Down South and More Salt Lake

Thursday was our day down south that entailed time with the Rogers in American Fork, then on to Orem and Provo.  We started the morning with a good, hearty banana chip muffin breakfast...and a full scrub down in the sink.

 

 

We took Suzanne and her kids, minus Hannah and baby Emmie frisbee golfing.  It was quite an adventure trekking through a field of weeds, over pipes on a drainage ditch and up rocks to get from their backyard to the park.  Then there was the course itself, located in shady woods...and all through the trees, hills, ravines, etc.  To say that, with 3 adults (me carrying Katie in a hiking backpack), a 14 year old, 8 year old, 5 year old, 3 year old and 2 year old, it took us 20 minutes per hole is probably a severe underestimate.  It took serious effort and time to find each basket and tee, let alone to get all those frisbees to said baskets without losing any heads.  We only golfed 7 holes and called it good enough.  Here we have Suzanne with Jacob, Drew and Camden in front of her; me, with Katie in pack; Callie, Shad and Tommy.

 

Katie fell asleep on the trek back to Suzanne's house.  With a 12 lb baby and a back pack like this, doin the whole Sacagawea thing wasn't bad at all.

Tom was very curious about is sister sleeping in the pack on the porch like this.  I wasn't about to wake her up by moving her, though.

Being the awesome boy that he is, Tom's first request after taking off his shoes was that I help him wash his feet.  I think everyone made a direct path to the sinks to do the same thing.

After that, we headed down to Orem.  We went to shoe store after shoe store looking for dress and athletic shoes for Shad, as those two pairs of his shoes finally gave up the ghost upon arrival in Utah.  Tom didn't mind the shopping so much, as he's real big into shoes right now.

 



 

We finally had success at Runner's Corner in Orem.  The store, in its current location, is newly built from the ground up.  It is owned by one of my dad's running friends from when the folks lived in Utah back in the day.  They have an indoor track for testing out the shoes, and when we walked in, there was a herd of kids running laps around it.  Tom took a couple seconds to realize what was going on, before jumping in and joining them.

 

 

He also tried on a pair of shoes that his grandpa would approve of.

 

 

We moved on to a music store for me to look at some music, since I haven't added anything to my collection in 4 years.  I didn't buy, but Tom enjoyed testing out the pianos.

 

We met up with our friends, Will and Heather, who were our newlywed neighbors in Colorado back when we were also newlyweds.  We dearly loved that friendship we had, and were happy to catch up with them in Provo.  We started the evening out right--with dessert first.  The BYU Creamery.

 

Katie, upset that the ice cream is gone.

 

Tom loved it.

 

 We went bowling.  Let me tell you about Will.  Will is legally blind.  He went to blind kid camps as a kid, where they told Helen Keller jokes; he learned to read braille because they thought he'd go lights out.  He didn't.  He can't recognize a person's face about ten feet away from him, however he can score a 151 in bowling--double that of the 3 other adults with unimpaired vision.  That's right, we got our butts in bowling handed to us by a blind guy.  He told Heather a while ago that she's not allowed to use bumpers anymore.

 

Friday morning started out with two boys running out to the sandbox in rubber boots.

 

After cleaning up, we saw Grandma again, then went to have an Arby's picnic in the park with Shad's cousin, Stacey and her son, Oliver.

 

In the evening, we had a sushi date with Shad's mission trainer, Tom Turley and family.  While waiting for them to arrive, Tommy played with the waterfall behind us in the picture.  There were coins in the bottom, so I gave him all that I had in my wallet, one by one, to run from the front to the back to drop them in.  A couple ladies waiting for their to go food pulled out their coin purses full of pennies to give to him.  The waiter and hostess thought he was cute, so they dug pennies out of their tip jar.  The waiter taught him to THROW the pennies in, instead of just dropping them.  He had loads of fun.

Wednesday in Utah

Tuesday was a pretty low-key day.  Shad and I went to the Salt Lake temple, then spent the rest of the day at Suzanne's.  We ventured out to the grocery store, where Tom discovered that grocery carts exist with toddler cars on the front.  He climbed right on in with this girl.

 

 

We also went to a Goodwill.  Tommy started getting a bit fussy while we were there and so I made him sit in the cart.  A minute later I saw droopy eyelids.  I put my hands on his cheeks and he looked up at me and said, "To-y seepy."  What a sweet little thing!  He sure melts my heart.  I picked him up and stroked his forehead until he fell asleep in my arms.

 

 

After picking pears at Grandma Howes' house on Wednesday, we went up the inclines east of Salt Lake City that surround Eagle Ridge Golf Course (nearly killed our van!) to meet up with Shad's uncle Ross and aunt Nancy.  We toured their enormous, lavish home, and they pointed out the houses of Church General Authorities that they could see from their balcony--Uchtdorf, Bednar, Hales, Sheri Dew...Holland is in their ward.  Then we went down the mountain to El Matador for lunch.  Shad and Ross talked about what life was like growing up, and Nancy and I exchanged horror stories of kids leading other adults to believe that their mothers hit them. (On our way to Utah, Tom was covered in bruises and abrasions due to being a two year old who accidentally found a tree and the driveway with his face the day before.  I took him in to a gas station to walk around.  Holding my hand, he went to a corner and started yelling, "Ow! Ow! Ow!")

 

Tom liked standing on the back of Katie's high chair to give her kisses.

Katie loves the attention she gets from her Tom.

 

After lunch, we travelled north to Antelope Island.  It was much further than we had expected, having not done any research beforehand, and Callie was right--it really is an all day thing to do it right.  However, we still enjoyed what bit of it we saw.

 

Driving on the road out to the island.

 

Holy cow!  Okay, it's a buffalo outside the visitor's center.

 

Please click on the picture to see it enlarged, or you won't even see what it's showing!  There was a mass swarm of birds flying above the visitor's center.  A few people exiting advised that we run to better avoid bombings.

 

See that poop splattered window?  Well we did make it in and out unharmed.

 

The road from the island to the state.

 

Katie discovered her reflection.

Set the camera on timer on the top of the van.

 

Buffalo!

 

Buffalo butt.

 

We tried to walk across the beach to the lake, but it was way too much effort when our feet would sink into the sand this much and we were toting two kids with us.  We gave up.

 

After our failed attempt to reach the water.

 

Masonic temple we passed on the way to Primary Childrens' Hospital to see my cousin Marie and her 4 month old son, Walter.

 

Marie was off pumping when we got to her room at the hospital, so this is what the kids did while we waited for her.

 

Tom thinks it's fun to help Katie practice walking.

 

He also likes to give her piggy back rides.

He had so much energy to burn off that it was hard to keep him from running all up and down the halls of the Infant Unit.

We were so happy to get to visit Marie, who has essentially lived in the NICU since her son was born in April.  My NICU experience was miserable, and that was only 4 days alone.  Marie's husband has been away for school, and then moved to Washington to start a job, so she's been alone through much of this ordeal.  Walter was released two days later, so they now get to experience life at home.  In two weeks they'll go back to the hospital to make sure Wally is still doing well, and then be approved to go move to Washington and finally be together as a family again.

Manic Monday

We slept in my aunt Suzanne's basement while we were stayed with them.  They have a playset with a slide and castle down there.  We put a sleeping bag and pillow in the castle for Tom to give him a contained bed area.  He loved it so much!  Every morning and the fews naps he got there, he'd wake up with a smile and stretch and tell me, "Mom! Seep. Castle. Fun!"  We miss Tom's castle.

 

 

Monday was our Salt Lake day.  Not that any other day wasn't, but this was specifically for hanging out in the city.  We went to Temple Square and toured the LDS Conference Center while we waited for Ryan Nelson to arrive and join us.  He had served his mission in Kansas and was in our ward for 6 months.  This painting hangs on one of the walls in the conference center.  It depicts Joseph in Egypt interpreting the dreams of the Pharaoh's butler and baker while in jail.  The painting itself holds an interesting history, aside from the uniquenss of the art.  It came to America in the possession of Napoleon Bonaparte's brother, and if I remember correctly, he had commissioned it.

 

On Sunday at church and again at the conference center, Katie saw portraits of Henry B. Eyring, the first counselor in the church presidency.  She got so excited and flapped her arms and patted all over the portraits when she saw him.  She cordially said hi to the portraits of President Thomas S. Monson, and Dieter F. Uchtdorf (second counselor), but it was Eyring she cared about.

 

Ryan joined us at the end of the tour and we went to Chick-fil-A for a midafternoon meal.  It was so nice to see him and catch up on life.  He took a picture of us in front of the Salt Lake temple while we walked to our cars together.

Of all the missionaries we've gotten to know, Ryan reigns as our favorite.

 

We reparked the van in another 2 hour parking spot and returned to Temple Square to take pictures on the temple grounds.

 

Tommy was so excited to see the temple.  He wanted to hug the temple.

 

Tom and Katie at the doors of the temple.

I love this sequence of pictures.  They really need no explanation.

 



 

Together at the temple.

 

At the cornerstone.

 

Tom loves walking on retaining walls.

 

What a ham!  He kept turning to hide his face in the wall, then turn out to make this face with a sound to go with it.  Katie loved it and laughed every time, so he kept doing it.  Those two are great friends:)

 

Cool tree.

 

I love my family:)

 

We stopped a pedestrian and asked if he'd take a picture of us in front of the conference center by the waterfall (that Tom, naturally, was fascinated with).  He was French.  We might joke about the French and make fun of them less now.  Because he was a nice French guy.

 

On our way from Temple Square to see Shad's mission president, Tommy entertained Katie.  He'd bite the straw on his water bottle and pull on it until it snapped out of his teeth and Katie shrieked and laughed in delight.  He also pulled on her seat belt and let it snap back, and tickled her feet.

 

Shad and Katie with his mission president, Richard Ellsworth and his wife Peggy.

 

We saw a Cabella's on the way to the Ellsworths', so we stopped at it on our way back to Suzanne's.  Though Tommy is saving his birthday and Christmas money for a swing set, Shad reasoned with me that if Tom knew he had that money, he'd choose to buy this pop gun.  I couldn't argue with that.  He loved playing with it in the store and still loves it.  Shad squatted down to take this picture of Tom and his gun in the parking lot, so Tom squatted down, too.  Shad asked Tommy to smile and show Nana his teeth, so he's literally pointing and showing Nana his teeth.