The stars at night

Here are some of the highlights from our trip to Texas-

• Jack was so excited to fly on a plane for the first time, but after fifteen minutes into the flight he was bored. We had to change planes in Phoenix. Our flight was a bit delayed. When we were finally on the plane and waiting for everybody else to board Jack decided he wanted to open the window screen to look out the window. When he tried to lift the window screen, he ended up pulling off the whole plastic window cover. Oops. They had to delay the flight even longer while we waited for a maintenance man to repair the broken window cover.

• My aunt has a swimming pool so we got to swim every day, twice a day. The kids never got tired of it.

• It is too blasted hot in Houston, TX to do anything outside besides swim. Between our time in Texas and the road trip home, my kids watched more movies than we watch in a year. With all the swimming and all the television, it was an ideal vacation for the kids.

• We got a new-to-us car. I wanted an SUV and a minivan, but since we had to choose one, we chose an SUV. A Toyota Sequoia, for two big reasons, it fits eight people and we can tow things. The towing thing is a very important requirement in my family.

• I missed Chad, but it was fun to spend the week with my uncle, aunt, mom, sister, my kids, and nieces and nephews. With all those women around there was lots of help with the kids and meals.

• Two hours into our twenty five hour, 1500 mile drive home, Ben threw up when we arrived in Waco, TX. Fortunately nobody else threw up or peed their pants the rest of the trip home. I would say the road-trip was a success.

• At our first hotel on our way home Jack was playing with the a/c. I was down at the car at the time and when I returned my sister was standing outside our room door with all the kids. Apparently Jack turned on the heater, something inside it burned and set off the fire alarm in the room. Fortunately it didn't go off for long, but our room smelled like burnt hair.

• On the last leg of our trip we couldn't make it any further. We had been in the car for eleven hours and decided to get a hotel room in Moab, rather than push through to home. In the morning, Ben needed to go to the bathroom. The bathroom was occupied by a little girl who wasn't feeling well, so after waiting a little bit I just decided to take Ben outside to pee on a bush, the car tire or something. When we walked outside I saw two guys standing by our car where I was going to have Ben pee, so I was a little frustrated for a minute. Then I realize the two guys were Chad and my brother-in-law. They woke up early, drove down to Moab to meet us and drive us home. Wahoo!!!

• Yesterday Ben said, "It wasn't that hot in Texas." What the? Where was he?

Crazies

Last week I was talking to my brother-in-law, Jeremy. Our conversation went something like this-

Me- Hey, sorry for my crazy idea.
Jeremy- No worries. One thing I have learned about you and your sister is that I never know what you two are going to come up with next.

So, what was my idea? My sister, mom, and I are in Texas. Houston, Texas. It's like a bazillion degrees here and 110% humidity. Yes, I am exaggerating, but really, it's HOT!

Oh, I forgot to mention all the kids are with us. Our hubbies are at home living it up. Actually they have jobs to go to and projects to work on at home, but I hope they have a little fun too.

What in the world would bring us to the "land down under" (and I don't mean Australia) in the middle of the summer? We decided what kind of car we wanted to buy, and discovered they are a little cheaper in Texas. We have relatives here, so we decided to plan a little trip. That's me and my sister, anything for an adventure. (And of course a good deal.) We flew here and we have plane tickets home, but if we find a car we will be driving it home.

Until then, we will have fun in the heat. We have inundated my aunt and uncle's house with our crazy kids. I am pretty sure they are glad to have us here, but I also pretty sure they will be a little relieved when we are gone.

Another weekend at the yurt

Once again we took a trip up to the East Canyon yurts. That's the third year in a row. I would say it is a tradition now. Last year we were annoyed by neighbors who were drinking and smoking pot, so this year we filled up three of the four yurts with people we know. (And who we know don't smoke pot or drink, or at least we don't think they do.) I was trying to get all four yurts full, but I couldn't get enough takers. Thanks to my parents and the awesome Koger Family! We had soooo much fun. With it being winter it wasn't super conducive to being able to hang out much with the Kogers in the yurts, but we had a lot of fun outside the yurts. Lots and lots of sledding, snowshoeing, and cross-country skiing.

And just like last year and almost every trip we go on, I get super ornery trying to get ready. It is sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much work. But it's mostly fun once we are there. We love all the fun things to do outside and then we love hanging out with my sister, brother-in-law, and their kids, and this year my parents inside the yurt. We ate nummy food, played games, sat by the warm fire, and drank gallons of hot chocolate.

The day we left to come home, Jack woke up in the morning and then fell right back to sleep. He was exhausted and slept until we had to wake him up when it was time to check out. Turns out he was getting sick.

We were all pretty exhausted and when we got home I laid down to take a nap. Before I could fall asleep, Chad came in the room to tell me my parents house flooded while we were gone. Crazy!

Away

I love living in a place where we experience very defined seasons. I just wish that each season would last three months. Not five months of winter, five months of summer, a month of spring, and a month of fall. Okay, it's not that bad, but sometimes it seems like it.

Like most people, autumn is my favorite. Followed by spring, winter, & then summer. Yep, summer is my least favorite. I hate the heat. The lower 90s is okay, but when it gets hotter than than, I get ornery. I hate how you can sit inside and it looks beautiful outside, but if you step outside you are immediately attacked by the oppressive heat. At least in the winter, with no leaves on the trees and snow on the ground, outside doesn't look so inviting because it looks cold.

So for me, winter is better than summer, but it seems to drag on and on and on. After the excitement of December, January and February are just bleak and cold.

The cure for that? A trip somewhere warmer.

I asked Chad to take last week off work with the caveat that we may not go anywhere and he might end up working. Remember, I am an uncomfortable pregnant lady? My back and hips almost constantly hurt and I didn't know how I would handle a road trip. Chad wanted to have at least a few days off work, so the plan was to drive to St. George and then decide from there if we would just stay in St. George for a couple of days or continue onto San Diego for the week.

Obviously we made it a bit further than St George. Although I wish the beach was that close. Who needs Nevada and most of California anyway?

It was such an awesome week. Sea World, exploring tide pools and playing on the beach (for three days), eating delicious mexican food, upper 60s & 70 degree weather. It was a very nice break from winter. While we didn't exactly plan the trip with my sister and her family we spent a day at Sea World with them and a day at the beach. Other than that we kind of did our own thing. We love them and always love spending time with them, but it was nice for them and us to do our own thing some days.

On a side note- if you ever visit San Diego. Go to the Old Town and visit the Mormon Battalion visitors center. Totally worth it!

Ben was laughing soooooo hard. It was so cute! What's he laughing at?

Him and his cousins played in front of these mirrors for twenty minutes. It was quite entertaining.

On the way home I started getting a sore throat and an ear ache. And tomorrow night Chad has a date to replace a leaky caliper on our car (good thing we made it home.)

Too bad we have to come back to real life. But then again a vacation wouldn't be a vacation if we were always on one.