SPRING BREAK

I had BIG plans for Spring Break. I was going to clean my house, inside and out, attacking every closet and weeding every flower bed. When that was completed, I was going to finish my taxes and hand deliver them to my accountant. I was going to take walks, play games with my kids, catch up on all of my paperwork and even make plans with friends. Who was I kidding????? Where did the week go?? I looked around today at all of my accomplishments: there are no clean towels in the hall closet, my paperwork has been strewn across the living room floor, piles of tax files clutter up the kitchen table and there is an empty kitty litter pan sitting on my front sidewalk and I don't have a clue how it got there. However. . . I did partially weed the front flower bed, I finished more than 3/4 of my taxes making this the first time in 5 years we won't have to file an extension, I took Gloria to swim lessons everyday giving me a chance to visit with Joyce, I dropped Zach off at Taffin's a few times so he could earn a few bucks AND I visited Kristin, who just had neck surgery, in the hospital. So, while I didn't do much of anything that was on my list, it was still a good week and I'm feeling a little refreshed and ready to tackle life that seems to be coming at me fast and furious.

Kristin looked just beautiful after her surgery. I was envious because I always come out of surgery looking like an ogre.

Gloria and Megan had a great time at swimming lessons:

Cade joined them this year and had a great time:

This little fishy has changed quite a bit in the last 8 years. This photo was taken when Gloria was about 9 months old at her very first swimming lesson:

And here she is today:

She's changed a little bit since this time last year, but not much:

Too cute!:

Gloria and Megan in March of 2007:

They look a little older in March of 2008:

Another picture from 2007:

Diving. . .

. . . and sliding:

Swimming is fun, but exhausting (especially when you have to get up "early" every morning to get there!):

While Gloria worked on her swimming skills, Zach spent time helping out at the Taffin's house:

It's always more fun when you work with a friend:

Rob and Dale continue to work on the Baker install and we may even be taking on someone to help with the cases (we have about 15 to build right now along with the install!!). This is Melissa, a local contractor and all-around handy-woman:

Kristin came home from the hospital on Friday, still looking beautiful. Surgery and recovery went better than expected and she should soon be enjoying less pain and more movement!

Zach engineered a ship in his spare time complete with a motor:

Off to do a load of towels and to finish off my taxes!!!!

Salt Lake City

When Rob was in the midst of our latest project a couple of weeks ago, the sawdust and welding fumes must have gotten to his brain because, out of the blue, he told the kids he was going to take them on a "Mall Vacation" to Salt Lake, complete with spending money, as soon as the stage project was finished. I heard, "travel, mall, spend money" and knew it was not going to be my cup of tea. Rob and the kids were excited and since we had all been working so hard, I decided I could try to muster a little enthusiasm. The stage project wrapped up on Friday, we managed to get through our two-day event at Agape on Saturday and Sunday, made a quick road trip to Baker on Monday to retrieve the lost cell phone, and packed up the van for our Salt Lake trip on Tuesday morning. We were moving pretty slow by this time, so it took us most of the morning to get out of town. By the time we stopped for gas at a truck stop just outside of Boise, it was already time for lunch.

We decided we would just take our time on this trip and enjoy the scenery. One of the projects I've had in the back of my mind for awhile is to create a picture documentary of all of the houses I've lived in over the last 41 years. I counted them all up not too long ago and realized I've moved 28 times. Considering I've lived in our current house for the last 14 years, those 28 moves took place over a period of 28 years! I grew up in MT Home, so we decided to stop there on the way to Salt Lake and track down the 4 houses my family lived in during our 6 1/2 years there. I had driven by 3 of them a few times over the last decade, but the first house we lived in was always kind of fuzzy in my memory. It was one of those stop-over kind of homes that you live in until you find the one you really want and I think we only lived there for a few months. My mom gave me the address and said it had been across the street from an Assembly of God Church. Amazingly enough, the church was still there and so was the house:

We bought a house when we left the temporary one and we lived in this next house on Baker Drive for at least 5 years. It makes me sad to see it in this bad of shape because it was a pretty nice house in it's day. We had 7 lilac bushes in the backyard and the front was nicely landscaped. The whole neighborhood now is pretty slummy. This isn't a very good picture because I didn't even want to get out of the van to take it!!:

This was my Elementary school:

I'm not sure why we moved away from Baker drive (but I'll be sure to find out for the picture documentary!!) but in Junior High, we moved into a rental on the outskirts of town where all my friends had chickens and horses and I rode the bus to school. The house looks quite a bit different and there are newer houses in the area so I couldn't decide which house was ours. After talking to my mom on the phone about it, I realized the house I took a picture of couldn't have been ours. I made Rob stop on the way back to Boise to take a picture of the correct one and we realized they had put an addition over the garage altering it's appearance quite a bit, but this is it:

As a freshman in high school, we moved back into town, across from the cemetery. This was a great house! My sister had the best room- the garage had been converted into a bedroom complete with an outside door. She moved out of the house and the room after she graduated in the spring of '82 and I moved in for about 2 months just before we moved to Boise. It looks like this house has been well taken care of:

It was a short, but good trip down memory lane and we continued on our journey to Salt Lake.

We put the kid's bench seat in the very back of the van leaving the middle open for the pups with plenty of leg room for the kids.

Gloria sang and Zach read. . .

Our next stop was at Malad Gorge State Park. We have driven by this site a dozen times in the last couple of years and have never stopped to look at the view. It was well worth leaving the freeway for all of this gorgeous-ness:

At first, Gloria wouldn't have anything to do with the long bridge that spans the canyon:

Rob finally coaxed her on and we all enjoyed the beauty:

Rob even took her over to the very edge of the canyon, which caused a little bit of a problem. . .

. . . Zach and I were keeping the dogs away from the edge but we were still in view of Rob and Gloria. I took both dogs so Zach could climb the wall . . .

. . . and somehow our normally mild-mannered Emma figured this was her chance- she took off running towards Rob in all her powerful Lab-ness, dragging Lucy and I with her. Emma's leash was brutally ripped out of my hand, leaving permanent scarring, but luckily it was looped to Lucy's leash so she wasn't completely free. Lucy's leash was wrapped tightly around my wrist and we were all barrelling toward the slippery slope that would lead us to certain death (kind of like Aragorn during the Warg battle!). I sacrificed my knees and my good jeans to save our lives and threw myself down on the rocky, muddy path, bringing Emma to a short stop about a foot from the edge. . . So, we probably wouldn't have died but it sure got my adrenaline racing!

We were just outside of Twin Falls, which was our next stop on my trip down memory lane. We lived in Twin when I was in first grade and half of second grade. We moved away in 1973 and no one in my family has seen this house since! It was the strangest sensation seeing this house again because it felt like nothing had changed in the entire neighborhood.

It was a little surreal looking down this street, with memories flooding back: eating dirt with the boy next door, watching the (older) mentally-challenged kids across the street run through the sprinkler in their underwear, eating fresh, homemade tortillas at Amy Danille's house, visiting "Grandma" Smith, hanging out at Jenny Hovey's house. . .



I told Rob I could probably even find the elementary school that I walked to everyday. I took him straight to it and even the school hadn't changed much. . . it was so weird. . .


As we left Twin Falls we drove on the bridge over the canyon that always reminds me of the car accident we were in when I was in second grade: my dad had turned just after the bridge and our car was hit by another car traveling at a high rate of speed. We escaped with minor injuries, miraculously, but I was sure that God had saved us from going over the cliff into the canyon. I have serious canyon issues.

We stopped for snacks at a truck stop in Eden and had fun looking around at the Garden of Eden scenery:

Every time we travel to Salt Lake, we stop at Garcia's Mexican Restaurant. I worked at a Garcia's in Boise when Rob and I were dating and it was always our favorite place to eat. We were very sad when the Boise branch closed up.

The food, while not very authentic, is delicious!!

We drove on to Sandy, UT and settled into our Super 8 hotel. After a pretty good night's sleep and a continental breakfast, we found a great walking path for the dogs, who had slept pretty comfortably in the van all night and were in dire need of some exercise.

The first mall we were planning to visit was very close to our hotel and had a great glass elevator. Zach has become quite a photo-hog since his week on the blog so I now have several pictures that look like this:

The mall in Sandy was pretty boring, as far as mall's go, so we headed into downtown Salt Lake.

We tried to exercise the dogs as much as possible on this trip resulting in plenty of fresh air and exercise for everyone!

While I wouldn't choose to live in a big city, it's sure interesting to visit one. These window washers were actually very entertaining:

We were planning to visit The ZCMI Center but someone told us about The Gateway Mall and how great it was so we went there instead. We weren't disappointed. The Gateway is a huge outdoor Mall with a little (or big) something for everyone. This is Dick's Sporting Goods Store with it's very own rock climbing wall.

In the center of the shops, there is a fountain with synchronized music for shopper's enjoyment.

Gloria knew exactly what she was looking for and didn't have any problem spending her money. Limited Too had a buy-one-get-one-free sale on Webkinz so Gloria got a great bargain on something she was planning to buy anyway.

Of course, Build-A-Bear was also on her agenda:

Zach, on the other hand, is a saver, not a spender so it took him a little more time to decide on his purchases. This is the list that he wrote out beforehand:

1. How easily can this thing break?

2. Is it worth the cost?

3. How long will I be happy with it?

4. How bad do I want it on a 1-10 ratio?

5. Can you name 5 things about it?

6. Do all these questions have positive answers?

We visited the Apple store but nothing there fit his requirements:

He did find a couple of things that fit the list at this game store, but it took awhile. . .

We all had an enjoyable time just walking around, looking at the sites. It was nice to put the business on the back burner for a couple of days.

We were all tired of shopping by late afternoon so we went back to Sandy and took the dogs out on the walking path.

Gloria has always been just a little boy-crazy, so I wasn't surprised when she told me she was going to get a little excersize just as this boy passed us on the path. She jogged up ahead of him to the end of the fence and then turned and jogged back in our direction. . .

. . . when she was sure he wasn't watching her anymore. . .

. . . she sat down on the path, exhausted!

Her very nice brother had to save the day and hand-deliver her scooter:

This is a picture of the near-by mountain range where we might be spending a bit of time this summer running lights for a summer concert series:

We went back to the hotel where Rob and Gloria hung out in the pool and hot tub.

On Thursday morning we took our time checking out of the hotel and then hit the Sandy Mall one more time so Gloria could ride the carousel.

We all still had a little money in our pockets so we headed back to The Gateway where Gloria bought yet another Build-A-Bear:

We took our time going home and stopped often to walk the dogs.

We stopped at an interesting store on the way out of the Salt Lake area that Rob has always wanted to check out. It's a bit of a mixture between Harbor Freight, a military salvage yard, a thrift store, and a pricey dollar store.

While we were there a small helicopter landed on the road right next to us. There didn't seem to be a problem with it but they sat there for quite some time.

The trip home was long but uneventful. Silly, I know, but I had to take a picture of my Royal Flush in Pocket Poker. . . I get carsick if I read so this is how I amuse myself on long trips!!

Even though it was a rather exhausting trip after a long exhausting week, I'm glad we went. We needed this time to re-group before things get totally out of control again!!!