In God's Country: Moab - Spring Break 2011 Day 1

April 5, 2011

The trip that almost wasn't. We had plans for going to Moab over Spring Break with the same friends we went with last year. The week before we were supposed to leave, they decided they would be unable to go. Steve and I decided that we wouldn't be able to go either. The next day we were regretting that decision so after a few days contemplation we decided that we would be super sad if we didn't go. So we loaded up and headed out on Steve's Birthday. This time we stayed in a hotel because we didn't want to spend a bajillion dollars on gas driving 2 trucks there (one to pull the camper and one to pull the wheelers). Plus I hate driving a truck and pulling a trailer. And it was supposed to be cold and raining at night and Steve and I are turning into babies in our old age. It was a little sad to not be camping, although the shower and the toilet in the hotel were really nice to have. We had the best time and made so many fun memories. Our family LOVES Moab. It is one of our fav-o-rite places.

We decided that little Miss Addy Thing was old enough to ride along on the back of a wheeler. She is the same age Aubrey was when she started hitching a ride on the back seat. This was Addy's first time to ride with us. I forgot how much fun it is to have a little one on the back with you banging the visor from her helmet in your back every few minutes.

We arrived in Moab early afternoon on the 5th. We drove straight to a trail head and unloaded the 4 wheelers and hit the red dirt. We did the Gemini Bridges Trail.

Atop Gemini Bridges. OK, so here is the deal. I am not scared of heights. But I seriously had a panic attack when we were here and my kids were walking around the edge of this arch. You will see why in a minute. It is way the heck up there. I felt like if a strong breeze picked up it would take us all right over the edge. I was a total buzz kill up here and I finally just made everyone leave because I couldn't handle it anymore. I had four kids going in four different directions and deep plunging cliffs on all sides. I'm still freaked out when I think about it now.

Walking across the first arch. When we saw what we were standing on when we went down below, well, yeah. There's like nothing underneath us here:

"EVERYONE BACK TO THE WHEELERS NOW! GET AWAY FROM THE EDGE NOW! But here Zac, go stand over by the edge of the cliff one last time so I can take your picture."

I can't believe it, but I actually have a picture of myself standing on that narrow little bridge out there. It was before Steve and I were married and before we had kids and before we had common sense.

Ahhhhhh....let's all just breath a sigh of relief that we are all away from the edge now. I feel so much better, don't you?

We headed down the Bull Canyon Trail which took us below Gemini Bridges.

And there you have it. Gemini Bridges from below. That's where we were standing before. Right up on top of that arch way up there. You see why I was so freaked out. It's a long, long way down.

We had fun playing around in this little valley below the bridges.

We are very much against defacing such beauty so we are not the ones who did this, but apparently just a few days before us, there was another Steve and Emily in this very spot.

The kids had a blast climbing

And so did the Birthday boy, who couldn't think of a better way to spend his Birthday

These two (Zac and Aubrey), who usually spend the majority of their time fighting, became best friends on the trip. They were together the whole time and didn't fight once. It must be something in the desert air.

Emily's looking at me like, "Now whadda I do?"

We decided to have dinner by Gooney Bird Rock

We found a little camp site and pulled out our goods and got a fire crackin'. Steve drove his 4 wheeler (really fast) back to the truck and moved the truck to the other end of the trail so we wouldn't have to go all the way back the way we came in the dark. Then he drove back to us (really fast). I don't know if he actually needed to move the truck or if he just wanted to drive really fast...

While Steve was driving really fast and I was cooking dinner, the kids went exploring. They loved climbing. If you look really hard in the middle of this picture, you can see all four of them.

I enjoyed the beautiful view while the sun was setting

We had foil dinners. Yummm. Although, just a little note to myself. Self: If you are going to pack foil dinners and take them in an ice chest jostling down a trail on a four wheeler all day, do not pack them all in the same bag. They need to be in their own individual ziplocks with lots of padding. They rubbed against each other and there were some places where they rubbed right through the foil. But it was OK. They were still delicious. And just a little hint for those of you who make foil dinners: I always cook all my ingredients at home BEFORE I put them in the foil. Then you just have to heat them up and it doesn't take long!

I couldn't forget about my Sugar Daddy's Birthday. I brought his favorite snack cakes, Zingers (I wanted to make cupcakes but I didn't think they would survive the trail) and a candle. We all sang Happy Birthday to him.

It was dark and it was time to head down the mountain. On a road that was right on the edge of a cliff! I was freaking out a little hoping one of the kids didn't drive right off the edge. Thankfully it was dark so I could pretend that we weren't driving our wheelers right next to a huge drop off. In the midst of my freaking out Steve tried to calm me down by saying, "Honey, I've done this trail 50 times. I could do it in my sleep. Zac did this trail when he was like 7. On a bike." That made me feel so much better. The best part was when we started seeing all the little tiny car lights driving on the road below us. Then I was able to tell how high up we were and how severe the drop off was.

We made it safely down and checked into our hotel and hit the showers and the beds. When I got out of the shower I found Steve and the kids watching some super scary movie about sharks eating people. I can't turn my back on them for 5 minutes....

Monday Morning Musings - Excuse Me But Your Buh'uns Undone

My husband is from Missouri. I hail from the great state of Texas. My children? My children are Utahns. I'm OK with that for the most part. I'm half Utahn myself since I have lived here so long. (I hope my Texas kin don't hear me say the likes of that, they'll freak out!)(I can just hear my sister Farrah saying, "Yeah. It's true.") There are certain things my kids do, being Utahns, that I just have to let 'em do. I mean, they're from Utah, and that is my own doing. For instance, they freak out if there isn't fry sauce for their fries. But there is one thing that neither Steve or I can allow. At all. It is like swearing at our house. The way they say mouh'unh (mountain) or buh'un (button) . I swear. I cannot. Let. That. Be. Emily has learned how much this annoys the heck outta me (Did you hear that? I said heck. I told you I was 1/2 Utahn.) And since she makes a habit of pushing my buh'uns (buttons) she takes great joy in mispronouncing these words on a regular basis. Repeatedly. For my benefit.

So apparently the mean girl thing starts early these days. There is this girl at preschool who is not nice to my sweet little Addy girl. She is always telling her she doesn't like her hair because she never has anything in it. She is always telling Addy to wear bows or flowers or other foofy things in her hair. Addy and I have had some long talks about how cute her hair is without anything in it and who cares what that girl at school thinks, if she (Addy) likes her hair the way it is, that is all that matters. I even went in and talked to her teacher who in turn talked to the girl about being nice. I thought we had moved past it. But the other day Addy was putting a flower headband in Aubrey's hair and she said, "Here Aubrey, wear this in your hair and all the girls at school will like you." OK. That broke my heart into about a billion little pieces. My four year old should not have to worry about girls liking her or not liking her because she does or does not wear her hair a certain way. It breaks my heart again just typing this. My poor girls are stuck with a very non-foofy mom.

Aubrey came up to me the other day and asked, "Mom, what do boys give you when they like you?" I asked her if a boy gave her something. She said there is this boy who took some string or ribbon he found and tied it into a bow and gave it to her. Then she said that she was sitting at her desk reading and he came up and sat next to her and put his arm around the back of her chair and asked her what she was reading and then he sat there like that "reading" along with her. I added the quotes myself. I might have to pay a visit to Aubrey's class and check out this fresh little boy.

Addy and I were driving Zac to an orthodontist appointment and it was lunch time so Zac and Addy were eating lunch in the car. Z looked back at Addy and said, "OH GROSS! Her water bottle is full of floating food!" And Addy held it up, shook it and in delight exclaimed, "IT'S A SNOW GLOBE!"

You know how I said before that my phone was on the fritz? Well it is fritzing out big time now. I have got to get a new one. I just feel it is so ridiculous that I have to rely so heavily on something like a cell phone. So I am punishing myself by not going out and getting a new one. Well, that and the fact that I don't have a ridiculous amount of dough to hand over in return for a new phone. Thankfully Emily taught me how to use the voice command button on the side of the phone. That button, or as Emily says, "That Buh'un. Buh'un. Buh'un. BUH'UN!" Until I smack her to get her to stop. That button that always annoyed the heck (← Utah) outta me because I was always accidentally pushing it, has come in very handy since she taught me how to use it last night. I can actually call people now! I just can't get text messages and people keep sending them to me so if you really want to talk to me you are gonna have to do it the old fashioned way. And in the mean time I will keep having conversations with my phone like this:

Me: Call Steve.

Phone: Did you say call Tina?

Me: No

Phone: Did you say call Chase?

Me: No

Phone:Did you say call Kids?

Me: No

Phone: Did you say call Camille?

Me: NO!

Phone: Sorry, command not recognized.

Since I can't see my screen, I can't set my alarms (which I was magically able to turn off last week during Spring Break). So you know what I had to do the other night? Set an old fashioned alarm clock. I couldn't even remember how. I swear this is the image that popped into my head when I was trying to figure it out: A monkey holding the alarm clock and turning it around in his ape hands then hitting it while making monkey sounds. I finally was able to set something that I thought might be, but wasn't quite sure if it actually was the alarm or not. And guess what? It was the alarm. And guess what else? It about gave Steve and me a heart attack when it went off the next morning. How did people used to wake up to that and remain sane? I think those old alarm clocks with their heart attack inducing blaring screeching loudness might have really done some damage to people and that is why society is so screwed up today. I miss my peaceful little piano fluttering melody on my phone that used to wake me up.

I didn't completely mind being woken up that morning, as horrible as the wake up call was. Because I was having a horrible dream. I dreamt that Emily's friend who just moved had both her parents die on the same day. Her dad was in a plane crash and then her friend and her siblings couldn't find her mom so they called me to come over and help them find her. When I got there there was blood everywhere and the house was all torn up. I told the kids that their mom was dead and I was pointing out everything to them like I was some kind of detective. I was like, "Well, you can see there was a struggle here, and then because of the trail of the blood leading to here you can see she tried to get away." It was awful and as I was detailing the whole crime scene to them, I looked out the window to see my mom's house with a bunch of people walking out the door to go to my dad's funeral. I told the kids it was time for me to leave because I had to go to the funeral. I went and was sitting in the church with this whole funeral thing dragging on when the alarm went off. So you see why even though it was an unpleasant way to wake up, it was better than still being asleep at that moment.

People Of Walmart

So it's like this. I live in a fairly new neighborhood. And I live in the newest section of that neighborhood. Of the 74 lots out here, only 13 of them have finished homes with another 3 being built. It gets a little lonely out here. So the girls in our part of the hood started having a Girls Night Out every month. We call it P8GNO. We went out last Saturday. First we went to a used book store that was giving away 2 free books to each customer. Then we went to dinner. Then we lost 2 members of our group. The 3 remaining members went to DI (a local thrift store) where I bought this AWESOME retro barbers chair for $7. Since the only furniture I can afford to put in this room is a $7 chair, it is my statement on minimalism. After that we went to Ross and found the hot shirts you can see below. Then we gained another member to our group. There was not one of us willing to return home until we were absolutely sure all 16 of our kids were sound asleep. So after hitting a used book store, a restaurant, a thrift store, and a clothing store, where would 4 Mormon moms go to have some fun on a Saturday night?

Why, Walmart of course!

We had to keep a look out for the grumpy lady that works in the craft section who didn't buy her kids any Christmas presents because they never come to visit her. We didn't want her yelling at us. Here is a small sampling of the pictures we took:

April, racing some strangers kid through the store

I really want this bike

Our last stop for the night? An ice cream joint where they use cryogenics to make your ice cream in front of you. We sat and talked until they closed.

It was a fun night!

Monday Morning Mustings - Hat Hair

We have been having the KoOKiesT of weather lately. Some days it's nice. Most days it's not. We had snow several times over the weekend. These pictures were taken last Friday. My sister Lauren was here playing with Addy and they went out to play in the snow. When I opened the door to take a picture, they pelted me with snowballs.

Emily was in a play last week. She has loved being in Drama Club this year. She told me she loved it so much, she wants to be in Drama next year too. Then she cheerily added, "That's a good reason for staying in school!" And I looked at her and asked, "What, were you thinking of dropping out in the 6th grade or something?"

The other day Addy came down for breakfast, plopped her cute self down on a stool and announced "I'M HUNGRY!" Then she added "...Like the wolf!" I couldn't have been more proud. Yep, that's my girl.

So last night I finished the final book in The Hunger Games series, Mockingjay. Ay, yi, yi. That book got on my last nerve for the most part. The other two books were fine, but this last one. Ir-ri-TATION! It was bugging me so bad I finally had to sit down and figure out exactly what it was that was bothering me so much. It didn't take me long. My thought process was like this:

Main character...girl...annoying as all get out...boy in love...boy in love...sounds familiar...BELLAAAAAA!...No stinking wonder.

The last 1/3 of the book was much better than the first 2/3rds, once we stopped focusing on how annoying the main character was and got on with the action and the blowing up of people. Halfway through the book, I thought I knew what the author was doing and I thought I had it all figured out about how it was going to end, all mamy pamby like the Twilight series. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find I was wrong. That doesn't happen very often. My being wrong.

Halfway through the book, when I was so busy being annoyed, I did find one redeeming quality on its pages. Just a little part I liked and thought relates to our America today, kinda like Katniss' America or "Panem" in the book:

"It's a saying from thousands of years ago, written in a language called Lain about a place called Rome," he explains. "Panem et Circenses translates into 'Bread and Circuses.' The writer was saying that in return for full bellies and entertainment, his people had given up their political responsibilities and therefore their power."

So yesterday, I bought a hat. I am not a hat person. This is the first hat I think I have ever bought for myself. I have all these friends, and they are always wearing cute hats. And whenever I say, "Cute hat." They say they are just wearing it because they didn't wash their hair that day. And I always think, "Wow...I wish I could not wash my hair for a day." Because my hair is NAS-TAY if I don't wash it every day. But it really is a pain in the booty to have to wash and style it every day. And sometimes there are just days when you have more important things to do. Like yesterday. The kids left for school and Addy was sitting on the couch watching TV. I sat down next to her and started reading my book. I promised myself I was only going to read one chapter, but I had just gotten past the annoying part of the book and was in the heat of battle. So one chapter became another and another and another until I finally looked at the clock and thought JEEPERS! It's late. I better go to the store now. However I was still in my PJ's and to take a shower and get ready would have taken far too long and the day was half over, man. Then I thought of all my friends and their hats and their dirty hair. I decided that I could maybe pull it off if I had a hat. So I bought one when I was out yesterday. I'm not sure if it worked for me or not. Oh well. I'm gonna pretend like it did.

Today, I did something I have never before done. I am so proud of myself. My mom called me this morning (after I had showered and done my hair, thank goodness, for sure the hat wouldn't have worked for me 2 days in a row) and she was at the store and her car wouldn't start. So I drove over and jumped her car for her. And I didn't blow us up or anything!

Monday Morning Musings - I Can Pretend It's Monday If I Want To

So the other day, Addy woke up and came down for breakfast. She was sitting at the counter while I was getting her food ready and she started singing, "I wake up in the mornin' feelin' like piddy diddy". She has seen way too many Diary of a Wimpy Kid commercials.

My cell phone is a big piece of purple poo. It is constantly turning off. And most of this whole week the screen has been blacked out. Which makes it hard to read a text or send a text or make a phone call when you don't know anyones phone number and you can't see the numbers you are dialing even if you did. Not to mention the fact that when I finish a call, I'm not completely sure I have actually hung up so I have to be careful not to talk bad about the person I was just on the phone with for fear of that person still being on the phone. I can't quite remember, but I am sure there was time when I didn't even own a cell phone and had no knowledge of this texting business and I got along just fine. It is just irritating when I think of something I need to tell someone and I can't just text it really quickly to them. And not only that, I can't even call them to tell them if it is really important because I don't know their number! And it is really annoying when my neighbor is at the store doing my shopping for me (like the sweet lady she is) and she is sending me pictures of choices I have and I can't see them! And it is surprising how many images come up when you google purple poo. You're going to google it now, aren't you?


We have a real major sock issue going on in this house and it is about to push me over the edge (no, it doesn't take much). Socks make me crazy. CRAZY I SAY! There's Steve with his 50 million different styles of socks, Emily who is constantly wearing mine and making them dirty when they are brand new, Aubrey who has a brand new pack I bought her but still goes without them every morning because she can't find the new ones. And the holes. THE HOLES. WHAT UP WIT DA HOLES!?! Serious. My kids, I don't know how they do it. They get the most gigantious holes in their socks. I didn't even know such holes were possible. Sometimes I hold a sock up and look at it and think, did this really used to be a sock? I don't get it because I have socks that are old and don't have any holes in them and I buy my kids new socks and a week later...they are the most religious socks in town. 'Cause they're so holy. Yesterday I seriously was ready to pack up and move to Florida or something so that we can just wear sandals year round. That would solve most of my sock problems, except for Steve who would probably wear socks WITH his sandals. OK, I can't talk about this any more.

The other day I was so excited because I went to the grocery store and my total bill was $25.88. And my total saving was $25.97. CHA CHING! And I'm not even a couponer.

Since I am in the business of documenting all the strange happenings and things I see in my neighborhood, I just had to share this one. I was on my way to pick Addy up from preschool today and as I was leaving the neighborhood I could see that at the intersection ahead there was all kinds of funky goin' on. There were police lights and a bunch of cars and this big huge blue and white moving thing that took up the entire intersection. I got my phone out (the screen was actually working at that given moment) and since I was driving at the same time I was trying to operate the camera on the phone, I took a video instead of a picture so this looks horrible, but it's a boat. A big ol huge honkin' boat. Bigger than any boat I have ever seen. Just driving down the road with it's own police escort.

Happy Birthday Emily!

My sweet, beautiful Emily girl turned 11 on Sunday. We had my mom and my sister Lauren and our friends Cammy, Marquie and Rylee over for lunch. After lunch we had fun playing games. We also spent a great deal of time looking out this window (pictured below) at the runaway horse. Steve and our neighbor across the street tried to help the owner round him up, but to no avail. The owner said he had to leave to go to a town 20 minutes north of here for something, so for Steve and our neighbor to keep an eye on the horse so they could tell him where it was when he got back. Well, it didn't take long for the horse to get far enough away that it was hard to spot him with the binoculars. Sorry horse dude. It wasn't that long after that that the horse dudes wife showed up and took care of it.

The kids were out of school on Monday (because they are always out of school for some strange reason) so we took Emily and some of her friends bowling. It was fun fun fun, after I got over my initial freak out when we were driving to the bowling alley and I tried to call and their answering machine said that they were closed. You would have freaked out too if you had two vehicles full of kids and you were driving to a destination that was closed. I couldn't go to another bowling alley because I had bought a Groupon that included the lanes, shoes, pizza, breadsticks and soda. I wasn't about to pay for all of that somewhere else for 13 people!

To my relief, they were open when we arrived. We went up to the counter and I told the guy working there that when you called their phone it says that they are closed. He made a sweeping gesture with his hands and said, "Well, obviously we aren't!" And I said, "Well, obviously, but your message on your phone says you are." To which he replied by staring at me like I was stupid. To which I replied out loud, "Well, I'm just lettin' you know!" I won't say here how I replied on the inside.

Emily and her friends had fun on their lane, the rest of us (Steve, Zac and I) got our booty's kicked on our lane by Aubrey who came in 2nd place and Addy who came in 1st stinkin' place! She's 4! And she was using a crooked ball roller thing. We played 2 games and on the last game in every single frame but 2 she either got a strike or a spare. I am so not kidding. Sometimes she would aim the roller thing at the bumpers and the ball would zig zag its way all the way down the lane to end up in a strike. You might be thinking, "Well, she had the bumpers up." Yeah, so did the rest of us, except for Steve. That little bowling maniac girl.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMILY DARLIN'!

Never A Dull Moment - They're Back!

So, almost a year ago today I did this post about this truck driving around with this experimental windmill strapped to the back. Well guess who's back and parked in front of my house right this very moment? See for yourself:

I was just returning to my part of the neighborhood and BAM! This was coming right at me. I fumbled around with my cell phone, trying to turn the camera on so I could take a picture before they passed me, but I just couldn't get it out in time. I was too busy trying to drive Steve's ridiculously large truck, maneuver between this truck and it's strange cargo, and all the construction from a new house that is always blocking the road on the way to my house. I thought it was more important not to crash Steve's truck than to take the picture, since on his way out the door he had to make some kind of smartalec remark about not knocking the mirrors off when backing out of the garage. Look, if your mirrors are gonna stick that far out from your vehicle, build a bigger garage. You know what I'm sayin'. FYI: those huge truck mirrors with their electronically movable parts are really expensive to replace....so I've heard....

Anyway, I was so distraught that I didn't get a picture, because things have been really boring here in my neighborhood, aside from the all out battle we are waging with the Utah Department of Transportation, but that's another story for another day. Just two days ago my neighbor April and I were talking about how boring this spring is gonna be now that we have a house built at the end of our long cul-de-sac, and so all the high school kids won't use that as a place to go get high. It's been so long since I've had to pull out my binoculars, text back and forth with the Momma Posse and call the police. It's been so long since I have had a big ol bull tromping through my yard or a little yellow plane buzzing my house. So I was so glad when the white truck with its strange cargo circled back around and parked in front of my house! YAY! I live in the strangest place ever!

And A Grand St. Paddy's Day Ta Ya Too!

Hawareya? Well, I'll be tellin' you how I fare. I'm tryin' ta be grand altogether. What with bein' all decked out in me fav-o-rite color right down ta the glitter shamrock body art I'm wearin'. Not ta mention the green crepes I'm makin' far an ahfterschool snack, and the fact that I'm speakin' in an Irish brogue (ah, don't ya wish you could hear dat?) And my dear husbandman that I've not hardly seen for nigh on a week now is on his way back inta town at this vary moment. But I'm afraid I'm ganna have to do somethin' about this laddie and lassies and their poor attitude they did be commin' home with. They're really startin' ta throw off my green groove I've got goin' on about here. I can't be thrown offa my green groove, ya know whaddimean?

Aubrey's 8th Birthday Party

My sweet little Double A. Aubrey Anna. She turned 8 on Thursday, March 3rd. We had a "little" party to celebrate. One of the bonuses of living in our neighborhood, 10 million children age 8 and under. Which makes for a fun party. I don't know how it happened, but we had 17 CRAZY girls here Thursday after school to celebrate Aubrey's special day with her.

We had a super fun time, what with the balloons and pinata, and hula hoops and all. If you look at this next picture and think, "Wow! That looks like a fun thing to do at a birthday party with 17 little girls!" Let me just give you a word of warning. DON'T DO IT! I'm tellin' you right now. It will turn into a playground nightmare of drama to the max. I had to make them turn in the jump ropes and go inside and play something else. Other than that it was a fun fun time!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY SWEET AUBREY!

Aubrey's Baptism

On Thursday our little sweet Aubrey Anna turned 8 years old. Yesterday she was Baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It was a special day around here. In our church we believe that little children are without sin and therefore do not need Baptism. We believe that once you reach the age of accountability (8) and know and understand the difference between right and wrong, then you are Baptized by one with the proper Priesthood authority. Steve Baptized Aubrey yesterday. After her Baptism we had friends and family over to our house for lunch. Thank you to everyone who came out to show your love and support. To read more about what we believe about Baptism, click here.