Fall Roadtrip

Okay, it’s been a little bit since the ol’ blog was updated!

First, Rylan is still doing fantastically in his new school.  It’s not really “new” anymore of course, but Quinn still refers to it as his new school, so I’m just going with it for now.  He is making friends with everybody, and seems to always be playing with new friends everyday!  I’ve been very impressed.  I volunteer in his class on Wednesday afternoons and sometimes sneak in a little early to see him play during his lunch recess.  He always looks like he’s having a blast, wrestling with three other boys, being the pitcher in a nonsensical game of kickball, and all the good things recess brings.  Academically he seems right on track, if not a little ahead, especially in all things reading and writing.  I believe they even have him in a big kid helper position in order to coach other kids in his class and the other first grade class through some reading, and during handwriting practice he basically has free time.  With that though, he has not been the perfect student.  So far he has gotten in trouble for bringing a “weapon” to school (a wine bottle opener – he thought it was cool), and BIG trouble for going out of bounds with a friend into the school parking lot after they were already told not to, so that wasn’t very good.  I made him write a letter of apology to his teacher for disobeying the rules.  I did not help him compose it at all, and I think it turned out pretty dang cute.  His teacher wrote him a note back, and now he is drawing her little notes or handmade comic strips for her during the weekend.  They don’t make much sense, but it’s still cute.

Students are on a first name basis with their teachers at Rylan’s school.

We’re fortunate that he seems to have really connected with his teacher, he enjoys school so much!

This week though, he got to take a day off school and take a roadtrip up to Moscow, ID!  We went up there to see a WSU soccer game and press some apple cider at a local orchard with the Schroeder cousins, but you know, while we were up there we also went to the farmer’s market, ate at my favorite restaurant, went to our favorite coffee shop, walk through our favorite arboretum, and all the favorite things.  Man, it’s been TOO LONG since I’ve been there (like, 10 years since I graduated)!  I sure do miss it up there in North Idaho.

The kids did well in the car ride (6 hours), and were pretty excited to sleep in a hotel (an uncommon occurrence for us to say the least!), and even more excited to see their cousins the whole weekend!  Apple Cider pressing was really fun, and we got both lucky and unlucky at the orchard, since we were there to press the LAST apples of the entire season: unlucky that we only got 4 gallons out of the whole experience, but lucky because at least we got some.  Now I have to pasteurize my portion…which hopefully will go smoothly!

Here’s some photos!

Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, and, oh I’m THIRTY!

Well you only turn thirty years old once in your life, and I always knew I’d have to do it up right.  And well, not to toot my own horn, but I did it right!  Somehow the four of us managed to skip town for five days and go on an absolutely phenomenal road trip in Southern Utah, Arches and Canyonlands National Parks.  No I did not get birthday cake, or really even a party.  But man!  I got so many things that were much better.  Now the problem is how to put it in big enough words!

I will start at the beginning.  I planned this entire trip myself, to an area we all have wanted to see for a long time.  Kevin had to take most of this vacation unpaid, but he’s always up for some sacrifice if an adventure is included.  Kevin and I (and by extension, our kids) do not take relaxing vacations.  We take trips to go, do, and experience.  We know that wherever we go, we most likely won’t be revisiting anytime soon (or at all), and therefore I make a flexible itinerary, doing all my research ahead of time, and we utilize every second of our so-called, “vacation” to do just that.  I say flexible itinerary because, in reality, traveling with kids demands flexibility (sometimes more than a little)! Kevin worked on Monday and Tuesday while I prepped the house, car, and packing.  We left Boise at approximately 9:00 pm that evening and drove all night, arriving in Moab, UT at 6:00 am.  This might have been crazy, yes, but also necessary!  We have learned through all our national park travels in years past that in order to secure a campsite in popular areas with no reservation (because, of course, we don’t plan anything with enough advance notice to make reservations, but rather move freely about), if you don’t claim a spot incredibly early, they will be all gone!  We have also learned from experience that there is nothing more stressful than driving 8-14 hours in one day (we’ve been there) with kids only to find that you have nowhere to sleep!  As we pulled in to a BLM campground on the Colorado River, an older gentleman was drinking coffee, asked if we were looking for a spot, and he was leaving a just a bit if we wanted to claim his.  So we pulled our car in, took a walk for a little while, and there we were.  A perfect spot on the Colorado River, surrounded by some seriously jaw dropping sandstone cliffs for miles.  Right across the river were the rocks of Arches National Park, with the gate being only a five minute drive away.  Boo-yah. 

^^^THIS WAS OUR VIEW!!!^^^

That first day Kevin and I were definitely tired.  Driving overnight was harder than either of us had remembered.  In one sense, it makes a lot of sense because we don’t have to stop every hour for snacks, bathroom breaks, or any wiggling that needs to be done with the kids.  On the other hand, I don’t think we’ll ever do it again, it’s so exhausting, and obviously not a good idea to drive while drowsy, despite our attempts to prevent that with copious amounts of caffeine and 5-hour energy drinks.  I think the kids were tired as well though, because they had slept in car seats all night!  Does anyone sleep well in those things?

The first thing we did after setting up camp and cooking breakfast was go to the local dinosaur museum, “Moab Giants”.  I had heard great things about this place, but man, it was so LAME! I tried not to voice my displeasure too vocally because obviously both kids loved it, but Rylan somehow knows my stance on the subject.  Admission was ridiculously expensive and also ridiculously a waste of money.  We paid the minimum amount just to go walk through the outdoor section of model dinosaurs.  The model dinosaurs were sub-par.  For one, many of them were flat out incorrect, were all labeled in a very confusing way, AND it looked like they had used only one mold for all the dinosaurs, which looked ridiculous.  For example, the Iguanodon species was all the exact same pose, all facing the exact same way, all lined up next to each other, only painted differently!  The Diplodocus had spikes on his back for some reason, and the Velociraptor they portrayed was only two feet tall!  On top of that, the Allosaurus had spikes on his head, which is clearly a Carnataurus trait!  I know I sound like a total dinosaur nerd, but honestly!  If you go to all the trouble to create a dinosaur museum, you might as well do it correctly!  Don’t go thinking that every 5 year old there (or 30 year old for that matter) doesn’t know any better!  I see I have gotten on a rant, so I will force myself to move on.  Clearly stupid dinosaur museums really make me unreasonably angry.  And that doesn’t even include that we had to pay MORE to get into the interesting paleolithic aquarium to see a mosasaurus and the actual fossil museum!  We didn’t.  Anyway, my heart rate is really rising so I will switch gears here…

^^^LOOK at these dumb Iguanodons!  Really?  You can’t even face them in different directions to make it look like you’re at least trying?!^^^

Ugh.  Anyways…

After a very hot walk around that place, we drove into Moab, UT to see the sights.  On the way there both kids fell asleep in the car, which was fine by Kevin and I!  In fact, we just pulled into a shady parking spot off the main downtown strip and all four of us took a nap!  This became our routine for the most part every afternoon during the hottest part of the day.  It was actually really nice and we all seemed to look forward to it.  In the evening we finally drove into Arches National Park and got Rylan his Junior Ranger work book to have for the next few days, and drove a few miles on the scenic drive through the park.  We found out very quickly that Arches is family-friendly place, with the scenic drive taking you most of the way to many of the most awesome arches!  This means you can pull up and park, walk on a well designated path for a few hundred yards, and BAM, you’re there, right under a monstrous natural sandstone arch that is millions of years old!  It truly is an experience I will not soon forget.

I so wish that pictures could convey the full experience of actually being there.  I know all the arches look big and grand from pictures, but they look bigger and grander and more beautiful in person, and they make you feel smaller and humbled standing inside them.  In that way, these arches truly are the “doors of time” that the native “Utes” believed about them.

We stepped inside Double Arch as our first experience, and saw the Windows from the trail head.

We climbed right up inside.  Look at those tiny people in there!  It was SO BIG!  It was this first hike that we were able to assess the kids abilities and inclinations and then set some serious ground rules for future hikes.  For example, after this hike, due to Quinny constantly arguing about what she was physically capable of, she got to ride in the backpack for almost every other hike – no questions asked.  That prevented a lot of future arguing about her hiking abilities!  With Rylan, he had to agree to unquestionably hold our hands when needed, even if he didn’t feel it necessary.  This proved to be important on more dangerous hikes we went on later, so I’m glad we established that rule early on.

We also stopped by Park Avenue, but we were tired and it was getting dark, so we didn’t go too far down into the canyon where I think it would have been truly spectacular.  As it was…still an awesome sight!

On Thursday, our second full day, we went straight into Arches.  We didn’t get into the park until about 10:30, which we assumed would be the most popular time to get into the park and were anticipating large crowds.  But, despite about a half hour in line to get our car through the gate, the park was relatively empty!  We had our pick of parking spots, scenic viewpoints, and pullouts – it was fantastic!  We stopped and hiked the Delicate Arch Viewpoints, upper and lower.  You cannot get to the arch itself from this way, but we wanted to at least see it, still being unsure if we would complete the full hike itself later.  We stopped at Panorama Point, the Salt Flats, which are exactly as their names might describe.  We stopped at the Fiery Furnace Overlook, where Rylan was extremely disappointed we couldn’t hike into.  That is a permit only or guided ranger hiking area only, and everyone who goes in has to be at least 5 years old.  Rylan suggested that we just leave Quinny behind, but we didn’t really encourage that idea.  As it was, he had to be content with just looking at it.

We also hiked into a sandstone slot canyon for a short hike to Sand Dune Arch, which, is exactly as you may picture it as well, an arch over a sand dune.  Unfortunately we arrived right around the time a first grade field trip was happening, so it was very loud and busy when we were there.  It further strengthened my opinion of why I hate sand dunes after a slight wind blew sand in my eyes.  And have you ever tried to explain to a three year old how to get sand out of her eyes?  I have!  There’s no explanation that can make it better, believe me!  But despite all that, the hike itself was really cool, but maybe that’s just because I really love a good slot canyon!  It was this hike that Rylan spotted a pretty good sized snake, that Kevin and I (and several other people) had tromped right on by due to it’s camouflage!   That was exciting and kind of gross!

We also continued hiking another mile to the neighboring Broken Arch.  It’s not really broken, but it does have a good sized notch taken out of it.  Almost all the arches you can walk right into, but some are more breathtaking than others, and this was one of them.  It’s a really big one that just towers over you, blocking the sun and making you feel like a little baby walking in such an ancient giant.  This one was too slick and steep for Kevin and Quinn to go up safely, but Rylan, who is amazingly sure footed and a good hiker, went into the arch plus explored a little further on the other side.

This kid loves hiking.  He was always asking when and where the next one we were doing was, and always up for more, even after completing more strenuous ones.  Even on those where he might have been struggling, he was very intrinsically motivated to keep going to see those “incredible views” and he was very proud of himself just for “persevering”.  I was really proud of him!

After Broken Arch it was getting a little hot and the kids were getting tired, so we drove in Moab again and napped in the car downtown.  After we all woke up we perused the downtown tourist shops, bought an iced coffee and and ice cream bar before heading back to camp for dinner and bedtime.

Camping is fun with the kids for several reasons, but also makes Kevin and I a little crazy.  This is where their personalities can make it great or…not.  Rylan has really been reading a lot, and the books he chose to take were a couple of the Calvin and Hobbes comic books.  The only difference is that for some reason he reads it as Calvin and Hobbles, which I find very entertaining.  You bet that’s what we all call it now! We bought one book at a thrift store here in Boise for 69 cents, and two others he borrowed from my parents, and he flew through them.  So he spent a lot of time quietly reading in his camp chair, working on his Junior Ranger work book, or playing/bugging Quinn.  Quinn, on the other hand, had her baby doll, which took up a lot of her time “mothering” that thing.  She also spent more than her fair share of time singing, and playing with/bugging Rylan.  She also had to overcome her – fairly understandable – fear of using a pit toilet.  That was challenging for the first day or so!

Friday was my big BIRTHDAY! And, you are so lucky, I will share with you my glamorous first moments being old:

Yes, I know.  I am in my prime, what can I say?  Maybe I could have blamed this horrible picture on the fact that my coffee was not made yet, but do you know what we forgot on this trip?  I will tell you that we will never forget such a minuscule object ever again: MUGS. MUGS!!! What else can you drink coffee in, I ask you?  I scoured our camp supplies, and we only had thin plastic drinking cups.  I will tell you that coffee has never tasted so good as it did when we got back.

Anyway, back to my coffee-less birthday.  We decided to wake up early-ish and take on the difficult hike to the famous Delicate Arch.  We were warned that it was difficult, mostly on slick rock, with a narrow rock ledge the last several hundred yards or so, but Kevin and I both felt like we had to at least try.

We got a good start and headed up the trail with a busy, but not yet crowded, line of other people – including another family with young kids, so we felt slightly more confident.  The Slick Rock proved to be no problem, but did provide some amazing viewpoints all around us while we hiked!  We felt free to stop in the shade of the cliffs for snacks.  Rylan had on his Camelback hydration backpack, and he had read in the ranger packet how important it is to drink at least one gallon of water per day, especially when hiking, so he was very aware (and vocal) of how he needed to stay hydrated, even when he didn’t feel thirsty.   The whole trail itself was actually not that hard, and even the narrow rock ledge at the end was still about the width of a sidewalk, and I felt like I could trust Rylan to have enough sense not to walk off a sidewalk, so I wasn’t too paranoid about holding his hand until the very end! When we came around the trail’s end and saw the Delicate Arch for the first time…wow.  It really is awesome.  It’s famous for a reason!  And the closer you get to it, the bigger it gets.  I know that seems like common sense but let me rephrase, the closer you get to it, it turns into a freaking GIANT.

I mean, seriously.  Rylan is standing right underneath Delicate Arch in this picture.  I can barely see the little guy!

I wasn’t planning on going all the way over to this arch, considering the slick rock terrain and sheer cliff if you lose your footing, but Rylan was absolutely begging to go touch it and you know what?  It was my birthday!  So we went together and touched history while I believe Kevin had quite the time wrangling Quinn and arguing about whether or not she was a capable hiker in these conditions.  Oh man.

We were really feeling the heat coming down off that hike, and that afternoon it actually reached about 88 degrees, so we spent the day back in Moab, but this time at the city park.  It wasn’t that nice, but it was something to do.  We had my birthday dinner at Moab Brewery (which was nice but I like Boise Breweries better!), and then drove back into the park at dusk for one more hike which would cover several arches: Landscape Arch, Partition Arch, Tunnel Arch, and Pinetree Arch.  It was a good “bang for your buck” type of hike.  When we parked, the previously full parking lot was nearly deserted, so we had the trail very quiet and almost all to ourselves.  It was a magical evening!  Perfect weather, perfect lighting, the kids were having fun, and to top it all off, we spotted a family of six white tailed deer grazing underneath Tunnel Arch, a jack rabbit, another snake, and a whole bunch of lizards.  As I walked back from the arches we had just seen, I was holding Rylan’s hand, and it was one of those completely contented moments where you want to take a mental picture and carry it with you forever.  And I think I will.  That was a good birthday gift that this trip gave me.

It was this same evening that Quinn really perfected her picture pose.  You guys.  We do not tell her to do this stuff.  In fact, sometimes it would be better if she could just be a tad more normal, but oh my gosh it’s funny.  Literally, as soon as I would lift the camera to catch a candid shot on this hike (and almost all picture moments afterwards), she would immediately stop whatever she was doing, tell me, “wait, wait” and then strike this pose, or something similar:

I told Kevin that’s the cover of Shape Magazine or something!  Haha!  I’m sure she must have seen a pose like this somewhere and is trying it on for size, but I have no idea where in world….oh well.  She’s three so it’s still cute.  Kevin said I should try to pose like that but I graciously declined.

Kevin had brought with him a birthday present for me, which I am really excited about.  It’s called a Life Straw, which is basically a water filtering straw!  I can fill up a water bottle and just immediately use the Life Straw and filter out any impurities.  I’m so excited to use it on my big hiking trip this summer, plus all the training I’ll be doing!

Saturday we dropped by Arches to get Rylan his Junior Ranger badge.  This last part where he has to talk to a real Park Ranger and answer some questions has always been the hardest part for him.  I refuse to do it for him, and at certain parks he’s had to flat out leave and come back later to try again!  But this time he did super good, and talked to the ranger about all the rocks he had seen and animals he had counted.  He also learned how to find the Big Dipper and O’Ryan’s Belt as constellations in the night sky as one of his work pages, and he was very proud of himself for knowing that stuff.  So, of course, did you have any doubts?  He became a Junior Ranger for Arches National Park!

Our next stop was not in Arches, but rather shifting gears and seeing a place called Poison Spider Dinosaur Tracks.  We did a quick steep hike and got to a really neat slab of Cretaceous period therapod tracks (that would be a three-toed meat eater for any non-dinosaur nerds out there).  Amazing to see and stand next to and touch the footprints of a dinosaur!  It really is pretty cool, and not just for 5 year olds, okay?!

We continued on down the road to Dead Horse Point State Park, where we were going to have lunch and stop at the scenic viewpoint.  Kevin was onboard with that plan until we learned that it cost $15 to get into the state park.  Well!  That just was an unreasonable amount to pay to just eat lunch and see some viewpoint!  We will turn around! What a waste of money! etc. etc.  You see where his attitude was.  I didn’t let up, I had heard that this place was worth seeing, and let’s just do it.  If it’s completely lame than I take full responsibility.  So all that to say, we went in under Kevin’s protest.  We had lunch, we saw the visitor’s center, we went to the bathroom, and did all the things.  Then we drove further in to the grandiose view point I had heard about.  Kevin took one look on that view and his jaw dropped.  He said, “Hands down, this is the best view I have ever seen in my life.  That was the best $15 we have ever spent.”  And you know, he was right.  Again, pictures just don’t capture the full magnitude and emotion of being there, but here’s just a taste.

After staying at Dead Horse for over two hours, we continued on to Canyonlands National Park, the least visited national park in all of Utah!  And…well, there sure are a lot of canyons in those lands over there!  It was basically a lot of driving and viewpoints of…more canyons.  It was incredible!  But if we’re in the business of comparing national parks to each other, which Kevin and I decided we should stop doing, Canyonlands really does not hold a candle to Arches.  But I am glad we went.  As well as several overlooks, we stopped at Mesa Arch which I had heard great things about but turns out was much smaller in real life than I thought it was going to be!  And as we were driving out, Rylan was just dying to go on a hike and at this point can read all the signs as we drive for hiking pullouts.  So he picked one called Whale Rock.  I was tired and not in the mood to go on a hike, but I went anyway, while Kevin and Quinn napped in the car.  It surprised me by being totally awesome!  Whale Rock turned out to be simply a huge slick rock mountain, but Rylan had no trouble!  On top of that, there wasn’t really even a trail, but rather way finding through following rock cairns (towers, or stacks) placed along the slick rock at random intervals.  Of course Rylan really loved that aspect, and made it seem like more of an adventure.

On Sunday, we had to go home.  We took our time in the morning stopping at two other dinosaur track sites.  It just really is incredible to see these things.  Mill Canyon had six sets of different dinosaurs walking through, which was amazing!  Copper Ridge had either an Apatosaurus or Diplodocus AND an Allosaurus, which is one of Rylan’s favorite meat eaters, besides the Deinonychus and Dilophosaurus.  Don’t ask me how I know these things, I absorb them through osmosis.  The drive was very long.  And kids, no joke, have to stop every hour to go potty and yes, it is incredibly frustrating.  We got back home at about 8:30 pm, all took baths and showers and hopped right into bed.

Overall I see it as such a blessing to be able to go on a trip like this, especially for my birthday, doing things that I love (spontaneity, road trips, hiking, adventure, etc.) with the people I love, and coming back all the richer for it.  Watching Rylan and Quinn grow and stretch themselves in ways they just can’t at home is such a cool gift even by itself, that I just sit back and soak it all in.  It is incredible to know that life is bigger than just our own backyard, and all we have to do is step out into it.

Check out all the pictures here

 

 

Dinosaur Exploration

One of the great things about homeschooling is that you can ditch traditional methods of teaching and learning and do whatever you want!  Rylan has had a really hard time focusing in school all of this year, so instead of pursuing a normal school formula and constantly fighting, we have set all that aside to do two week units of things that he is really into.  The easy first unit choice:

DINOSAUR SCHOOL.

He is really into dinosaurs.  Actually that’s an understatement, but you get my meaning.  We have about 30 dinosaur books checked out from the library at any given time that he reads over and over again.  One in particular we’ve renewed so many times he just thinks we own it. We’ve done a lot of fun things this past week: he is working on a dinosaur report book, we’ve made fossils out of salt-dough, learned some dinosaur songs, etc.  It’s been fun!

Stegosaurus Fossil

Footprints

So, this past weekend, the kids and I packed up and drove to Salt Lake City to check out two dinosaur museums there.  Unfortunately Kevin had to work, so he didn’t get to come with us.  Rylan packed his suitcase full of clothes and his backpack full of books and we were on our way early Friday morning!

I am so glad the kid have had plenty of practice road-tripping…they’re good road buddies to have, and always up for an adventure together.

When we pulled into the Salt Lake area, we met my friend Camille and her two kids, had lunch and hit the first museum: the George Eccles Dinosaur Park.  As we parked, we could see a few life sized dinosaur models outside, and could hear very realistic dinosaur sounds coming from inside the park.  Talk about excited, the kids were freaking out!  Quinn kept saying, “I think I hear something!”, while Rylan ran around everywhere saying things like, “Ooh! Ooh! Mama! Look!” And if they were that excited about being in the parking lot, I’m sure you can imagine how it was inside the park.

George Eccles Dino Park has three sections: The biggest is an outdoor park and large walking paths where you can spot life size dinosaur models of a ton of different species.  Most of them also had hidden speakers nearby that made pretty realistic dinosaur sounds, which definitely worried the younger kids at first!  There was also a really awesome play area for the kids as well.

We spent a lot of time walking around and seeing all the models.  They were pretty realistic and really fun to see.  Rylan couldn’t stand still for long, as soon as he ran up to one model, he would see another and let out an excited, “Ooh!” and off he would run.  I’m pretty sure he started to get a little tired of me saying, “Wait for the group!”

Rylan was especially stoked to see his favorite dinosaur, the Spinosaurus.   He is currently working very hard around the house to earn this model from the store!

After the outdoor park section (which was about 8 acres of dinosaur models I think), we went indoors to do a pseudo-fossil dig, which all the kids had fun with.  Following that, we saw some real fossils and some robotic dinosaurs which were really well done and scared all the kids!

We all slept well that night, excited for another full day of dinosaur exploring on Saturday, which was at another museum called Thanksgiving Point.   We arrive at around lunchtime and this museum totally blew our minds, it was SO cool.   Real fossils,  lots of interactive stations for the kids, so much detail, etc.  Truly amazing, I was very impressed.  Again, it was hard to get Rylan to take a picture because there was so much to see, but I did manage to get a few.

Rylan ended up buying a model triceratops to add to his little collection with some souvenir money my mom gave him for the trip.  He chose that one so it could more accurately fight his T-Rex, which are both from the late Cretaceous period.  Before this trip, he was having to pretend that the T-Rex was really an Allosaurus so it could play with his Stegosaurus, which both lived in the Jurrasic Period.  Is there such a thing as a dinosaur-nerd or what?

Check out ALL the photos I took here!

 

#WeekendActivities

Last weekend I took a trip with the kids to Walla Walla while Kevin stayed behind and worked on our dumb kitchen venting – one of those, “small job turned big job” type of situation.  We all had a blast, and were sorry to leave.  We had a lot of weekend activities to do all together, and then when we were lounging at the house, the kids were outside riding bikes all weekend.  Talk about awesome.  I’m glad Rylan has finally decided to get back on his bike after his major face-landing earlier this summer, otherwise he never would have been able to keep up with the cousins on the street and at the dirt bike park!  So awesome.

Our road trip up there, 4 hours, was pretty uneventful, but I had two good road tripping buddies.

We listened to good ol’ Hank the Cowdog audio book and sang and danced to their favorite “rocker”, Bon Jovi.  And by that I mean, we listened through the whole album about 5 times.  They still aren’t tired of it, but somebody else sure is!  How many times can you live on a prayer anyway?

Anyway, we got into town around dinner time and had dinner and celebrated my favorite THREE  year old’s birthday (belated)!  I think this was the night we popped homegrown popcorn.  I can’t imagine the work it took to grow this corn, but I sure do know the work it took to pick the thousands of corn kernels up off the floor.  Three times.  First, the ziplock bag holding the said kernels exploded from the bottom because Henry was squeezing the bag.  We picked them up.  Then I poured the collected kernels back into the bag with no bottom…we picked them up again, with much angst.  Then Simeon took the bowl of saved kernels off the counter and…well, needless to say, we picked them up again.  I am not mentioning all the cries of distress (except for now, of course) during this stressful time!  As we picked them up the third time I said, “someday, we may laugh about this.”  I know I have already laughed twice about it in past few days while retelling the story.  How about you guys?

Sunday was extra special because Jake had made spiced wine in the crockpot that morning, which was all ready for us and smelling delicious when we got home from church!  Pair that with cranberry goat cheese, salami, and crackers/baguette, and some kids outside bike riding, we had ourselves a pretty nice afternoon!

We also went to the pumpkin patch, which led to some fun down the big slide down the haystack, and pumpkin carving later!

On Sunday evening, I drove up to the Tri-Cities to visit one of my best friends, and Rylan fell asleep on the way back.  (It was pretty late).  Good thing we had Uncle Jake there to help tuck him into bed!

Our last day took a turn for the worst when poor Hannah managed to get stuck by wasps about five or six times!  Talk about bad!  Fortunately, she was okay, but that is enough to traumatize a person, that’s for sure.  After lunch on Monday we packed up and headed home.  Nobody wanted to leave, so we loitered around for a while, meaning we also got home later.  But that’s okay, since Kevin was waiting for us with dinner all made!  What a guy.  I guess it’s nice to be home too.

 

 

 

Yellowstone and Grand Tetons

We have had such a fabulous time traveling the past two weekends, for the first time in all of 2017 (thanks to the job situation)!  The first weekend in September we went to Lagoon to celebrate Kyndra’s 5th – and golden – birthday, and last week we spent in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks.

Traveling with older kids (versus our experience last year) was a little more of, “are we there yet?”, but they both did great.  The first few days in Yellowstone were spent camping.  It was very cold at night, but fortunately the kids were able to sleep in Mimi and Pop’s trailer, which was a special treat.

*Let me clarify, the first night, Quinn ended up sleeping in the tent with Kevin and I, because she simply would not stop talking.  Even in the tent with us, she was moving around, playing “dancing bears”, singing, etc. despite our best efforts to shush her at 11:00 pm.  Even when she agreed to lay down quietly, after 5 seconds of quiet she would scoot very close to my face and whisper, “I looove you,” before laughing about it.  Sigh.  I think we both fell asleep before she did, but who knows?!

We were able to see many stars, hear the eerie bugle of elk late at night, coyotes, AND a wolf or two.  Rylan didn’t seem to think they were neat to listen to, but heard one elk cry and was ready to head for the trailer (scaredy-cat)!  I convinced to him to stay out and continue listening to the nature sounds by making a story of a whiny baby elk crying to his mama.  He really enjoyed that, and called it, “Elk in Real Life”, then I really had my work cut out for me continuing the silly story line!

Rylan’s favorite part was playing cars in the dirt.

Quinn’s favorite part was taking pictures with her phone.

And making these faces.

Just for the record, we did not train her to do that, or ask her in any way.  She is a girl made entirely of silliness and does whatever strikes her fancy at the moment.

Rylan was able to work hard and get his Junior Ranger badges in both national parks.  He had to speak to a ranger (kind of an interview style) at both parks, and had a hard time of it at Yellowstone, but did much better the second time at Grand Teton.  He was incredibly fun for us to be around last week,  and I haven’t been able to say that for a while because of the stuff we’ve been struggling with over the past few months.  Time to go travel to national parks more often I think!

It was amazing to see our extended Kingsbury family, and such a blessing how much they loved the kids.  We are so thankful for all of that.

Follow this link to see way too many pictures of last week!

ANI if you’re reading this

Well hello there everybody!  If you’re wondering, I had a fantastic start to July 2017, and I’ll tell you all about it right now.

It started out wonderful because I got to go on a road trip.  To Portland.  With my sis.  For my cousin, Ani’s wedding.  See, with so many fantastic things going on in one weekend, it’s bound to be great!

So I left my family in Boise and drove up to Washington where I spent the night at my sister’s house before having her join me for the last leg of the trip the following day.  Turns out a road trip is waaaay easier with only two adults in the car.  We stopped whenever we wanted, talked about whatever we wanted, and ate snacks without having to share any of them – and considering they were chocolate covered pretzels…all the better.  Our drive came to a close much too soon and before we knew it, we had arrived at our cute little rental house and walked down to some local shopping with my mom (who was there waiting for us)!

That first night, we all got together for some pizza, and I know there was a camera somewhere with pictures of the five of us infamous cousins, but unfortunately, I guess that was not my camera, so I came away with no pictures from that night!

On Monday, July 3, (the wedding day) we went out for an extremely mediocre breakfast, which was very disappointing.  My mom, sister, and I stepped into a Columbia store to look around – turns out everything was on sale!  So my sis and I both bought dresses there that we ended up wearing later that night to the wedding, instead of the pre-chosen dresses we had brought with us.  And honestly, I think it might be my favorite dress ever anyway.  Here’s a picture I sent to Kevin on our way out that evening:

Along with the caption: “IT HAS POCKETS!” (which I had just discovered).  That in turn reminded me of this, which is totally true:

The evening was full of beautiful weather, beautiful people, beautiful alpacas, amazing food, great music, and fun memories.  As any good wedding should (in my humble opinion), there was indeed a photo booth there with a ton of good props.  Of course, though I came away with quite a few pictures from the booth, my computer scanner is broken.  So you’ll just have to make do with some phone pictures of them.

Here’s the one I have of all five of us cousins!

This one was used to trick my Yamma, just purely for her reaction.  Not true in any way!!!  Totally pulled it off…until Facebook was notified!  Haha!

It was a super fun night, and we were all so happy that Ani and Jeremy tied the knot!  Love you guys!

Unfortunately, the fun eventually ended and we had to leave early the next morning to get home to all of our people.  My mom and I drove into Boise after a long day at about 3:00 pm.  I could barely keep my eyes open!  Also unfortunately, since it was the fourth of July, we ended up doing fireworks in our cul-de-sac with neighbors until like…10:30 or 11:00.  It was great, but ugh!  I was so tired.

Here are pictures from the weekend and a few other things we have been doing this month.  More soon to come, I’m sure.

Lincoln City Family Reunion

My family always loves reunion-ing at the beach.  The Oregon coast, to be precise.  But since life races by, the last time we were there was in 2010!  Back then, there were no little kids – and this time there were SIX!!! Going to the beach with little kids is not for the faint of heart, that’s for sure, but we all had a great time together!  We rented out a duplex for the entire week, Saturday 7/16-Saturday 7-23.  My parents and grandparents stayed on one side, and the Kingsbury and Schroeder families (the ones with kids) stayed on the other, with a big shared deck in between.

Golly, that was so long ago now I can hardly remember what we did…Let’s see:

1.We took endless walks on the beach, every day.

2. We saw debated on the potential whale-sighting for far too long.

3. We celebrated the TRIPLE-30 birthday people!  Kevin, Mantz, and Jake.

4. We went to the Newport Aquarium

5. We went to the Alder House Glass Blowing place

6. We looked for sea shrimp (and caught several, too)!

7. We tried to drink the ocean – okay, maybe that was just Hannah

8. We got lots of cuddles from lots of different babes

9. We ate lots of food, played lots of games, and had lots of visiting

10. And most importantly, we all got wet at one time or another!  Featured in the picture: Kevin and Jake!

A LOT MORE PICTURES IF YOU CLICK HERE.

Crater Lake and Eugene

Continuing the story…..

We left Redwood National Park on Tuesday, July 12 and had a very long drive to Crater Lake National Park that day.  We ended up not quite making it, and set up camp very late that night, and drove into Crater Lake the next morning.  Once we got a camp spot, we loaded up for the day and went to explore the area.

Crater Lake is so beautiful, and incredibly blue.  We struggled once again with the horrific amount of people there, on a Wednesday (we were surprised about that)!  In fact, we were not able to even get to the main visitor’s center because parking and crowds were impossible.  We did a little hike up to a scenic viewpoint, and were awarded with this:

Honestly though, at that point (after being on the road for exactly three weeks), we were so camped-out.  It also didn’t help that the vast amount of mosquitoes were something I had never seen before.  This was especially apparent when we drove up later that evening to catch the Crater Lake sunset, mosquitoes were literally in a never ending cloud surrounding our car.  It was so bad!  Kevin and I agreed that though this area is pretty, we should give ourselves a break for the last two days of our camping trip and stay in a hotel somewhere!  (I am so glad Kevin agreed to this plan)!  So after seeing a beautiful sunset we spent our last night in the tent!  It turned out to be a good thing we were going, because the mosquitoes were awake bright and early, it was unbelievable.  Before we drove out we stopped at the more accessible visitor center and got Rylan his junior ranger badge AND a junior ranger vest, since he had worked so hard the past weeks camping and junior ranger-ing.

So despite our attitude and quick departure from Crater Lake, I would totally visit there again and gain more of an appreciation for it.

We chose to drive to Eugene, OR and find a cheap hotel for the last two nights of our trip before meeting my family at the beach house in Lincoln City.  Interestingly enough, Eugene is my birthplace so it was great to see it again!  My mom told me all their old haunts, so we looked them all up and went to Prince Puckler’s ice cream shop, Skinner’s Butte (where the Bald Eagles live), the bike shop my dad used to work at, and of course we walked around the campus of University of Oregon.

*Sidenote: As I have mentioned before, the song, “Living on a Prayer” was always close to us during this trip, but it was always us singing it to ourselves.  On our drive into Eugene, Kevin, Rylan and I all got into a fight in the car, and all three of us were mad at something or other.  At that moment, we turn on the radio (not knowing any radio frequencies of the area), and what song is it?  Living on a Prayer!  Both Kevin and I realized this was probably the only time we would hear this song played for us, so we let go of our resentment toward each other and the issue and immediately started rocking out.  Rylan was slower to do so, but eventually couldn’t resist how much fun we were having.  If only all fights could end that way, eh???

The hotel we stayed at (Motel 6) was truly a dump, but at least the sheets didn’t have holes in them (yes, I checked them all with Kevin very thoroughly)!  We tried not to spend too much time in the hotel room though, we had several picnics in the local parks, saw some softball games, walked downtown, and enjoyed the fantastic weather.  It was so great, I almost want to move back!

PICTURES FROM THIS LEG OF THE TRIP ARE LOCATED HERE

Redwood National Park

Alright, where did I leave off on our grand adventure?  Yes, so we left Lassen National Park, drove to the Redwoods in California, and ended up staying in Klamath River RV Park.  We didn’t particularly prefer to tent camp in an RV park, but it actually turned out to be soooo nice!  We were right on the Klamath River, it wasn’t crowded (in the tent camp area), plus there were bathrooms, shower, and laundry facilities, so score!  I had chosen this place to stay because 1) real campgrounds in the Redwoods were all booked out and, 2) Klamath, CA is a little town situated directly in between the four main Redwood parks which are: Jedidiah Smith, Del Norte, Prairie Creek, and Redwood National Park itself.  These four parks contain 95% of the entire world’s old growth redwood trees!  So it was the place to be!

The first day we were there, Thursday July 7, we drove up to Crescent City to restock at Walmart.  With our newly bought groceries, we had lunch at a local park and let the kids play on the awesome playground there.  Let Kevin show you his awesome “dad skills” here in this video:

We also checked out the local Redwood visitor center, got Rylan all set up to complete his Junior Ranger program, and got tons of maps and information.  From there we took the Howland Scenic Drive through the northern Jedidiah Smith Redwoods (which was our first glimpse of the redwoods) and stopped at the Stout Grove for a walk among the giants.  We took a lot of pictures.  Rylan, I think, was particularly impressed by the size of the trees towering above him!

That night, it started to rain.  And not the Boise-type rain that we were familiar with, but the loud, pounding, never-stopping, completely submersive RAIN.  It rained all night.

On Friday it was still raining, again not characteristic with Boise rain, which is usually fleeting.  But we were determined to keep a good attitude and not let the rain stop us.  It did however dampen any attempts to make breakfast, since we had no adequate shelter set up (didn’t really want to light up our stove inside the tent, you know?), so we went again up to Crescent City and had breakfast at a local restaurant.  We talked over what we should do, as we were in a legitimately challenging situation (camping in the rain, with kids, is one thing I could do without)!  So after lunch we just went over to the Battery Point Lighthouse.  We really lucked out since the lighthouse is on an island, only accessible when the tide is LOW.  We just so happened to hit it just right and walked right up, and what do you know – they were holding tours right when we got there!  The rain was very cold and constant, but fortunately, after waiting for a bit, we finally got to go inside!  Kevin and Quinn stayed down in the gift shop but Rylan and I went to the very top, which included climbing a very narrow spiral staircase and a tiny ladder to the lamp.  I think Rylan would have preferred to just jet right up to the top, take a quick look around, and head back down, but the tour spent a lot more time standing around and being educated on the lighthouse’s history.  Rylan looked pretty bored through most of the tour, but walked patiently from room to room without interrupting the tour guide.  He made his way up and down the tiny ladder with a little help and then was ready to go tidepooling when we left the lighthouse just as the tide was coming back in.  We didn’t see much in the pools, except for one little crab and some snails, but the tide was coming in fast so we didn’t linger for too long.

After our enjoyment at Battery Point, we drove another scenic route through the Prairie Creek Redwoods.  This ended up being our favorite section of all the parks, and we stopped many times to get a better look at something or other that had caught our eye.  We walked a short trail to see the Corkscrew Tree, with it’s trunk spiraling up into the sky.  We hiked to the Big Tree (that was it’s name.  I think they were running out of tree names at this point) that was 1500 years old, and almost cut down many years ago to become a dance floor, but fortunately, was protected.  And lastly we walked through the Cathedral Trees, which I thought were particularly splendid for some reason.

I am so good at posing for photos.

And our day wasn’t even done there!  Right after leaving the Cathedral Trees and driving back “home”, we passed 5 humongous elk right on the side of the road, which was awesome AND Kevin kept up his animal slaughter by hitting a wood duck mid-flight.  Don’t worry, I totally gave him a hard time about it, even though it was completely the duck’s fault!  And guess what…it was still raining!  Hard.  We arrived back at camp and sat in the car for a few minutes wondering what we should do.  Ultimately, Kevin and I left the kids in the car and went out with our canopy, tarps, rope and stakes, and got completely soaked setting up a shelter surrounding our tent and picnic table.  It took several times to get it right so you can imagine how wet and annoyed we both were.  Then we backed the car right up to the opening and would have had a pretty dry area if it hadn’t been getting soaked the entire day already.

Here’s what the kids did after we got it all set up, they are so good with whatever happens, thankfully:

That night we had a sad little dinner, played with the kids in the tent as much as possible, folded laundry, and at 8:00 pm turned on a movie inside the car for a little bit.  It could have been worse, but we still went to bed all soggy, despite our best efforts.

The next morning (Saturday, July 9) rose up sunny and clear – and we breathed a sigh of relief!  The rest of our week was forecasted to be moderately sunny, which I’ve never been so excited to see!  We drove to the Lady Bird Johnson Grove, which was very pretty as well.  We had originally planned on doing more that day, but for some reason it just didn’t work out.  Instead we headed back to the campsite and Kevin and I played frisbee while both kids napped  So that was a nice change of pace!

Sunday was an even prettier day, and we hiked 5.6 miles to the Boy Scout Tree, which turned out to be even bigger than the Big Tree!  We weren’t sure if hiking all that distance would be worth it just for a tree, but it was awesome.  Totally worth it.  Rylan spotted two banana slugs and a snail, AND spotted an octopus tree all by himself.  He was quite the nature observer!  The banana slugs were just as disgusting as I had anticipated them being, knowing they were in the area.  Rylan and I had just completed a page on them in his junior ranger booklet, so we were familiar with their “sections”; the breathing hole, legs, eyes, and antennas.  What I didn’t anticipate was that when Kevin blew on the slug, it’s eyeballs were sucked into it’s body.  Right?  Ew.  The kids did great on such a long hike, as long as we were prepared with water and snacks of course!  Quinn loves being in her back pack and Rylan was still keeping our pace as we finished up the trail.  He’s a great buddy to have on adventures, that’s for sure!

That night at camp was eventful with not only meeting a new friend from Scotland, but seeing a fully grown black bear (right across the river), a sea otter, and bats all along the bank of the Klamath River!  How exciting!

Monday, the 11, was probably one of our favorite days because we got to walk through our first slot canyon.  What a cool experience!  Fern Canyon, as it’s called, was recommended to us on our first day in the park and it did not disappoint!  I really can’t describe what it feels to walk through the little creek with fern covered canyon walls towering on either side of you!  Some areas of the walk were tighter than others (as far as canyon wall proximity), but that was the cool part.  I only wish it would have been longer (it was probably only 0.5 miles in or so).  After that we walked along the coastal trail for a bit, but were disappointed there was no coast within sight –and after seeing bear droppings we decided to turn right around!

After that we drove south to the Kuchel Visitor Center and got Rylan his junior ranger badge for finishing all the worksheets in his ranger booklet.  After having a little chat with the ranger he had to raise his right hand and repeat the vow to keep his parks clean (she cut it short, since he was being so quiet and shy), and he was awarded a huge, gold embossed ranger badge – the best one yet!  He couldn’t contain his little smile!

And that concludes my commentary on the Redwoods!  This was such a cool park, and definitely worth a revisit when the kids are older and can appreciate it more.

You know where to click for more PICTURES!

Lake Tahoe & Lassen National Park

Lake Tahoe:

Okay so after we left Yosemite, we had been camping for one week in 100 degree weather, and felt pretty tired and yucky.  Our next stop was Lake Tahoe as an in-between place to stay for the Fourth of July, but we decided to stay in a cheap hotel in Carson City for one night first.  We restocked our supplies at Walmart (really a traveler’s paradise, or so it became for us!), and got clean.  I bought a slice of chocolate cake at Walmart for 89 cents, which Kevin and I split on the hotel balcony while the kids fell asleep.  It was such a refreshing stop, but the next morning we drove right out bright and early to Lake Tahoe.

During our whole travels, due to the spontaneous nature of this trip, we had no reservations to stay anywhere.  Try that at some of the nation’s busiest national parks, eh? That did cause a few hairy situations trying to find a place to stay, and Lake Tahoe was one of them!  After looking around several different campgrounds, we found one called Bay view and pulled right in to one of many empty spots.

Friday, July 1, was totally relaxing and laid back, which was a nice change.  We went into town and did laundry at a laundromat, had the kids nap in the tent (for the first time in the whole trip, since it was so hot in Yosemite) while we napped in our hammocks.  The weather was in the 70’s and 80’s all weekend – perfect!

Saturday, July 2, once we had fed and watered the kids, we packed up and hiked the Desolation back country to Granite Lake.  The hike was 2 miles round trip but very strenuous — the views though!  We got an undisturbed view of Emerald Bay right below us, and then further along the trail Granite Lake itself was shining in the sunlight.  Rylan’s first view of it was a sharp intake of breath and, “Mama!  It’s sparkly!” I guess he had never seen a lake sparkle like that before, and it helped me not to take the beauty of it for granted either.  He was again such a trooper on the hard trail and got many compliments from fellow hikers, including on our way back down, “Well if HE can do it, so can I!” I was continually impressed by his hiking attitude and abilities.  In fact, it was still mid-morning when we got back into camp, so we decided to go down to Lake Tahoe for a while.  We were camping directly over Emerald Bay State Park so we just thought we could show up there, however, after paying $10 to get into the park, the ranger told us it was a 2 mile hike down to the shore!  Gah!  So, we saddled up and began the trek.

Of course, as we started I realized we had forgotten the camera and ran back to get it, and on the way back to meet the group, I took a wrong turn and wandered probably a quarter of a mile wondering where I was.  I ended up meeting another lost hiker and the two of us turned around together, so that was nice to not be the only idiot on the mountain!  Kevin and the kids eventually found me and Rylan (who Kevin had told me was very scared and yelling for me) didn’t let my hand go almost the entire way down to the lake!

So we hiked a mostly downhill 2 miles along Emerald Bay, which was super beautiful despite the fact that we weren’t planning on doing it.  The bay was very busy, with wait lists over 2 hours long for SUP’s and kayaks, motor boats all over the place, ferries, swimmers, etc.  Plus, there was even Vikingsholm Castle there, which would have given Rylan a real thrill had he not been so distracted with the beach!

We ended up spending all afternoon there, most of our time spent in the water or in the sun.  When we headed back Kevin ran and got the car and parked it only 1 mile away in a closer parking lot, so that was nice.  There was a lot of hiking that day, mostly on accident, but it was a great day!

Sunday was another relaxing day of hanging out around camp, really enjoying our hammocks.  Here’s Quinn enjoying one:

And here’s Rylan enjoying another  (might want to turn down the volume for this one, Rylan exclaims some words very loudly):

Monday was the big Fourth of July celebration!  Lake Tahoe is really crowded for the fourth, which we were anticipating but it’s different when you are actually there dealing with the masses.  And nothing gets Kevin fired up like a lot of dumb people in his way!  So, we decided to skip the parade downtown, since the crowds would be uncontrollable, and went for another hike instead.  I can’t even remember where we went, it was to some waterfall feature that everyone was raving about, but I’m sorry – after Yosemite, Lake Tahoe’s got nothing in that regard!  So we left relatively unimpressed and hot.  We decided to park at the visitor’s center parking lot and walk the 0.5 mile paved trail into the beach, quite a ways off from the main fireworks…again, to spare any frustration by dealing with billions of people downtown.  We spent another full afternoon at the beach, where we realized that we could walk over like, 100 feet INTO the lake and still be only about mid-calf deep!  So that was neat!  We blew up the kid’s floaty boat and sent them floating away!  (okay, not really).

The only downer was that, in our attempt to avoid crowds, we really were too far away to get the amazing fireworks experience.  Also, it got freezing cold by the lake almost immediately after the sun went down and we didn’t bring any blankets.  So we were watching tiny fireworks across the lake, hearing nothing, and draped in our beach towels.  The really amazing thing we DID see though, was every other fireworks display going on at different points around the lake at the same time.  Never seen that before!

Then the part we didn’t plan for…walking back to our car in the pitch black bear country completely alone, carrying sleeping kids.  Our arms were burning with all our beach gear AND kids, but we sure never stopped!  Even Kevin admitted that was one creepy walk!

And the next morning (Tuesday) we packed up and headed out for the park Rylan was excited for, Lassen Volcano National Park.

Sidenote: During our trip, the song that really stayed with us (for no reason in particular) was Bon Jovi’s “Living on a Prayer”.  That is such a song you can rock out to!  Rylan can sing almost all the words AND the guitar solo now, it’s pretty awesome.  During our monotonous drive through Nevada, it was quiet in the car so Kevin could talk to his mom on the phone.  He tiredly told her, “I think we’re about halfway there.”  Rylan instantly sat up straight in his car seat and piped up, “We’re halfway there??? ARE WE LIVING ON A PRAYER?!?!?!!!!!” And I totally bust up laughing, it was so funny!  Kevin just had to hold it together until he got off the phone, haha!

Lassen National Park:

Lassen is still an active volcano (although it hasn’t been working out much in the past 100 years), and their claim to fame is that it is the least visited national park in the country.  Guess what?  It is.  It was pretty deserted, we camped there one night and we may have been one of the only ones there.  A few other people told us that they had been there over the fourth weekend and it was empty.  Gah!  Should’ve just gone there, right?  And even the one trail that Lassen is known for, “Bumpass Hell” (don’t laugh), was closed!  So….that was disappointing.

Sidenote: Lassen was the only national park who refused to let Rylan try to get a Junior Ranger badge because he couldn’t read yet!  Seriously, every other national parks we visited (which were a good number!) either had programs for younger kids OR encouraged parents to help.  Lassen was just a flat out NO.  Kevin and I were really annoyed, so we bought a little pin from the gift shop and awarded it to Rylan at the completion of our morning hike the next day.  He never knew, but we did, and we were not impressed!

The campground was surprisingly nice!   And after we packed up all our stuff the next morning (we were only staying for one night) we hiked the Sulfur Works trail – I’m sure you can imagine what that smelled like!  Rylan said, “It smells like the heart of an egg!” We hiked a little over a mile until the trail really became impassable with snow.  I think we were almost at the top too!  But we had already crossed some snowfields on the way up, so the way down was full of slips and bum-sledding.  Rylan was very tentative at first, and did not like his feet slipping around, but after I started falling down and slipping just as much as he was, he loosened up and enjoyed laughing at our misfortune.

As much as I don’t sound too impressed with Lassen, I will say that it was the most refreshing park we stayed at.  I think that is because it is, at the top, roughly 10,000 feet in elevation and the air is SO pure.  Just closing your eyes and inhaling as deeply as you can was so invigorating!  I would go back just to breathe in the freshness again.  You don’t get that anywhere else.

After our hike we had a pretty rough drive all the way to the RV park we were camping at in Klamath, California.  Not rough because the kids did badly, but it just took so long, and we were all tired and looking forward to our next leg of the trip.

Click here for more pictures and tune in next time for the Redwood National Park, up next!