Da da da daah daaah, da da da daaaaaaah daaaaah!

For about three months now, we've been listening to John Williams: Greatest Hits in the car as we drive around town. The impetus for this was that I (Ben) was playing Lego Indiana Jones for a few weeks earlier this year and the kids would watch or play along. The game includes the wonderful John Williams music that he composed for the movies and it makes the game-play that much better. The kids, Gordon in particular, really took to the music, so I got out my John Williams CD and we started listening to it as we ran errands or drove to the beach. Eventually Gordon randomly started singing either the Indiana Jones or Star Wars theme (something he picked up because we're raising him right!) at any given time throughout the day. Occasionally it matched what he was doing -be it jumping off the arm of one couch onto the other one, or playing with his toys- other times the music was completely incongruous with what was going on -reading scriptures or eating dinner-. As we were driving to eastern Idaho we finally captured Gordon singing his two favorite pieces of music, enjoy.

The last leg of vacation

 Heading to Cache Valley, area of my ancestors. I love how rural it is there. 

 Gordon is obsessed with combines. He was always excited when we could point one out to him, and mad if he couldn't see it. 

 We headed here to stop by and say hi to some friends of ours. This is the only good picture we got, which is not great because it's of Gordon showing his mad (or lack thereof) light saber skills. He had just smacked Hudson on the hand. Sorry! The girls played games and Barbies upstairs. This was also the place where I had my first bite of French chocolate, and I must say, the French know how to make a blissful milk chocolate bar. Way better than Hershey's.  It was good to visit and catch up on all that's happening. 

 Then we headed to the Bountiful area to see Ben's Grandma. We stayed here for two nights. Ben braved a bike ride with an old friend, Jason, who he met in Boston. Jason took him up City Creek Canyon, but after a while Ben thinks he must of gotten altitude sickness or something, because he felt terrible and they had to come back down the mountain. 

Happier times at lower altitudes. 

 We took Grandma Green to the In n Out in Centerville, where the food was just as good as in Cali. 

 I took Grandma on some shopping errands with Jilly while Ben took the kids up to Farmington Pond, where he caught his first fish. 

 Playing with toys one morning....Jillian getting a tractor forehead massage, I really don't know what she's doing in this picture. We watched as much Olympics as we could at Grandma's. The kids really liked the gymnastics and swimming events. 

 We stopped in for a visit with Ben's other grandma, Grandma Cluff. The kids don't know her as well, so Gordon ended up falling asleep in my lap. I was shocked, this hasn't happened for at least a year. Jilly was glued to my side while Evelyn played 'Flow' on Ben's smartphone. After this, we headed to the Bountiful Costco where we (I) drooled over all the stuff you can get at a Costco geared more toward families. We even bought food here to take back to California, stuffing it in our already-overflowing minivan. 

 Then we stopped to see some of the oldest friends of Ben and I's married life, and their cute kids who are the same age as ours. They played great together and we're hoping we can get together and see them again. 

Astronaut Gordon. So precious. 

 Next up, we headed to our old BYU stomping grounds and stayed with these friends we know from school here in California. These kids spent hours playing together at the playground near our apartment until they moved last year. They played dress-up/superhero/andwhoknowswhatelse games all day long while we visited. It was fun to see them having a blast. 

 And finally, we opted out of staying in Las Vegas for another night, and drove straight home. It was mostly pleasant, albeit brutally hot, and interspersed with 20 minute crying jags from Gordon about nonsensical things, like wanting to turn around to see the combine he missed. We stopped briefly in Vegas to visit with Ben's best friend from growing up. He works at a flooring, tile, and appliance outlet, so I had fun perusing all the options while the girls asked a million questions. Gordon was mostly bored and wanted to leave or touch everything that could fall and break. 

When we stopped somewhere between Riverside County and Orange County in the hills, we could feel the ocean breeze and it was so wonderful! It wasn't  hot anymore! Just so pleasant, like the weather usually is here. 

We had a good vacation again this year, and Evelyn's already talking about where we're going to stop next year. I'm grateful for good family and friends who let us impose upon their routines, and a minivan and mechanic that make it possible for us to travel so many miles without car trouble. 

Compilation

I've been compiling this post for a few months. It's sufficiently long enough now.

Gordon climbs into bed with me most nights, and stays if Ben is not sleeping in bed with me. He's my "bed buddy." I must be sleeping deeper, because I couldn't tolerate the girls in bed. They were so squirmy. It's fun to wake up with him, he says really sweet stuff in the morning. This morning he asked, "Who's going to baptize me?" and I re-directed his own question back at him. He answered, "John-a-da Baptist. He's going to baptize you." I told him that Grandpa Cows baptized me and that Daddy was going to baptize him. Gordon got a big, sleepy grin on his face and rolled over to doze for a few more minutes. He didn't come into bed at night with me for all of vacation. I'm trying to figure out why that is...

Last night at family home evening, Evelyn taught a lesson about following the prophet. She asked Gordon, "What would Jesus tell you to do if you were a prophet?" (she had some interesting questions!). Gordon answered, "He said he's going to give me a golden whistle!" Gordon picked up this golden whistle connection with Jesus a few months ago, and I've got no idea where it came from. But it is funny.

He loves bare-back scratches, just like his Daddy. Evelyn loves these too.

His favorite stories right now are Harold and the Purple Crayon.

He likes to give me kisses, which are pretty slobbery and like dog-licks lately.

He likes to take whatever clothes are in his reach and stow them in the crack between my bed, Ben's bike and the wall. I was making up the bed while Ben was talking to the kids on the webcam in my room tonight, and came around to this particular side of bed and yelled, "Gordon!!" when I stepped on a big pile of now unsorted laundry. Ben quickly asked, "Did you just find a pile of clothes?" He didn't even need to be present in the room to know what happened.

Ben was putting Gordon to bed and Gordon put his arms around Ben's neck and said, "Dad, I love your hairs. Your hairs on your cheeks, on your this (the back of Ben's head), your back, on your head, your beard, and your what's this, above your nose?" (pointing to Ben's mustache, I think he meant to say under your nose")

"It's my mustache."

"Mustache," he says with a cute grin, and rolls over to sleep.

He's converting his pronouns. When we say prayers at night, and I say, "Please help Gordon to..," he can convert it to, "Please help me to..." I never noticed this as much with the girls. Probably because I had an infant to care for when they were both going through this stage.

Evelyn's bedtime conversation tonight. "Mom, can little girls fall in love?"
"Well, I don't think you can really fall in love that young, but you can really like someone because they're a good friend and you get along really well."
Thoughtful pause.
"Who is it?" I asked.
Coy smile like she's not going to tell me anything. "Well, he moved away and I don't know if you even have his address."
"Well, if his family was good friends with ours, chances are we sent them a Christmas card and we have their address. You could write him a letter. Is it the ____ family?"
Another coy smile. "Yeah, we could just play outside for hours and hours. What kind of stamps do we have?"

I need to have a plug for Jill...she picked out her school back-pack at Costco yesterday, and has been having a little bit of a rough last week, I think in anticipation for for kindergarten starting in a couple weeks. She told me today the only part she's afraid of is the part where I leave and she stays at the classroom. Yeah sweetie, that part is kind of hard for "Momma" too. She's the only kid that calls me "Momma." I'm Mommy to Ev and Gordon.

Oh man, my kids are growing up. I don't know how ready I am for it. :)

 "We can't smile when the sun is shining on our faces!" 

Eastern Idaho

 After leaving Grandpa and Grandma Cows house, we spent two nights back at Grandpa and Grandma Chicken's house. This is the location of Ben's first-ever speeding ticket. It was totally lame, the cop was being a real grouch, you can't contest tickets in court when you're going to be  900 miles away on the appearance date, yada-yada. A friend later told us cops sometimes target out of state plates for that reason. More lameness. Onto the pictures!

Petting Grandma's "Pauline" before hitting the road. My kids love these chickens. It's their hobby when we visit. 

Ben had me drive the leg to Eastern Idaho. This is different, he usually likes to do all the driving. I didn't mind, it meant he had to take care of the kids. :)

 We got to my Grandpa and Grandma Hill's house, and after unpacking the car, headed over to my Uncle Kelly's place. This is a classic Gordon position when he's snuggling up on some pillowed surface.

 Uncle Kelly had a combine and that was very exciting.

 Learning how to greet and pet a horse.

 Kelly and his daughter Jocelyn (my cousin), were nice enough to saddle up Sisco for my kids to ride. This picture of Evelyn absolutely cracks me up. She needs sweeping background music to go with her wind-blown hair and the look of complete fulfillment on her face. I can't get over how funny it is.

 Jocelyn and Gordon on Sisco.

 Jilly really enjoyed her horse ride too, she wanted Jocelyn to make Sisco "run." This kitty was cute and playful too, and she loved petting and chasing him around the yard.

Grandma, Grandpa, me and Uncle Kelly

 After leaving my uncle's, Grandpa drove us over to the head-gates. This is where the main irrigation channel splits into smaller canals to irrigate the area. Lots of water here. 

 Lots of fast-flowing water and rocks to make me nervous. I had a hold of Gordon's shirt collar the whole time, which he didn't like, but that boy was not afraid of getting right up close. The girls were much more aware of the dangers, thankfully.

   My Grandpa told me this area near the head-gates was a place my mom and uncle spent a lot of time playing when they were growing up, making tree-houses and forts. I remember picnics in the area, with home-made fried chicken, scones, and home-made root beer.

On another day, we headed up to Rexburg to check out the new and mostly completed construction at BYU-Idaho. We found the only unlocked door into the conference center that looks just like the one in Salt Lake, and admired all the art they have on the walls there. It's hard to believe the amount of stuff that's been built or re-done since Ben and I were there nearly 10 years ago. (It's been that long?!) It was hot here, like everywhere else we went on vacation, and we attempted to try out the water park. It was so packed though, and they were going to make Gordon wear a swim diaper and plastic pants (which I knew he would not do and I was not going to make him, he's been potty-trained for over a year now) that we decided to try Porter Park instead and a new splash-pad there kept me honest in front of my kids. (I had told the girls if we didn't go to the water park we'd find somewhere else to swim. Lucky me!)

 Gordon was still kind of freaked out at first, and actually had a meltdown when he went up the yellow stairs and got soaked by the fountain you see in the picture below. A nice Dad up on the platform had to hand Gordon down to Ben because Evelyn couldn't convince Gordon that going down the slide was a much better option to getting off the platform of drowning fountains.

 The girls got brave enough toward the end to brave the drowning fountain and took on this fun slide.

 One of the nights here, I was trying to get the kids all ready for bed and they kept running in different directions, or I kept getting distracted (or both), and I found all of them eventually out on the front porch with my Grandpa, who had given them all a popsicle. I was waiting for them to finish and hurriedly get them off to bed, but Ben gave me perspective on the moment when he said, "How many kids get to sit on the front porch with their Great-Grandpa and talk about dogs and eat popsicles? I never did." This is one of the reasons I love my husband - he gives me perspective.

We let them sit until the sun had set and the mosquitoes were making their mark.

   

Feeding the ducks and geese across from the Idaho Falls Temple. 

Four wheeler rides with a bunch of alfalfa-chewing,wanna-be farm kids.  

Dress-up, Three Musketeer style. Thanks Brad and Bryson! We didn't break anything! (I don't think we did...)

Evelyn loved Grandpa's dog 'Spot.' He was really good with the kids. She was actually sniffling a bit when we had to leave because she'd liked him so much.

It was such a good visit with my grandparents. They're both in their seventies and in good health. I want to be in that kind of shape when I hit my seventies. It warms my heart to know that they may be around for several years to come for my kids to visit and have a relationship with.

Washington

 In Washington we visit Grandma and Grandpa Cows. It's summer, and that means farm work, all day, and almost everyday. 

We also saw a lot of the newest nephew to our family. Evelyn loves to try and pick the little kids up and carry them around. It's usually a little more than she can handle. :)

 Riding Grandpa's new tractor with Uncle Ryan. It's one of those giant ones, and the first John Deere tractor on the farm that I can remember. 

 Ben rode his bike here a lot as well. He enjoyed long stretches of road without any stoplights, just like Idaho. 

 Our whole family decided to take a short two-day trip to Mt. Rainier. When we finally got up to the Paradise viewpoint, this is all we saw. Fog. It was so cold up there. That's the second coldest we've been since we moved to California, behind our Christmas trip to St. George. It should have started snowing, just for effect. All we had were sandals and light jackets. I was smart enough to pack jeans, thankfully. 

 And there was still plenty of snow on the ground, in fact. So much that unless you were equipped for the snow, you couldn't really explore the trails at all. There was lots of water, and lots of mud. Evelyn had thawed out enough at this point to declare she was hot and didn't need her jacket anymore. I think it was just peer pressure. My nephews are a lot tougher when it comes to temperature. They rebuilt the Visitor's Center here since I last visited, and it was cool. Not as cool as the old one though. It was a place to get warm at least!

We headed down off the mountain and to our campground. Now, it wasn't too cold down here. Just raining/misting on us. We were kind of not prepared for this. It didn't rain a lot though, and we all hoped the weather would be more cooperative the next day. 

 This is only the second time our kids have been camping, and I daresay, it was far more successful this time around. The kids loved it. 

Gordon and Clayton had a fabulous time beating this dead tree with sticks, climbing all over it, and jumping off of it. There was no running off of children, and no mosquitoes or hornets. I thank the cool, rainy weather for that. 

The next morning, we broke camp and found the rain had gone overnight. We headed down to the old ranger station at Longmire, which was crawling with people. We crossed the suspension bridge, where we finally found parking and the kids enjoyed throwing rocks into the river there. We noticed after a while the clouds were breaking up, so we headed back to the cars to drive up to Paradise to see if we'd get lucky and view Mt. Rainier. 

Success! Ev was happy to be here, even if she didn't look it, and Gordon is doing some cool guy hand motion and sound effect. Such a goofy kid. 

I was going to put a picture of Tyler and Nicole here, but I then I remembered her 8 month old pregnant belly, and thought better of it. Even though she isn't huge. 

 We drove down to the Grove of the Patriarchs, a section of old-growth cedar trees. They're 200 to 300 feet tall. Gizmo had to ride in the back pack because he wasn't allowed on the trail. There was a suspension bridge to cross here, and lots of mosquitoes. The kids enjoyed running around and the picnic lunch we had. 

 The last stop on the route was Sunrise, a viewpoint at 6400 ft. It was cool here too, but the trails weren't quite as snowed over here, so we could walk around a little and see some hikers tackling Mt. Rainier. The kids liked playing in the mud puddles and throwing rocks into them here as well. There was a good visitor's center to walk though, and my girls liked hearing about how Mt. Rainier is a volcano. They didn't quite believe me at first when I told them it was, because they didn't see any lava. 

Ah, cousins. My kids miss their cousins. Hopefully at some point we will not live so far away. 

 "Someday we will all be buff like Uncle Ryan!"

Other things we did: Trampoline jumping, tire swinging, sewing (mostly skirts), playing with the dogs, feeding cows, digging in the dirt, and watching movies the kids hadn't seen before. We just chilled, which is always nice coming from our busy life in California.