Kreitzer Kids

A New Tradition...probably not!

2011-12-13T10:57:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure we ever bought a Christmas tree when I was a kid. We would just head out on the property and look for a tree and then drag it back home. We usually ended up with a Red Cedar, not my favorite because it was so prickly. But, I remember the process fondly. So, this year, despite some objections from the rest of my family, I loaded us up into the car to go cut down our own tree.

About 5 minutes into the process, we were not finding anything reasonable left in the field, so the boys were frustrated and done. Rachel had, unfortunately, worn her brand new Converse shoes, and it was pretty muddy. She just couldn't let it go and felt very upset that they were getting dirty. At this point, I considered leaving to head to church to just grab one there. But, we headed to another field that was much more full of trees. It was hard to find one the right size, but we eventually found this one, even though it was a little shorter than we would have preferred.

So, we got to work cutting it down. The boys were very excited to help. But, it was muddy on the ground, the tree was prickly, and it was hard to saw. So, Alex and Zack gave up after less than a minute. Matthew, though, kept trying. He wasn't making much progress, but at the very least, he gave us a break. It turns out that trunk size is an important consideration for deciding on a tree. Ours was quite large, so it was a challenge. I think we have a particularly hardy tree, though, because the man straightening the bottom with a chainsaw was having some trouble, as well.

Dave creating a Survivor-like challenge - who can stand the longest on the stump on one foot.

Finally, we got the tree down. Matthew got the honors of trying to cut the remaining edge. And, then, he and Alex helped Dave carry the tree back to the car.

Afterwards, we let the kids play on all the extras they have there. They rode the slides, jumped on the air pillow, did the bamboo maze, played tetherball, etc. It was all fun - until Rachel jumped as Zack got in front of her smacking his mouth on a large tire. His mouth was bleeding and his tooth was loose. A couple pulls and out came that tooth. Zack, in classic Zack fashion, was milking his injury for as much attention as possible. He was upset, Rachel was lamenting her dirty shoes, Matthew was starving, my camera wasn't working, and I was wondering why I thought was a good idea. To make matters worse, when we got home, the large trunk did not fit into our tree stand. I had to go to 3 stores before I could find one to fit. Next year, I think we'll just head to the church.

All said and done, though, it is our Christmas tree. We decorated it last night and it looks good - a little bogged down with ornaments. And, after some more frustrating minutes with my camera, I was able to figure out what was wrong with it. Not many pictures from the evening, but I love this one of my new-smile Zack

Catching Up

2011-10-18T09:42:00.000-07:00

I've been a slacker on this blog, but I had a few random good photos from the last few months that I wanted to share.

First, Neil and Martina and family came in early August. It was a quick visit, but we enjoyed spending as much time with them as possible. The girls all went out shopping the Crawl - a 30+ mile strip of yard sales along Route 11. It was a pretty unsuccessful trip for us, but Rachel did talk me into our own chocolate fountain. It proved a very yummy and messy purchase.

Here, little Drew (who spent the entire week he was here telling me, "I don't love you" completely unprompted) enjoyed my purchase. I don't think it helped to endear me to him, though.

My kids really enjoyed their time with their cousins. Alex always has a good time with Jonathan. We took him for a couple days while Rachel remained at Gramma and Paka's house to visit with Ashley.

Beautiful girls - Josie, Ashley and Rachel

First Day of School

This is a big year for Matthew - Kindergarten. I think he was excited. I know that academically he is ready. I was a little worried about his ability to sit still and obey the rules of the classroom. To make it even more difficult, he has his two buddies in his class. While they are best friends, he is definitely the leader of the group - usually getting them all in trouble. After a couple months, he has managed to not get into too much trouble, so I guess he's adjusting.

Trip to DC

As summer was ending, I was feeling guilty that I had not taken the kids to DC. We live so close, but I just take advantage enough. One of the biggest problems with DC is that some of the attractions require tickets, so you need to plan ahead. I just never do that. Once again, my kids want to go up into the Washington Monument and there are no tickets available. It would have been a good day to go because the earthquake happened the day after and no one is allowed in for the time being until they fix it. But, we still enjoyed a few of the exhibits at the Natural History Museum and walked to the WWII monument. The kids really wanted to see the Lincoln Memorial, but it is just a little too far to walk. The trip was similar to previous ones - a little fun, a lot of logistics, some attitude, and leftover feeling of wondering why I try to do this. Maybe next time...

The attitude begins to show....

Riding bikes in a Hurricane? Only my children. They had a good time, though. You cannot appreciate how hard it was raining in the picture, but it is pouring here.

The Heritage 5K

Dave was running the half marathon with Tara. I saw that the 5K had awards for 9 and Under, so I knew that Alex should run it to get a chance to place. I thought they had a mile for the younger kids. But, it turned out that the mile was on the day before. When I told the kids, they were very disappointed and said that they wanted to run the 5K, too. I told them they were going to need to run with Daddy to see how far it really is. I kind of joked with Dave that he should drop the car off at the shop and run home with the kids. I guess he thought that was a good idea, and so off they went. I was worried because there was no way to turn around if the boys gave up. As it was getting dark, I got nervous. So, Rachel and I got in the car and went looking for them. I couldn't find them and was really getting worried as we passed our house to go on another loop. They were almost home! It was amazing - 32 minutes or so for just over a 5K.

I planned to run with Zack and Matthew in the race so that I could help keep them going slow at the beginning and help make sure they stayed on track through the whole race. I was very worried because I had not run much. But, I figured that I would be fine. How hard can it be to keep up with a 5-year old in a 3-mile race? As we started, Zack took off with Alex. I tried to call him back, but he didn't want to run with me. Matthew stayed with me a little bit, but within 1/2 mile, he was gone. He had weaved in and out of people, and I just didn't feel that I could do that. I figured I would just stay slow and catch up to them when they got tired and slacked off. As we approached the turnaround, I saw all 3 of the boys in age order. It was fun to give them a high five and some encouragement. I saw that they were doing well and pretty far ahead. So, I picked it up a little. But, I could not even get them in my sights. The finish of the race was around the track at the high school. As I approached the track, I thought I might get to see the boys finish, but no, they were all 3 done and cheering for me.

I was so impressed with them for pushing themselves through the whole race. Alex finished in 26:12 with definite room to improve if he can better pace himself. Zack finished in 27:20 and Matthew 27:41. This placed them 1st, 3rd, and 4th in the 9 and Under. Matthew was the only 5 year old in the race. They are already excited about the next race! Me, with a 29:04 time, I'll be happy to video tape next time. Or, maybe I'll train so I can beat my 5-year old. It might be the only chance I will ever have to beat him.

Tara finished the half marathon, as Dave cheers her on. Both Tara and Dave did well.

A new house?

2011-10-07T15:35:00.000-07:00

Not quite a new house, but it's beginning to feel a lot better. We have FINALLY gotten our carpets replaced. They were super disgusting, but I hated to idea of spending money to replace them if the kids were just going to mess them up again. But, it had to be done. We figured we go ahead and replace the floor in the powder room as well. And, if we're pulling up that floor, we might as well tackle the whole bathroom. So, that was my project for the last few weeks. It was a lot of work but the end result is beautiful. Unfortunately, I don't have before pictures. I always forget those, but here are the final results.

Hardwood in the foyer and on the steps...

Laminate all upstairs...

Finally, I have no idea where this came from. I got back from taking Alex to soccer practice, and Matthew had written me a card. He was upset that he couldn't spell "very much". He was so cute, and he is definitely not the kid that writes me little notes. So, I had to capture it!

A tribute to Matthew

2011-08-30T06:41:00.000-07:00

My sister-in-law, Alice, wrote this wonderful tribute to our "baby". He just started Kindergarten without even looking back. I think she really sums up what makes Matthew so wonderful. If you're interested in what makes him exasperating, you probably just need to watch the blog for some of my stories.

http://frodoseven.blogspot.com/2011/08/celebrate-good-times-special-award.html

Alice comments on his attempt to skate. This video below is of him skating the very next time that I took him to the rink. Still wobbly, but he can stay on his feet.

Haircuts

2011-08-18T18:29:00.000-07:00

So, we decided to boycott haircuts over the summer. The boys wanted to grow their hair long, and school requires them to have short hair. So, they had a couple months to grow it. Alex's was really driving me crazy, though. It was in his eyes, covering his ears and a complete mess every day. I did decide that I liked it on the long side. But, with school just over a week away, we needed to get their school hair cuts. I made the mistake of going to a new place, a Hair Cuttery that was along our route of errands today (rather than going to our normal Hair Cuttery). I was very disappointed. I asked them to keep their hair on the long side. I'm not sure Matthew's could be much shorter without giving him a crew cut. Alex's cut required me to pull out the clippers and scissors to fix it when we got home - never a good sign. Zack's was OK, although I would have liked it a little longer. Oh well. The great thing about hair is that it grows back.

Pranking gone wild

2011-08-10T20:29:00.000-07:00

In celebration of Zack and Grace's birthdays, we had a surprise party in the pool. Grace and Zack were thrown in while still in their jammies (with much resistance from Zack). Brendan then got his Uncle Dave and knocked him in the pool as well. Dave told him he would get him back, and I guess Dave and Chris were working on a plan to get Brendan. They finally decided on a plate full of shaving cream. Unfortunately, Dave took the opportunity to smash it in Brendan's face without than giving us warning to turn on the video camera. It was pretty funny, though. And, Brendan took it like a champ. As we were preparing to take a picture of the two of them together, Alice gave Brendan the plate to hold. He snatched the opportunity to smash it in Dave's face. Again, no video camera. Then, Brendan got Madeleine (not sure what she had done to deserve that), and he tried unsuccessfully to get Chris. I have to say that I was impressed with the way they all handled the fun. It definitely provided us a lot of laughs!

Spinning girl

2011-08-10T12:01:00.000-07:00

Here is my very talented niece. This is 5-year old Lauren, Tara's daughter. She apparently watched a friend hula hoop and then practiced herself to get this good. We were all quite impressed.

Retribution

2011-07-09T17:10:00.000-07:00

My sister-in-law, Alice, has been giving me a lot of grief lately for the lack of new entries on the Kreitzer Kids blog. So, for her...

A few moments later...

Ahhhh, retribution!

The Madness Begins

2011-06-14T11:38:00.000-07:00

Saturday was time trials for the swim team. We definitely wanted our kids to do swim team to get water safe. I never learned to swim strokes, and I wish that I were more confident in the water. So, it is a requirement that the kids swim for a little while. Rachel is not a big fan (despite being one of the best girls her age on our team), so I had promised her that last year was the last year she had to do it. But, as the season approached, I wanted her to really think about it. First off, she has some natural talent for it. Second, she's going to be at the meets anyway. But, she wanted none of it. Until, on the first day of practice, Dave had the kids at the pool. Matthew fell on the way to his "tryout" for the real team. To get him in the pool, Dave promised him a treat if he would try hard. Rachel claimed this was unfair because she didn't have a way to earn a treat. So, Dave said that she could earn treats for the entire family if she joined the team. Apparently, that's all it took. Who knew? She had regrets the next day, though, as she headed to her first practice. Ha ha ha - she's committed now.

Saturday was the beginning of this craziness of the summer. We tend to get into swim team, but it takes every day of the week, except Sunday. But, we like it. Last year, the kids started off time trials very strong and struggled to meet those times the rest of the season. I'm hoping the reverse will be true this season.

Matthew had the very first swim of the day. I was worried a little about it. I thought he might be nervous about jumping in the pool. When I went up to him to wish him luck as he was sitting in the chair , he turned to me and said, "I can beat them." I cracked up and knew that I no longer had to worry. He is competitive and will fight hard for what he wants. As it turned out, he came in the middle of the two 5-year olds on our team in Freestyle. He was not happy! But, I'm hoping that just sparks him to try harder. I see big successes in his future.

Grumpy after coming in 2nd on his freestyle

Zack has a little work to do. I told him it's good to throw time trials so he can set himself up to win his heats during the actual meets. We're hoping that he will get legal in breaststroke and/or butterfly this year. As a 6 and under, he will get plenty of ribbons and awards. But, his team is hurting for 8 and under boys, so he has the potential to score for the team this year if he can get a little bit faster or legal in the hard strokes.

Goggle face

Alex definitely has some swimming talent. He did very well, even though he moved up to swimming 50's as a 9 year old. I wasn't sure how he would do right out the blocks, but he did great. He told me early in the meet that breaststroke was his stroke. I don't know where he got that. He has done it well, but his form needed a little work last year. I told him that I thought he had a pretty stroke in freestyle and his butterfly was good, too. But, he insisted that breaststroke was his stroke. Well, he was at least right that he is doing well in that stroke. He surprised me with a much longer stroke this year, and it looked beautiful. There are plenty of 10-year olds on the team that will score ahead of him, but he should do well this year.

Intense, as always

Rachel did unexpectedly well last year at time trials and the first meet in backstroke. She swam a great race - super straight with beautifully extended arms. She was then always seeded in the top heat and had a hard time swimming that fast. She has such long arms and legs and feet that she can look really pretty when she swims. I think that she could do really well if she worked on all the little things that make good swimmers into great swimmers. She did well at the meet. She was really nervous about having to do a 50m butterfly. I don't blame her. That stroke is hard. But, she went out and fought through that thing without DQing. I was proud of her because she did not want to do it, but she did well. I'm hoping that more than doing well this year, she can learn to enjoy it. I hope she can find a couple friends on the team that help her want to come to practice and the meets.

I'm going to apologize up front for the number of swim pictures I'll post over the next few weeks. It really does take over our lives.

Trip Summary

2011-06-10T07:41:00.001-07:00

OK, I have been a slacker on blogging. Adjusting to regular life was a challenge. We came back to ridiculously hot temperatures, flower beds that were out of control, a filthy car, an empty refrigerator, swim team, end of school madness, etc. And, Dave and I are trying to get the most out of his last few days of freedom. We've had a couple dates, played a little tennis, and did some minor projects. I'm pretty much just not worrying about getting back on track until Dave goes back to work and school ends. Then, we can get back to some kind of normalcy. Right now, I'm just taking it day by day and trying to enjoy things without worrying about tomorrow.

But, that means very little gets done, including the blog. All 3 of the older kids did a presentation in class about their trip. Rachel needed to talk about science and social studies so the teachers could grade in those subjects. Alex and Zack just needed to do something informative. We spent all weekend working on these projects. I had the kids put together some charts and numbers about our trip for the class. These are all interesting, so I'll share here.

First, the map of where we went...

Here are some slides from the presentations:

This slides shows which states we spent the night in. We just counted that way for an easy way to figure it out. We hit Ohio both on the way out and the way in. It was definitely one of the favorite states - a visit with good friends and Cedar Point. How can you go wrong?

We kept track of where we ate everywhere along the trip. I counted sandwiches in the car at the National Parks as homemade, even though it hardly seems homemade since we bought it in the morning and then threw them together standing beside the car. But, that seemed the best category. I think it kind of threw off our statistics, though.

Of the fast food places we ate at, here are the ones that we ate at more than once. McDonald's was a big winner due both to it's prevalence and it's breakfast variety. Chick-fil-A was affected by the lack of restaurants nationwide. We searched for one often, only to be disappointed. I really looked forward to eating out on this trip, but I have to say that so many times we were forced to eat somewhere sub-par only because there were no other choices.

Based on asking the whole family, I would say the top places were Ape Cave, Cedar Point, and the parks in Utah. People ask me, but I can't really pick. I loved it all. It was full of so many different things to do. If you ever get the chance, I totally recommend this kind of trip.

Ramblings by Jes, Part 6 - The Kids

2011-05-31T06:30:00.000-07:00

So many things I could say about the kids. I had hoped that having all this togetherness would help fix some of the negative behaviors of the kids. I don't really think it worked. Even though I am well aware that consistency is the key to getting the behaviors you want from kids, it is hard to have some consistency on a trip like this. We had tried a couple punishment techniques early on and finally settled on video game restrictions (or restrictments as Matthew said) in the car. The kids would get 10 minutes for each infraction, unless we deemed it worth more. They did not have free access to games or movies in the car, so their restrictions would start when playtime was allowed. That worked pretty well, although, if they were next to someone without restriction, they would just watch whatever that person was doing.

One of the great things about a trip like this is the lack to chores. There is no lawn to take care of, no dishes to do, no meals to cook, no animals to feed, no dog poop to pick up, but the kids still managed to complain about the small tasks that we asked them to do. Every morning, we needed to pack up our clothes and our sleeping bags, if we used them. We needed to wash and fill the water bottles that I had bought (great purchase, by the way) with ice and water. And, then we needed to carry the stuff to the car. Real difficult stuff! Whines all around, most mornings. It really drove us crazy.

But, I have to say that the kids were very good overall. They were great in the car. They could watch movies or play for hours, if necessary. And, they were good even when we were listening to a book on tape. When we headed into a national park or city, we would require the kids to turn everything off to look around. This usually got some objections, but then they were fine.

They were amazing about hiking. I can't believe how well they did. Occasionally, we would get a little whine about hiking from Matthew, but we'd just tell him we were just walking. Then, he would be fine and head off to lead the pack. There were times when we were hiking a lot, but no one really complained. I was impressed with the kids over and over.

They also never complained about food. Buying the water bottles and filling them every morning really allowed us to always have cold, fresh water in the car. This saved us a lot of money in buying water, and it kept the kids hydrated and from complaining about being thirsty. But, I didn't do a good job of buying snacks for the car. So, we all had to wait until we could find a place to eat. But, the kids just never complained. It was amazing to me because at home we get lots of complaints about hunger. But, it made the trip much better than it could have been.

I think that the kids really enjoyed all these adventures. There were moments when Alex would walk up to me and put his hand in mine. I know that those days are probably short-lived, so I was cherishing every chance I got to walk hand-in-hand with him. Rachel, too. She and Dave have a great relationship, and they had many opportunities on this trip to head off together to check out something. I know it makes her feel special and as much of that as possible at this stage of her life must be good.

Stay tuned for Dave's post on Cedar Point and the final update with all statistics about our trip.

America's Rockin' Roller Coast

2011-05-30T19:55:00.000-07:00

Jes asked me (Dave) to guest blog about our day at Cedar Point. Before I get to that, I wanted to comment on something that happened earlier in our trip. We were driving along U.S. 195 through eastern Washington on a beautiful sunny day. I got pulled over for speeding (shame, shame). Fortunately for us, the nice lady police officer seemed more interested in our license plates than the fact that I was doing 72 mph in a 60 mph zone.

She lamented the fact that Washington was too politically correct to allow such a plate, she asked us whether we were a Catholic home schooling family, and she said that we were brave to be doing the cross country trip in a minivan. (Apparently, she is planning a similar trip but is planning to rent an RV.) She let me off with a warning in spite of Matthew urging her to write me a ticket. I credit the license plates, though I'm sure the 4 kids in the back of the van helped.

Back to the regularly scheduled blog post ...

Cedar Point was truly the perfect exclamation point for our trip. It has a scenic location on the shore of Lake Erie in Sandusky, Ohio and is aptly called the roller coaster capital of the world. About the only thing that could have improved upon the day was for Matthew to have been about an inch taller in order to make him eligible for the slew of rides with a 48" height requirement.

We got up bright and early, had a quick breakfast of zone bars and fruit snacks, and were at the park gate before 9am. Because we were staying at a Cedar Point resort hotel, we got to enter the park an hour before the general public. We raced around in order to ride as many rides as possible while the lines were short. When Jes and I were at Cedar Point in 1996, we waited over an hour to ride the Raptor, an inverted coaster with 6 loops. This time, we rode it twice in 10 minutes. Running around frantically in order to do as many rides as possible was one theme of the day. Rachel managed to squeeze in about 30 of the best rides the park had to offer. Matthew rode 40-50 since he was riding smaller rides with shorter lines. We squeezed in two quick meals but were otherwise on the go from 9am to 10pm, often running from ride to ride. We did have a couple casualities from the frantic pace. When racing to get in one last ride before 10pm, Alex banged his mouth on a steel railing and split his lip. We also ended up sacrificing the traditional end-of-the-day funnel cake treat in favor of a few extra rides.

The other theme was brave kids. I guess after risking life and limb on the edge of 300' cliffs, the tallest and fastest roller coasters in the world were not so intimidating. Zack was initially pretty nervous and even spent a restless night tossing and turning worrying about riding the Magnum, a great coaster that Jes and I talked up in advance. But after seeing the biggest hill of the Magnum, a 200' drop that accelerates riders to 72mph, he exclaimed, "I was worrying about that?!?". By the end of the day he had ridden the Millenium Force twice. That coaster features an 80 degree 310' drop and reaches speeds of up to 93 mph. It was also voted the best steel coaster in the world, something he likes to tell people when talking about the trip. Alex and Rachel rode the Top Thrill Dragster twice. This coaster was intense enough to even make Jes and me nervous. It launches riders from 0 to 120 mph in 4 seconds before climbing 420' at a 90 degree angle and then descending an equally steep drop. Check out the point-of-view video. It is a pretty amazing ride.

http://www.cedarpoint.com/public/park/rides/coasters/top_thrill_dragster/

The other point-of-view videos on the site are worth watching too if you are a roller coaster fan.

The Iron Dragon was the biggest coaster that Matthew could ride. He rode it 6 times.

"See, I'm tall enough to ride the Raptor!" (He was 2" short.)

Matthew venting some of his frustration about not being able to ride the big coasters.

One of my favorite parts of the day was listening to other riders make comments like "look at them, they're so little" (refering to Zack and Alex sitting in the front seat on the Magnum) or "wow, you're going to ride this?" (refering to Alex on the Top Thrill Dragster).

"They're so little!"

At the end of the day, I was really tempted to suggest that we stay for another day. But I knew that (a) Saturday was bound to be more crowded and (b) there was no way to improve upon our great day. As a family, we love visiting amusement parks, and at least from the perspective of the thrill rides, this day stands out as the best visit yet.

Ramblings by Jes, Part 5 - Weather

2011-05-30T14:19:00.000-07:00

I spent a lot of time looking at average weathers for all the places that we were headed. I was planning on snow and cold temperatures in Yellowstone, 50’s and rainy in Oregon, hot and sunny in Utah and Vegas, and varying temperatures at most of the other places. As it got later in April and in to May, I was planning on wearing short-sleeve shirts with jeans or shorts with a sweatshirt. So, I brought layers – a lot of short-sleeve shirts with a couple sweatshirts. This year proved not to be average for anyone. We had way below average temperatures in Niagara, suffered through flooding rain and tornadoes as we headed through the plains, got caught in a freak snowstorm in Colorado, warm but not hot temperatures in Utah and Arizona, a windstorm in Death Valley, some actual sunshine in Oregon, relatively mild temperatures in Yellowstone, and thunderstorms and tornado warnings again back through the Plains.

All along the way, except for Vegas, we had lower than normal temperatures. As a result, we were hurting for clothes. I wore shorts in Vegas and that is all. The others braved the cooler temperatures in shorts a few times. But, we all wore the same sweatshirts over and over, day after day. And, given the boys’ propensity for climbing and sliding down rocks, we ruined at least 5 pieces of clothing. I tried to find extra pants at Target, but they don’t really sell pants this time of year. I’m so sick of all the clothes that I brought. I think many of them will not make it back into our drawers. If only I had known the actual temperatures, we would have been equipped with a much better selection of clothes.

But, despite the cooler than average temperatures and crazy storms that seemed to follow us, we were able to do almost everything that we had planned. The weather would let up for us to get in most of the cool stuff. We would have liked to explore Yellowstone better, but the snow possibilities kept us from venturing any further. But, we were still able to see much of the park. The only big miss for us was the fact that we did not see Mt. Hood when in Portland. The cloudy skies prevented it, and I am sad to have missed it because that is a beautiful mountain with an impressive presence.

I think, though, waiting a couple weeks would have been the best for the weather. But, it would have meant taking the kids out of school for the end of the year, and they really wanted to participate in the end of year festivities. And, the Boston Marathon really defined the beginning of our trip.

Chicago and Alternate Plans

2011-05-30T06:19:00.000-07:00

Chicago…the plan been to stop in Chicago, but I had not thought about what we would do there until we were driving there. The internet is a wonderful thing, but it is full of so much information that you can get bogged down with it all. I was trying to figure out what we were up for and where to stay accordingly. It took a lot of work to decide what to do and then find a hotel. Finding a hotel means checking Expedia and Hotwire and comparing it to where you want to go. It has taken hours for us to figure out where we are sleeping at night. Kind of a pain, really. But, as Dave was getting frustrated with the horrible traffic getting into the city around rush hour, I eventually picked a 4-star hotel for $81 on hotwire. It was a weird price, so I was nervous. But, the hotel was truly a 4-star with a great location. It was a spectacular deal!

With the traffic, we got in later than we had hoped. So, we planned on just going to dinner. We walked to a pizza place that urbanspoon had recommended because you have to have Chicago-style pizza when in Chicago. The place was nice and had the Bulls basketball game on to entertain us. It took a really long time for our dinner (apparently they had lost our pizza ticket), so they gave us some cheesy garlic bread, our pizza for free, and a free cookie pizza dessert. It was one of those days, too, where the kids were pretty well-behaved (maybe that was the 2 beers that Dave and I had each had), so we didn’t mind the wait so much. And, we liked the final bill. Afterwards, around 10 PM now, we figured we would go check out the famous “bean” in the Millennium Park. It was quite fun for the kids. They had a really good time running around it, “teleporting” from one side to the other. We were pretty tired, though, by the time we made it back to the hotel. Thankfully, the hotel did not offer breakfast, so we slept in awhile.

The next morning, we woke up to severe thunderstorms and crazy rain. I was glad that the car was under cover at the hotel. We decided to head to the science museum. I wish we had had a couple days to go to that place. It was enormous and full of so many things. The kids had a good time there for a few hours, but we wanted to make it to Ohio that night for a reasonable bedtime, so we had to leave before seeing it all.

Driving to Ohio, I was rechecking the weather for the next day, our amusement park day. The weather report was grim – severe thunderstorms with downpours, near 100% they said. We had decided that we were going to stay at the resorts at Cedar Point to get discounted tickets and an early entrance to the park. But, it was a little expensive and silly if we weren’t going to the park the next day. And, what would we do the next day if it indeed stormed all day. After searching Expedia, I found good rates at Great Wolf Lodge. We went back and forth on this. We had to commit to our plans for the next day. If we stayed at Great Wolf Lodge, we were swimming, even if the weather ended up nice. If we stayed at the other hotel, we would miss out on swimming if the weather was bad. Finally, we sided with the weatherman. Since we checked in around 11 (so much for a reasonable bedtime), Dave was able to negotiate a very nice rate for the big suite.

The next morning, it was overcast but not raining. It was sprinkling as I checked out of the hotel and ran a few errands, but then the clouds went away. The sun came out a little, and I was starting to get angry. We were giving up a good day at park when only the few crazies would have been there. Even though the kids were enjoying the waterpark, I was worried that Friday would still have bad weather and/or crowds. It did eventually thunderstorm around 6 for a short while. But, we had committed and were hoping for a good day on Friday.

While I was running the errands, I was thinking about what a crazy trip this was - like an endless party. Here, we had planned on an expensive day at Cedar Point, but that couldn't happen. Rather than just hanging out at the hotel and doing homework or some other mundane tasks, we go to Great Wolf Lodge, a real treat at any other time.

The Trip Home

2011-05-30T05:45:00.000-07:00

The trip home was a little more difficult that the one out. I think of Oregon as the middle point since it was the ultimate goal and the place at which we turned around toward home. But, I need to remember that it took us 4 weeks to get there, and we were trying to get home in 2. As I said before, I had not really planned past Vegas, so in Oregon, I started to really look at the schedule for the trip home. It was at this point that I realized that our plan to be flexible on a return date was not really reasonable. On Tuesday the 31st, my parents were coming to Charlottesville, so it would be easiest to pick up Coda. And, Zack was having a field trip on that day, rescheduled from a couple weeks before. So, getting home before Memorial Day seemed the best.

The stop the kids were most looking forward to was the trip to Cedar Point in Ohio. We had watched a show about the best rides in the world, and it talked about the ones in Vegas and the ones at Cedar Point. They couldn’t wait. But, it was silly to plan to go over Memorial Day weekend, so we needed to get there to go on the Thursday before the holiday. This put us on a tighter schedule than I would have liked. I really wanted to take it somewhat slow and enjoy ourselves the way we had on the way out. But, we would not make it on time. And, getting to Cedar Point before the weekend was way more important.

It is a lot of miles…of nothing, really. We drove 300-500 miles a day every day but one from Oregon to Cedar Point. We tried to fit in stops along the way, but it definitely got old driving so much every day, usually late into the evening. We made the typical South Dakota stops along the road. We stopped at Wall Drug. That offered us one of the funniest things on our trips. Wish I had had my video camera on. They have a big T-Rex that feeds every 12 minutes. Dave told Matthew he was going to feed him to the dinosaur and picked him up. Almost immediately, the dinosaur started making noises and his eyes lit up. Matthew started screaming and hitting Dave violently to put him down. He was terrified. And, Zack had took off running as fast as he could in the opposite direction. It was really funny – to us, anyway.

We had to see the Corn Palace in Mitchell. We had stayed in Mitchell (because there are not many hotels in SD), so it was an easy stop in the morning. Of course, we found a geocache in the area.

We stopped for lunch in Sioux Falls to check out the falls and do another geocache. The kids enjoyed walking on the rocks and putting their feet in the water.

For school, Alex was assigned a state to learn more about and make a banner to display. He got Iowa. You'd be surprised how little there is in Iowa to put under the "Attractions" heading. One of the things we saw, though, was the Grotto of the Redemption. It is a huge collection of grottos built from rocks all over the world over many years. It was impressive and made for a good, get out of the car and stretch your legs stop.

We definitely had laundry issues. I had done laundry in Oregon, but this schedule was not allowing a stop for laundry. So, my plan was to make it 2 weeks without washing clothes. But, we were running out. At the end, the boys wore the same pants at least 3 days, maybe 4. Who knows what they were covered with. I had to buy them underwear because despite the temptation, I could just not make them wear dirty underwear.

I think 6 weeks is about the perfect amount of time. Toward the end, we were really starting to want to be home. I was getting sick of packing up each morning, living out of the car, and eating out every meal. Rachel was missing Mittens and her friends. And, I think we just wanted to be at our house. But, that is so much better than coming home and wishing you had another week. Now, we will be home with a couple days before school starts to finish up our homework and get some laundry done. And, Dave still has 2 wonderful weeks at home to just relax and hang out with me and Matthew while the big kids go to school. Even the big kids get to go back to school during the end of year festivities – not exactly difficult days. Field day will be on their 3rd day back. And, in 2 weeks, they’ll be off for the summer. It should be a nice step back into reality. We’re already planning our next sabbatical in 6-7 more years – Hawaii next time, if Rachel and I get our wish. But, we’ll see.

A rare sight

2011-05-28T07:56:00.000-07:00

I'm awake, and the other five are still sound asleep. Very unusual!

Badlands

2011-05-28T01:27:00.000-07:00

We told the kids that the Badlands were where we take bad kids and leave them. I think we had Matthew convinced for a little bit.

The Badlands in South Dakota are very interesting. I didn’t really get my question answered, which was why in the middle of all these plains did this area happen to look like this. It was formed by water getting below the surface and eroding the rocks. These rocks show all the different environments that existed in this area over the past million years or so. But, it is weird because on one side of the road, you will have grass plains as far as you can see and this on the other side. Very interesting!

Unfortunately, the weather was not perfect. It had been raining a lot, which is very unusual for this area. The dirt of the Badlands turns to sticky mud when wet, so we all got very dirty. The rain stopped, though, so we were able to take a couple trails. We started with the ones that are paved, but the kids wanted to venture out further (no surprise!). So, we were walking out on the mud and rocks. If you were careful and stuck to the rocks on the ground, you could have pretty good footing. But, the kids, especially Zack, just charged ahead full speed. Needless to say, they had a few accidents along the way and ended up considerably muddier.

At one point, we reached a place where there were cracks everywhere around us with significant drops. The kids were being a little too scary, especially with all the mud. Here, Dave is out on a fairly scary edge with the kids. I don’t know why he feels the need to get the kids in these places for pictures because you absolutely cannot appreciate where they are from this picture.

Zack - being Zack

I didn't bring my camera on our last hike. It was labeled as treacherous after heavy rains, so I figured we would not get far. It was a trail that Dave and I had done years before. It had a ladder that we had to climb that Dave thought the kids would love. We set out to look at it with my instructions that we would not climb it because it was not really safe. But, as soon as the kids saw it, they took off up it. There was nothing I could have done, short of death threats, that would have stopped them. So, we ventured up. The stairs were a little far for Matthew, but he managed well. They thought it was pretty cool. Here is a picture I found on the internet since I have none of our family.

We've seen a lot of animals on our trip, but we could not find the elusive big horn sheep. I've been watching out for them everywhere. We'd even gotten to the point that Dave was offering the kids money for good animal sightings. Finally, at literally our last possible chance, I saw them off in the distance. You have to look close. We stopped the car and tried to hike in a little to get a better view. But, they heard our very loud group coming toward them. They are females, so they don't have the cool horns. But, they are big horn sheep, so I was happy.

Future Leaders of America

2011-05-27T19:10:00.000-07:00

Dave's cute picture idea. They aren't perfect unfortunately. It was rainy and the kids were standing on a wall that they probably weren't supposed to be standing on. So, we were trying to hurry. Too bad because with a little photoshop work, these could be pretty funny.

The first woman president? If I had to bet, I would say not. Not really her line of work.

Ok, the real one!

Reptile Gardens

2011-05-27T14:14:00.000-07:00

Rapid City, South Dakota, is definitely a tourist trap of a town. It was full of all kinds of touristy stuff. One of these was the Reptile Gardens. We had watched a show on Animal Planet one night about a man that was killed by a crocodile (didn't see that one coming until it happened or we might not have watched it), and so my kids, of course, were all interested in crocodiles. So, we thought they would enjoy this place. It had a lot of crocs and snakes - not my favorite things in the world. But, luckily, I did not have any nightmares. I've had a few snake ones in my life.

Petting the python -- only Alex and Zack would do this.

The prarie dogs - we saw some in the wild later in the Badlands, but seeing them up close like this is the best view. They are very cute little animals.

This is my kids acting like they are being squeezed by a snake. Alex is smiling and Matthew is trying to bring the snake down. Very Matthew like, I guess.

Oh no, Flat Zack is going to be eaten by this reticulated python!

One of the best exhibits in the whole place - old mirrors from some really old World Fair. The kids had a blast with these.

Dave's new obsession

2011-05-27T08:13:00.000-07:00

A few years ago, our family discovered geocaching. For those unfamiliar, it is using your GPS to find a treasure box hidden and logged on the internet by someone else. You’d be surprised how many there are all over the country. We are apparently getting close to having found and logged 100 geocaches. Dave has gotten excited about reaching that mark and asks pretty much at every stop if we want to geocache. The great thing about geocaching is that it is free and usually takes a small amount of time – perfect for stops along a long drive. We’ve taken to looking for them when we stop for lunch – found one at a Wendy’s and then beside Home Depot and then one near Sonic. We’ve found them at rest stops when we make a quick bathroom break. This one was a nice one in Montana, I think. The film canister had actually fallen (or possibly thrown) under the rock, and it required teamwork to get it out and put back in a better spot.

Occasionally, we cannot find it no matter how hard we try (even with my sneaking a look at the hints and other logs about it). Zack and Dave are the best hunters. They will keep at it for a long time. The rest of us put forth our best effort for a short while and then settle into watch them look, usually unsuccessfully by this point.

Ramblings by Jes, Part 4 - Dave

2011-05-26T19:10:00.000-07:00

At home, I definitely run most aspects of our household. I am the planner and organizer, but that has a lot to do with my personality. Dave likes to leave things up in the air more than me and just see what happens. He also tends to procrastinate things a little. As a result, I’ve usually taken care of things way before he’s even thought about it. Planning this trip is definitely an example. I had mapped out a preliminary plan, including ideas of things to do in all the cities along the way – through Las Vegas. I got burned out and didn’t bother past that too much. That caught up with us a little, as we ended up in places without good plans of what we were going to do. We managed to find things to see and do, but I think we could have enjoyed ourselves a little more with some better planning. But, oh well.

The interesting part for me has been watching Dave. There is so much information about the national parks, and I tend to read about the main attractions and plan to do those. Dave is always looking for the really cool hikes or sights off the beaten path a little. He really got into planning all our hikes. He would actually spend some time researching the best hikes to do and send us on them. Sometimes I thought he was being a little too ambitious, but I think he is a better judge of our children’s endurance than I am. It was nice having him take over the activity planning for some of the days. He also tended to get up earlier than the rest of us when he was excited about these plans. Dave and I are definitely not rise early people, and this trip has adjusted our schedule to sleep in late (so late, in fact, we usually have to set alarms to make it to the hotel breakfasts that end at 9:30). But, Dave would be up opening the window curtains way before any of the rest of us were ready to get us started on the day. He was like a kid at Christmas sometimes.

The other surprise for me about Dave has been his lack of structured working out. For me, this trip has been full of workouts. When we’re not in the car (which, granted, is a lot of the time), we are hiking up steep canyons, climbing over rocks, racing to watch a geyser, or just trekking it through a city, usually at a pretty good clip. I’ve had plenty of days where my legs and butt were sore. But, I think Dave has only gotten in 4-5 runs this whole trip. A lot of it has to do with the fact that we don’t have time for him to run, but I also think he doesn’t need it the same way he does at home. I always say that Dave is just one of those people that needs to run. I can tell when he isn’t running because he is grumpier. I know that running helps relieve him of stresses. I think he’s just been stress-free most of this trip, if you don’t count the snowstorm in Colorado and the traffic in Chicago.

Some people ask me how I can stand having my husband work at home and some probably wonder how our family can spend 24 hours a day for 6 weeks together. But, we are loving it. Dave and I are so compatible. We balance each other well and like to do most of the same things. There has not been a moment when we’ve gotten on each other’s nerves. He pushes us to do everything we can at a park while I’m trying to keep some semblance of a normal eating and sleeping schedule, but we easily reach a compromise. It’s been so easy to be with him day after day. It has been an absolutely wonderful experience for all of us. I so look forward to Dave’s retirement when we get to spend every day together!

Brotherly Love

2011-05-26T12:43:00.001-07:00

Ramblings by Jes, Part 3 - Homework

2011-05-23T06:39:00.000-07:00

When I talked to the principal of the kids' school about the trip, I was prepared to take them out of school and handle homeschooling them for the rest of the school year. As it turned out, the principal was excited and appreciated that the kids would gain a lot from the trip. He said we could talk to the teachers about some projects for the kids to do to get grades while they were gone. It all sounded good to me. I actually worked on some ideas of things that I thought would make good projects for the kids. I figured the kids could keep a journal, send letters back to their class, do book reports on the books that we listened to or they read, we'd learn the states and capitals, do a presentation at the end, etc. It seemed manageable and easy. The kids' teachers ended up giving us a significant amount of written work. Rachel had 3 math tests and 4 vocabulary tests that I needed to administer, along with all the workbook pages to prepare her. Alex had 2 chapters in math and 3 chapters in religion and some reading comprehension sheets. All this in addition to the stuff that I had suggested. It was definitely a lot of work, but it seemed manageable.

But, then, we got on the road. Rachel can only do short amounts of work in the car before she begins to feel sick. And, it's hard to concentrate in the car with 4 kids. Not exactly quiet. I've tried to have them all doing work at the same time, but then they all need me for something. It is a huge challenge. We had days full of activities and then driving late into the evening. In the mornings, we were usually hurrying out of the hotel room in order to head to our next activity. It has been almost impossible to fit in homework. Occasionally, we get lucky and have an early night or a morning that we can dally a little. I take control of all those situations and make the kids do something. But, we are running out of days and still have a pile of work to do. We may have to book it home to have a couple days to really just do homework. The kids have only read about 50 pages each. But, honestly, I've only made it through 1/2 my book. Too much experiencing, not enough paperwork. But, that's OK with me. I know that the kids have learned an immense amount of stuff over this trip. There is no way to quantify it, unfortunately, and the teachers need that for grades.

The day that almost wasn't

2011-05-22T10:35:00.000-07:00

We had checked reports of the weather in Yellowstone the day before we headed there and it was showing snow (3-5") and temperatures in the 30's. After our earlier experiences with snow, we did not want to mess with snowy conditions, so we decided to not push it. We looked for althernative ideas of things to do, but there wasn't anything else to do really. So, we kept on the shortest path back East. Fortunately, that path took us within 50 miles of Yellowstone. We figured we could go to Mammoth Hot Springs, which is in lower elevations, and ask about conditions near Old Faithful. Luckily, the weather held out. No precipitation at all and temps in the 50's.

We first stopped at Mammoth Hot Springs, definitely a unique environment.

We drove up to the Geyser Basin and made some stops along the way. This stop was cool.. There was a bubbling spring and a lot of steam coming out of the hole above it. The kids got a big kick out of the steam. Rachel dug a couple rocks out of the water. They were very hot from the water.

We got to Old Faithful, just as it was going off. So, we needed to 93 minutes. Riverside Geyser was due to go off in 45 minutes, but it was pretty far away. We thought we might be able to make it, so off we headed. We were checking out the geysers as we went because we were going to need to turn right around and get back to see Old Faithful. Our first geyser was Anenome. It's a pretty small one, but the first one is always exciting.

The kids were getting tired and struggling. We made it to Riverside Geyser just as it finished, and needed to hurry back. Dave had to carry Matthew and Zack a little bit to give them the "energy" to make it back. We got back with about 3 minutes to spare. It iumpressed as much as we had hoped. Of course, the kids were distracted before it finished it's 4 minutes.

Other geysers included this geyser that was spraying the kids with warm water as the wind blew. This one erupted every 7-10 minutes, so we hung around to watch it again.

This one went off almost continuously. I thought it was pretty neat.

We saw a bunch of animals on our trip. We saw elk, bison, deer, a grizzly bear, and a couple black bears. Overall, it was a pretty eventfull trip to Yellowstone. I was so gald that we were able to go. It was the kind of day that we needed - interesting things to look at and learn about without a lot of hiking.

Underground

2011-05-21T21:35:00.000-07:00

For our last day in Oregon, we actually headed to Washington to Mt. St. Helens. Unfortunately, we couldn't make it to the actual visitor's center because it was just too far away. We had planned to travel Ape Cave, a 1.5 mile lava tube, with 3 adults and 7 children. This also includes a 1.5 mile hike back to the car above ground. The kids were pretty excited. No one (except me) was nervous or scared about being in complete darkness underground. Fortunately, I had thought to get the kids headlamps. That ended up being a great idea. I had a lantern and had trouble seeing.

The kids get ready - all smiles!

The whole gang!

The big hole we're heading down. Just this hole is foreboding to me. It just doesn't seem safe or secure. But, I couldn't back out now. And, I've done it before, so I was trying not to think about what could happen. Matthew kept asking if the lava was going to come. Fortunately, that was a question I could definitely answer positively.

This is what a lot of the cave is like - a bunch of big rocks on the ground. You have to crawl over the rocks. The twins (age 4) were a little more timid, and Dave and Zia were helping them a lot. That left me trying to keep up with all the other 5 kids that were running ahead. It was hard to keep them safe and together. I'm sure there are many dangers of climbing over these rocks, but I was too busy watching the kids to worry too much about them. It was funny because Rachel got a little "mama-like" with Zia's kids. She was helping with them and worrying about them when they got too far away from her. It was cute!

Some parts of the cave had shorter ceilings. This was a little more claustrophobia-inducing for me.

The biggest concern going in was the 8-foot wall here that we needed to scale with all 7 kids. It has one good foothold and that's about it. The big kids had fun scaling it. They needed a little help but not much. Then, we just handed up the little kids. It was no match for us!

The ladder at the end. Boy, was that a welcome sight. It was just a little too long. The kids did really well, but we were losing them. They don't allow eating in the cave, so Matthew was getting upset. As soon as we made it outside the cave, we had a big snack. That, fortunately, changed attitudes - for a little while, anyway.

Zia and Cyrus coming out of the cave

When we parked, it was relatively warm and there was no sign of snow. When we came out of the cave, there was snow everywhere and the sun was gone, so it was cold. We had 1.5 miles back through a lot of snow. The kids were slipping and sliding all over the snow. It was not fun. But, we just kept pushing on and all made it in pretty good spirits. A bunny along the route back helped distract us.

The mountain was beautiful on our way in, but we didn't stop for a picture. On the way out, not so much. You can't even tell where the mountain ends and the clouds stop. Oh well. And, on a sad note, we left Portland without ever being able to Mt. Hood. Horrible. We had hoped to ski on it, but that just didn't work, and it was too cloudy to see the mountain. Very sad!

Just Jump!

2011-05-21T06:02:00.000-07:00

There was this really cool trampoline place that we took the kids for an hour. It had trampolines all over the place. It was a lot of fun and a great workout. They had a dodgeball court, which we had a good time in. The kids in there are cutthroat. Dave got nailed in the face a couple times when he wasn't paying attention. Unfortunately, I didn't get a good picture of that.

They also had a foam pit that you could jump into. Dave and I were brave enough to flip in there but not on the regular trampolines. Alex, on the other hand, was crazy. He was doing backflips into the foam pit and by jumping on the trampolines on the wall and flipping backwards.

How can this be the beach?

2011-05-20T20:09:00.000-07:00

Going to the coast was definitely on our list of things to do in Portland. This rock is the rock from The Goonies, and during low tide, you can explore the tide pools. We headed out to the beach after mass in the church that Rachel was baptized in. We went despite the rain and 50 degree temperatures. That is classic Oregon weather, so we figured we would just brave it. When we got there, Zack asked, "how can this be the beach? It's cold and rainy." I thought that was funny. We went out onto the beach, but the skies decided to open up on us a little and we got soaked and were very cold with the wind off the ocean. We decided this was not going to work. We headed back to get a treat at the Cannon Beach Bakery. Fortunately, the weather let up a little, so we went back out to the rock.

The low tide was not very low today, so we couldn't go out very far. And, they were very particular about where we could walk. Therefore, we didn't get to see much. Rachel did find a little hairy hermit crab, and we saw a couple fish and anemones.

the water was very cold, but the boys braved it for a few jumps in the Pacific Ocean. Not surprisingly, they got wet, then cold, and we needed to head back to the car to warm up. Not the best day at the beach, but we made the most of it.

10 Animals at the Zoo

2011-05-20T14:20:00.000-07:00

As we had lived in Portland, Oregon before, we knew that we would want to stay there for a few days. Fortunately, Dave's friend from work, Zia, had room for us to crash there. He has 3 young kids - Paige, 5, and twins, Quinn and Cyrus, 4. It was a lot of people, especially kids, in one house. But, it worked really well. The kids got along well and we stayed very busy. The first day we were there was actually sunny, so we decided to take the kids to the zoo. It was fun, although the kids had a lot more fun climbing on the fake animals and railings than they did seeing the real animals. I think a trip to the park might have been as fun and a lot less expensive.

The first, but not last, bear of the trip.

Matthew with buddies, Cyrus and Quinn

Note: kids are not with their respective parents. Zack's on Zia's shoulders. He just wouldn't let him alone. Dave made a good friend in Quinn and carried him a lot at the zoo.

The animals were very active today. Here, the elephants were drinking and eating. It was very cute.

Scary lion...

Sweet lion...

Paige is being eaten by the lion

A dome inside the prarie dog cage (or some other similar animal)

Detour to San Francisco

2011-05-20T08:53:00.000-07:00

The plan had been at this point to head to Crater Lake National Park in Oregon. This has a special place for me and Dave because we got engaged there. But, I checked the weather and conditions. Snow was headed over the next few days and very little of the park had been dug out from the winter. So, we decided that that plan was out. So, we went back to an original idea to go to San Francisco. We stayed downtown and headed to visit the sea lions on the pier.

The next day, we just wandered around the city a little. We went on a tour of a old WWII submarine, the U.S.S. Pampilona. That was actually pretty interesting to see the inside and learn about life on a sub during the war.

We had hoped to ride the trolley cars, but there was too big a line and they moved too inefficiently for me.

My kids were bored standing in line, and this is what happens when my kids get bored. They find ways to entertain themselves, not necessarily smart ways!

So, we just headed over to Ghirardelli Square to get some ice cream for lunch. The kids liked that. We got their 8 scoop sundae with eight toppings. No surprise – we had no trouble finishing that.

On our way out of town, we checked out the steep roads. We got out at Lombard Street to see the switchbacks.

The kids enjoyed running up and down the steps on the side, and again entertaining themselves in non-traditional ways.

We went to go down the 41 degree road, the steepest in San Francisco. It looked like we were heading off to our death. Dave pulled up to go over and then decided he did not want to go down. So, we backed up and went down another way. We finished off our San Francisco tour as we headed out of the city over the Golden Gate Bridge. We headed out through Napa Valley. It was beautiful out there and full of vineyards. I checked out a website to find if any of the vineyards were kid-friendly. Surprisingly, there were a couple. One of them was in a castle. You can take a tour of the castle, including the torture chamber. Unfortunately, they were having an event, so no tour. But, we could still do a tasting. That was a little interesting with 4 kids around. We had hoped to find a nice place where the kids could run around. This wasn’t it, but the guy that did the tasting was good with the kids. He told us that this castle was the one used in Bedtime Stories. The wine was good, and we definitely want to get back here one day sans children.

The Day Dave got a Spanking!

2011-05-19T15:10:00.000-07:00

We headed out of the park a different way to make sure we saw as much of the park as possible. We stumbled upon a beautiful waterfall. This was the upper portion of Cascade Falls, which we had seen the day before.

We started out on a makeshift path along the side of the river to see what we could see. The path divided. Rachel and Dave went on one path, hoping to catch up with me and the boys. Our path reached a difficult place to pass, so the boys were climbing on rocks.

Zack was determined to get around the path and headed up a steep path. But, then he was crying out to me. I couldn’t tell what he was saying, but I could not leave Alex and Matthew at the river’s edge. I was getting stressed out because the boys were making me nervous and Dave was nowhere to be found. I told the kids that Daddy was misbehaving. One of them asked me if he was going to get a spanking, and I decided that was a good idea. We decided to head back and take the path that they took. This was a steep path up the mountain on slippery brush. The kids would take a step and slide down a little. We went up awhile, but it was getting treacherous for us and I still had no sign of Dave. I was frustrated with him that he had gone this far without realizing that he was not going to reach us and turned around. I was really getting worried that either he or Rachel had gotten hurt or they were lost. The kids asked if Daddy would get a spanking if he were hurt, and I said that he would not if he were injured. So, Matthew began hoping that Dave was hurt, so that he would not get a spanking. I didn’t really understand his reasoning. But, we decided to head down the mountain and wait for him. It was awhile before he finally showed up. I did give him a couple spankings, which cracked the kids up. Apparently, he and Rachel had gotten into a tight spot and done some risky rock climbing. Not exactly what I wanted to hear.

Going up proved not to get us a better view of the falls, so we headed downward. We actually got to a place where two rivers merged before heading off the cliff. It was pretty scary there, but it was beautiful . These falls are neat because they go down to just a trickle later in the year. It’s pretty hard to believe given the amount of water that it pouring down it now.

Ramblings by Jes, Part 2 - Food

2011-05-19T11:05:00.000-07:00

On a trip like this, we knew that we were going to be eating a lot of dinners out. We, as a family, love eating out and making meals is not my favorite thing to do. So, I knew that eating meals out would be nice – for awhile. As it turns out, 4 weeks in, we’re not really tired of eating out. We tend not to eat at fast food unless we really need to get in and out quick, so that helps. Fast food can get really unappealing after awhile. For the most part, we have eaten breakfast at the hotel – as long as we get up in time.

We’ve had the gambit of breakfasts, everything from simple cereal and toast to nice, hot breakfasts with a cool pancake maker to a full breakfast buffet. But, if we have a breakfast included with our hotel, we’ve taken full advantage. For a lot of the trip, we’ve been in the middle of nowhere at National Parks. Since the food availability is unpredictable at the parks, we would stop somewhere to get some food for lunch, usually just at a convenience store. Fortunately, most of them had some sandwich makings and hiking snacks. We’d head out to hike a trail or two, snacking along the way. Finally, we’d get to making sandwiches at the car mid-afternoon. Then, we’d try to soak in as much of the rest of the park before it got too late. We wouldn’t even leave the parks until 6 or 7, as we headed out to our next destination. Since we were in the middle of nowhere, there were usually no restaurants around. So, we would drive and drive, hoping to find a good place to eat. It was usually 8 or even 9 before we found somewhere to eat, often a hole in the wall place in a small town along the road – some good, some not so much. Then, we’d drive a couple hours before we crashed in a roadside hotel and start the whole process again. We’ve really gotten into a weird eating pattern, but at least we’re all on the same schedule. I’ve been amazed that the kids have rarely complained about being hungry – thankfully, since often we could do nothing about it. One day we actually went 9 hours between meals. We had eaten at IHOP at 11 and then went to Death Valley and nothing, nothing, nothing until we finally found a gas station at 8 PM. That food tasted good!

As you can imagine, we haven’t eaten the healthiest food. We bought a thermoelectric cooler that plugs into the car. I had plans of filling it with healthy food to snack on in the car. But, that requires stopping at the grocery store, and literally, we could not find one and we rarely had time for that anyway. We are in constant motion. Usually we just made quick stops at convenience stores. I think we’ll have to have a completely new diet when we get home.

Waterfalls, waterfalls everywhere!

2011-05-19T07:57:00.000-07:00

We loved Yosemite. It was the perfect time of year to go. The snow levels were 200% of normal this year, so the waterfalls we in full force. We were amazed at the rush of the water in the rivers and over the waterfalls. Our first stop in the park had been to see the Sequoia trees. We were minutes away from missing them because the road had been closed due to snow overnight, but they opened it as I was talking to the ranger about it. Thankfully, we got to go because the trees were enormous.

The kids were not particularly good this day, and were forced to be silent on the hike. It made it rather peaceful. But, they, of course, found some rocks to climb on.

For me, the sequoias were neat, but I loved the way the entire area looked. It was actually snowing a little, but the sun came out as well. The sun was melting the snow on the tops of the trees, so the water was dripping down like rain. So, if you looked up, you would see snow, rain and sun. It was really beautiful and interesting. I tried to capture it on my camera, but I was unsuccessful.

Unfortunately, there were no hotel rooms or cabins available in the park, so we headed out to try to find a place for the night. Fortunately, we found something pretty close to the entrance. Not cheap, but we were able to stay much closer to the park and save some driving.The next morning, we stopped off along the river. The rapids were incredible! Of course, Dave and the kids wanted to get down close to it, so off we headed to climb on some rocks. The water is so powerful that it is pretty scary. But, my kids love climbing on rocks. I think we should just get a gigantic pile of rocks for our backyard, and they would be entertained for hours and hours.

We could hardly go a mile before there was something beautiful to get out and look at – waterfalls everywhere, El Capitan – a large rock formation that people climb up, more river rocks to climb on. It was truly amazing. And, at each stop, the kids and Dave wanted to get a closer look. Here, we are at Bridal Veil Falls. Here, the falls are beautiful. It was misting so badly that we were getting pretty wet as we got closer to the falls. Rachel and Alex got soaked. But, they thought that was fun - until their wet socks started making their feet very pruney.

The road is just not close enough. We stopped to see Yosemite Falls, the second longest falls in the world behind Angel Falls in Venezuela. We hiked to the view of the lower falls.

That was not a good enough view, though. There was a big group of rocks that had come fallen down years ago that, of course, we decided to climb. We climbed up and up, trying to get a good view of the falls. After half an hour or so of climbing, we look over and we are a couple hundred feet from the path. It was further up the path than we had started our rock climb, but we were no closer to the waterfall that we had already been. It was pretty funny! And, of course, the best view of the falls was at the bottom of the hike when you can see the whole thing.

We took a couple short hikes to a couple features at the park before heading back to the same hotel (yes, 2 nights at this place) for a late dinner of leftover pizza and then bed.

Capital Reef

2011-05-18T09:43:00.000-07:00

I already got this post ready to publish, but it seems to have gotten lost or something. I just noticed that it was not published. So, back a couple weeks...

Since it was on our way, we drove through Capital Reef National Park. The major feature in this part is a monocline that was pushed up as plates collided. It was pushed up at an angle, so you can see the different layers of rock diagonally. Our first stop off was a waterfall on the side of the road. We hiked down and threw some rocks in the river. No surprise – the kids all waded and ended up slipping in and getting wet. That water was COLD! Alex’s legs were a bright shade of red after just a short time in the water.

Afterwards, we took a short hike to Hickman Bridge, a natural bridge created as the river wore away the soft rock under it. This hike had a trail guide with information at each of the marked points. This definitely entertained the kids – not the information but racing ahead to find the numbers. We, on the other hand, thoroughly enjoyed learning a little bit on the trail. Without a lot of research ahead of time, you miss a lot of the opportunities to learn about the surroundings in all these great parks.

Our final stop in this park was to view the petroglyphs from the native people that inhabited this area over 1000 years ago. It is quite impressive that these have existed on these rocks for these so long.

Our next stop was to be at Bryce Canyon, 5 hours away. It was dinnertime, and we were a long way from civilization. Back in the car to get somewhere where we could eat and sleep. Apparently, there is a nice hotel and restaurant in this tiny town, Boulder, in the middle of Utah. Surprisingly, the hotel had no vacancies. We had to eat at a little burger place in another tiny town, and finally, found a hotel late at night. We had to choose among some cheesy hotels. Those wary of dirty, dumpy hotels should probably stay out of Utah, or at least, make preparations ahead of time.

Into the Valley of Death rode the six Kreitzers

2011-05-14T18:24:00.000-07:00

We had not done much planning past Vegas, so we literally looked at the map on Sunday morning as we were heading out. We knew we were heading to Yosemite, and we decided to go through Death Valley on the way. That ended up not being the best idea. We got to Death Valley and found out that the Eastern road into Yosemite was closed and they were expecting snow in the Sierra Mountains. This meant that we were going to be driving much further out of our way to go around to the Western entrance of Yosemite, and we were going to be racing the snow a little. The snow ended up not being a problem, thankfully! The wind, though, from the storm was quite intense. There in Death Valley, it was very strong. Here, Dave and Rachel are just leaning back into the wind and being held upright. You can really tell that Rachel is leaning backwards. Death Valley was interesting, but it really was desolate. I can't say that it was the kind of place I have this great desire to return and explore further.

We got out here because the dunes looked so much like a desert and the wind had died down a little. But, as we went out over a few of the dunes, the wind picked up. Below, you can see how hard the wind was blowing. It was quite painful for those of us with our legs bare to the sand.

Vegas, Baby!

2011-05-14T12:01:00.000-07:00

Ahhh, Vegas – Dave and I really love Vegas, not for exactly the same reasons. Dave is a gambler and enjoys that. I like gambling for my first $100. After that, it becomes too much to lose. If I win, I’m much happier, but I still have a hard time gambling away money. So, I tend to play a little and then want to do something else. But, I love the way that Vegas is so over-the-top. Everything there is elaborate and showy. And, there is so much to do. We had so much fun that we had to stay an extra day because we still had things to do.

Right out of the car, we headed to New York, New York to ride the roller coaster. All the boys were too short, which caused some tears, but Rachel and I rode it while the boys played in the arcade. Alex and Zack got to ride in one of those virtual machines that moves you around while it shows you a movie. It was a pretty elaborate one that flipped them upside down and all around. It was Zack’s first upside down ride, and he was pretty excited about it. The night, we went to see the Blue Man Group. We got great seats in the 3rd row. We had to wear ponchos in case we got splashed. That made me nervous, but the kids were disappointed that we ended up not getting wet or dirty. The show was much better than I had expected and a perfect fit for our kids. They were cracking up at them.

Afterwards, Dave wanted to take the kids to see the show at Treasure Island, which was across the street. The show didn’t start until 10:00, so we grabbed some ice cream and waited. The show was different that we remembered and probably not worth the wait. Then, we had to walk back to our hotel and get in bed after 11. We did get to see part of the Bellagio fountain show.

I can remember being there last time commenting on who would bring their kids to Vegas and why they would have them up so late. And, here I was, one of those parents. Oh well.

The next day ended up being a relaxing day. We had a nice buffet for lunch because we slept in past breakfast. The kids swam in the pool while I caught up on blogging. Then, in the evening we headed to Margaritaville for dinner. This is a fun place, especially in Vegas. They have a volcano that “erupts” every so often with a girl that slides down into a blender. They have people on stilts walking around making balloon hats for the “kids”. Our boys all got one. Rachel was too mature for that, but the lady made her a balloon corsage.

Finally, the piece de resistance. Dave had told the kids about the rides on top of the Stratosphere. The Big Shot is one of his favorite rides. The building is 900 ft in the air and the Big Shot shoots you up another 200 feet and lets you fall back down. It is pretty scary, but it is cool to see Vegas at night. So, we had to do it after dark. Dave took Alex and Rachel because Zack was too small. I had gel inserts for him to use to make him definitively over the 48” mark, but they required him to take his shoes off. He was none too happy and could not really get over his frustration that he could not do it. Zack, Matthew and I stood outside on the viewing area atop the Stratosphere for a few minutes, but it was windy and scaring Matthew. So, we headed back inside to the arcade. There, we waited until almost 11 o’clock for the others to finish all their rides. They did the Big Shot, a ride that spins over the side of the building, and a little coaster that hangs you over the edge as well. The kids loved it.

I was trying to take pictures outside with 2 upset children and too little knowledge of how to work my camera. I wanted to play with it, but the kids were not happy outside in the wind. So, I downloaded some off the internet, so you can appreciate it.

We made it back to the hotel around 11:40. By the time the kids got ready for bed, it was almost midnight, so Alex made it up until his birthday came around. We had a mini-celebration before we all fell into bed exhausted. This was the night that Rachel slept-walked out of the room. I think that the rides plus the late night contributed. She had never done this before and hopefully will not again. Dave didn’t gamble this night since we had decided to stay another night. I think he was glad for the chance to get some sleep.

The next day we headed to Circus Circus casino. They have an indoor amusement park. Here, Zack had no problem reaching the 48” limit and rode his first real upside-down ride. He was pretty nervous but ended up loving it. They had quite a few good rides, including a couple 4-D shows that we could all enjoy. We spent quite a long time there and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

Rachel - too big to go on the "baby" ride

I like this picture because Rachel was fixing her hair on the ride.

We stayed too late to enjoy a nice birthday dinner, so we opted for Wendy’s with frostys for dessert.

The kids watched the original Tron (a last minute present I had snagged at Wal-Mart earlier in the day) before heading to bed. Dave headed out to gamble and came back $100 richer. All in all, a great day!

We headed out of Vegas on Mother’s Day. A stop at IHOP and church got us going pretty late, but with no schedule to keep, we were fine with that.

Tale of Two Canyons

2011-05-12T08:42:00.000-07:00

Bryce Canyon National Park, AKA the place of the killer hike. This national park has a large canyon full of hoodoos, rock structures left as erosion wears away the sandstone around them.

The canyon is definitely interesting. We had planned a nice 2 mile trail down into the canyon, but it was closed. So, we headed to a different trail into the canyon. We figured we would just walk until we felt like turning around. It was a pretty steep descent into the canyon, but then it leveled off nicely at the bottom. It was great to do a hike into the canyon here because it was completely different at the bottom of the canyon. From the top it looks like just sandstone rock, but the bottom of the canyon had a lot of trees and bushes. It was nice at the bottom, and the path had some cool tunnels out of the sandstone. So nice, in fact, we kept walking.

My kids climbing on structures - big surprise!

At some point, Dave decided we should push on to another trail and head up out of the canyon via a different route. This allowed us to not have to retrace all of our steps. Unfortunately, it meant going further than just turning around. But, we pushed on.

The bad thing about going forward is we have no idea what to expect. Well, we ended up having to cross over a hill, so it required going up a relatively steep incline and then back down only to have to climb out of the canyon at the end. It was long and tedious. Fortunately, Dave had bought Skittles for emergencies. We had used these years ago to get Rachel and Alex through a hike. “Two skittles when we make it to that rock.” We used them to help us up the last climb. They got one Skittle for every switchback. What a difference some candy incentive makes. They focused on that instead of how tired they were and made it relatively easily. We had some scary points that required hiking over snow or rock slides along a narrow path hugging the canyon wall.

All in all, we went 4.5 miles. And, in the end, I could not keep up with Matthew who was trying to beat everyone to the top. That kid is a hiker. He has a kick at the end, especially when motivated to “win”. But, since we came up at a different point than we started, Dave had to go get the car. It ended up being 2.7 miles back to the car – a little farther (and apparently more hilly) than expected. Fortunately, I got to stay and play Jeopardy for the remaining Skittles with the kids.

Scared?

Our hope had been to stay in the area and go to Zion National Park as well. These two parks are apparently very different and both cool. But, we had reservations in Vegas in a few days that we needed to work around. The north rim of the Grand Canyon was closed for another 10 days, so we were forced to drive to the south rim to view it. This was an extra 10 hours of driving from Bryce Canyon to Vegas versus seeing the Grand Canyon from the north rim. Pretty bummed, especially as we drove right past the closed road that would have led us to the north rim. I had no idea where we were staying and very spotty cell service to figure it out. It got late and we just kept driving. Eventually, I had enough service to find us a hotel outside Grand Canyon National park, but we had a long drive to get there. We were on roads that had no other cars for miles and miles. It’s a little scary to do be doing that late at night, but we had nowhere else to stay. We had to make it to our destination. At some point, we entered the park and were driving along the Grand Canyon. It was pitch black, so we had no idea that we were so close to it, though. We did see LOTS of elk. I couldn’t believe how many we saw. Scary because they are so big and we were so alone out there. We had one sitting right beside the car just checking us out as we passed. I wished that I had had my camera in the front seat with me. They were amazing.

The next day we took a look at the Grand Canyon. I have to say that I was underwhelmed. I've been playing with my camera along the trip to get better pictures, but I could not get a great picture of the canyon. This is what it looked like - dull color.As Zack said, “it looks the same as it does in pictures.” I think part of the problem is coming from Utah, the canyon is not as beautiful.

They had a nice geological walk that had counters on the sidewalk to help you appreciate how long those rocks have been here. I thought that was actually pretty well done, and the kids liked running to count the numbers. We decided to take a short .75 mile hike down into the canyon. Just as in Utah, the kids scared me beyond belief. I couldn’t even walk with Zack because he was being crazy. And, there were so many places that one bad step off the edge meant certain death.

I was struck by the depth of the canyon. I think that I appreciated it a lot more as we hiked. We hiked close to 1000 feet down, and yet it felt like the canyon had not gotten any smaller. Here we are at our stop off, taking pictures at a very scary place where Zack kept trying to climb on the rocks hanging over the edge.

Dave wanted to take a picture of me, but that meant both of us were preoccupied for a moment and not focused completely on managing the boys. Here's me freaking out at Zack, who won't just sit still for 1 minute for me to get a picture taken.

Hiking back up was long and painful. Rachel was struggling and had to rest frequently. Still have to make it all the way up there to the top!

I am glad to have seen the Grand Canyon and checked it off my list, but I don’t have any great desires to return. So many of these other parks offer more interesting and diverse experiences.

Dave scaring me along the way, taking kids to the edges of the canyon. He is definitely the "cool" parent and I am the "lame" one that never lets the kids do anything fun.

A rare picture of me and Dave

Another planet?

2011-05-08T22:51:00.000-07:00

Goblin Valley State Park is literally in the middle of nowhere. It was used in the filming of "Galaxy Quest" to represent Mars. It is this one little spot among canyons and deserts where these formations occur in great numbers. My friend had recommended it to me, so we stopped by to check it out. It ended up being a great little place to go. My kids have been great hikers, but their favorite thing to do on the hikes is to climb the structures. This place had no real trails or paths, just a large place to explore. We tried to find some geocaches here, but it was very hard to find anything, so we went away empty-handed. But, it was a place we could just explore. You could spend hours there just wandering around.

Rachel, my model. You can't tell, but in te second picture, she is in a pretty dangerous place. The other kids are up there with her in this spot that we had to climb up to. Dave took them out along this rock that slopes steeply to a drastic edge. I was pretty nervous. Pictures just cannot capture that well.

These formations were really neat. These two looked just like big skulls.

Zack is the dirtiest kid ever. I don't know how he can manage to get so much dirt on him everywhere.
One of the geocaches told us to go through a hidden canyon and up some wall that children would need help getting over. We think we found the canyon, but we had a lot of different options of how to go. Dave and Rachel were determined to go up to the tops of all these branches to see if it might be the way. this got them into some crazy places. This path was pretty rocky and slippery. Then, at the top, Rachel climbed up to get a better look. From my perspective (in the picture), it never looked that bad. But, Rachel was really freaking out about getting down. She was really scared, and she never gets scared. Even Dave seemed a little nervous as he was getting down. I'm kind of glad I did not go get a better look. We had quite a few spills in this area with some bruises and scrapes as the kids slid on the sandy ground.

Ahh, Matthew. As we were searching for the elusive geocache, we had to cross this place that had large holes from the ground caving in. It was a little scary, although it looked like they probably weren't that deep. After we had decided that we had gone the wrong way, we turned back to try a different way. Matthew was leading. But, as we approached these big holes, Matthew was nowhere to be seen. We called for him and looked further, but there were quite a few obstacles that seemed large enough and dangerous enough that Matthew would not have done them himself. We could not find him anywhere amongst all these formations. I was convinced that he had fallen down a hole. I called and called, to no answer. I was really getting nervous and finally just headed all the way out of the canyon to find him sitting there on a rock. I should have known that he would have done everything himself. Apparently, he could not detect the panic in my voice because he thought it was funny that he was not answering our calls.

As Rachel and Dave continued to search for the geocache, they stumbled upon this cave. For some crazy reason, they decided to check it out. We had planned to search for another cave in the park, so we had flashlights. Apparently, the cave is really tight at the opening but then opens up further back. It only goes back about 100 feet or so, but Dave said it was a pretty scary thing to just go exploring in there. But, of course, all the kids wanted to check it out. As you've learned, I don't like small spaces. I can do caves (although they scare me), but I did not want to go into such a small and tight space. As you can see, Dave barely fits in the opening.

Ramblings by Jes, part 1 – Hotels

2011-05-08T08:39:00.000-07:00

There are some things that I find interesting on our trip. You may not, but I want to capture my thoughts about them. Mostly it is the result of things not being exactly the way I pictured them when I thought about the trip. My first thoughts are on hotels…
Since there are six of us, hotel stays are not as simple as for an average family of 4. Along this trip, we’ve had 2 rooms with Dave and I each having 2 kids, we’ve had a suite with 2 beds and a sleeper couch, we’ve slept in 1 room with two kids on the floor in sleeping bags, we’ve squished into a tiny room in downtown Boston with Zack having to sleep in the path to the bathroom, and we’ve had a two-bedroom suite where we can actually spread out a little. Logistically, I tried to separate clothes into groups that would make it easier to bring in less to the hotel rooms. But, I had the bins full of things that we might need at some point – chargers for electronics, dish soap to clean the water bottles, extra Pull-ups for Matthew, extra shoes. Problem was, I needed to figure out what we needed as we pull into a hotel, usually late at night. The cheaper the hotel (i.e. Super 8, Red Roof), the easier it was for me to get back to the car to grab something I needed. But, you sacrifice quality beds and breakfast if you go with these. And, we’ve found that we wanted to be downtown in the cities. This meant that we were staying in bigger hotels and our car was usually parked a couple blocks away in the nearest lot that could hold our car with the car top carrier. Basically, the car was pretty inaccessible if we were staying downtown. Therefore, I wore the same shoes and we went without a lot of things I had worked so hard to remember to bring, such as goggles for the pools.

Since our trip is not planned out, we never book our hotel until a few hours before we intend to stay. We began using hotwire.com to get a good deal. We found that getting a hotel in the city was the best deal. When we went from Kansas City to Denver, we were going to have to pay $130 for a Super 8 at one of the Podunk towns along the interstate or pay $83 for a nice hotel in the middle of Denver. That pushed us forward to Denver, which made for a very late night. We actually have done very well on hotels, relatively. Although, I do not want to see the AMEX bill at the end of this month.

The biggest problem we have is which one of the kids sleeps where. That was causing all kinds of fights at the beginning of our trip. We’ve instituted a rotating order of choosing your spot. It’s not really popular, as it is not completely “fair”. Sometimes we have bed space for everyone and other times we only have floor space for the 2 that choose last, but it’s the best system we have. And, for me and Dave, who spent most of our childhood camping on vacations, we don’t feel too sorry for our kids having to sleep in a sleeping bag inside a warm, carpeted hotel room. While the kids don’t love the new system, they accept it and therefore it is working much better. Loving this two bedroom condo here in Vegas. Although, we had a scary moment here that would not have happened in a regular hotel room. We were awakened at 1:30 in the morning by a knock on the door. It was security with Rachel! She had apparently sleep-walked out of the condo and into the hall. Then, she woke up and couldn’t get back in. I couldn’t hear her from our room. Eventually, she got very upset and headed downstairs. She says it was the scariest time in her life. I felt so bad for her and like a horrible mom for not being able to hear her knocking. Luckily, she was fine. Tonight, we will be sleeping with some furniture blocking the door, just in case.

Arches, day two

2011-05-07T22:39:00.000-07:00

Dave, the tour guide at this point of our trip, had a couple choices for us on Sunday. His preference – a 6 mile round-trip hike to Horseshoe Canyon, the place where the 127 Hours guy was headed when he got stuck.Six miles seemed like way too much for the kids. I definitely did not want to scare the kids off of hiking so early in our trip. Since we had gotten a late start because of church and a stop at the grocery store, we decided against that trek instead favoring a hike to Landscape Arch and possibly Double O Arch. Landscape Arch had a big chunk fall off in 1991, a reminder that this landscape is changing all the time. We made it there easily. It is a large arch and neat to see the place where the broken piece had fallen off.

We set off on the second half of the hike. This was labeled difficult hiking. We reached a pretty steep ridge of rocks that we needed to climb up. I almost balked because it seemed too scary. But, Dave checked it out and said that it would be OK. We carefully climbed it, and fortunately, it got a little easier after this – for awhile. You totally can't appreciate it here, but you can see the people up on the top behind Dave.

We reached this ridge with sharp cliffs on both sides. We were supposed to cross this. There was no way. Then, add to this that the wind was gusting pretty hard. I had trouble keeping my feet when I was up on the ledge. So, I decided that there was no way. Matthew was cold and afraid of the wind, so he was definitely out. Rachel, Alex and Zack all wanted to go with Dave. But, I did not feel comfortable with him taking 3. I actually had to play the, “I will not forgive you if one of them dies” card. I was completely freaked by this and wanted Dave to know how much against this I was. I could hardly breathe. Rachel ended up offering Zack $1 to stay with me because she could tell that that was the only way she would be able to go.

Hiding from the wind in these little caves.

People walking on the ridge I was talking about. I forgot to take a picture of Dave walking with Alex and Rachel. You can't appreciate how dangerous that was from here, but there were steep cliffs on each side with strong wind gusts.

Zack, Matthew and I headed to check out a couple of other arches they had up there. Apparently, the Double O Arch was awesome and the kids were so excited about doing something dangerous. They loved it! Dave said the trail would have been fine without the wind, but that it was scary with the wind. The other arches up there were Navajo Arch and Partition Arch. Zack and Matthew were having great fun climbing on the rocks and playing in the crevices near Navajo Arch.

Partition Arch was a little scary. There was this little window that the kids climbed up to. It really looks like the kids could fall off over the edge. Of course, it was making me nervous, but it wasn’t that bad. It was definitely a little scary and the kids could have fallen, but I let them climb up there.

Here you can see the other side of the window. It is the small window up there to the left. Notice that this side is pretty steep.

Along the way here, Zack earned his new nickname, “Slash”.

On the way down, we had a contest to balance a rock on our heads as we hiked down. After quite a ways, Alex beat us all. In the end, we hiked over 5 miles along that route. But, it was definitely an experience and everyone remained very happy

We had planned a trip to Goblin Valley State Park for afterwards, but I talked Dave into an early night to get some laundry done. We stayed in Green River (a teeny town along the interstate), but they had a nice Laundromat next to a car wash. So, we got the car and the clothes cleaned. Then, we got the kids bathed and in bed. Whew!

A new day

2011-05-06T14:55:00.000-07:00

Waking up at 10,000 feet after a horrendous evening of driving in the snow was beautiful. There were a few snow-capped mountains right there. I couldn’t believe how close they were. It really was a beautiful sight. It was still a treacherous 30 mile trek over the mountains to I-70. It was snow packed, but driveable. It was a wonderful sight when we saw I-70. We continued on our journey to Utah. It’s truly amazing to watch the scenery change as you head from the snow-capped Rocky Mountains to the deserts of Utah. It’s hard to believe that these environments could be so close together.

At the beginning of the hike. Everyone's excited!

By 2:00 that afternoon, we had reached Arches National Park. We decided to do the most popular hike to Delicate Arch, the unofficial state symbol of Utah. It really is a beautiful arch. The hike is 1.5 miles up, but it’s a nice hike.

Everything was going really well until we reached the top. We were going around on this pretty small ledge with a significant drop, and I was getting pretty nervous. Then, we turned the corner to view the absolutely beautiful sight of the arch. The kids started getting excited and wanting to see it. But, we were on slippery sandstone at a steep decline. I really began freaking out. Having all four of the kids up there is just too much for me and Dave. Rachel is fearless and wants to get as high as possible. Zack surprised me because he too was fearless. And, he is pretty careless, in general. He just doesn’t think about what’s around him and what could happen. So, I was completely nervous. I truly couldn’t get myself to quit freaking out. Fortunately, for me, it was windy up there. The kids were a little cold, so Alex and Matthew wanted to head down. I took the two of them down a little ways, while Dave, Rachel and Zack went over closer. Even though it was not dangerous as I was probably assuming, I was glad to get off of that area. Amazingly, though, the kids handled the 3 miles roundtrip with no problems. They were all in good spirits the entire time.

Notice how it slopes downward in the background. It went very far.

We decided to drive around the park to see what we wanted to do the next day. We stopped at Double Arch, where we could explore within a short walk of the car. The kids LOVED this area. They went crazy, climbing on all the sandstone structures. I had just read 127 Hours about the guy getting stuck in the canyon here in Utah. One quote in his book is that, “geological time includes now” talking about this rock coming loose even though it had probably been secure for a very long time. I couldn’t help thinking about this as I was watching my kids. They were jumping from rock to rock. Zack was standing atop a tall rock, lost his balance, and I grabbed him before he tumbled face first 8-10 feet on to another rock. It sent adrenaline through my body, and I just couldn’t get over the fear.

I turned around to see Dave, Matthew and Rachel hanging out on a ledge that apparently had a sharp drop-off on the back. Rachel was standing up, trying to climb up further. I was truly freaking out. Alex and Zack headed up as well. I went up myself to see, and it did not comfort me.

Just to push me to my limit, the kids decided to climb this cave. It didn’t look all that bad, but it was rocky and slippery.

Matthew was definitely a little nervous climbing up. His legs were shaking at some of the points. But, he kept pushing ahead because he was determined to get up. At the top, Zack is just running around, disappearing beyond my view. This, of course, was causing me to scream at Zack to get back to where I could see him. Coming down is not always as easy as going up. Matthew had some trouble and started sliding down. It scared me and him, I think.

I wasn’t sure that I was going to make it through this park if the kids were going to be like this. It became a big joke for the kids to see if they were doing stuff that was “freaking me out.” We finally got to Moab, had dinner at Denny’s after 8:30, got what was probably the last hotel room, and fell into bed. Everyone else fell right to sleep. I, on the other hand, kept picturing my kids doing all the dangerous things and falling to their deaths. I could not get it out of my mind. The kids are pretty scary. They run down these slopes with a complete disregard for how they are going to stop or what would happen if they got too fast. They walk forward along sheer cliffs while turning around to talk to us or fight with one another. It is truly scary. I kept screaming at them to “Watch Out” and “Be Careful”. I must have said it hundreds of times. I was sure they were going to die.

At least, the scenery is beautiful!

Onward and Upward

2011-05-06T00:36:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the delay in updates. We've been very busy with spotty internet service. Most of our nights this week have consisted of hiking all day with late arrivals at hotels, too late for blog entries. So, I go back to where I left off. Two days in Vegas should give me some time to catch up.

Our trip to Denver was long and late. We went straight through from Kansas City to Denver. That had not been our intention, but we couldn’t really find a good hotel before Denver. So, we decided to make it all the way there. We checked in at midnight, which was really 1:00AM for us. We were tired but happy to be there for 2 nights, a rarity on this trip. I had not known what we were going to do in Denver and whether we would even stay and do anything there. We were 3 days ahead of my rough plan, so we decided to look for something to do.

We walked around downtown, went inside the Capital building, did a couple geocaches, and walked around the 16th Street Mall. We had a nice dinner and the kids actually got to bed at a reasonable hour.

We had decided to take it easy because the guys needed haircuts. For some reason, we are having issues with hair. One day, I looked at Alex and realized that his hair looked a little funny. Upon further examination, I saw that he had a spot that had been cut really short, maybe shaved. Alex seemed genuinely confused and it looked a little like a practical joke played on him. But, I couldn’t get him to admit doing anything to his hair. Eventually, he did admit to using my razor in the shower on his hair. He never told us why he did it, but it will take a while for it to grow out.

Just a couple days later, I looked at Matthew thinking that he looked funny as well. After interrogation, he finally admitted to cutting it with scissors in the car. We tried to get his hair cut and fixed up, but I think she just made it worse. Originally, it just looked like he had cut part of his hair. Afterwards, he looked like he had a dorky haircut. Oh well. The next day, I caught Zack trying to cut his hair. Really? I guess that is what happens when the kids sit in the car for long hours.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

A picture of why we're taking this trip.

The next day, we took a tour of Mile High Stadium, home of the Denver Broncos. I found this interesting and enjoyed seeing the locker rooms, media rooms, etc. We got to go down on the field, but I don’t think it was as exciting as the kids had hoped. I think they wanted to play football on the field and were disappointed.

At the stadium, they had the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame. They had a room where the kids could try on outfits of the different teams in the area. The kids got a real kick out of this. Maybe their future attire?

As we headed out of Denver, Dave had found us a mountain climb that would allow us to summit a mountain relatively easily. It was supposed to be about a mile to get to the top – strenuous but possible. It’s pretty cool to actually summit a mountain, so Dave wanted to give that to the kids. That morning it was in the 60’s in Denver. Dave was in shorts. Since the climb is so short and yet summits the mountain, it obviously starts at a relatively high altitude. The temperature was dropping as we were approaching and it might have started snowing a little bit as we got higher. When, we reached the trailhead (or what we believed to be the trailhead), it was covered in snow. Not to be set back, Dave suggested we get out the boots and coats we had in the car top carrier. So, we decided to see if we could still do it.

First step, climb a 6-foot snow wall. Even that was a challenge. We maybe should have turned around. But, Dave pushed us forward. You can see the summit in the picture. It looks attainable, at least in the summer without the snow on the ground. We followed the path of some cross-country skiers that we had seen exiting the path. It was pretty flat, but Matthew was struggling to keep up. We never saw any markings of a trail, and we realized that we must have continued too far. We needed to head up the mountain. So, the kids just started heading up the mountain. This put us in deeper snow. Matthew and I were lagging behind and struggling to keep up. I couldn’t even see Dave and the kids. Matthew was not liking falling in the snow, and we were ready to turn back. But, I couldn’t get Dave or the other kids to hear me. So, we continued on. I kept post-holing in the snow. We were soaked and cold. I finally could hear the other kids. Apparently, Dave had gone ahead to scout. This was the makings of a sad movie. Lost in the snow on a deserted mountain. Dave could not hear me, so we just waited. Finally, he appeared to say that we had way overshot our summit if we wanted to make a different try. I vetoed that idea and we headed back to the car. Matthew was so over this snow, and he did not want to walk. After lots of encouragement, we were able to get him back to the car. There we changed our clothes and headed back down the mountain, full of disappointment over an unsuccessful summit attempt and a frustratingly cold hike. Oh well. At least our hikes in Utah will be in the desert and not snowy. I don’t think Matthew would step foot on another snowy hike. He has been using his dry erase board to write “I hate snowy hike” over and over.

We continued back on toward Utah. The snow that we thought was just flurries from being high on the mountain turned out to be a storm coming our way. The rest of that story I shared with you earlier. Not the most fun day of the trip! Fortunately, it got much better.

Shooting some hoops

2011-05-02T15:24:00.000-07:00

We drove across Missouri and stayed in downtown Kansas City , which is nowhere near as nice as downtown St. Louis. We got in really late and it was a little scary. But, the next day, we walked over to the College Basketball Experience. It is basically a place to do basketball activities, such as free throw challenges, 3-point challenges, dunking the ball at different heights. It was fun and gave us a chance to run around and play for a couple hours. We played a good little game of 3-on-3. It was Rachel, Zack and I against Dave, Alex, and Matthew. Alex was shooting amazingly well and heavily contributed to them beating us 20-12. It was a fun game, though. Everyone was able to get in on the action some. It won’t be long before we can have a true 3-on-3 game with everyone playing to the best of his/her ability.

Here’s Alex practicing his dunk on the smaller hoop. Dave and I took our turns on the 8-foot and 9-foot goals.

Matthew taking after his mom!

The first of many arches

2011-05-01T21:24:00.000-07:00

Going back a few days, before the snowstorm...

We woke up to beautiful sun on Tuesday morning. We were so glad to see it because it had been so rainy. Our hotel was a short walk to the Gateway Arch, so we headed down there to check it out. We watched the movie about Lewis and Clark. I thought it would be a good introduction to the kids about where we were going and how hard it had once been to get there. Of course, the impact of that was completely lost on them.

We, despite my serious concerns, took the tram to the top of the Arch. Here we are in the tiny pods that take you to the top.

I really hate being in places that I can’t get out of, such as elevators and tiny pods that head up a very tall and skinny arch. My biggest fear is having them stop and being stuck. Well, a short ways from the top, that is exactly what happened. We came to a complete stop. It was probably only a couple minutes, but I was having trouble remaining calm. I am a worst-case scenario person, so I start thinking that we are going to be trapped for hours. I think the kids were laughing at me.

Fortunately, we made it. The top is pretty small with tiny windows to look out over the city.

Here you can see the flooding Mississippi.

My budding model:

I love this picture, even though the Arch is over-exposed. At home, I'll play with it when i have better software. I just love all the kids in it.

We walked around St. Louis, which has a beautiful downtown area, and tried to find a geocache. We looked all around but were unsuccessful. Zack was very upset when we had to give up.

On to Kansas City...

Rocky Mountain High

2011-04-29T21:08:00.000-07:00

Have you ever seen the movie, “Snowbound” where the family makes a big error by getting off the highway and gets stranded in the snow for a few days? We are experiencing our version, albeit a little more populated and hopefully way shorter and less dramatic. As we were heading out of Denver on I-70, snow began to fall. We saw a sign advising that I-70 had been shut down around Vail due to accidents. There was no forecast of reopening the road, and it had already been closed for 3 hours. They gave another route as a possibility. As we approached the exit where the road was closed, there were plenty of people waiting alongside the road for the road to reopen. Here, we made the fatal decision. We decided to take the suggested detour, which was on two state roads through the mountains. The first road of 24 miles took us up and down a mountain reaching 11,315 feet in elevation. While it was slow going, it was manageable. We saw on my phone that they had now reopened I-70, but we decided to continue on our path.

Then, we turned on the second road of 32 miles heading back toward I-70, 24 miles down the interstate. The snow really began to pick up. This was much scarier. But, we made it to 10,500 ft, the peak of the road, and thought that we were home free. But, the road was twisty as we descended the mountain. Dave spun out once, which was terribly scary for us. Fortunately, the kids hardly noticed because they were so engrossed in their video games and DVD. We began hitting traffic about 11 miles to I-70. Then, it came to a halt. We sat there for 30 minutes or so. Matthew had to pee out the side of the car. Rachel and I had to trudge through the snow to a rock to go behind. Finally, traffic began coming in the other direction. We thought that was a good sign. Ten minutes or so later, we discovered that it was just traffic turning around because a couple semis had jack-knifed ahead. We turned around to head back the way we had come. Dave could barely see out of the windshield. Ice had formed on the wipers, and it was not coming off. It looked blizzard-like at times. It was now dark. We fortunately had a car in front of us that we followed very slowly for 20 miles. I finally got cell service, and I was checking the weather. It said we were in Leadville, CO. I checked for hotels and was ecstatic to see that there were a few choices, including a Super 8. We had already decided we were camping out in the parking lot of the Shell we saw when we turned. We had jackets and a couple sleeping bags. But, it wouldn’t have been fun with these near record low temperatures.

Let me just say that Dave has on shorts because the weather was so nice in Denver, just a couple hours away. We did not know this was coming. But, I am just thankful that we had gas, food we had bought at Target, the kids were preoccupied and super good, and that we made it out of that. We still have to get over the mountains in snowstorms tomorrow, but I think there will be a break in the morning and at least in the light of day, we can see the road. Lesson of the day - never, ever get off the highway in a snowstorm!

Change of plans

2011-04-29T07:17:00.000-07:00

My original plan had been to go to Indianapolis Children's Museum, one of the best in the country and then head to St. Louis. Sunday night I decided to check to make sure they were open, and sure enough, they were closed on Mondays. So, we needed to make a quick change of plans. Abby suggested the Louisville Sluggler Museum and Factory, which was on the way to St. Louis. This turned out to be a great, little stop off. The tour of the factory was a short, informative 30 minute tour. It was a good day to be there because they were making the major league pink bats that they use on Mother's Day. We saw some of the bats for the Boston Red Sox players that we had seen at our game. That was kind of cool, and we are planning to watch a game on Mother's Day to see those pink bats.

We were trying to find the place, looking around at the numbers on the buildings. Then, I pointed to the kids saying maybe it was the one with the big bat. Hard to miss.

They had a batting cage there, which was great fun! The kids did well hitting the ball. I had fun! There is nothing quite like the feel of a ball coming off the sweet spot of a bat for a good hit. Made all of us want to play some ball!

Matthew was disappointed that he was not the 6 years old that you are required to hit in the cages. But, they had a pipsqueak area, where he wailed on some of the balls. The other kids wanted their turn, so I guess he didn't miss out too much.

On to a casino in St. Louis in the middle of a tornado warning. When we got to the hotel, we turned on the TV to see that one of the biggest tornadoes on record had just hit somewhere in the St. Louis area. So, what do we do? We head out about 10 blocks in the rain and storms to find a good place to eat. Alex, our concerned child, was pretty nervous that we were going to get hit by a tornado. We actually saw the destruction as we headed out of St. Louis. It was pretty dramatic! Houses were destroyed, trees ripped out of the ground, road signs were crunched. Glad it missed us!

Some brotherly love at the hotel. I definitely have to catch moments of these. I'll try to forget the fighting, but I think it might be etched on my brain since it happens way more often.

Good friends

2011-04-27T07:24:00.000-07:00

Good Friday was a long day. We definitely sacrificed that day. We had hoped to make it to Stations of the Cross, but the 2.5 hour delay getting into the US made that not possible. We made the kids wait until after 3 to eat or play video games. They were distraught by this, but it was only ½ hour after they started asking for food. Since we were fasting, we weren’t feeling too sorry for them. We drove though more rain on our way to Cincinnati. We finally made to Abby and Matt’s house around 9, I think.
I met Abby my first year at UVA. She was in my suite. We got along pretty well from the beginning and spent all 4 years there together. We lived together 3 or the 4 years and worked at the same place. She and Dave got along great, so we all hung out together a lot. Abby is one of those friends that you just know you can count on no matter how little we keep in touch. Because of her efforts to get to DC or UVA, we do get to see each other every year or two. When we began planning our trip, getting to Cincinnati was one of those must do’s. Fortunately, it worked really well that we got to go over Easter. I was glad to spend the holiday with friends rather than in a hotel somewhere. Abby and her husband, Matt, who is amazing with my kids, graciously allowed us to stay with them for 3 nights. We completely destroyed their house, seemingly did laundry non-stop, and gave their Wii more use than is reasonable. They took it all in stride, but I’m sure they were glad when we left this morning.

It rained most of the time we were there, but we were able to get to the park to see the overflowing Ohio River and geocache a little. We had a travel bug that wanted to stay on the Eastern US. Because it had been raining pretty much our entire trip, we had not geocached yet. So, we finally found a place for it before we got too far west. But, we had to cut our park visiting short as the rain was coming back. We ate at Skyline Chili to get a taste of Cincinnati. It was very yummy! Saturday evening, we decorated some eggs. Not sure Abby and Matt were ready for the amount of mess 4 kids can make decorating 3 dozen eggs.

On Easter morning, the kids needed to find their Easter baskets. That Easter bunny gets trickier and trickier every year. Rachel’s was in a pot way up on the cabinet. She found it without too much looking, though.

Zack actually found Alex’s because he was pouting about not finding his. He fell down on the couch and noticed something under the slipcover. He checked and realized it was Alex’s. Of course, he went to give Alex some super obvious clue that led him right to it.

Zack found his next while he was eating breakfast. It was actually hidden in plain sight right from the pot rack. There were a couple pots around it, but I noticed it right away. I was surprised the kids had missed it. But, he was getting upset that he didn't know where it was.

Matthew’s was pretty easy, but he was too busy playing ball with one of the dogs. I thought he was going to be the kid that cried over not finding their Easter basket, but Alex gave him a clue about what room it was in. After that, he found it in one of the baskets under some magazines.

Not too bad finding. In fact, it was way better than Abby and Matt. I had hidden a basket for them in one of their laundry baskets under some laundry. It took them all day and a clue from Rachel after they sneaked her a dollar to find it.

On Easter, Abby’s parents and one of her sisters and her family came for lunch. It was fun. We had an Easter egg hunt and a piñata. The kids had a great time and got lots of candy by the end of the day. It was a great weekend. My kids had a blast and did not want to leave this morning. Abby and Matt, I cannot thank you enough for opening your house to my crazy crew. We love you and can’t wait to come back and visit.

Niagara Falls

2011-04-26T08:18:00.000-07:00

Blogging seems to be much more difficult than I anticipated. My cell phone has internet access, but it is a pain to type on and the pictures get put on Dave’s computer. But, we are having difficulty getting internet access at our hotels. Most of them charge for it, which annoys me, or there are problems with it, which seems to be the case tonight. We are in St. Louis. Today, we got in early and walked to dinner. It is only 8:30, and the kids are in bed. Dave was heading to the casino, and I was going to blog. But, of course, the internet is not working. So, I am typing in Word and will hopefully find a WiFi in the morning to post this. We also were at Abby’s in Cincinnati for 3 days. Even though blogging would have been easy, I didn’t want to spend our time together doing it. So, therefore, nothing was done there either.

So, I need to backtrack quite a few days. On Wednesday, we had reservations for a show in Niagara at 6:15, so we needed to make good time on our trip. The weather was horrible. Dave was driving through rain and horrible winds. The car kept jerking as we caught a stiff crosswind. It made the drive more difficult. But, we made it into Canada and to the hotel with a little time to spare. We got dressed to go out and checked out the wonderful hotel. We had gotten a suite at the Embassy Suites. I had found a great deal. The room was large with a bedroom and enough beds for all of us (a luxury, for sure). It had free buffet breakfast for all of us, a pool, views of the falls, an arcade. We were very pleased with the hotel.

We headed out to see this dinner show about Canada. I had read about it on the internet. The reviews said it was good and entertaining. I knew that it would be kind of cheesy, but I hoped that it would give us an overview of things Canadian. Well, the food was just OK and I thought the show was pretty bad. They sang a lot of songs and really told us nothing about Canada. They had Canadian things like hockey players and Mounties, but they didn’t tell us anything about them or do anything interesting. It was a real waste of time and money.

The tour desk guy talked us into their tour of the attractions around the Falls. I knew that the costs were steep, but he gave us an extra kid free and it seemed nice to have someone else take care of everything. I couldn’t use my phone in Canada without paying ridiculous prices, so I would have had to do everything old school – find brochures, get maps, etc. Seemed more trouble than I wanted. So, we paid for the tour. The Maid of the Mist, which is the boat tour at the bottom of the Falls was not going yet because of the ice still in the river. They substituted another attraction for that one.

We started by doing this 4-D attraction. First, it showed a cartoon of how the falls were created years ago. I actually thought that was really well done. Then, we donned ponchos and headed into a room where they rained on us, the wind blew, lights flashed like lightning, etc. Matthew and Zack were scared, but it was actually pretty poor. The idea was great, but the execution was bad.

Next, we did the Journey behind the Falls. This is an elevator that takes you down into these caves behind the falls. You can walk out to a space to get a close-up view of the falls. But, we couldn’t walk out on to the platform they have outside, so we couldn’t really appreciate the falls very well. They also had little windows that are actually behind the falls. Those were interesting but not all that great.

We had a few moments to look at the Falls from the lookout point before we headed out. The mist was heavy and the lighting poor to get a good look and/or picture of the Falls.

We ate lunch at a cheesy cafeteria and headed to our substitute attraction. This is the Whirlpool Aero Car. It is a little skyride like car that goes over the whirlpool area of the Falls. We thought when they were talking about it that we would be able to see the falls, but you cannot see them at all. It is downstream a ways. We did see the gorge and the rapids. But, I’m pretty sure that ride has not been updated or even maintained since it opened in the ‘60’s. I was pretty nervous and it was pretty cold and windy.

The rapids from our car high above. I didn't get a picture of the whole thing for some reason.

Back on the bus to a classic Niagara site (I guess), the flower clock. It’s a clock with flowers planted on it. Apparently, you can go inside and see it working and see pictures of all the faces for the past 40 years or so. But, it was neither working nor the back door open. So, that was pretty lame.

Final stop was the butterfly conservatory. This was actually really great. We’ve been to one in Aruba and one at the Natural History Museum in DC. This was the best one we had seen. There were tons of butterflies and many different varieties. Dave had his marathon shirt on, which is a super bright shade of yellow. Not the best color to wear normally, but it really attracted the butterflies. He even gave it to Zack for awhile, so he could have them land on him.

At the hotel, we did the kids’ favorite activity – swam in the pool. They had a good time. I became convinced that Matthew will do just fine on the swim team this year. He’s been resistant to the idea, so I was afraid he would throw a fit the first few days and they would bump him down a level, but I think he will be just fine. We went to Margaritaville for dinner. Here are my pirate men. They really have good margaritas there!

We took a walk down to the path by the water. At this point, the lighting was perfect. The American Falls were really beautiful and easy to photograph. The Canadian ones had a lot of mist, but they kept throwing up a rainbow, so that was pretty. Afterwards, we had dessert at the casino food court, left Dave at the casino and headed home to bed.

The next day, Good Friday, we spent 2.5 hours trying to get through customs and back into the US. Basically, this part of the trip was a lot of money, extra time, and the best thing was seeing the Falls from the free walkway. The view from the Canadian side is definitely worth it, but that traffic was horrible. And, all the attractions are just not up to par with the price. I think it’s hard to improve upon the view of just seeing the falls from the street. They are super impressive. If I knew what I know now, I would have stayed at that hotel, just watched from the Falls from the path, and left town the day before. I think Niagara has just become too much of a tourist trap.

Same day, different perspective

2011-04-22T12:51:00.000-07:00

I know there are many people that have this great desire to run a marathon to say they have done it. Well, I don’t have that and would not want to train for and run that far. But, the logistics of managing the four kids at these super crowded marathons often leaves me wondering if Dave has the easier part of the job. This is the first marathon where we were really willing to pay for a hotel close and, of course, it was a point to point marathon rather than a loop. Instead of making Dave get up super early to take the bus from Boston to the start, we stayed close to the start the first night and were staying in Boston after the finish. Even though I tend to plan things to the nth degree, I left a lot of this to chance – bad idea! I decided last minute to try to see Dave a couple times along the path rather than just driving to the finish, but I had not figured out where. As I was dropping him off at the start, we discussed the plan to meet up – family meeting area 15 minutes or so after Dave crosses the finish or he can head to our hotel if we aren’t there for him. Problem was he didn’t really know where the hotel was just the name and general direction. I knew he would have great difficulty finding the hotel on his own.

The decision to see Dave along the route was a great idea. We stopped first at mile 8. We just parked in a residential area and made our way to the route. We found a great place to be as the wheelchair race went through. We were able to see the elite women and men pass. It was cool to see them running by at such a fast pace without appearing to be exerting much effort. They really are quite amazing. Then, we cheered for the runners as the pack got larger and larger. Dave knew we were going to be on the left side of the street somewhere, so he was watching for us. He ran over and gave high fives. He was looking good and it was great to see him at this point.

Unfortunately, the camera started displaying some error. It quit working right as I went to take pics of Dave. This sent me searching on my phone about the error only to discover that this was a pretty serious deal. I want to fix things right away, so it was stressing me out as we headed back to the car to move on to another spot in the race. It was making me upset and the kids started fighting the minute we got back in the car about something silly. The stress of the camera made me much less tolerant of it. But, I just tried to ignore them and figure out where stop #2 would be. We picked mile 19. At that place, I had to park farther away. The kids actually started to complain about the ½ mile or so we would have to walk to watch Daddy run the marathon. Really?

Here it was interesting to me. This is a big event for these people. There were tailgates set up. The runners run on roads with houses lining it. All these people had chairs on their lawns to watch the race. I thought it would be pretty neat to live along the route. Dave was a little off pace at this point, so he was behind where I thought he would be. The kids were focused on the race a little. But, mostly, the boys started wrestling and playing tag in an area full of people. I was having trouble keeping them under control while also watching out for Dave. I was glad that we had come, though, because Dave needed me to rub his legs and provide some encouragement to make it the last 6 miles.

But, once we got back in the car, I knew we were in trouble. We did not have enough time. We headed into Boston, but the traffic got worse as we got closer. Because of the cartop carrier, I knew we would have trouble parking in Boston. I had talked to the hotel, and they had an uncovered lot that their valet service could use. So, my plan was to go to the hotel and give them the car to park and head to pick up Dave. I entered the address in the GPS, but it took us to the wrong place. I drove further on the road and the hotel never appeared. I tried a couple things, but it wasn’t getting us where we needed to be. At this point, I was receiving texts that Dave was finished with the marathon. And, in addition, my friend was at my house looking for our iPad to mail to us and could not find it. I was trying to figure out where it might be – to no avail.

I tried to look up the hotel on my phone, but my phone was not getting service (really, no cell service in the middle of Boston?). The GPS was just confused. Big city buildings are not good for the GPS. I had a map, but I had no good map reader. I’m sure Rachel could have handled it if I could have found where we were and knew where we were going, but I didn’t have a place to stop. And, I didn’t trust the hotel address I had and I had no cell service to call them. The city was completely packed with people. I looked for parking spots or parking lots, but they were all full. I was trying to find a space to park or maybe our hotel completely blind, avoiding closed streets and the thousands of people around, and stressing about our camera still. I couldn’t even find the street where our hotel was on because I had made too many turns. The breaking point was when I ended up on this place where I was exiting onto a street that had a sign warning of low clearance. I freaked out because our car might not make it. There was an alley, thankfully, I just pulled over on it and stopped the car. I was blocking traffic if it had come. I was losing it, though, and needed to gain some control. I guess I should also say that Matthew was yelling all kind of things at me and kicking the seat. At this point, I don’t even remember what he was upset about. But, I reached a point at which telling him to behave was not working and I just had to ignore him completely. That, of course, made him madder, but I couldn’t handle him at this point.

I pulled out the map and figured out where we were and how to get to the street our hotel was on. Of course, when I went to drive there, it was a one way road going in the wrong direction. Just that kind of day, but I was able to find another road that got me close enough to figure it out. Finally, we saw the beautiful sign of our hotel. We dropped off the car and began the close to a mile hike to the family meeting area to hopefully find Dave. He called me from someone’s cell phone to ask where we were. I was glad to talk to him and know where he was. I had to push through thousands and thousands of people across busy streets of Boston while keeping hold of all four kids. Stressful, for sure, but it was a wonderful sight to see Dave. He was very happy to see us and needed me to help him walk a little. We took it nice and slow back to the hotel. Not exactly the day I had planned, but everything was OK in the end, I guess - after Matthew received his punishment. We did have a great dinner and relax in the hotel room watching a movie afterwards...so, I'll quit whining!

2011 Boston Marathon

2011-04-22T07:44:00.000-07:00

One reason that the marathon is such an interesting race is that it is so unpredictable. When I ran my BQ (Boston Qualifier) in Philadelphia in November 2009, I kept waiting to hit the dreaded wall. But it never came. In fact, the last 10k was my fastest, and I felt like I could have run both faster and farther. Today's marathon was a whole different story.  I felt fine through the first half of the race, but somewhere between miles 15 and 16, the big muscles in my upper legs started cramping badly, making it really hard to even approximate decent running form. The last 10k was slow and painful, and when asked by a volunteer at the finish whether she could do something for me, I said, "yeah, please just put me out of my misery". The amazing thing, though, is that I think I felt better today at the halfway point than I did in Philly. You just never know how your body will react to the distance. You just have to wait and see. Maybe that is part of the appeal of the marathon ... that and the fact that you can eat without guilt for 2 weeks after the race.

If I wore hats, I would take mine off to the city of Boston. What an event! In spite of my disappointing time (3:28:30, considerably behind my goal of 3:15:59), this was an unforgettable experience.  I was amazed at how many people came out to support the runners, and I was even more amazed at their level of enthusiasm. Consider that at many points on the course, there is a constant stream of runners for over 3 hours. Yet, you always had the sense that they were there cheering for YOU. I wore a Virginia Cavaliers shirt, and there was a constant stream of "Go, Virginia", and "WAHOOWA!". There were very few vacant stretches from Hopkinton to Boston. And the last 3 or 4 miles were just unreal. I am sure that I would have run close to 4 hours if it weren't for the encouragement of the crowd. The volunteers were great too. They treated all the runners like VIPs and if you thanked them for volunteering, they would respond with "my pleasure" or even "my privilege" ... Chick-Fil-A employees perhaps?

I also have to take my hat off to my wonderful wife. Jes managed to round up four unruly kids, pack up, check out from our hotel room, and drive to two separate spots on the course to cheer me on. The first was near our hotel in Natick, at about the 8 mile mark. The second was on the 3rd hill in the Newton district at about mile 19. From there she had to drive into the jam packed city of Boston, find our hotel and then fight the crowds to get to our meeting spot with four kids in tow. And I am thankful she did. I was in no state to try to get to the hotel by myself. I couldn't even remember the name of the street it was on. I love you, Jes!

Those are my high level thoughts from the race. I wrote down the full marathon day story for kicks and grins. Here it is.

After experiencing the logistical nightmare of the 2006 Marine Corps Marathon, I decided to leave fairly early. I got up at 6:30, showered, and got dressed. I made a race day decision to wear my short sleeve Virginia shirt instead of my long sleeve Shamrock Marathon shirt, which turned out to be the right call. Jes and the kids threw on some clothes, and after checking to make sure I didn't forget anything, we left promptly at 7:30. The trip to the drop off point was uneventful. The organizers of the marathon planned this part really well. The drop off point is in Hopkinton State Park in a place where lots of cars can get in and out easily. From there, we boarded a bus that drove us back the way we came, out of the park to Hopkinton High School, the site of "Athletes Village".

I had a good hour to kill in Athletes Village.  For 45 minutes, I was mostly focused on two things: fueling up and keeping warm. The temperature wasn't too bad, but it was very windy. I was shivering despite the black warm up suit that I was wearing. I felt sorry for the few people I saw who were wearing only their marathon gear, presumably to avoid the hassle of the bag drop. They looked absolutely miserable. With about 15 minutes to my scheduled "depart from Athletes Village" time, I figured I would hit the porta-potties and then hike the .7 miles to the starting corrals. In retrospect, I should have picked a different line. As it turned out, our line had only 2 working porta-potties. I wasn't paying enough attention to notice that other lines were moving faster than mine. As we got close to front of the line, the guy next to me and I were speculating on why no one had yet come out of the 3rd porta-potty that should have been serving our line. We never did find out, but we came up with several theories, the most plausible being that either the thing was broken or someone was camped out inside trying to stay warm.

    Trying to stay warm in Hopkinton

I eventually had my turn, and after warning the people in the back of the line to find another line, I started making my way out of Athletes Village about 10 minutes after my corral had been called. I stripped down and dropped off my bag at the bag drop buses, which was a quick & painless process. You could sense the excitement during the walk to the starting line. I heard some people joking that they hadn't trained at all for the event, which made me feel a little better about my level of preparation. The race volunteers were very strict about getting people into the right wave and the right corral. I got into corral 6 of wave 1 right after the national anthem, about 5 minutes before the start of the race.

   Psyching myself up on the way to the starting line

During the first few miles of every marathon, it is funny to watch the guys pulling over on the side of the road to dispose of some of the excess water that they took in before the race. In my experience, this is unnecessary, because the feeling goes away after a few miles - for me, it was at about mile 3 this year. The first 10 miles of the race took us through the towns of Hopkinton, Farmingham, and Natick. That part of the course consists of rolling hills, fairly similar to what I'm used to from running at home in Bristow, Va. In some sense, this is nice because it adds variety and some easy sections, i.e. the downhills. I felt pretty good during this part of the race. My primary concern was that I felt hot. My original fluid intake plan was gatorade every other mile. Due to the heat, I decided to take water on the other miles. I also took some of the other things that people were handing out like cold wet wipes and ice cubes. Once I entered Framingham, I started looking for Jes & the kids. That kept me distracted for about 3 miles until I finally saw them and got a big boost. Somewhere near the end of this section of the race, I decided to abandon the stretch goal of 3:10 and shoot for 3:15, because I wasn't quite running 3:10 pace at that point and I didn't feel like I could speed up safely. My splits for the first 10 miles were 7:34, 7:11, 7:18, 7:10, 7:22, 7:16, 7:15, 7:20, 7:17, 7:22.

Somewhere around mile 12, we entered Wellesley, which was a spectacle worth the price of admission:
http://www.runnersworld.com/boston2008/wellesley/.

    Still running strong in Wellesley

I knew that the uphill Newton section of the course started at about mile 16. I was trying to stay relaxed and planned to take it easy on the uphills. My splits from miles 11-15 were 7:31,7:18,7:25,7:24,7:36.  Right at the end of that stretch, maybe around mile 15, I got a big pulsing cramp in my left hamstring. I've had the same symptom before but not until much later in the race, so I knew I was in trouble. Around the same time, my watch lost satellite reception, so I had no idea how fast I was going anymore. The 4 uphills in the Newton section really weren't that bad, except that they added my calfs to the list of cramping muscles. I ran into Jes and the kids on the third uphill, at which point I knew my original goal was not feasible. Jes did me a huge favor by rubbing down my legs. I gave the kids high fives and hugs and moved on - 7 more miles to go. At this point, I started setting mini goals. My first was to run all the way up heartbreak hill without stopping. I can't say that I ran up it all that fast, but I did make it up without stopping and was rewarded with a nice downhill and more cramps. My next goal was to break 3:40. My legs were constantly cramping at this point, so I thought I would have to walk a significant portion of the rest of the race. The crowd kept me in it, though. There were a few points where I stopped, walked & stretched for a bit, but the encouragement from the crowd got me moving quickly. At about the 24 mile mark, I realized that I could make 3:30 if I pushed it. I hobbled through that last stretch, and the huge mob of people on the last half mile stretch helped me across the finish line.

    Approaching Jes & the kids on the 3rd uphill in Newton

As it turned out, my watch had recovered satellite reception about 33 minutes after losing it so I do have some of my late mile splits, even though they don't exactly line up with the mile markers on the course: 8:22,8:25,8:24,10:24,8:42,8:40.

    At the finish line. Apparently I looked up at the wrong time.

I felt pretty awful after finishing. I wanted to eat, but I had trouble getting anything down, least of all the way-too-sweet gatorade recovery drink that they gave us. It seemed to take forever to make my way through the post-race gauntlet of water-blanket-recovery drink-food-bag pick up-family meeting area. Unfortunately, Jes hadn't yet arrived so I wandered around aimlessly for a bit. That's where I had the most painful incident of the race: I got a massive charley horse in my calf when I tried to step up onto a curb. It was pretty obvious that I was in pain. Some lady asked if I needed medical attention. I just needed to wait about 30 seconds for the muscle to relax.

At that point, I figured I'd have to make my way to the hotel on my own. So I got my warmup gear back on, taking off my shoes to make the process easier. A nice woman came and asked if there was anything she could do for me. I asked her to help me get my shoes on and then call Jes on her iPhone. Thankfully, Jes was not far away by this time, so I just waited for her to come rescue me. Seeing her and the kids was an even more welcome sight than the finish line!

It was far from the perfect race, but like I said, it was a great experience and just made me want to come back and do better next time.

A Happy Change - pictures added

2011-04-21T18:49:00.000-07:00

NOTE: Dave will be guest blogging about the marathon. He's working on the post, which will be followed by my experience of the marathon. But, until then, we pick up with the happenings the day after the race.

Tuesday, April 19th

I want to start this post by saying that after yesterday and the fact that my kids fight about everything, especially who sleeps where, I was ready to turn around and head home. Fortunately, our day in Boston on Tuesday was a great one. Breakfast was a wonderful buffet in the hotel. Kids eat free there, and boy, was that a mistake for them. You would think the kids had not eaten in weeks. They all ate 2-3 plates of food. It put them all in a great mood, though.

Here's one of the best sights of the day. I was about to yell at Zack to get off someone's bike until I realized it was a rack. Of course, it took a while for the kids to figure out what these were for.

The weather was not really cooperating, but it never got too rainy to keep us off the streets. We took our Duck Tour through the city. That was enjoyable and an easy way to see the sights.

One of the things that we saw along the way was the Bunker Hill Monument. The kids thought that was cool and wanted to climb to the top. It is the last stop along the Freedom Trail, so that helped give the kids some motivation as we were walking the path later in the day. After the Duck Tour, we began the Freedom Trail. We walked through Boston Commons, saw famous gravestones in multiple graveyards, talked about Paul Revere’s midnight ride and the Boston Tea Party.

Taking the trail is fun because you walk through all the different neighborhoods throughout Boston. We got to see Chinatown and little North End with all the Italian shops and bakeries. All the streets and houses are different as you make your way through the city. We really enjoyed the walk. We stumbled across a street performance. There were funny acrobats. They did some tricks that amused the kids and were quite impressive. We also boarded the U.S.S. Constitution, the oldest warship afloat. The kids pretended to shoot a cannon and we got to go down a level. It was pretty interesting.

Eventually, we made it to the Bunker Hill Monument at 4:50. The last entrance to climb the 295 steps to the top was at 4:30. The kids were sorely disappointed. I think it might have been a mistake to try it because we still had to make it to the subway station. I might have had to carry at least one of the kids, and I’m not sure I could have managed that.

Rachel got a good lesson in map reading. Dave gave her the map to try to get us from the Bunker Hill Monument to the subway station. She did a great job. In the end, we had to ask someone for a little more help, but the map had the station on the wrong side of the major road. So, it was definitely not her fault. But, it was a wonderful treat to get to sit down and ride back to our car rather than having to retrace our steps all the way back.

We calculated that the kids walked over 5 miles that day. We were all tired and had not eaten much other than breakfast. But, we had very few complaints and overall everyone was in good spirits. We had reasonable traffic out of Boston and even had a delicious pizza at some random place that we picked to stop. It was the kind of day that I imagined as we were planning this trip. I'm sure we'll have both this kind and the ones that make me want to throw in the towel and go home. I just hope these kinds outnumber the other.

On to Niagara, so check back for our experiences there.

Adventures in Boston

2011-04-17T22:20:00.000-07:00

Just two days into our trip, and we've had quite a few adventures. We decided to leave on Friday since we were packed and ready. We stopped for dinner just outside Baltimore, so we could watch some of the Caps vs. Rangers game. We got to see both of the Caps' goals in that game, which was nice. We drove until a little after midnight and made it to Mount Laurel, NJ.

We made the rest of the drive to Boston the next day. Thanks to my friend, Katherine, for the suggestion to leave Friday. It worked out really well. We were able to get into Natick, a suburb of Boston, by about 4. Dave went for a short run, and then we all headed to the nice mall across the street. We found a nice surprise - a glow in the dark mini-golf - in the mall. My boys LOVE mini-golf, so we played a round. It was fun. I took some pics with my iPhone, but they did not turn out well. We grabbed some cheesecakes at the Cheesecake Factory for a treat in the hotel. Unfortunately, Alex had left his jacket at the mall, which was closed by the time we discovered it. This caused me to have a mini-meltdown. We had planned on Mass at 9, followed by the trek into Boston proper to pick up Dave's marathon packet and possibly the Red Sox game. But, now the timing would be off if we had to stay around here until noon to pick up the jacket. After a little too much pouting on my part, Dave and I came up with a way to alter the plan. In the end, we were able to get everything done, just not in the original order.

We headed into town to pick up Dave's packet. That's always interesting to see all the people and stuff associated with the race. I think it began to feel very real to Dave and he started to get nervous. I felt very proud with him there because I know that many people aren't able to make it into Boston and would like to. next, we headed to church. It was a nice Mass at a quaint, city church. Apparently going to bathroom twice during mass was not enough for Matthew because he peed in his pants at the very end. That sent us back to the car (in the wrong direction, of course) for a change of clothes. Thankfully, we are packed for 6 weeks or I wouldn't have had new clothes in there. Then, we hustled a mile or so to the Red Sox game.

We got there with 1/2 hour to spare and got great tickets behind home plate. The game was a great baseball game in that it had plenty of hits and action. It was not close - Boston beat the Blue Jays 8-1. But, the kids had a great time cheering them on.

After the game, we had to hustle back to car to try to make it back to the mall to pick up Alex's jacket by 6. We made it with a few minutes to spare and fortunately we recovered the jacket. After finding gobs of people at Olive Garden, Dave ate a pasta dinner at Fridays. Back to the hotel room for showers. Here's a video of Matthew. He was in the shower hooting and hollering. He usually takes baths and was reluctant to take a shower. But, he was having a great time. It was so funny that I grabbed the camera to capture it. Unfortunately, he had kind of stopped, so I was prompting him. But, the video is funny because it captures much of Matthew's personality. Note: there is no inappropriate nudity in the video

A Huge Challenge

2011-04-17T20:23:00.000-07:00

Warning Note: This blog is going to be my primary record of the trip. Therefore, it will be full of many details and probably boring tidbits. This post is a prime example. But, I want to record it all as it happens. Read at your own risk!

Six people, six weeks, eighteen states, one car. We've been planning this trip for a year now, thinking about all the places we intend to visit. But, I knew that a big challenge for me was to see how I was going to get everything we needed for this trip into the car as efficiently and organized as possible. I began making lists two months ago. I couldn't believe how long the list was getting. But, I tried to just separate all the things into reasonable pieces that I could organize and pack. I have to say that it was a monumental feat that I got everything in. After I had packed the car, I stepped back in wonder and awe at the amount of stuff I was able to get in the car and the amount of space we had left. Now, we just need to keep it organized.

First, the clothes. How to pack for 6 people when the weather will vary from very hot, desert conditions to snow-covered grounds (including skiing). I separated the clothes out into 4-5 day groups and packed two sets of suitcases for the start of the trip. Shorts and the snow clothes, which won't be necessary for a couple weeks, were packed each into their own suitcase.

4 days of clothes for the six of us. The other 4-5 days are in two smaller suitcases.

We always seem to get sick on vacation. Normally the kids are pretty healthy, but vacations seem to bring it out in us. We brought some nasty bug with us to the beach one year, which infected all the children there and two of the adults. It gained us the nickname, "Typhoid Kreitzers." So, I try to bring all the medicine we might need with us. Here's my very full medicine kit.

To minimize the suitcases we would need to take into the hotels, I packed this overnight bag. It will go with us everywhere. It has bathing suits (for hotel pools), toiletries, medicine, books to read at night, nightlights, and pull-ups for Matthew.

The solution that helped get the car very contained was to get these bins to line the bottom of the rear of that car. I am using them to hold all the odds and ends of stuff that need to go on the trips. Here he have one with all the cameras, flashlights for the cave exploring we're doing, geocaching stuff, goggles for swimming, etc. The next one is carrying our Easter baskets and extra toiletries and medication that we'll need over the course of the 6 weeks. The final one contains shoes and other odds and ends that we'll need.

The bins across the back of the car. Now, I can just stack the suitcases on top of these, maximizing my space.

The other storage solution that I am using is to embrace the makeup bag. I have found many uses for these multi-compartment, zippered bags. I created one that had tools that we might need on our trip. I also used them for the kids' supplies for the car. I made one for each of the kids to store their crayons, pencils, etc. They can keep them in their backpacks or hang them from the seat in front of them. They are working out really well.

The kids also have organizers hanging from each of the seats. These hold all the electronics and travel games that we have in our house. Anything that might entertain them without the risk of losing too many pieces went into these things. Yet, 1/2 hour in and I think we had our first complaint of boredom.

Schoolwork was another challenge. The kids are each responsible for completing some work from school as well as working on some projects along the way. I packed some stuff in each of their backpacks, but I wanted a folder for me to keep the required work in. Alex is responsible for learning all the states and their capitals for a big test after we come back to school. I am making sure that Rachel and Zack will learn that as well. That required making study guides and practice test copies for all the regions and the complete US. I've stored these, their work, mailing supplies for sending letters to school and family in a big binder that I keep near me.

Finally, I can put it all into the car. The cartop carrier is holding all the stuff that we won't need for awhile. From left to right, that includes: Snow boots, gloves and hats and ski pants, the shorts suitcase, the winter jackets (which came down in Boston because of the cold wind), the 2 suitcases for the second half of this week, and our tennis rackets. With a little help pushing it down, the carrier closed easily.

This picture is deceptive because it was before the kids' backpacks or the kids got in. It shows the new thermoelectric cooler we bought to hopefully help us eat a little healthier and cheaper along the way. Once the kids got in with all their backpacks, it got a little more crowded looking.

Finally, the back! I have to say that I began to question what I had forgotten in order to have so much space. Here we have the tubs, our big suitcase, a suitcase for the 1 night in Boston, the overnight bag, the running stuff bag, and sleeping bags.

Stay tuned for what I forgot. I realized just miles in that I had forgotten the iPad my parents gave us for Christmas for the trip. I am having my friend send it to us at our stop in Cincinnati. I'm sure there will be more forgotten items, but I'm hoing they are just minor. Time will tell.

To the top...

2011-04-15T15:09:00.000-07:00

One of the things we did for Rachel for her birthday was to have her and Dave go to this open climb that I saw. They got to climb up to the top of this structure 3 different times from 3 different routes. Rachel did really well and loved it! You have to be nine in order to do it, so next time, Alex and I will get our turn to make it to the top.

Big smile at the top!

Dave challenged himself and had to pull himself up with these two ropes. He tried and tried but just couldn't pull himself up over the edge. Hopefully, the soreness from this adventure won't hurt his chances in the marathon.

At the top - from a different route!

While they were climbing, the boys played army with their helmets on.

Changing of the Guard

2011-04-03T13:36:00.000-07:00

A big day in the Kreitzer house - Rachel learns to mow the lawn. Rachel (and Alex) have been begging to mow the lawn for awhile. I guess Dave decided Rachel is finally old enough to help out with his big chore. She was pretty excited. I'm pretty sure Dave will have to go back over and clean up the lawn some for awhile as she learns to manipulate the lawn mower. But, it will be a big time saver for him. And, Rachel felt very grown-up today. Makes me a little nervous, but we'll see how it goes.

First step - put gas in the mower

Then, can she start the mower? It took a couple tries, but she got it.

Dave's making her do it the hard way. She was probably wondering what she was getting herself into.

Oh, this is much easier! Loving it!

Finally....a working bathroom

2011-03-29T11:01:00.000-07:00

This project really began 10 years ago when we moved in because there was a water stain on the linoleum. We were worried about water damage and knew that once we started trying to fix the floor, we would end up wanting to redo everything. So, it sat and sat on my to-do list until Matthew flushed a toothbrush down our toilet. That made my mind up - time to tackle the bathroom. I'm glad we waited because my tastes and our wallets have improved over time, so the bathroom is much better than it would have been, even just a few years ago.

It has been a difficult project to manage, but we are so glad that we made the choice to just hire out a lot of the work. The amount of time that we had men here working would have equaled months and months for us. We made it, and I am extremely happy. There are a couple small pieces left - the frameless shower door goes in on Monday, the drawer handles will get installed tonight, the access panel for the tub needs to be caulked in place, and I need to touch up the paint. But, I've been getting bugged for updates, so here you go.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Leprechauns Beware!

2011-03-19T18:54:00.000-07:00

The first graders at our school always set up traps in hopes of catching that pesky leprechaun. Alas, every year, he manages to destroy the classroom while avoiding all the traps. After two failed attempts, Dave has been working on ideas for a couple years. He decided that Zack's trap should include a laser trip system. So, after many hours and more than the average $$, we (at the very last hour) were able to make a working leprechaun trap. Unfortunately, Zack came home empty-handed. That little leprechaun better watch out for when Matthew gets to 1st grade.

Here, Dave demonstrates the trap. This video was taken at midnight on the night before it was due. We wanted to prove that it did in fact work in case something happened by morning. And, for the record, the top will be covered with plexi-glass. We left it off for the video because of the glare.

Bathroom Update

2011-03-06T10:01:00.000-08:00

It seems like I've had workers in our house every day for the past 2 weeks. You'd think the bathroom would be done, but no, we're still a long way. But, a lot has been done and we are excited to see it all come together. I'm thinking we're 2 weeks out. The shower tile was backordered until next Monday, but we got the floor in - and I love it! Now, Dave and I need to get the vanity installed, so we can get the granite in, lights and mirrors up and finish that side of the bathroom. I'm so excited about it seeing it all come together.

Here's the new bath installed. That has been the only disappointment, so far. The inside of the tub is much smaller than the outside dimensions because of the pump for the jets. We can't actually spread our legs out completely in it. It is deep and wide, but we wish it were a few inches longer. Oh well.

Here is the plumbing for the new shower configuration. The will be a rainhead, a handheld shower arm, and two body jets. The shower is much larger than it was originally with a nice, new seat. We are loving the way that it is turning out.

Finally, some decorative pieces. The painter painted it a nice brown color between the dark floor tiles and the lighter wall tiles. Then, they put in the tile on the floor. Grouting tomorrow. Watch for an update next weekend as we hopefully get the right side of the bathroom together!

Matthew turns 5!

2011-02-23T14:43:00.000-08:00

Last year, we celebrated Matthew's 4th birthday with just us at home. Then, we went to McDonald's a couple days later with his friends where we had a cake and opened a couple presents. Well, he was convinced that he turned 5 at this second party. No matter how I explained it to him, he believed that he was 5 and was devastated when I kept telling him that he was still only 4. This year, we celebrated his birthday with his friends 2 days before his birthday. I knew this would probably cause all kinds of confusion. We had an extended conversation about it, and I thought he understood.

With his friends - J.J., Cody, Christopher, Cam and Liz

On his actual birthday, Rachel had a basketball game in the afternoon. We met the Lauderdales on the way home at Red Robin for his birthday dinner. He wanted to go somewhere to where he could get ice cream and they would sing to him. When the time came, though, he was kind of embarrassed. But, he sure liked the ice cream.

He had not finished his ice cream and I was going to take a bite. But, Dave said that I couldn't or I would then be 37. Matthew, even though I thought he understood the whole birthday thing, bought it completely. He didn't let me have any and a couple days later said something about me still being 36 because, "remember, you didn't eat any of my ice cream." He's so funny!

Miss Lauren with the birthday boy

Love this picture of Sean. His hair is so long that he can't see unless he tilts his head backwards. In Tara's defense, they've been sick over a month now with many different ailments.

Mr. B and Rachel hamming it up for the camera

Bathroom Progress

2011-02-20T12:47:00.000-08:00

Progress is happening! The tile company built the frame around the tub. Although, I think they may have not done it properly, so it may need to be fixed.

Electrician was here. He ran wires for the Jacuzzi tub, installed recessed lights, added a plug, and changed the vanity light from one to two lights. But, he left a lot of holes in our house - mostly closets, but still....

Hair Update

2011-02-19T14:00:00.001-08:00

Rachel has been wanting to cut her hair, so we did it today. Looks cute. The front is a little longer than we may have wanted, but it gives her length to tuck it behind her ear.

A model is born

2011-02-19T12:24:00.000-08:00

I had promised Rachel that I would take her to get her portraits done. But, since I got my new camera for Christmas and I saw Alice and Madeleine's photo shoot, I decided to try one ourselves. It was an absolutely beautiful day, so we took full advantage. We had a good time. I think Rachel really enjoyed it. She wore a skirt with her first outfit, so she was limited in the posing. I really preferred that shirt, but, unfortunately, the shoot went better with the second outfit - partly because she got more comfortable and partly because the light was better.

Our neighbors have a beautiful birch tree that we used. I really liked it as a backdrop. This was my favorite headshot picture of the bunch, but I really liked some of the kookier poses that we were trying.

At the end, I had her just model a little. I told her to express different emotions and then to just have fun with it. I loved both of the these pictures because she was pursing her lips (which I wish weren't so chapped) and looking off to the side. I hope I haven't created a monster!

Stay posted: new style coming tomorrow!

Zack's battle

2011-02-18T18:14:00.000-08:00

Zack finally lost his first tooth, but it did not want to come out. It has been loose since before Thanksgiving, and we were all working on it for a few days. In this first picture, you can see the new tooth just growing in behind it.

I was wiggling it like crazy, but I could not get it all the way out. I could just get it to stick straight out like in the picture below. The tooth fairy always brings the kids a new movie for their first tooth, so all of the kids were working together to get it out, so they could have a movie night. In the end, though, Mommy was the winner!

The new smile!

2011-02-11T18:28:00.000-08:00

While talking to the drywall guy, I turned around to find Matthew standing in the hole left by the drain pipe for the tub. He was just standing on the drywall of the ceiling of the family room. I quickly got him out of there and thanked God that he is only 45ish pounds and didn't jump down into the hole.

And, while I will often run to grab the camera to remember a funny situation, I didn't risk it. But, I put together a VERY rough image of what it looked like just so I can remember it. Scary! So, needless to say, he's been banned from the bathroom.

In a side note, notice the new 3/4" pipes sticking up out of the floor. The plumber was here to upgrade the pipes to accommodate all the water we're hoping to use in our new shower. Now, if only we have enough hot water in the hot water heater!

Snow football

2011-01-30T13:05:00.000-08:00

My niece, Madeleine, is here for the weekend. She and Dave were lamenting that she wasn't here over Christmas for the good football game then. So, they wanted to get out there and play this weekend. Despite the snow on the ground, we headed to the middle school to play a family game. Luckily, I got to remain on my feet as the game photo and videographer. Here are some of the highlights.

I'm pretty sure this is pass interference, but we'll allow it because of the size mismatch.

Looks like he got his revenge!

Madeleine went all out. She ended up on the ground a lot!

I was also playing with my new camera to try to get some shots of the kids.

Of course, a big snowball fight broke out.

Zack received a snow earplug. He was none too happy.

The gang of kids. Aren't they cute!