travel adventures

Margaret and Kalle recently went here.

image of kaanapali beach on maui from www.travelpage.biz/maui.html

Tommy just got back from here.

image from salamcotours.com

Now that it's spring, we decided to drive to Utah on what turned out to be the first snowy weekend of the year.

Our departure was delayed for a few hours, due to the above, but a short 13 hours later we arrived in SLC. Friday we hit the pool in the hotel - FREEZING! - and Moochies for some Philly cheese steak and meatball subs. We also increased our chocolate storage up to - by Roger's calculations - 10 years. That night we went over to Rob and Cynthia's. Josh got to play babysitter for Katie and Alex, and got to watch Sleeping Beauty for the first time. The big kids went out to dinner with some neighbors. The women in the bunch were very excited to see Roger not only married but now sporting 3 children. Apparently they had done there best on his summers in Utah to get him hitched. It was great to see with our own eyes that Cynthia is really doing well with her treatments and that she's so healthy. We are very grateful for that.

Saturday we hit IKEA, a store which NEEDS to be in Colorado NOW! All our searching was finally rewarded: the kids now have some new bunk beds. And we only had to drive 1000 miles to find them. The duvet covers are all done - I was trying to channel Julie and get creative, but in the end I just put a stripe down the front of each one. Maybe the next round of bedding will be a little fancier.







Saturday afternoon I had a chocolate party with the Hall girls, and then we had a candy-making fest. We even created a new center: butterscotch fondant. In demonstrating how to rescue a crumbly batch of fondant, I somehow caramelized the sugar a tad and turned it into butterscotch. It tasted great, but what are the odds that I can ever duplicate that little mistake again? The kids got to see Grandma Kathy - Katie was not feeling too social, but Alex at least waved hello. We'll have to try and get copies of some pictures to prove that at least one Young child - Max - smiled for grandma.

The trip home started out with a little blizzard in Utah - Parley's Canyon was closed in the morning - but that gave us a chance to hang out with the Angells for a little while. The drive home only took 9 hours, and the pedal wasn't even hitting the floor. The kids survived their first real road trip with flying colors. I don't know that we're ready to take this party out to CA yet, but I think it at least could be done without too much trauma.

max's first trip

Max got to take his first plane ride last week. We went to SLC overnight for my friend Betsy's wedding. Both she and her now husband were/are so sincerely happy. I had a great time finally meeting people that I had only heard stories about for the past almost 15 years! The intertwining connections were killing me - one gal was going to visit an old mission companion the day after Betsy's wedding. Her companion happens to be the daughter of my first mission president, whom I had actually met when she came out to visit her parents after she got released. This gal's father served a mission in Finland with my dad. Never mind 6-degrees-of-Kevin Bacon. That game has nothing on the Mormon 'It's a Small World.'

I even got to spend time with Erica - we currently live 30 minutes away from each other, but we don't actually spend any time together except for this trip to Utah. Silliness. I need to teach her how to drive north. :) It's a good thing we went together - the batteries on my camera died after one picture, so she has the official documentation of this trip on her camera.

Max was great on the trip. I just put him in the baby sling I got from Kari and he just hung out. Pretty mellow the whole time. Until the ride home from the airport, when he cried the entire time. At least he saved it until the end.

I think subconsciously I was sort of hoping/expecting that when I got home Roger would be totally cooked, the house would look like a tornado had just blown through, and everyone would be crying. Roger would then bow down and sing my praises the second I walked in the door: 'Kat, I just don't know how you do it. You are amazing.'

Instead, the house looked great, the kids looked great, everyone was calm. Alex wanted to hang out with me, but Katie was perfectly content to keep doing her own thing. Then they went to bed, just like normal.

I have to confess, I was a little disappointed. They aren't supposed to get along so great without me! This is my current job - I should be indispensable! The world should stop turning when I'm not around - since I AM of course the center of the universe.

Reality is of course much better than my crazy subconscious day dreams. It is great that Rog is so actually in the groove with his kids that things function pretty much the same regardless of which parent is in charge. Well, he did say they might not have been able to survive on hamburgers for too many more days, but otherwise, things were pretty much normal. :) Maybe it's time for me to start planning some more adventures . . .