School’s starting
We got most of the supplies. I can't find "8 red lead pencils" for the life of me, or division flash cards. I insisted to Alex that three highlighters will be plenty, he doesn't need four. I also didn't buy the 8 glue sticks on his list, I only bought four. I told him to tell me when he runs out. He had by far the largest list. The boys also accidently picked up college ruled paper, rather than wide lined, so we need to go back to the store, and brave the school supply isle one more time.
I still need to figure out what to do with Jonas. For the first month of school, he has half days, out at 11 am for two weeks, out at 1 pm for two weeks, then onto full time. I found a job, hours are great, I'll be home when the kids get home from school. Perfect. Except for this first month. Plan "A" fell through. There is no plan "B". So, all ideas are welcome. I've hit a brick wall.
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Living room demo
I am coming across a lot of surprises, during our living room demo. I thought it would be a two to three day activity. One day for carpet ripping, then just clean the floors, prime, paint, and wait to dry.
I forgot how hard and tiring it was to get those little wooden strips pried off of the floor. The ones around the edge of the room, with nails sticking out of them. First of all, they are right next to the wall, so they are awkward to reach. Then, there are millions of nails, sticking straight up, to hold the carpet, that like to poke people that try to rip them out.
Upon ripping up the carpet, I found that there is not concrete directly under it, but strange little tiles. So, we got to pop up all of those tiles. The kids were handed butter knives, and told to go at it.
The concrete under the tiles is not the typical concrete color. It's black. I think it's the glue that held the tiles down. I tried to sand it off, and nothing happened. So, we will have to alter our color choices. We already bought the stain for our original color choice. We'll do a test spot, and see how it looks on black.
There are also cracks on our concrete. Lots of them. I can fix most cracks, but some are where the floor has settled, and there is a 1/4" difference in floor height. Fun.
Also, after peeling up the carpet, our room got a whole new odor. Not dogs anymore. Mold. I got the tiles all cleared off, thinking that was where the problem was. I bleached the floors. Still no luck. Finally, last night, as I was going around the edge of the room, working on detailed cleanup, when I discovered carpet bits that were a different color stuck in the caulking that is under our wall. So, I pried out all of the caulking (at least I know I can caulk and fix that). Now, the room smells normal again!
So, we're getting closer. I haven't moved the tv yet. It's sitting on our last remaining piece of carpet. The poor dog (Dagny) hates cold floors. She's been laying on that tiny patch in front of the tv for a week now. Ladybug prefers cold floors. So, at least we have one happy dog.
So, today I'll buy caulk and concrete crack filler, and take it from there. My new goal is by Saturday, to have it stained, and we just have to wait for it to dry. We'll see.
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My eldest son
My children don't use napkins enough. I am contantly telling them, use a napkin, not your shirt, wipe your face, ect. Constantly.
Last night, while eating at Valentino's, Caleb's face was getting alfredo sauce on it, I requested demanded that he wiped his face off. I proceeded to hand him a napkin. With the napkin in his hand, he then proceeded to wipe his face off, on his shirt. Oy vey.
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King of the Jungle
Jonas wrote a song. Mozart wrote his first song at the age of five, so Jonas is right on track. As a side note, Caleb wrote a song, called Twisty Noodle when he was probably 3 or 4, and got to sing it with the lead singer of the band Ruskabank during Arts at the Park. Ruskabank doesn't play at Arts in the Park anymore, so Jonas can't perform his song in front of hundreds of people in the heat and humidity, so he'll have to settle for the internet, and my millions of faithful readers.
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It’s here!
I finished rereading the sixth Harry Potter book last night. I set my alarm for 4am, so I can go into town and get it, and then go to work, where I will enjoy free soda and read, until my shift starts. (at 7am).
But, here it is, 2:30. I tried to get back to sleep, with no luck. So, I'm off, to fetch the newest book. How freakin' exciting!
Too bad I have to work today.
EDIT: 7/22/07 Finished! When I start a book, I often have trouble putting it down. I left it out for Jared, on my way to work, it's his turn to read it now.
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Home Improvement
Caleb and I started the water garden project today. The before photo would be a nice green lawn.
The problem with this area, is that we are sitting on limestone. We dug about 3-6 inches deep, and hit rock. My goal is 24 inches in the middle, and about 8 inches around the edge for the plant shelf. So, we have our work cut out for us. Hopefully I can work around the rocks, dig them out, and then proudly display them as edging for our garden. Our goal is a small water garden, with a water fall (I told Caleb he could name the water fall.. I'll let you know what he comes up with.), and then a hill behind the waterfall with some flowers. I'm optimistic that we can get most of the work done in about a weeks time. The hard part, anyway. It started raining, which was a great reason to head inside.
On the inside of our house, we are ripping up carpet. I have a wonderful brochure that lets me know all of the different colors I can stain concrete. There are amazing options out there. So, that is what we're going to try. If it looks terrible, then we can always buy carpet later down the road. Anything will be better than our 1970's multicolored stinky carpet. Removing the carpet should also drastically reduce the pet dander in our house, too! All sorts of positives. I hope to start with the living room tomorrow, after we pick a color this evening.
I do enjoy home improvement projects. I still look at our orange living room wall with pride, remembering when we moved in, it was very weird wood paneling, and remembering all of the hard work it was to take it down, sand it down, and create my lovely textured wall. Ahh, home ownership is grand.
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Harry Potter
I have been rereading the Harry Potter books. I just finished the Order of the Pheonix last night, so I have two days to finish the Half Blood Prince. Unfortunately, I did not have the foresight to think of asking for the 21st off from work, so I might be a bit distracted, cooking, while my brand new Harry Potter book is sitting on a shelf, 10 feet away.
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Our quiet little spot on earth…
is getting noisier.
Our neighbor is selling their land, and turning it into a subdivision. While we were away on vacation, they got started, building a road, clearing dirt, putting in sewer lines, ect. Now when you go outside the air is filled with noise from the construction vehicles.
I tell myself, it's none of my business. We knew the land was for sale, we didn't buy it. They can do what they want with it. However, our peaceful little spot is getting noiser.
So, we're moving. Not now, but in about a two year time frame. We have some things we need to take care of first. Two years is the goal.
The plan is to move to Missouri. Back to the town where I grew up, where as a teenager, I counted down the days to move away from. I guess I'm now old enough to appreciate the wisdom my parents provide. The kids are thrilled. They will have free run of a farm. They will be close to all members of their family. Caleb's convinced that we'll buy him a four wheeler. All the boys are expecting their own bedrooms. Caleb also says we need to build him a garage, so he can store a car when he's 16. (I've already told him, we're not buying him a car, so I'm not sure where he's getting it from.)
So, build away. Make all the noise you want. I'll just dream of our new house, as I work on landscaping and make this house worth a ton of money.
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The great vacation of 2007
In an attempt not to go overboard, I am going to attempt a cliff notes version of our trip. I will put together a DVD Slideshow, complete with music, that people can come to our house and watch with us. This will provide much more details and delightful photos.
Upon proof reading, I see spelling errors, for that I will say sorry. No spell check here. Enjoy!
So.. here we go... 16 days, summed up in one blog entry.
On our way to Colorado we stopped off at Prairie Dog Town to see the 6 legged steer, 36 inch donkey, baby pigs, rattle snake pit, and 6 TON prairie dog. Here are the kids, with the world's largest prairie dog. Worth the entry fee alone.
We headed on to Colorado Springs to visit with Nathan (friend from college). We spent some time at Garden of the Gods. Here is the first of many photos, attempting to get three boys to smile at once.
The boys loved Nathan's house. They love that he gives Jared and hard time about anything and everything, and think he's just the funniest guy in the world.
The next day we headed towards Durango. We stopped off at Great Sand Dunes National Park. This was a change of plans, we were suppose to be going to a different park, but this one looked like fun. It was wonderful. It was huge piles of sand and a small mountain stream, right next to the Rocky Mountians. It was just a very quiet tranquil spot, the stream was crystal clear, and it was just wonderful.
That night was stayed in Durango, Co. We stayed at the Iron Horse Inn, which offered a two story suite. It was a fun hotel. The next day, we got up bright and early to ride on the Durango Silverton Route of the Denver Rio Grande. We've be watching the movie Majestic National Parks since Caleb was about two. He's wanted to ride this train since he first laid eyes on it. This was his day.
During our train ride, a bolt fell off the train, and we got to stop for quite awhile, while someone went and found the bolt. It was quite adventuresome. The train took us to Silverton, CO, just 45 miles away, but it takes about 3 1/2 hours by train. It was a very charming town. A town I would like to spend more time in, some other time.
We were suppose to go to Four Corners Monument after our train ride, but the ride took much longer than we anticipated, and we wanted to make it to Moab, UT before it got too dark. So, we rushed down the road, and made it, barely, when it was dark.
Our next two parks were Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park. We did some fun hikes there, saw wonderful arches, canyons, and scenery. Here we are climbing up the top of Whale Rock in Canyonlands. Well worth the steep trails, for the view.
We spent 1 1/2 days in these parks. Arches was a wonderful park, beautiful red rocks in interesting formations. For sake of space.. that's all the info you get.
So, then we headed off to Bryce Canyon National Park. We drove through Capital Reef National Park on the way, and got the kids' stamps in their passports, but there were not any easy short trails. So, it was just a driving tour. Driving through Utah was interesting. We would go for miles without trees, house, people, plants, just through the desert. Then, suddenly we were in the middle of the strangest rock formations ever. No cell phone service for most of our time in Utah.
Bryce Canyon National Park was a wonderful surprise for me. I didn't research the parks as much as everyone else. They thing to see is the hoodoos, pillars of rock, described in the national parks movie I mentioned earlier as "icing on a cake". We stayed in a lovely cabin, right on the edge of the canyon. The next morning, we decided to hike down into the canyon, and although it was tiring, it was well worth it. I was nervous, going down steep hills, no railing, big drop offs, but, no one fell, and we all had a great time.
We had some trail mix at the bottom, and a friendly chipmunk wanted Alex to share.
In case you didn't believe me that the rocks were red, here are the boys' shoes, after our hike down the canyon. I think their socks are perminately stained that red color.
So, from Bryce Canyon we headed on to the Grand Canyon. One would think we had enough canyons by this point. It was indeed big. I believe one of the boys said "that sure is a big hole." They were getting harder to impress. We rested in our cabin (had one at the grand canyon too), and let the boys burn off some energy. Our second day there was devoted to hikes and sight seeing.
This is a good time to mention the junior ranger program. At each park, you get a booklet, age appropriate for the kids, and they fill it out, and get a badge. Our children were addicted to this program. We didn't do Capital Reef, since we were just driving through, and we didn't do Devil's Tower, because we were tired.. but everywhere else, we did it. Sometimes it cost money, sometimes it didn't. Sometimes you got to choose between a badge and a patch, sometimes you could buy a patch, Yellowstone just had patches. So, it differed from park to park, along with how complex the booklet was. Yellowstone's book took days to finish, Mount Rushmore took under an hour. They kids had to attend a ranger program and most parks, and have the ranger sign their booklets. They learned a ton doing this, and now have quite the badge collection. You can watch their hats, as the photos progress, filling up with more and more badges. Here's Jonas, working on his book, while his brothers got out of the car to take a photo he didn't care about.
We were at the Grand Canyon on the fourth of July. They held a parade. We were curious, how festive it would be. They took anything that moved, and it was in the parade. This includes the carts they use to haul luggage, the mules, the linen supply trucks, any of it. They were decorated. Here's the boys' favorite.
Then, for the part we didn't anticipate. They had water guns, buckets of waters, firefighters with backpacks filled with water, and more water. They hosed down EVERYONE. The kids had a blast. They also threw out a lot of candy. So, the kids go up, grab the candy, then the next thing you know, a bucket of water is dumped on your head. It was a thirty minute parade. It repeated over and over and over again. But, the kids loved it.
Alright, I hope you're hanging in there... you've made it half way through our trip. We stopped at Salt Lake City on our way to Yellowstone, where I did laundry. Half way means no more clean clothes. So, I'll keep telling you about our adventure now.
We stayed at Old Faithful Inn for four nights in Yellowstone. I had been giving Jared a hard time about this hotel for a year now. There was no bathroom in the room. It turned out to be just lovely though. The hotel was gorgous. I would recommend it highly, even without the bathrooms.
Our evenings were spent listening to piano players in the lobby. The lobby was about 5 stories tall, but the top two stories consisted of a "crows nest" that was built because it was a childhood dream of the architect. No one was allowed to go up there anymore, but it was just beautiful. The acousitics were grand.
There was a balcony off of the second floor, where you could get a great view of Old Faithful without battling the crowds. On our first night there, we had good seats, only four rows back. The instant Old Faithful errupted, two rows up, a woman stood up to video tape the entire even, and her significant other, started snapping photos, for which he needed both elbows up. Since I now had no view of the geyser to take a photo of, I took a photo of them.
Not to worry though, we saw it plenty of times.
The boys of the family took nightly hikes around the upper geyser basin, and saw many other geysers erupt as well.
We spent our days driving around to different thermal features and waterfalls. We saw hot springs, something called "dragons mouth" that looked and sounded like a breathing dragon, geysers, waterfalls, more canyons, more waterfalls, wildlife and more thermal features. Mud pots don't photograph well, so here's a video for you.
We took a boat ride around Yellowstone Lake. Here we are waiting for it. Jonas wanted to be in a photo by himself, and was not happy his brothers were being goofy.
I would not recommend the boat ride. Our driver would drive very fast, stop, the tour guide would read her little script, the driver would correct her, then take the mike, and tell us about some book he was reading, while the boat spun around in circles, and rocked back and forth. Then we would drive really fast to the next spot, and repeat.
Here are some more yellowstone photos, more family photos, at yellowstone, Jared's better at the scenic views.
We went to Grand Tetons National Park on one of our days staying at Yellowstone. It was a very peaceful place. Again, another place to go back and spend more time at. We went for a hike around some lakes, and saw lots of bear evidence. We saw bear skat, claw marks on trees, fur on the ground and trees, and fresh bear urine. But we never saw the bears. Here's Caleb next to a tree with bear fur on it.
We then stayed in a miniature cabin at Roosevelt Lodge, in the northern part of Yellowstone. Looking at the cabin, I couldn't figure out how then fit two beds in there, but sure enough they did. No bathrooms here either, and not as pleasant of a walk to get to the bathrooms. But, we went there, so we could ride a stagecoach. One of the few family photos we have, Jonas is asleep for this one.
Our time in Yellowstone had finally ended.
We headed to Rapid City, SD. On the way, we did stop at McDonalds, and their playland had a basketball goal, the standard tubes, and video games. Fun McDonalds.
While in Rapid City we went to Mount Rushmore, Devil's Tower (this was on the way, in all honosty.. to Rapid City), and Wind Cave National Park. You'll have to wait for the wonderful DVD slide show to see photos of these places! We drove past Crazy Horse, and took photos from the car, but didn't pay to get closer.
On our last day, we visited Wall Drug, which is a tourist trap at it's finest. We got our free "ice water" that they advertised (it was warm), sat on a giant jackalope, and paid fifty cents to listen to a gorilla sing.
I didn't want to run out of memory, so you'll have to go to Wall Drug yourself, and pay fifty cents, if you want to hear the entire song.
We drove through Badlands National Park. The kids were quite hard to impress by this point, and really didn't enjoy this park to the fullest. But, they still got their Junior Ranger Badges.
We enjoyed a dinner at Chuck E. Cheese's, on the drive home, as we do at the end of every vacation. We then drove and drove and drove, and made it home at 2:30 am.
It was a wonderful vacation. We saw things we had never seen before, and just had a blast.
In case you're counting, and think I forgot the third National Monument, it was Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. It was on one of our drive from place to place. It was not for the faint at heart. Thank goodness I wasn't driving. I couldn't even bear to take a photo, because the drop off was so steep. I'm sure someone else got photos, while I was clutching onto the side of the car, eyes shut, waiting to get back down on flat ground.
Here's the classic shot, taken around day fourteen, in Rapid City. I don't remember what the problem was, but Jonas was having a melt down. While eating Nutty Bars. We pointed out, it was silly to be crying, while eating a nutty bar, but he didn't think that was funny. I snapped a very quick shot, before he could add having his photo taken to the list of what was wrong.
I'll probably put more photos up on flickr, later, but, there's your synapsis, of how we spent the last 2 1/2 weeks.
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We’re Home!
16 days, 4400 miles (it was suppose to only be 3000), 10 states (suppose to be 11), 10 National Parks (11 was the plan), 3 National Monuments (only aiming for 2), and a handful of other places, including some wonderful tourist traps... we had a wonderful trip.
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