Everything you ever wanted

I was driving, Taylor was sitting next to me. The radio was on and my mind was wandering. We were passing the library. Out of the blue Taylor asked me if I had everything I ever wanted. "What do you mean" I asked - he had definitely caught me off guard. "When you were a little girl didn't you ever think of all the things you wanted when you grew up." he said. Of course I had - day dreaming is one of my biggest weaknesses and favorite pass times. I did, and still do it all the time. But I said "yeah I guess - I did". "Well so now that your old do you have all those things you thought you would." he said. I stopped and thought. "Pretty much" I said, "except for a boat - I have always wanted a boat". The conversation changed but I kept thinking. The thing is I really do have pretty much everything I ever wanted.

While my life definitely isn't exactly how I pictured it in those endless daydreams practically everything I dreamed of is mine. This is going to sound silly - so I won't be offended if you laugh, but this is the way I pictured my self in my minds eye. Living out in the country in a big yellow 2 story farmhouse, with a big wrap around porch. There was a lake in the background with a boat tied to the dock. I am not sure where, but definitely not Utah. There were lots of fruit trees around and a dog in the yard. I had lots of really cute kids running around laughing and playing. They always came when I called and were very clean and well groomed (ok admittedly- that never happens). I could see myself standing on the porch, I would always be wearing a dress - like a simple cotton sundress kind of thing and I would be waiting for my husband to get home from work. And I would be pretty. It would be like 5:00 and dinner would be all ready and my husband would pull in. We would all go inside our spotless house and have dinner. We would go on vacations, go to the beach, go swimming and play together. All my kids would play the piano, although I don't know what they played - it wasn't songs like "Little Indian". I only ever dreamed of myself smiling. We were all happy. In my dreams everything always felt peaceful and quiet and right.


So real life isn't' exactly like that. I have a wonderful husband but if I ever saw him pull in from work before 7 I would assume he had lost his job. I have several cute (albeit messy) children. I am not sure I ever counted in my dreams, but it was probably more like 8 -10 kids. But 5 real children are a lot more than 10 dreamed up one. I've got a house with 1 fruit tree that has yet to bear fruit. I do have a porch, all though it doesn't' wrap around my tan single story house. And it is in Utah. I mostly wear sweats and stained tee shirts, and rarely make-up. If it's not Sunday my hair is pulled back in a ponytail so that I don't notice how much it needs to be washed. I don't even own a sundress. My legs are generally hairy. While I didn't actually notice if my legs were shaved in my childhood daydreams, something just tells me they were. And much to my children's dismay there is no dog in our yard - proof that some things do turn out better in real life.

But I do have everything I wanted (besides that boat). A husband much more amazing then I could ever dream up. Children I love more than I ever knew possible. A comfortable home where I feel at peace. Enough money I never worry. We do go on vacations, we play together, we laugh and we are happy. Even though it's rarely peaceful and it's never quiet there is no denying it always feels right. So I guess the thing is while my life doesn't'' look exactly like the one I dreamed of - it feels like it. I do have everything I ever wanted.

Lagoon

We survived the day at Lagoon. It was actually really fun. No one threw up, no one got lost and no one wet their pants (although there were several close calls). Rick took Taylor and Dallin last year. We spent the whole year telling the kids to eat their dinner so they could grow big enough to go to Lagoon. Our rule was if they weren't at least 48" so they could ride most of the rides I wasn't going to spend the money to take them to Lagoon and sit on the sidelines and watch those who were 48" enjoy themselves. Well somehow this summer Anna and Ryan were both lucky enough to hit a growth spurt so that their heads brushed the 4 foot mark on the tape measure when they stood against the wall with their tallest shoes on. We decided it would cost more to get a babysitter for Rachel then to take her so she got to go too. I hadn't really expected the whole family to go so the budget hadn't planned on that big of an expenditure - but we did it anyway.

We rode most every ride there was. Rick talked me into letting Dallin or Anna babysit the younger kids while we rode a few of the ones with bigger height restrictions. Even though they were sitting in clear view of us most of the time the thought that someone would come up and take them as I was strapped into a ride was a lot scarier than dropping straight down in a roller coaster.

I do like roller coasters, the thrill of falling, the anticipation and adrenaline rush are exciting and exhilarating. I loved riding with my kids and hearing them squeal and laugh and feel them grab my arm when we were hurled around a corner or the car plunged down a drop off. Anna likes them too. Her favorite was Wild Mouse. She must have rode it more than 10 times. I know I rode it 4 times in a row with her, she just kept running on and off of it with whoever she could talk into it. The water rides are my favorite. I love to get wet -I don't know why I just do. It was fun.

The scariest ride of the night, by far was the sky walk. It is a very slow moving ski lift type of thing that takes you across the park about 20 feet up in air. It is supposed to be a peaceful way of getting from one side to the other. Well in a huge lack of judgement I let Rachel and Anna ride in the car in front of me and Ryan. Everything would have been fine if they would have just sat there and quietly rode it as intended. But Rachel didn't. I was terrified as I spent most of the 10 min ride watching Rachel stand and peer over the edges and rock the car. She walked back and forth and shoved as Anna tried to pull her down. She was not belted in, in any way shape or form. She could have easily fallen out and landed with a splat on the concrete below. I screamed at her to sit down, I begged Anna to make her sit. I was crying and screaming. But they couldn't hear me and I was completely helpless. It was one of the most scariest feelings of my life.


We stayed until they kicked us out. We were exhausted, we dragged our slightly sun burnt and queasy bodies out to the car. Most of the kids were asleep before we hit the the freeway. Despite the serious hit our bank account took I am glad we all went.

Not wanted at burger king

I took the kids to Burger King for dinner tonight. It was the final destination of the orienteering course I had constructed for Taylor. I was feeling mighty proud of myself that my clues had successfully lead us there. We all got out and walked in and that all too familiar feeling of not being wanted hit. Embarrassingly enough it happens pretty frequently. I walk into a store or restaurant or something with the kids and everyone turns to stare. They cringe and then divert their eyes. It is easy to see their minds working as they are all quietly willing us to leave. Tonight was no different I could tell the Burger King employee was praying I would say "to go". But I didn't. I'm always more embarrassed than offended. I can easily understand their distaste. Like tonight, Rachel was wearing a "dress up" that looked more like the rags Cinderella wore while she worked then a princess gown. Anna had on her favorite shorts- that have been her favorite for several years. Over the years they have picked up several holes and stains and lost some color. Her legs have picked up several inches so that now the shorts end in a tight band on her upper thigh instead of loosely hanging to her knee. The kids did leave the house with their feet covered but along the way Taylor's flip flops had broken - which required every ones shoes to shift up. So Taylors feet were hanging off both ends of his flip flops, Ryan was wearing pink flip flops and Rachel was barefoot (I did carry her so we could conform to the "no shirt no shoes" sign in the window. Unless the dip in the reservoir they had just taken counts, I doubt any of them had taken a bath since the last Sunday. I was wearing holy shorts and my favorite tee shirt which came from DI. Rick bought it for a special day at work where they had to wear a tee shirt with a video game logo on it. (it's a weird office). Even though it smells and has mortal combat across the back I really like it. I have tried to get the smell out - it has been washed countless times with extra oxyclean and fabric softener but it still stinks. Anyway point is we looked like a bunch of filthy ruffians. I walked up to the counter and started to order. I could see the employee's eyes get big as she was looking over my shoulder at the kids. I turned around and the kids, and not the younger ones, were swinging on those ropes they have out to divided the lines. Not just pulling on them, but feet off the floor swinging. Luckily they ran to find a seat at my insistence before the ropes broke, although it did include a little shoving match to be first to the table. I finished the order and handed out the cups so the kids could get their drinks. Taylor apparently didn't get her lid on tight because Rachel's "suicide" spilled as she grabbed it off the drink counter to take it to our table. Dallin helped to clean it up while I tried to shield the mess from the other diner's view with my wide body. Dallin brought Rachel another cup of soda - the tops must have really been difficult to get on because as he handed it to her the entire cup spilled across the table. I just sighed and went to get more napkins. Dallin must have done a good job cleaning up the first spill because there was no more napkins left. I reluctantly went up to the counter to ask for some more. Luckily the employee who came over didn't speak the best English so I didn't have to explain other than say napkins. I was on my hands and knees trying to mop up a sickish looking brown liquid (the suicide drink popular among my children) when the lady came back with our order. She didn't say anything but it was disgust I saw in her face when she saw the table. She simply set the tray down and left. There were perfectly shaped little footprints leading across the floor up onto and across the bench and all over the table top where Rachel had stepped in the soda with her bare feet and climbed up on the table while she was crying that her seat was all wet. Utterly humiliated by this time I sat down on the wet and sticky bench and pulled Rachel next to me. I decided to just wipe up the spill with the seat of our pants. They were far from clean anyway.
All went ok for a few minutes until Taylor went to get ketchup for us. They didn't have little packets you had to squirt it into little cups. Luckily Taylor managed to fill the cups without mishap. Bringing them to the table was another story. Being the efficent boy he is he didn't want to take a lot of trips - so he filled his hands with 8 little cups of ketchup which ended up flying across our table hitting the wall, the table, the floor and us. Taylors fingers were covered in ketchup where he had been holding the cups. We still didn't have napkins. He licked off his fingers and I wiped the walls off the best I could with Rachel's pillow case. We finished eating and slunk out of that restaurant. I wanted to assure the woman behind the counter that next time we would use the drive through but I was too embarrassed to even look at her.

castle dale

Several years ago we had a home teacher from Emery county. He told us all about the Castle Valley pageant. I thought it sounded fun and decided we would go. Several years went by where it just didn't work out. So 2 years ago I decided it was the year. I made reservations at a hotel and was really excited to go. We had company that week and they were going to come with us. The day before things got kind of busy and it was decided that we were all too hot and tired to go - so I canceled the reservation and we stayed home. I was pretty disappointed but vowed to go the next year. But that was the last year they did it yearly- they changed to only every other year so I had to wait till this summer. So I planned it months ago and we finally went. Kristin, Kevin and Tess came with us. We had a really good time but it was sure an interesting camping trip.
First of all we got a bit of a late start but made it up there in good time. The windy roads were a bit much for Anna so we had to stop so she could throw up. Luckily she made it to the side of the road and didn't get it in the car. Our camping site had no good spot for a tent. There was a very small area under some trees that was flatish but it was no where near big enough for our tent, which is technically called a 3 room "vacation home". We drove on to check Kevin and Tess camping spot. It was much better so we commandeered that and set up our tent there and then went and set up Kevin and Tess tent under the tree in the other site. We had to break off several branches for it to fit under the trees but we did it. We have 3 air mattress but could only find 2 (until we go home and saw the third one waiting for us in the garage where the pile of stuff to go was sitting.) But we figured we could just make do with two.

Because cramming camping supplies for 7 in the van is a pretty good trick I packed Rick's car with all of our sleeping bags and pillows. Although Rick didn't actually help me do it he did watch as I took everything out and put it in his car. Well at the last minute Kevin and Tess volunteered to drive there car. Rick hopped in their car and left all our sleeping gear parked in the trunk in our driveway. I was pretty upset when he arrived without it. I didn't know what to do. Luckily I had put a few blankets in our car to sit on at the pageant. So we had those. Taylor and Dallin slept in the car where it was a bit warmer. Kevin and Tess lent us some blankets and a sleeping bag. I froze all night long. My neck ached from sleeping with no pillow. Rachel kept waking up shivering so I put her in bed with us. Her body warmth finally helped me get a bit of sleep. It was a rough night but we made it through.

The pageant was good but extremely cheesy - just like all Mormon pageants. But I still enjoyed it and felt the spirit. Rachel kept all around us pretty entertained. She made comments, rather loud about all that was happening. She was gravely concerned with the baby dying and let everyone know it.

The next day we had a wonderful breakfast that Tess and Kevin made and then we went to the lake, it took a bit of doing but we found a spot to swim. We had a good time till some big black clouds and a bit of lightening chased us out of the water. We stopped to have lunch and take a few pictures before going home.

The trip ended with an unfortunate encounter with a policeman who wasn't too happy with the speed that Rick was driving. The entire trip seemed to be fraught with mishaps and bumps in the road - but I hope to do it all again next year. Next year I will pack all of our stuff in the van even if I have to sit on it and I am pretty sure Rick won't be in such a hurry to get home and if he is he will keep a better look out for cops.

Do we stink?

Rick is a little obsessed with smelling good. Not that that is a bad thing or anything. Every once in a while he will get concerned that we, our family and house, stink. So he will bring home candles and room deodorizers. I do like to burn candles and I love those bath and body plug ins but to be honest I have a hard enough time just getting the dirty dishes off the table let alone having time to worry about lighting candles and changing plug ins. A few years ago we went to visit David and Megan. Rick came home committed to a better smelling house. Their house made quite a impression on his nose, it made our house seem like a barn. Ever since then he has obsessed about it a little bit. So during our vacation Rick told everyone that we needed to pay close attention to how the house smelled right when we walked in. That way we would know how our house smelled to other people. He brought this up a couple times. So upon our arrival we opened the door and took a great big whiff. I about fell over it stunk so bad. Oh no I immediately thought, do we really smell this bad. Then I realized we couldn't possibly. (If we do would someone please let me know) A little investigation turned up some garbage that had not been taken out and a dishwasher that had been stopped mid cycle and not restarted. The water in the bottom was green and slimy and the smell would knock a skunks socks off. By the next morning the house was back to its normal-not so great but not so bad- smell.

A lake of Soda- is it too good to be true?

A lake of soda? Sounds like a fantasy straight from the likes of Charlie and the Chocolate factory. When I told Ryan about it he laughed and said, "your joking-the lake isn't really made of soda" "Sure it is" I said, "See it says right there Shasta lake, and Shasta is soda isn't it." He didn't know what to think- he kind of believed me but also knew it was too good to be true. Soda or not the Whiskeytown-Shasta-Trinity National Recreation Area is home of a pretty incredible lake. It is not beautiful - clear and bright blue but also pretty warm for a mountain lake. They created a perfect little swimming area and even warmed up the water there. They attached a big net like curtain to buoys and sunk them creating an area that is more shallow then the rest of the lake - somehow this makes the water warmer. Now they actually do this for the fish - it is some environmental ploy to protect some endangered fish or something but the wonderful bi product is a nice warm swimming hole. We stopped there took some pictures and looked around a bit we wanted to get our passport books stamped but we were about 20 minutes late, the visitors center just closed. So we went ahead and drove into Redding went swimming, had dinner and went to bed. Well some of us went to bed and some of us (like the 5 children) stayed up and watched tv - debatably the most exciting part of the vacation for some of our family.

The Trip home

On the way home from the Redwoods we stopped in Lassen Volcanic National Park. It reminded me of Yellowstone a little bit. There were many hikes, beautiful rivers and lakes and geo thermal areas to look at. They even had geysers although we didn't see any. We went to the visitors center - stamped our passport books and looked on the maps for a good hike. Taylor saw a picture of volcanic cone that really caught his eye. He came and found me and showed it to me and asked if we could go see it. It was one of the hikes that we though would be doable for us -about 3 miles. Well it was on the other side of the park, but on our way so we headed over there. About 20 miles after leaving the visitors center we realized we were running out of gas. The dilemma was there was a gas station at the visitors center and then one about 60 miles down the road. We didn't really want to run out but weren't' sure we could make it. We decided to press our luck, so we turned off the air conditioning (not so fun) and drove 55mph (also not to fun when we could have gone 70) and hoped for the best. We did make it with a gallon to spare.

The cinder cone hike was quite nice. We walked for about 1 mile on a flat path in a nicely wooded area. It was a nice hike except for the fact that Rachel wanted carried, Ryan had to poop, Taylor and Dallin had run ahead so I was a bit worried about them, and Anna refused to wear her tennis shoes, and it was quite hot. The shoe situation wasn't too great for the youngest three. Somehow Rachel and Ryan both hit a growth spurt recently because I couldn't get the tennis shoes I had brought for them on their feet. They fit fine a month ago. So Ryan spent the week in sandals and Rachel was either barefoot or wore Anna's extra flip flops. But despite all that I was enjoying the walk at least when I wasn't carrying Rachel.

Then we came around a corner and saw the cone. I think my mouth dropped open. It was a big black hill of sand and rock without a tree growing on it. There was one steep path straight up the side of the mountain. It looked long, it looked steep, and it was hot-you could almost see the heat waves coming off of it. We were really low on water too so I had been trying to conserve by not drinking any but I was really thirsty and feeling a tiny bit light headed at this point so I thought there was no way we were all making it up the mountain. Rick maybe, the older boys maybe, but definitely not Anna, Ryan, Rachel and preferably not me. But we trudged on.

I decided to get to the base of the mountain and see what we could do. I told the kids-just keep on keeping on. We tried singing songs, telling stories and reciting the ABC's to take our minds off the misery. By this time we were really thirsty. Rick and Ryan had fallen behind (they had to stop for Ryan to poop) I was worried about them making it since I had the backpack with all the water. I wasn't sure what to do. I knew that if we stopped to wait for them I wouldn't want to start again. Best to just keep going. So I sent a bottle of water down with a passing couple, pointed out Rick and ask them to give it to him.

We set a goal of how far to walk before stopping to rest. We looked for rocks that stood out or other landmarks to make it to before we'd pause for a break, I alternated carrying Rachel and making her walk. When the landmarks got to far apart for us we counted our steps. 15 steps then a break, 10 steps then sit down. We finally rounded a corner and leveled off. The top was beautiful. On the way up I asked a guy if it was worth it. He nodded, and said- it is nothing like I've ever seen before. If you can get up there- do it. He was right it was pretty amazing. The pictures don't really do it justice, which is often the case. Looking around you got a great view of many different landscapes.

On one side was a beautiful bright blue lake, that gave way to a geothermal area that looked liked painted sand, around the other side was volcanic rocks all bordered by green forests. We walked around taking it all in. Taylor and Dallin were up there, they had actually hiked down inside the cone. I decided looking down into it was good enough for me. When Rick and Ryan topped the hill they started coming over to us but Rick hesitated and started yelling at the kids to sit down. I couldn't really figure out why at first, then I realized he was nervous because it looked like the side dropped off on both sides. It wasn't like there were cliffs or anything. I didn't think there were safety issues at all - but then again I am not scared of heights and lets just say Rick prefers the ground. Anyway we took pictures and drank all the water we could salvage from the bags of ice we had in our backpack to keep our stuff cool and then made our way down

. By the time we got back to the car we were hot, hungry and very thirsty. We then again had to face about 40 more miles till we got in to town where we could get gas. It was a miserable ride without the air conditioning but we made it. It was already early evening by then and we weren't more than 1 hour or so into the days drive. In fact we had originally hoped to get home that night but had long ago abandoned that idea. We decided to push on hard and just see how far we could get. About 10:00 we were faced with a decision either stop in Winnamucca about 11:00 or drive to Elko 2 more hours down the road. We really wanted to get to Elko but neither or us wanted to drive 2 more blocks let alone 2 more hours - yet we pushed on, partly because hotels in Elko were cheaper then Winnamuccua (we were really lucky that mom and Kevin were so willing to book hotels and try priceline for us while we were driving).

We made it into our hotel a little before 1am. We crashed for the night. Kevin found a local ward that met at 9:00 for us to attend. It was quite the trial to get out of bed that morning. Especially because we had planned to be home by Sunday and had buried our church clothes at the very bottom of our car top carrier. Getting them out was a trick. I couldn't find all of our church shoes so most of us just went in our flip flops and sandals. Rachel went barefoot. We were also out of food by this point and unfortunately this was the only hotel we stayed in that did not have a continental breakfast. I found a couple of oatmeal packets and cooked some in the cups in the hotel room. We had 2 forks to share. Most of the kids actually turned their nose up and lukewarm thick oatmeal and went to church hungry but maybe they were too tired to care. We were really wrinkled just a bit smelly and very tired but we make it to church during the opening song. It was actually a very nice Sacrament meeting, we were impressed with there speakers and especially their youth. We skipped out on primary and headed for home.

We forged on only stopping for gas. I kind of thought we would have to stop for lunch but we did have some fruit snacks and peanut butter bars and a case of diet Pepsi we made work for us. We pulled in our driveway about 4 hours later, dirty, tired and hungry but glad to be home. It was an amazing trip I would do again in a heartbeat. I just wish it wasn't 15 hours away.