, 2011


I woke up to a pretty quiet trailer...Only Tory was awake.  As I got up and walked past him in the teeny hallway of the trailer, he stops and and says, "Don't you want to say something to me?"  So obviously, I pretend not to remember it's finally his REAL birthday.  :D  (Sort of anti-climactic, but there you have it.  A few birthday hugs, and that's all you get!)


When everyone was up, we spent a few minutes throwing the bikes and chairs into the trailer to get ready to make the drive from St. George to Kamas.  We hit the road at about 11:30.  When we stopped in Nephi, we noticed that one of the sway bar clips had fallen off, causing the bar to come off the trailer and it kept dragging as we'd go over even little bumps.  UGH!  But Lee found a little cable and C-clamp in the trailer, and he rigged it brilliantly so we could make it to Kamas without any more trouble.  We had a REAL birthday dinner at Denny's, and got a piece of cheesecake for Tory to go, so we could sing to him in the trailer.


When we pulled into Kamas, it was pouring!  We had just gone from a temperature of 105, down to 59 in about 6 hours!  We left the kids in the dry, mud free car and Lee and I scrambled around in the rain and mud doing our best to get the trailer set up.  We were laughing so hard by the time we were done!  Then Lee ran back and forth from the car to the trailer 5 times bringing the kids in without wet feet.  We got inside, everyone got all snuggly, and we watched Karate Kid (the newer one!) before we went to bed.

Tory's Second Fake Birthday...

 July 30, 2011


Today was Tory's second fake birthday.  We met up at Cracker Barrel for breakfast at lunchtime.  It was super tasty, and Tory seriously made quite a haul...Spoiled little darling that he is!

(Socks...)

(And what goes better with SOCKS as a gift, than underwear...!
I told him he had to take it out of the bag...!)

(He has been wanting some of these super cool
"Zoo York" brand shirts for a whole year now!)

(Good thing Grandma and Grandpa are great listeners!)

(And the comfy shorts to go with them...!)

(The Richins bought him this pocket knife/pocket tool thing...So when I post about the missing fingers...Just kidding.  But you can tell...He's SO excited about it!)

(Another favorite shirt...)

(To go with his favorite skinny jeans...)

(I'm not REALLY sure...but I think he loves his new Vans...!)

(Opening his Kohl's gift card...which he used to buy ANOTHER "Zoo York" shirt...Seriously, he's as bad as my girls when it comes to clothes!)

 

(Spencer)

(Michael)

(Emma, Sydney, Megan, and Mia)

 
After breakfast, the Richins grabbed their swimming stuff from the hotel and came out to join us at the pool in the RV park where we were staying.  It was HOT...The kids had a great time swimming with cousins.  There was a big tube in the pool, and the game of the day was to climb up on it (it would hold about 3 kids at once) and then Grandpa and Dad would take turns just flipping it over and dunking whoever was on top.  Sweet.  The down side...Dad didn't put sunscreen on and left the pool today with a nasty sunburn.  Ouch.  It even blistered.  


After swimming, we loaded up and headed to The Pasta Factory for dinner.  We go there every year, and our kids love it because they are all spaghetti/fettuccine NUTS!  After dinner, we wandered over to the little grassy area they have just inside the little square there and took some pictures.  I love this one of Grandma and Grandpa with the kids!  (I had another one I hurried and snapped BEFORE they could each block their messy shirts with a kid...but I'm not going to post it.  :D  See how nice I am?)

(Grandma and Grandpa with the Richin and McAlister grandkids!
So sad the Wrights couldn't join us this year!)

(My cute family!)

 Some fun photos in the English phone booth...!

(Hey...Let's see if we can stuff our 9 kids in an old phone booth!
Why do my two older boys always look so angry...?)

(Hey...We got all nine kids.  What about 5 kids and 2 adults?  (And see Spencer?  I'm sending him to spend a couple of weeks with my cousin Stephanie.  Then he'll get used to having someone take pictures of him all the time, and maybe he'll forget to be SO mad every time I take my camera out!))

After we finished playing, we headed back to the trailer...by way of a Subway...Lee and I skipped the pasta (not my favorite!) and opted for this recent craving of ours.  I'm sure I'll be back to my normal cravings for greasy fast food soon, but a big old Turkey sub is just what I want lately!

More St. George...

Friday; July 29, 2011

Anna and her family were in St. George too, but they stayed in a hotel. We didn't get a chance to meet up with them the day before, but we all made plans to meet up at "St. George Live", a historical tour of St. George's pioneer history. People dressed up as characters, and then told how they contributed to the development of the city. (We even met Brigham Young!) We got to ride on teeny buses, and most of the buildings were air conditioned. We sat through a fake trial (Lee and Megan sat on the jury!) of another person on the tour. It was funny to watch the other man's face when the "judge" called him up front!

(There are Megan and Lee in the jury seats!)

(The unfortunate accused...)

(This is Michael with one of the Anna's girls, Mia. They were sitting at the St. George Live tour, holding hands...We sort of got a picture, but they noticed at the last minute and tore their hands apart!)

Then Grandma and Grandpa took off to do some shopping, and we went with the Richins to the Splash Pad to play. It was like an EXTREME splash pad...the had the little squirting fountains, but they also had a little river you could sit/stand/splash in. It was so much fun! (My older kids are getting a bit old for the splash pad...But they LOVED this river!)

(Here are all the little swimmers: Anna's girls, and my kids! (Top row: (l-r) Mia, Emma, Michael. Front row: (l-r) Tory, Aubry, Sydney, Megan, Brinkley, and Spencer) (Far right...Random girl we don't know...!))

After playing at the splash pad, we headed to this little sandwich shop for lunch, Twentyfive Main Cafe. (I hate paying a lot of money for sandwiches...!) But it was good food, and nice to sit and visit with Anna and Ryan while the kids ate and played (we ate outdoors, so we were able to let the kids sit together at their own table while we sat at ours!).

This was the night we had tickets to go to Tuacahn and see "The Little Mermaid", and the Richins were going early to a dinner at the theater before the show. We decided to go somewhere else to eat, and then meet up there later. We had happened upon "Pirate Island" last year, and thought we'd go there again. It is kind of like Chuck-E-Cheese, with games and pizza, but it's all pirate themed, with caverns and big ships built on the inside. We were excited to go...Last year, we didn't have a ton of time to play, so we left ourselves more time this year.

Um...They were closed...Like, out of business, closed! Bummer.

Change of plans...We stopped at "Pancho and Lefty's", a mexican joint down there, and as we were pulling in Lee's folks called to try to meet up with us. When I told them where we were, she said, "Don't get out of your car! You can't eat there!" Then she proceeded to tell us about the nasty cockroach infestation they had just a couple of months ago when she was there. (Bad enough that she called the health department on them when she got home...I think it's bad when the bugs are ON YOU while you are eating...!) O-kaaay...Panama Grill...They were open, AND no cockroaches! :D

We finished dinner early, and still had time to kill...so party animals that we are, we headed to...SMITHS! We wandered around for a while until it was time to head to the show.

I am constantly thrilled at the shows they put on at Tuacahn! I don't think I've seen one yet where I wasn't blown away by the talent and the production in general! But one of my favorite parts every year is getting there in time to see the little "pre-show" they put on before they seat everyone in the theater! This year, they had 3 of the Tuacahn performers put on a little show where they sang a whole bunch of Disney songs, and talked about how great it is to play using your imagination. They asked for a volunteer and my niece, Emma, was picked.

(This is Pirate Emma!)

(Helping Emma with her dance moves...)

Look...One portrait hole for each kid! :D After we took our picture, another woman and her two daughters were heading up to take theirs. She turns to me, "Could we borrow and Eric?" I asked Tory, "Wanna go be Eric in their picture?" and he says "Yeah, sure." So somewhere, some nice little family has a picture of our cute 10-year-old boy...!

(Here we are after the show with Sebastian! He was awesome! Most of my kids are here...Michael wandered off, and I ended up with my niece, Aubrey, instead...!)

My sweetie bought me the soundtrack to "The Little Mermaid", because I was telling him I didn't have it...The music is great, the characters fantastic. sigh. Can I go see it again? :D

We left Tuacahn at 11:30 at night...and our car thermometer was still reading 97 degrees...CRAZY!

It was a great Friday, and I love that my cute hubby, who really could go his whole life without seeing another play, indulges this love of mine. He goes with me to community theater productions I want to see, he's bought me season tickets to Hale (knowing he's coming with me...!), and he takes me down to St. George every year to sit in the heat and melt, just so I can soak up another show! He's a great man, and I love him SO much!!

St. George Trip, 2011

Thursday; July 28, 2011

I told you about Tory's fake birthday on Thursday the 28th...We enojed the Jell-O Cheesecake for breakfast and then headed to St. George. We decided to take the trailer this time instead of staying in a hotel, so we hauled that down there with us. Usually we light the gas pilot to cool off the fridge before we go, but we couldn't get it to light, so we had to wait until we plugged it in for it to START getting cold...And when it's 100 degrees outside, you really get wishing you had a nice cold beverage!

We went to the local WalMart and stocked up on the food stuffs. When we came back to the RV park, Lee decided to take of and go on a bike ride while the resot of us did some swimming. Spencer ran over and jumped in...in the deep end! He scared himself so bad (he thought it was the shallow end!) that he forgot he can swim and started panicking...but as I turned to jump in to him, Tory jumped, swam to him, and just sort of pushed him to the side of the pool where he could hold on. Yep...Tory's first water rescue! Sweet. The pool felt great, and we enjoyed the chance to swim with Grandma and Grandpa, who also brought their trailer down and were camping next to us.

Lee got back from his ride and joined us at the pool...He rode 6.6 miles...but in that heat, he swears it felt like 12! The pool felt REALLY good after that ride...!

First Day of School - 2011!!

Finally back to school! As previously disclosed, I cruelly forced all my darlings to go to Providence Hall, a great charter school in our area. Not only does that put all of them on the same schedule for the upcoming year, it also meant we didn't start school until almost SEPTEMBER! WOW...What a great, long summer we've had! (We tried hard not to dwell on the fact that once they go back, they're back. No 3-week "off track" breaks for any of them!)

The down sides: Really there are just two. (1) Leaving friends and (2) Uniforms!

Here they were this morning, uniforms on, lunches packed, and smiles on. We got one picture with Megan looking off into the distance, and one with Sydney's eyes closed. But here they are! (Should have taken it outside...the lighting would have been better!) I don't know about you, but I kinda LIKE the uniforms. I think they look great.

Sydney was SO nervous this morning! She kept telling me how scared she was to go to jr. high today. I'll have to let you all know how Day 1 went! (I asked the other kids if they were nervous...Spencer said, "Excited AND nervous!" and Tory said with a shrug, "Nah. S-just school." Megan just shook her head and grinned...Totally in her element: Making new best friends! She's great at it!)

Michael's first day of Kindergarten is next Tuesday. This week, he's just enjoying his last few days of "Stay-Home-Buddy" time.

I kinda miss them already...

Tory's 10th Birthday, Part One:

Tory's birthday is on July 31st. That means this year it fell on Sunday. The problem: We left 3 days before his birthday for our trip to St. George/Kamas. Normally, we'd have just packed up his stuff and celebrated his birthday ON his birthday, where ever we were. But this year, he wanted a new bike. Yep...That's hard to hide! It was give it early, or late...And late stinks! :D

So before we left for St. George, we celebrated Tory's Happy Pretend Birthday!

We opened his presents...

Sang "Happy Fake Birthday"...

And blew out candles on his Jello Cheesecake, which we all ate for breakfast!

Then we went outside and told all the kids to grab their bikes so we could put them in the trailer before we headed out. There, waiting in our bike rack, was Tory's last present:

Happy Birthday, Tory!