And just like that, they are back to school!

We had a pretty good summer.  Actually, all things considered, we had a great summer.

A few of the things we did:
go on a vacation
go to california
go on a hike
walk around silver lake
attend a rodeo
take swimming lessons
take tennis lessons
swim at great grandpa's
play in soccer tournaments
light fireworks
go to a REAL soccer game
movies in the theater
grandma camp
hang out with uncle willie
go to the zoo
watch a total eclipse
lunch at waffle love

See, not such a bad list.

The boys school is starting on a traditional schedule this year which meant we got 7 uninterrupted weeks of summer vacation.  The first four were great, the last three we struggled now and again.  I have however made a mental note that next year, we've got to have something to get us up and going every week (lessons, activities, etc.) because some of the dog days of August drug on pretty long.

But, the boys got along so well with each other.  I was just really happy.  There is such nostalgia in my mind for summer vacations - I really hope that when my kids are older, they cherish their summers like I did mine.

That being said, today was the first day of school.  Elliott started 5th grade, Wyatt 3rd grade and Quinn his third and final year of preschool.  It's nice to be sitting in a totally quiet house, but I already miss my 3 amigos.  Maybe that's a movie they are old enough to watch?  Ha!

The boys have each grown up so much, both literally taller and more mature since the beginning of the last school year.  It's hard for me to watch Elliott grow up, because he's the first and that kid and I just click these days.  I always hope that he is my buddy and my friend and my helper.  Wyatt?  I will worry about Wyatt until the day I die, and then worry in heaven some more.  But, like his dad says, Wyatt is a smooth kid, he's lucky and charismatic and makes good decisions.  Even if he has a life threatening allergy to peanuts.  And Quinn, he turns FIVE next week.  He has informed me that he is no longer my "little squish" and that he will commence growing up.

Where is Peter Pan, Never land and the lost boys when I need them in real life?  I need to freeze time a little bit.  Things are so fast-paced for us these days.  So many places to go and things to do, no wonder we all sleep so well at night.  Ross and I have talked at length about how, right now, we are in a sweet spot with our family and oh, is it sweet.  We have our disagreements and occasional tantrums (parents included), but life is good and we are happy.

I love these boys so much. I wish they'd slow down a bit, but they won't and I'd better just learn to keep up.

Total eclipse of the heart...I mean sun

For about an hour yesterday, I had all my boys at a park by the library staring up at the sun, watching it be eclipsed by the moon.

Did I play "Total eclipse of the heart" very loud and sing it to my children and husband?

Yes, yes I did.

From our location, it got darker.  We weren't in the "path of totality" and got about 90% shade, but we went from full sun and heat to dusk and 15 degrees cooler.  I totally wish that we would have been the family that drove to see the eclipse.  But, maybe we can do it in 2024.

The boys thought it was cool, when they weren't wrestling and crotch grabbing and rolling down the hill at the park.  Mostly, I think they paid attention only because I told them that we'd get lunch after.  So, thanks, In and Out!

We went to California, Part 3

Well, since the trip had included an event for Ross (soccer), for the big boys (Harry Potter) we figured we'd better do something just for Quinn.  That meant on our last full day of vacation, we would drive to San Diego (and get there faster than it took us to get to Universal) and take Quinn to Sea World.

We'd been watching Sea World commercials on TV for a while, and Quinn seemed pretty into it, but he was so excited once we got there.  He got a map, and we let him direct the day - wherever Quinn wanted to go we went.  We started with the dolphin show, then crossed the park to the penguins and arctic animals, then crossed the park again to the seals and sea lions.  He had us marching back and forth all day long.  We walked more at Sea World than the previous day at Universal Studios.  Phew!

There were some definite highlights of the day.  In no particular order:
Walrus are insanely huge and gigantic animals and it was fun to see one so close.



The boys fed sea lions - they touched dead fish and Elliott had a fish stolen out of his hand from a very daring bird.





We saw a sea lion, killer whale, dolphin and sea turtle poop in the water.  Always a highlight of any boy experience.

Quinn grinned ear to ear the entire Orca show.  Killer whales are amazing majestic animals.  They were my favorite.  I could have sat and watched them swim all day long.







Ross and the big boys rode the big rides - getting soaking wet on one of them and Quinn thought it was pretty funny that his dad looked like he'd pee'd his pants.



The boys touched horseshoe crabs, small sharks and other sea creatures.

The sea lion show was fun and the boys saw baby hammerhead sharks.

One thing that I thought was pretty cool at Sea World had nothing to do with aquatic creatures.  If you buy a souvenir cup at the park, you can refill it for free at any self-serve food kiosk for the entire day.  We bought two $12 souvenir cups (with lids and straws) and easily filled each of them 10 times.  That was a bargain!

San Diego is a great town.  The weather was a perfect 73 all day.  The park wasn't too crowded and the lines for attractions weren't too long.  Sea World is really a great way to spend a day.

We went to California, Part 2

On the second full day of our vacation, Thursday I think, we headed to Universal Studios.  When we decided to take the trip for the soccer game, we figured that we might as well take a trip to Universal Studios so that Elliott and Wyatt's Harry Potter dreams could come true.  The night we told the boys about the trip, about a week before we left, Elliott looked like maybe he was going to stop breathing when he learned of the trip to HP land.

I'm pretty sure it didn't disappoint.

LA traffic is rotten, and it took us, no joke, 2 hours to travel I think 26 miles through the heart of LA and Hollywood to even get to the Universal Studios parking structure.  Man alive, LA traffic is bad.  We saw the Hollywood sign, the big planetarium on the hill, the Staples Center so it was a pretty interesting and scenic drive, especially looking at all the dejected and depressed single car drivers who have to sit in that traffic every single day of their lives.

But, as soon as we got out of the car and headed to Universal, it was worth it.  The boys were so excited.  A good friend of mine told us that we needed to head straight to Harry Potter, ride the ride and then get our wands.  Well, the main ride already had a 70 minute wait, so we skipped that, rode the smaller roller coaster and then headed to Olivander's wand shop's....line.  About 20 minutes later, we had the greatest experience of the day.

We were led into a small room and instructed that we would be entering another small room, and that it was imperative we listen to all instructions.  Once in that second room, we were met by a female wizard who talked to us about the importance of wand selection and that a wand chooses it's owner, not an owner choosing a wand.  As she spoke, she wandered the room, looking for a perfect young muggle/wizard to help select a wand.

She chose Elliott.  He didn't quite know what to do, and wanted to play it cool, but I know he was melting a little on the inside.  After three wands and three spells, Elliott found his wand and we were all released into the actual wand store which was very small and very crowded.  The other boys selected their wands, we paid for our wands and were on our way to cast magic spells throughout the park.  It was a pretty fun morning.







The rest of our day at Universal is a blur.  It was pretty crowded, very hot and sweaty, and very expensive.  It felt more expensive than Disneyland, but I'm not sure that it was - probably the same.  We rode all the rides the boys were big enough/old enough/mature enough to ride (no mummy and no walking dead).  We did the tram, saw some very strange people, listened to a lot of languages.

My "highlight" of the day was getting blasted in the face with a wall of water on the Jurassic Park ride.  My hair was drenched.  My make-up removed.  I was furious.  I might have cried a little and thought about marching to the front of the park and demanding my money back.  After I had to use a bathroom hand dryer to dry my hair a bit with a woman standing and staring and laughing at me the whole time, I finally calmed down a bit.  If the only person that throws a fit at a theme park is the mom, I guess you call it a good day?



We opened and closed the park, and the boys had fun so it was all worth it - even if I looked like a haggard old woman for the entire day.  I guess that means I'll do just about anything to see all my boys (Ross included) happy.

We went to California, Part 1

Everything our little family does is done quickly and our vacations are no exception.  In the spring, Ross found out about a soccer game between Manchester City and Real Madrid being played in Los Angeles in the Summer and a trip was born.

We had three days, book ended by half days of travel, to get as much sight-seeing and fun in as we could.  Now, nearly a week later, I'm still tired.

We left on a Tuesday afternoon and I realized that we always leave for vacations, at least when we are flying, and it's really stressful so in the future, we need to leave in the morning or at least mid day, not 4 pm.

We arrived at the Long Beach airport.  We found the house we were renting and I had a mini panic attack that it was too hot and too musty and it wasn't going to work.  After dinner at Wahoo's I calmed down a bit.  It was a cute but very old house with bad wifi, no TV (even though it was promised and yes we complained), and one bathroom.  But, we survived.

Day two had us up bright and early in the morning to head along the Pacific Coast Highway to Crystal Cove State Park Beach.  It's my new favorite.  We had the beach to ourselves for a very long time and the boys had so much fun playing in the water, hunting for crabs and urchins in the tide pools and getting covered in sand.  We wrapped up the morning with a walk up a hundred or so stairs to Ruby's Diner Shake Shack and it wad delicious.  The beach is just so calming and great.












After that, we headed back to the house, got cleaned up and drove into Los Angeles to go to the LaBrea Tar Pits.  Pretty cool.  Smelled like asphalt.  Boys had fun.





We ate a quick snack at the Farmer's Market food place at the Grove shopping center, found a MUJI for me to buy notebooks to my hearts contentment and then headed to the soccer game at the LA Colosseum.

The Colosseum is incredibly old, outdated, unsafe, and gross.  The seats were rusty and had holes and were covered in spider webs.  Quinn wouldn't even sit in his and spent the first half of the game on my lap.  There were also no railings anywhere in the stadium.  When the stairs are THAT steep, and everyone is THAT drunk, you'd figure some railings would come in handy (get it, handy!) .   We however, persevered and watched the game.







We were directly across the aisle from a huge contingency of Man City fans, which made Ross pretty happy.  They were fairly calm the first half and we only endured a little rowdy behavoir.  That was however made up for in the second half.  People without seats in the section were filling the stairs (fire hazard), the 32 oz beers in souvenir cups were flowing and the borderline appropriate songs were being sung.  Once Man City was up 3-0, I convinced Ross that we could leave.  It was a pretty interesting experience and when I left to use the restroom in the middle of the second half, I ratted out all those crazy fans as a fire hazard to the first security person I could find.

Rule follower I am.

The great thing about going to a soccer match that doesn't start at 8:30 pm, when your kids brains thing it's 9:30 pm is that everyone falls asleep on the way back to the rental and minus the fact that the house was pretty warm, slept like babies for the whole night.

Day 1 was a victory!

An update on Grandpa

My grandpa has seen better days.  Today, he is an outpatient at the Riverton Hospital, getting a blood transfusion.  The last two weeks he has been residing at the Legacy Village Rehabilitation Center because of a hospital stay, and a feeding tube (he never passes the swallow tests).  The two weeks (or maybe just 10 days) before that, he was in the hospital.  He had a bad infection, stemming from a UTI because of a catheter and had two heart attacks and got a pace maker.

Phew.

The months prior to the last several weeks haven't been so great either.

But, there he is, plugging along, unwilling to give in or give up.  He keeps fighting, to stay with us for another day.

I'm not the best grand-daughter - it's really hard for me to visit.  It's hard for me to see people sick and weak - I want my memories of them to always be strong and healthy.  Knowing that my grandpa isn't doing well is also hard because when he decides it's finally time to leave us (hopefully not too soon), then that's it for me in the grandparent department.  I realize that I'm pretty lucky that at 39 years old, I've still got a grandparent alive to learn from and love.  But, it's touchy for me none the less.

Since January, I've been writing my grandpa letters.  I have written a letter every single week, not missing one.  He is my pen pal, only, a pen pal that doesn't write back.  It's a little one sided I suppose, but I sort of like it that way.  I know he likes to read, and I it's a good way for me to talk to him, because I've struggled with that my whole life, too.

My grandpa is stoic.  He is strong and brave.  He is faithful and courageous.  During my life, he has shared opinions, wisdom and stories of his life with me...mostly through my grandma but on a good day, he can tell some tales.

On Monday, we were driving home from swimming lessons and I had the following conversation with Quinn.  It's a little morbid, but he's four and a half and like all almost 5 year olds, he only speaks the truth.

Q: Mom, is Great Grandpa at home or still in the place?
M:  He is still in the place, but he is doing okay.  Should we go and visit him?
Q:  Yes, we should visit him.
M:  Should we draw him some pictures to decorate his room at the place?
Q:  Yes, I want to make him a card.  How do you spell, "I'm glad you're not dead!"

(Elliott and Wyatt laughing hysterically)
M:  Well, maybe we should say, "I'm glad you are still alive, instead?"
Q:  No, mom.  I'm glad he is not dead.

Well, Quinner.  So am I.

So.  Am. I.

Spring sports

June is almost over.

The boys last day of school is June 30.

And spring sports?  They just about blew up this tired mama's brain.

Quinn played t-ball with cousin Jack.  Ross was the coach.  He did a great job always trying really hard and I don't think he ever had to use the tee, always hitting one of his dad's pitches.  I was very proud of him, even though he called every game "soccer practice" all season.

Wyatt played soccer on a team with a bunch of friends from school.  He had fun and played especially hard when grandma or grandpa were there to watch him.   He also played kid pitch baseball and it was mostly a disaster.  His team was very small (in stature and skill), very young, and he had a first time coach - recipe for...very LONG baseball games.  Add in all the spring rain-outs, it felt like the season was never. going. to. end.  Oh, and he pitched many innings in many games.  He did his best, and I'm proud of him for that, but this child of mine maybe isn't destined to be a pitcher.

Baseball did, in-spite of everything, end on a win.  The second win of the season.  Want to know something good about being on the bad news bears?  No post season tournaments.

Elliott played spring soccer.  He seemed to be the glue that held his team together, most games only sitting at half-time.  His team had its struggles in the spring, losing two players and their dads who were the assistant coaches.  I'm not sure what happened there, but it's hard to win games when you lose kids from the team and the majority of the rest of the team doesn't come to practice.  But, they ended strong and Elliott did a great job.

I tell my boys the exact same thing before every single game:  win or lose, you need to be able to walk off the field knowing that you did your best.  Elliott has figured this out.  Wyatt, well Wyatt is still working on it.

And, it is indicative of the craziness of spring sports that I failed to take any pictures of Elliott playing soccer; took my nice camera to Wyatt's last baseball game to take pictures and realized when I got there that I left the memory card at home; and managed to get a few pictures of Quinn at one of his last games.







Now - with summer here officially (summer solstice yesterday) we are knee deep in soccer.  Elliott and Wyatt are both on competitive soccer teams for USA (Utah Soccer Association) soccer.  I'm finally getting over the amount of money we've paid for the boys to play - and now I need to get over the summer practice and tournament schedule.

Good thing I like these kids.  A lot!

The passing of Aunt LeeAnn

On May 11, my Aunt LeeAnn passed away.  She had fought a tough battle against a terminal cancer called multiple myeloma.  It is a bone marrow cancer that was super aggressive and after 18 months, multiple different forms of chemotherapy, and a stem cell transplant, she passed away on May 11th.

The few weeks before her death and the week after were really sad and exhausting, and I'm not even her immediate family.  She seemed to get really sick, really quickly and her death was sudden.  Lots of tears have been shed over the last couple of weeks.

Her funeral however, was a very touching and beautiful service.  Two of her children (Matt and Jodi) and my Aunt Karen spoke and Melanie played a piano piece.  Matt, her youngest son, gave the most eloquent and emotional tribute to his mom.  His words were inspired and I was so moved and touched by the beautiful things he said about his mom, and the testimony he bore at the end of his talk.  I've been thinking about his words quite a bit since the funeral, and I hope that if my sons' were ever tasked with speaking at my funeral, they would give half as kind of a tribute.

Ross and I talk a lot about aging, we are at the point where it really is "weddings and funerals" that bring people together.  It's sad to think about, so I try not to think about it too much, but I am so grateful for my faith and belief that I will see family members again, and will get to participate in the most beautiful heavenly reunions one day.

It's great to be EIGHT! Happy Birthday, Wyatt!

Happy Happy Birthday, William Wyatt Howden.

Can you believe you are EIGHT YEARS OLD!  I can hardly believe it.

Second grade is almost over.  You are great at math and have had almost perfect spelling tests all year long.  You can figure out how to spell words you don't even know.  And, you can calculate change in your head which is something I cannot even figure out - unless it's really easy math.

The last year of your life has seen you become a greater lego master, artist, and dancer.  I've been able to help out at school a couple of times and you have some of the cutest friends.  Mason, Wilson, Andrew and Cooper, Ronan, and Ethan just to name a few.  Before Christmas when I was doing a Fun Friday at school, Ronan told me I was the tallest mom in the world.  I'm probably not, but it made me laugh.

You play basketball, soccer and this year baseball, even though you've decided to skip baseball next season for competitive soccer.  It's fun to watch you "turn it on" in a game, especially when you've spent a little too much time cherry picking.  When you want to hustle, you can zoom.  You are pretty good all around athlete, and I'm pretty sure you get it from me.  Ha!

You've started to read Harry Potter and have almost finished the first book.  You have a photographic memory for music, and after only hearing a song once, you remember the lyrics forever.



I'll admit, year seven was a pretty moody one, but I'm hoping that eight years old see's you like me, your dad, and your brother's a little bit more. I'm pretty sure Grandma and Willie are your favorite people and if I'd let you, you would just watch TV and play on your ipod all day long.  You still know everything and always manage to see on the bright side of life.  You wear your heart on your sleeve, and mom and dad are usually pretty sure of your emotional state.  Like dad, you are an early riser finding it nearly impossible to sleep in.

It's pretty rare when you and I get to spend time together, just one-on-one, but when we get the chance, it's so much fun.  You are a great conversationalist, and are never at a loss for words, stories, or telling me when I've done something wrong.

Turning eight will be the greatest.  You get to be baptized, have a friend birthday party, and start cub scouts.  Woo hoo!



Have a happy birthday boy.

#MaximizeCaliforniaTime

My brother wanted to go to a wedding in Temecula, California, of a sister missionary he had served with in Lithuania.  I wanted a day or too off, with only myself to worry about.  (Selfish?  Yes!  But I'll deal with the guilt of that later.)  The two of us decided to make a mini vacation of it and spend the weekend in Southern California.  We invited our sister, but she couldn't make it.



The plan was simple.  Fly to California, drive the PCH from Long Beach to Oceanside stopping at every single beach along the way, and then drive back to Long Beach and fly home.

Our Saturday morning flight had us on the ground in California at 7:30 am.  Yes, you can do the math on that one, but it meant I had to get up at 3:30 in the morning.  I don't have hungry babies anymore, so that early of a morning, something I haven't done willingly for years was a bit of a killer.  But, it meant we could maximize our time in the sunshine.

We arrived, had breakfast at our favorite place, The Sugar Shack Cafe, in Huntington Beach and then we hit the coast.  We were at Huntington all alone, minus a few surfers.  We played in the tide pools at Laguna Beach and ate a delicious, yet greasy and stomach unsettling burger in Oceanside.

The drive to the wedding was dark and winding.  We spent a total of 5 minutes at the reception - typical Mormon thing if you get my drift - and then drove back to Oceanside to sleep harder and deeper on a hotel bed than I've ever slept maybe in my life.  And, I'm a professional sleeper.

The next morning, Sunday, we toured Oceanside.  There wasn't much to see if you get rid of the grime and the homeless folks on every corner.  But, the pier was cool - pelican unafraid of humans and wooden planks, and the California Surfer museum, though small, was packed full of useful and interesting surfing information.  A topic I know nothing about.

The Oceanside beach is small.  At Dana Point, we watched a surf competition in the rain, and got drenched ourselves.  Walking up a steep hill, in a minor downpour, on a cold and blustery morning with sandy feet isn't my favorite way to travel.



Once we got back to Laguna Beach for lunch, the rain was making way for a perfectly beachy California afternoon.  We decided to spend a good part of our Sunday at the church of Crystal Cove beach, tucked away from most tourists, noise, and worldly chaos.  The beach is such a fantastic and magical and marvelous place sometimes.  I lost my brother, but I was perfectly content sitting in the silence, soaking up the waves and the sunshine.  A perfect revival for a tired soul.



We drove past the Newport Temple and scared a trespasser, watching him take a flying leap into some shrubbery.  Instead of heading up the coast for one more beach, Seal Beach, we decided to watch the sun set behind the waves at our beloved Huntington Beach.  The Sunday drum circle was pounding away, the crowd was happy, the surf appeared to be good, and the sky was a bright orange as we walked out to Ruby's Diner, got a malt to split and walked back down the pier.



One of the faster weekends of my life, but a memorable one.

Thanks Willie for the invitation.

Travel, Griswold style

No trip in our family is complete without a few hiccups along the way.  Usually, those hiccups are caused by me, and relate directly to me, but sometimes other things happen that make us laugh, or panic, or both.

Here is a run down of the Arizona trip "highlights".

Leaving dinner on Friday night Quinn fell off of a very tall curb and skinned his knee up pretty bad.  He cried so hard that once Ross got him in the car, he was so worn out he fell asleep in about 30 seconds.  It was a pretty bad crash.

On Saturday morning, it was raining pretty hard.  We'd planned to go to the zoo, but the rain made us second guess ourselves and we decided to go to a small aquarium in the mall.  It opened at 10 am, we stood in a long line and once we got to the front, realized that the line was for people who had passes or who had already purchased tickets.  Doh!  Of course, there were no signs indicating differences in the lines, and, once we got to the back of the "need tickets" line we decided to give up and just go to the zoo in the rain.



Lucky for us, the 2 hours we were at the zoo, it didn't rain.  I still spent $12 on ponchos for the kids, but no rain.  We did however have a couple of adventures at the zoo.  Adventure 1: we were chased by a very fast, very vocal, very crazy road runner.  It was roaming free in it's enclosure and it gave us a run for our money, and plenty of giggles.  Adventure 2:  My blood sugar started to drop pretty rapidly when we were about finished - joy of diabetes - and just as I put a glucose table in my mouth, Wyatt came around the corner, excited to tell me there was a whole cage of Scarlet Ibis - my favorite bird.  Well, in my attempt to be excited about the birds, I inhaled my chalky tropical fruit glucose tablet and it got stuck in my throat.  I could not breath.  I was chocking.  For a good 30 seconds, I thought that I might suffocate and die.  Once I could breathe again, my throat was on fire and hurt for the rest of the day.





Saturday night we had tickets for the Arizona Coyotes NHL hockey game against the San Jose Sharks.  The game was supposed to start at 6 pm, but the first 10,000 people were going to get a FREE bobble head of a former player because the team was celebrating it's 20th anniversary.  We arrived one hour early, to get our FREE bobble heads and then had to sit there, with the five other people who came early for an hour before the game was going to start.  The big boys really liked the hockey game, but Quinn?  We were there so early that he fell asleep right after the National Anthem and slept almost through the first halftime.  By the way, hockey games take forever.  Ross said they were fast, they are not fast.  20 minutes of play, 20 minutes of half time, 20 minutes of play, 18 minutes of half time, 20 minutes of play.  We didn't make it for the last 20 minutes because, hello!  We arrived so early.  But, it was still fun.

On Sunday, we drove up north to the towns of Cottonwood and Prescott Valley.  Driving to Ross' parents house in PV, we were following a route outlined by google maps.  Well, that route came to a dirt road.  We paused momentarily to see if Google was serious.  She was. (can google be a girl?)  I told Ross that I thought it was a bad idea to drive on a very wet and very muddy dirt road.  He, being the man, told me we would be fine.  We maybe drove a quarter of a mile before it got really wet.  I began to plead for us to turn around.  We continued a bit more until - yes, you guessed it -we were halfway in a muddy ditch.  Yeah!  I felt justified in my "I told you so moment" but that didn't change the fact that we were stuck in the mud.

Ross got out of the rented mini van.  I climbed over to the driver's seat.  He pushed.  I floored it.  After a few intense minutes, and let's face it, many silent prayers on my part, we got out of the ditch.  But then, because I was driving, I had to do a u turn, on the slippery muddy road and drive us off that road.  Where was Ross you ask?  Well, his head, arms, and torso were inside the van.  His butt, legs and lower half were hanging out the window.  He was a wee bit muddy once we got back to the road and switched seats.  Sometimes, Google leads you astray.

The biggest screw up however was on my part.  Sunday night, while eating dinner with Ross' parents, I realized that I'd left ALL MY INSULIN in the fridge in our airbnb apartment in Phoenix.  Swear words!  I had 60 units left in my pump, enough to get me until the morning and I was panicking.  Everyone was calling or texting people who could either write me an emergency prescription or help me solve the problem.  Finally, Ross was able to talk to the small town PV Walgreens pharmacist and he was sure that they could get my prescription transferred in the morning so I could get enough insulin to get home.

It was.

I did.

The end.