Spontaneous Whirlwind So Cal Trip June 1-6 2009

We started our summer off with a fun spontaneous trip to Southern California. We bought a new mini van the last week in May and it was just begging for a road trip! We took along Stephanie and Trinity as well, since they hadn't been and we had two extra seats.We left on a Sunday after church, where the speaker spoke of simplifying and not going on Disneyland trips, or something like that. Bah humbug!

We drove to Las Vegas the first day, and got there at night.

We spent the next day in Vegas playing in the pool and walking around some of the sights on the strip. On Tuesday, Stephanie and the kids and I got up early and drove to Legoland to be there in time for opening. David flew to Northern Cal from here. We spent a fun day in Legoland. We were just here last August before our Mexican Expedition, but there weren't any lines here today and we got through quite quickly. We were even able to spend some time at their new aquarium that we hadn't been to before. We spent this

night at the Oceanside Worldmark Condo. Stephanie and I were able to go out for a grown up dinner on the beach and we picked up pizza and a movie for the kids. Everyone was happy.

The next day we got to the San Diego Zoo when it opened and spent a few hours their including the bus tour and the tram ride. Then we booked it to Sea World where we spent the

afternoon. We managed to see all the shows and exhibits at Sea World before it closed that day! Woo Hoo! We drove to Anaheim that night to another Worldmark Condo.

The next day we spent at Disneyland. We have decided that the last week of school is a great time to go to So. Cal. No lines! We practically walked on to everything! We cruised through the park and had a great time!

David flew back in town this night. He had been in New York in the meantime, as well. We spent Friday at Disneyland and California adventure as well. We hooked up with Jon & Erin and girls and had a princess lunch at Ariel's grotto. Today was more crowded than

the day before, but it was still a lot of fun.

Saturday was Nathan's 13th Birthday! We spent the day at Universal Studios. Dora the Explorer wished Nathan a Happy Birthday! This park was quite disappointing compared to Islands of Adventure in Orlando. We went on most of the rides / exhibits and then were on the road for home at 3:00pm. We made it back all the way and got home around 3:00 am! What a week!

Mother / Daughter San Antonio Trip June 13-17

Raven and I had to fun opportunity to go on a Mother / Daughter trip in June. We decided to go to San Antonio Texas. We used our free tickets on Southwest to get there and our Marriott points to stay there, so that was nice. We had an interesting experience at the hotel. After our first night there, we got a call saying that a 'VIP' was coming in and that we were in her favorite room, and would we please move. We did, but I was a little hacked off about it. We did eventually get 10,000 Marriott points for the inconvenience, so I guess they ended up paying us to stay there.

The first day Raven and I explored the Alamo and the Riverwalk area. The Alamo was interesting. The men who defended that with their lives for something they believed in so strongly was inspiring. I wonder if it would be as famous if it had had a happier ending? The Riverwalk area was beautiful, and we enjoyed the boat ride, walking around the shops and dinner there.

We spent the next day at Six Flags Fiesta Texas. This place was not crowed at all. There were no lines for anything! It was fun! They have a lot of roller coasters, and Raven was having a ball. I was starting to get a head ache by the end of the day. They also have a water park there where we had a lot of fun on the slides, in the wave pool and the lazy river. I didn't get the sunscreen on very well and got a nice burn.

Tuesday we spent the day at Sea World. This was our favorite. They have water park and quite a few roller coasters at this park. A lot more than San Diego. We did spend some time in the water park, but we never made it on a roller coaster, because we were having too much fun at the animal shows. We saw two different

Sea Lion shows and two different

Shamu shows, as well as the dolphin show and some others. We also had lunch with Shamu, behind the Shamu stadium and got to see the whales up close. Our highlight of the day was our Beluga Whale interaction program we did. We got geared up in wet suits and received instruction and then we were able to get in the pools with the Beluga whales. We were able to do signals with them, so they would sing, or jump, splash etc... We even got to 'dance' with them, where we held on to their fins and they spun us around in circles! It was amazing! That was the job I wanted most growing up, but I'm happy being a mom in Utah instead.

The last day of our trip we had to check out of our hotel, but our flight wasn't until later, so we went to lunch, shopping for books, (we had both finished the books we brought and needed new ones for the flight) and we went to see 'Up'. Very cute. Definitely don't wait to have your adventures! Carpe Diem!

Shakespeare Festival July 22-26

I will briefly mention that our family went down to the Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City over the 24th of July weekend. My mom picked Nathan and I up in Orem at our Hebrew class we were taking at the time and we drove into Cedar City on Wednesday night. I had signed up to take Elementary Theatre Methods from SUU for 3 days, and it started early on the 23rd. While I was in class all day, my mom had the kids. I think they played in the pool and I know they went to see the matinee of 'The Secret Garden' . Raven auditioned for the role of Mary and she even got a call back, but she didn't get the part. It was kind of sad. We would have definitely had a different summer if she had. Nathan was sweet. After the play he said 'Raven would have done it better.' That night we all saw 'The Comedy of Errors'. That was hilarious!

After the play, I went to pick David up at the Cedar City airport. He flew in to join us from somewhere. It was nice of him to show up. I think they spent Friday at a parade and at Cedar Breaks National Park while I was in class again. My class was interesting. I learned a lot of good things, including the fact that I am still glad I homeschool. That night we say 'As You Like It'. The kids are really good at following Shakespeare and understanding what is happening in the plays.

Saturday I was back in class again. David's parents came down and brought Tyler, Megan, Michael and Cameron with them. They all spent the day at Zions National Park. It was a bit of an ordeal getting everyone back in time to go see 'Henry V'. They were dirty, but we managed to get showers and changed and get to the play on time. Most of us anyway. David dad wasn't going to come at the last minute with the cousins, but did show up sometime before intermission. We had a late dinner with them after the show. The next day we drove home and they drove on to Arizona.

S.E. Utah and Colorado - July 12-17 2009

Okay, Our next most recent field trip was to South East Utah and Southern Colorado. The people on this trip included, my self, my mom and my kids. David was somewhere in Asia at the time. I can't remember if it was Japan or Korea now.

The reason we took this trip was so that Nathan

could attend YFA (Youth For America) youth conference, which was held in Monticello Utah.

We left on Sunday, because his conference started at 8am on Monday. He was at the conference all day Monday and Tuesday, but slept with us at the hotel at night. The first day he was at the conference we went to Arches National Park. We did the driving loop, but didn't do too much hiking, as London had recently sliced his thumb and had a big bandage and we didn't want to risk any falls. Plus, it was just too hot! After touring the park, we did some shopping and had dinner on Main street in Moab. We found this fun book store where we spent an hour browsing and avoiding the hissing cat. I found an interesting book call Third Wish by Robert Fulghum that I have since been enjoying.

Tuesday we spent the day at one section of Canyonlands National Park. We did some more hiking here. There were some really fun trails that had amazing views that were

not too long. I have never been to this park before, and I really enjoyed it. London and Raven did the Junior Ranger at all of the parks we went to on this trip. After exploring the park we had dinner in Monticello and spent time at the library there putting together a puzzle, while we waited for Nathan to finish. When he was done, we drove to Cortez Colorado, where we spent the night. Raven and I had fun racing in the pool. London couldn't get in because of his hand, and Nathan and my Mom didn't want to.

Wednesday we spent the day at Mesa Verde National Park. I have wanted to go here for years, and this was our first time here as well. Now I know that you need to have at least two days for this park. That's okay, I want to go back and bring David with us next time. We did the two guided hikes that I wanted to see most, Cliff Palace and Balcony House. I didn't realize that

we would be able to actually go in these ruins. I thought that it was something we could only view from a distance, so that was a happy surprise. Nathan was with us by now, and we were feeling the change in dynamics. This meant that we got to hear a lot of complaining. He especially did not want to go on the Balcony House tour because it involved crawling through a small tunnel, and he did not want to get dirty. We had great tour guides for these tours.

They were both given by women who had

to be over sixty, but could climb like mountain goats. The woman giving the Balcony House tour was inspired. She recruited Nathan to be the leader for our group. He had to lead us to certain places and then not let anyone pass until she caught up, etc.. He led us valiantly and we never heard another word of complaint from him.

After a fun, full day here, we drove to Durango Colorado for our next adventure!

Thursday was probably our funnest day of all! (Is that a word? I don't know, but I like it better than 'most fun' that sounds too stuffy.) This morning we woke up early to catch the famous Durango

- Silverton narrow gauge rail road. We didn't take the train all the way to Silverton however. We got off about an hour and a half into the ride for our Soaring Tree Top Adventure. Here we were geared up with zipline gear and given instructions and then we went on our soaring (zip line) adventure. There were 22 zip lines we did. The longest one was the l

ast, at a 1/4 mile long. You can get going pretty fast when you are zipping that far! We also got hoisted up on some helicopter hoists, and lowered down as we just stepped off a very high platform! They staff there were incredible. They had people that did all the work, they hooked us up and sent us off and caught us at the other end. We were always attached to the tree, so it was very safe. The most amazing part to me, is that every single staff member learned every single guests name and called us by name. There were about 60 guests that day! We also got yummy snacks and a delicious gourmet lunch! I very highly recommend this adventure! It is great for almost all ages! Check out their website at www.soaringcolorado.com. The train picked us up on its way back down to Durango. When we got back we went to the Bar D Wranglers Chuckwagon dinner and show that evening. It was a very full fun day!

Friday we got up very early and drove all the way back home, so that Nathan could meet his scout troop at 1:00 to go on a scout camp! Whew!

Family Trek August 20-22 2009

When I started this blog is was mostly to keep track of our 'field trips'. It's a good thing I didn't expect more of my self, because I'm way behind on just journaling that. Oh well, I'll try to catch up.

Our most recent trip was a family Pioneer

Trek at Martin's Cove Wyoming. This was something I've wanted to do for quite a while, so I was grateful that Rhonda Wilkinson organized this for Prosperity families. Our kids will never have the chance to all go together if we just go with our stake, and I wanted to be with our real family.

This trek felt a lot like the real pioneers might have been. We didn't have the harsh conditions that the Willie and Martin companies did, thank goodness. Our group consisted of 10 actual families. 3 of the families were there with only one parent. One lady was 8+ months pre

gnant. Our oldest member was 74 and the youngest was 10 months.

Our kids were at a great age to do this trek. They were old enough to help pull the handcart and to listen to the stories of the first pioneers and to understand what they went through. They were also old enough that I am sure this is something they will remember for the rest of their lives.

This was a difficult trip to get ready for. I am used to packing for trips, but this one was very hard for me. Each family was in charge of their own food, except for one meal that we were doing together. One thing I hate is to over pack. I don't like to haul around more stuff then necessary, and I really didn't want to do it in a hand cart. David was in Canada all week and not around to help at all, which added to my stress. We didn't know if he was going to make it home for the trek, but he managed to catch a late flight home on Wednesday night, and arrived in Salt Lake around midnight. We had to be on the road to Wyoming at 6:00 am!

We made it though, all of us ready and all of our gear packed and on the road. I am proud to say that our family hauled in all of our stuff for trek in our hand cart, and didn't need to take any of it in by car! The first day we trekked 3 miles to our campsite with our stuff, set up camp, made dinner (Thank you Mountain House) and did some square dancing. Square dancing was fun and quite amusing. Especially with all of the little people we had who were willing to participate, but had a hard time following the directions. The night was clear and there was no moon, so we got to see the stars amazingly well. London has been studying Astronomy a lot lately and really enjoyed this.

The next day we loaded up our handcart with just the stuff we'd need for the day: mostly lunch, sun screen, cameras and lots of water. We trekked our handcarts to Martin's Cove, where we heard stories of the people that camped there for 4 days and 5 nights in early November 1856. Then we went on a silent walk through to cove.

After lunch we did a re-enactment of the the crossing of the Sweetwater River. Some of our men and boys carried everyone across the river. It was nice and symbolic. I can't imagine how those men did it in a river that had 3 inches of ice on it, and was up to

their waist and much wider than the day we crossed it. After we

crossed the river, when went down to another bend in the river

and got to play in it for a while.

After play time,

we had to get back to work. As we were trekking back to camp, all of our men and boys 11 and over were called out by the Mormon Battalion and left us to go to war. This left the women and small children to pull the handcarts. They sent us on a path that led us up a very steep and sandy hill. This was an interesting experience. All of the men and boys were lining the trail up the hill near the top, but we weren't to acknowledge them and they were just to observe silently.

I felt a bit of pressure being the first handcart. Our family had the lead handcart for the entire trek and were always first. I had planned to pull the hand cart up the hill and then go back to help others. It was very hard work. I guess we made it look like we didn't have too much trouble, but I did strain myself quite a bit and was coughing up blood for a little while. Needless to say, I wasn't able to go back and help others. There were only five handcarts, and they were all up the hill relatively quickly. It was a good object lesson. Sometimes I feel like I'm pulling my handcart through life without my husband, because he is gone so much lately, but I am very grateful that he is not gone for good!

We made it back to camp for the evening, where we enjoyed a delicious stew that Rhonda made for the entire group. Then we had some pioneer stories and a testimony meeting. We had another beautiful, starry, night.

The last day we enjoyed some more pioneer stories from the missionaries, and then we packed up to leave. We ended up bring our cars around to put our stuff in, so we just had to haul the empty handcarts back the 3 miles to where we got them. My boys decided to do a men's pull and they gave Raven and I a ride for quite a while. We got out and helped push when we came to a steep, sandy, hill though. Then David and I did the parents pull and the kids rode the last 1/2 mile back. It was a really good trip for our family. It was nice to spend time with each other with out a lot of distractions and to work hard and to gain an appreciation for our ancestors and to know that we can also accomplish whatever is required of us in this life, and that it will also be worth every step.

Washington D.C.

Today we covered a lot of territory in our Nations Capital.
Apparantly this is how you spell Capital when talking about the most
important city. And Capitol is specifically for the 'seat of the U.S.
Congress in Washington DC.' I learn something new every day.

Anyway, we returned our rental car this morning and were picked up by
a private driver for the day. His name was Wasi, and he drove us
around for most of the day. We visited Arlington National Cemetary
where we saw President Kennedy's grave, Arlington House and the
changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Our next
stop was the Jefferson Memorial and then the Memorial for FDR. I have
never visited FDR's memorial before and I was quite surprised by how
big it was. I can't say I was particularly pleased by this, as he was
definately not one of my favorite presidents. Where is the memorial
for Adams?

Our next stop was the Lincoln Memorial, as well as the Vietnam and
Korean War Memorials. This is where David got on the phone for over an
hour and a half. It was very crowded in the city with it being Easter
weekend and Cherry Blossom Festival time. Another thing I learned
today is that in 1912 the Japanese gifted us 3000 Cherry Blossom trees
as a gift of friendship, and that's why there are so many of these
trees here.

After our stop at these memorials our driver took us to Union Station
for lunch and then dropped us off at the National Museum of Natural
History, where he left us for the day. It was really nice having him
for the day. It saved a lot of time and energy.

It was bumper to bumper people in the museum, but we still managed to
see a lot, including an interesting exhibit on what they have learned
about the Jamestown settelers and other early immigrants by studying
their skeletons.

Our next stop (on foot this time) was the National Air and Space
Museum. By now Raven was feeling tired, so she and I went to see 'Sun
3D' in the Imax theater while the boys looked at the exhibits.

After a long day it was a long walk back to our hotel, but the White
House was on the way as was a nice restaurant where we had dinner.
The kids still had enough energy to go to the pool for a while, but
now it is time for baths and reading and bed! Only one more full day
on this trip!

Mount Vernon

We checked out of our condo today and started heading north. We had to
stop in Woodbridge at a Lego store. The kids had been looking forward
to that all week. Once they found their treasures we had lunch and
then headed to Mount Vernon. We waited in line fir over 2 hours to get
in to tour the house. The employees said it was a record setting day,
they have never had more visitors there in a single day. I hope that
means that more Americans are increasing their patriotism, and wanting
to learn more about the founding fathers and the principles they
beleived in. At least it was a beautiful day. At Monticello we had a
specific ticket time for our tour, so we didn't have to wait in line
until 5 minutes before our tour. David and I took turns waiting in
line while the other took the kids around the estate.
The house was impressive and very colorful, which I loved. I can see
why Washington said that no other house was more pleasantly situated
than Mount Vernon. There was a neat museum about Washington there
too. He definately sacrificed a lot in the service of our country.