Timpanogos Caves

A little delayed in this post, but at least it is now a post. I have been evaluating my life and my lack of blogging and history writing, and all that stuff. I post so little of what actually happens around here. But on the flip side, I average around 130+ posts a year, so I really am recording a whole heck of a lot more than my memory can hold. My posterity may really know something about me. I may be famous to my great grandchildren. Maybe famous because I talked too much or because my style was completely unorthodox (you know how we view or great grandparents and their ways of parenting as down right abusive or strange). So although this post is mighty late and although I should have posted another 100 to go with it, at least there is this one post.

 

Thanks for listening. Now I feel better. I needed that pep talk.

 

On out trip to Utah, we decided to visit the caves in the Timpanogos Mountains.

My mom brags that she hiked to those caves all by herself with all 6 of her children and three of her nieces and nephews, two of the 9 not even walking.

I don't believe her. I don't care what kind of super mom that you are, that just isn't possible. They must have had some sort of tram back then. Either that or she really did have help.

 I'm in pretty good shape. I had Gavin who is walking. Nathan who was 4. And I was ready to call it quits. Thankfully Becky and her children were there. Becky carried Gavin up the mountain and I pulled Nathan up the mountain. I carried Gavin through the caves and then all the way back down the mountain. It was not easy. I was exhausted afterwards.

 

It was worth it. Even at the time it was worth it.

But man, hiking up the mountain with cliffs and steep edges and kids that I was having to assist was pretty difficult. Not to mention the sun was pretty hot. And I was told it would be 40 degrees in the caves, which is pretty cold.

 It wasn't that cold. It felt so good after the heat of the hike. I wished I had realized that and not brought winter gear in backpacks that made it even more hot. I learned. I think the hardest part was the backpacks and water bottles!

Inside the caves were pretty awesome. The earth is pretty remarkable. It was fun to watch the excitement and interest on my kids faces as we explored the caves.

Isn't the view beautiful?

 And afterwards I asked Danielle what she thought. Her response? She shrugged her shoulders and walked away. It really was awesome.

Taneal, Camie, and Spencer really liked it.

Here is the group of us. So thankful for Becky. She made the hike so much easier for Taneal.

Hiking to the Y

Last year Evan took Taneal and Camie and they hiked to the Y in Provo, Utah. This year I wanted to hike and I don't have a nursing baby and I'm not pregnant (I still have the baby belly left over from the last 6 kids and I do occasionally get asked if I am expecting, but I'm not). It was a perfect set-up for me to finally be able to go. Evan stayed behind with Nathan and Gavin.

 

We hiked to the Y with Bryce and his boys and Trent and some of his children, and then Evan's brother Quinn. It was fun, a little hot, but great to make it to the top.

Spencer was the first one to the top. I think he was exhausted from the travels and then from beating us all to the top. When he gets tired, he breaks down and all reasoning and communication leave. He wasn't being careful on the slick surface of the Y and nearly tumbled down it, which could have killed him or broke some bones or serious bodily injury. I had warned him not to run on the Y and he did it again, so I told him he had to get off the Y and stay to the side where it wasn't slippery. This totally set him off and he wanted to stay clear away from me. It was rough getting to the bottom with Spencer running from me. Finally Trent, Evan's brother, picked him up and carried him to the bottom. I was thankful for the help and glad we made it to the bottom safely.

 

Evan started a tradition last year, if you hike to the Y, we go buy you a BYU shirt. So, we headed to the store and got all the kids a Y shirt. Nathan was so put out that he didn't get one. I told him he didn't hike to the Y, so he couldn't. He response was the best. He said he wanted to but Dad wouldn't let him so it was dad's fault he couldn't get a Y shirt.  I caved because he did beg to climb the Y and Evan really wouldn't let him. At the time I agreed that it was probably too hard a hike for Nathan. But then Nathan did hike to the Timpanogos Caves which is a much more rigorous hike and did fine.

Next time I will let Nathan hike up the mountain with me.

I Finally Painted

There is a huge history about the color of the walls in my home. Little did I know when I first married that I married a man with super strong opinions. I had no idea how passionate he is about white walls. When I say white walls, I mean walls that appear white. They may not truly be white, but to me they look white. Evan says they are off-white. Anyways, he wants white, or super light colored walls. And I like color. Maybe it is because I grew up with a pink room and pink carpets. My brothers had blue walls with blue carpets. Or maybe I think color adds happiness. Either way, I would like my walls to be something other that white. Evan is just like his dad and wants all white walls.

Evan and I have been going back and forth since we bought this house on colored walls. I once even went and painted one of the walls in the playroom and beautiful tan color, and Evan painted back over it white.  He really wants white walls. We finally agreed on something for that playroom and I got to paint one wall green and he painted the others what he calls a light green. They look white to me.

Evan finally gave in and agreed that I could paint a wall red in the front room. I was excited. I went and got a paint sample and as you can see I grafitied on the wall to see if I liked that shade of red. I was going to paint all the kids names on the wall but didn't have the piano moved out yet and then Gavin pulled of his diaper and made a mess and another child did something that I had to help with and then I had to be somewhere and just didn't get back to it.

 I loved the paint color.

 So I went back and bought a gallon of the beautiful red paint painted two walls. It is gorgeous. Makes me feel happy. Adds character to my home. I love, love, love it. I think it still needs a 2nd coat. I will get to that. Maybe next week. But for now, just enjoying the beauty of something other than white walls.

Happy 4th Birthday Nathan

We were on the road from Utah to home for Nathan's birthday. We had to leave early because I had kids throwing up, super high fevers, and I had the choice to stay with family and get them sick or squeeze into a hotel and go stir crazy. I decided to hit the road and head home. And I am so glad I did because the sickness passed through my family and lasted for almost a week. That would have been miserable being away from home. At least we were on the road home and being miserable in a car instead of a hotel room.

 

One of the days we were on the road was Nathan's birthday. He was great most of the day, but as evening came the fever set in. We were caravaning back home with Becky and her kids. They were so nice and stopped and got cupcakes for Nathan's birthday and came over to our hotel room to sing happy birthday to him and kind of sort of celebrate. As much celebrating as you can when you are on a super long road trip.

 

They came to our hotel room and I warned them, so they stood at the door and sang. I handed Nathan a cupcake,and this is what he looked like. Poor little guy. He was so sick. I didn't have a thermometer, but based on the fevers that some of the other kids had had, and by how super hot he felt, I but his temperature was probably around 104. He was cooking. Good thing the Tylenol and Motrin kicked that fever down fast or we would have been in the middle of nowhere looking for an Instacare.

 

I just felt so bad that he was sick on his birthday.

My plan was to celebrate a belated birthday when we got home. Yah, well, Nathan didn't want to have anything to do with that. I even got him his present and told him happy birthday and he scolded me telling me it wasn't his birthday and that he already had his birthday and he was already 4.

Okay.

Oops

I decided to cut boys hair. The dough was downstairs in the mixer rising. I put a timer on it so I wouldn't forget.

The timer went off. Gavin's hair was done but I didn't want him walking all over the house getting hair everywhere. But the dough needed tending to for a few minutes.

I called for Taneal to help me out. I told her she could help with the dough or with the boys.

She opted for the boys. She didn't grab Gavin and throw him in the shower.

She grabbed the clippers and began cutting Nathan's hair.

Without the guard.

I was forming the rolls when she came downstairs. Her face was white and she just kept apologizing. She told me
It was bad. She started crying.

I asked if it was the front. Nope, the back.

We can work with that.

Oh my goodness. We can't work with that.

Nathan is oblivious. Thankfully he is only 4 and doesn't care. And thankfully he can't see the back of his head.

Occasionally he will rub the back and smile and say, "I like my bald spot. It feels cool!"

Bridal Veil Falls

Here is my disclaimer with the enormous amount of pictures in this post. Okay, not only this post, but all of the recent post with more picture flooded posts to come. How can you choose which picture of which child not to include? If I had only one or two kids, I would only need about 4 pictures. Take that amount and multiply it times 6 children and that is all I included in this post.

See? That's not very many pictures.

We visited Bridal Veil Falls while we were on our very long trip to Utah. The kids thought it was so cool to hike to the base of the falls. We actually hiked a mountain!

I took this picture myself. I set the timer on my camera and ran and jumped in the picture. I hadn't done that on my camera before. Pretty cool.

My kids LOVED this hike. Probably because they had been stuck in a car for three very long days. And maybe also because they aren't used to mountains. More than likely they loved it because I was there. They are looking at me while I take this picture and check out those smiles.

All the kids were loving the scenery. About every 20 feet they would say, "hey mom! Get a picture of me in front of this."

 That is why it was so hard to narrow down how many pictures I included in this post. I had over 200 just from this little hike!

The kids were surprised at how cold the water was from the falls. I kept trying to explain that is wasn't water like it had at home that is bath tub temperature. It was water from melted snow. They thought that was pretty cool. Of course then the complaining came about how they have never seen snow before and why can't we live where there is snow.

 I told them when they go to college then maybe they can love where there is snow. And once they do, they will realize just how fortunate we are to live where it rarely snows.

they didn't believe me.

Gavin stepped in the water and then walked to where it was up to his knees. I had tennis shoes on so I didn't want to step in after him. He was starting to walk to me but the water was so cold that he couldn't move. Fortunately he was close enough that I was able to reach really far and pull him out. I would have put my shoes in the water if I had had to, just got lucky enough that I didn't.

This could work for a family picture this Christmas, right? Nothing as wonderful as what my friend, April, takes. But hey, I didn't coordinate outfits, I didn't get new haircuts for anyone, and I doubt all the kids even brushed their teeth for the occasion. I even wore my hair in a pony tail! So much easier. Plus, Evan put up such a stink about family pictures last year that he decided this year he was in charge of the family pictures. Based off that, yah, this probably will be the picture on our Christmas card.

Because I didn't include the 200 pictures that I took on this hike, you wouldn't know that Danielle and Spencer stuck together like they had a rope tied between them. Those two stuck together. They were almost synced together. It was humorous to watch. As they were wading in the water and stepping over rocks, they would both bend down at the same time and stand back up. Not sure how they managed the synchronization, and I doubt they were even aware that they were doing it. It was so cool to watch those two act like best friends and pals and stick together.

 I can't really say the same for Taneal and Camie. Taneal, in the quiet way that she does it, was pestering Camie. I even got on video Taneal tossing a larger rock towards Camie as Camie's back was turned, in hopes of splashing Camie. She missed so Camie didn't even realize what had happened. And as soon as Camie got out of the water, Taneal was quietly, secretly throwing water Camie's way hoping to still get her wet. Poor Camie. She doesn't take too well to Taneal's relentless teasing and joking and playing. Taneal is doing it in good fun, but Camie can't handle it and Taneal doesn't give up.