Utah Trip 2017: Visiting my Parents

I was a little nervous about visiting my parents because my mom had just had total knee replacement surgery about a week before we came, and I didn't want to be a burden or a bother. But in reality I'm so glad we were able to come. Usually when hard things happen to my family I can't really do anything other than pray because we live so far away, but this time I was able to help. Mom was still in a LOT of pain and mostly staying in bed, and my dad had to be at work, so Elizabeth was taking on a lot of the jobs my mom usually does (she's awesome like that).

Mom was dealing with really horrible pain, trying to manage taking different medications, and doing various exercises to get her knee bending and working the way it's supposed to. She had a knee machine that she would put her leg into and it would push her leg back to get her knee to bend, and she also had this nice ice machine that circulated ice water through the ice pack part on her knee. She also had a therapist coming every day (really nice guy). So sometimes I was helping her get the knee machine set up or do the exercises.

Michelle also came over with Baby Lena quite a bit, so we got to meet Lena for the first time, which was fun. So we mostly spent our time getting things for Mom, doing housework/making food, and hanging out at the house, which was fine. A lot of card games were played with Elizabeth's potato playing cards. I was worried about the kids making it hard for Mom, but they mostly just played, and when they did spend time with Mom it seemed to brighten her up. Heidi got to read books to her.

We did take a little excursion to see the waterfall in the mountains near Brigham City. The air definitely seemed a bit thinner. I felt like I didn't have my usual stamina.

We told the kids not to touch the algae because it was slimy, so they kept giggling and saying, "Don't touch the allergy!"

Ryan took Kevin and Heidi on a couple of excursions.

Ryan and Kevin went to see the Brigham City Tabernacle.

There's an empty lot near my parents' house that's full of several different species of grains and even some dill all mixed together. Ryan figured somebody went and dumped all their food storage there and the seeds sprouted and went wild. He took Heidi to see it.

By Friday Mom was getting really discouraged. The hard thing about knee replacement is that to get better you have to push yourself until it hurts pretty bad. She was trying really hard to get her knee bending farther, but the therapist was getting concerned because her knee was still not bending as far as it should at this point, which can be a problem because once the muscles start to scar it's a lot harder to get the knee to bend all the way. So Mom was upset about that and really struggling to deal with the pain. We called the temple and asked them to put her name on the prayer roll, and I emailed and asked people in the family to pray for her. Then in the evening my dad and Ryan and Donovan gave her a blessing. Within just a little while Mom's countenance completely changed. She had hope again and she seemed more determined to work through this. So that was a miracle.

On Saturday Mom wanted to have a party to celebrate the kids' birthdays (since we wouldn't be with them on their actual birthdays). Melissa and Jason drove up and spent the afternoon with us. It was fun to see them.

Mom was doing a lot better on Saturday. She was up and around a lot more and she made a chocolate chip pumpkin cake. Heidi enjoyed helping her frost it.

After dinner Melissa and Jason brought out the bubbles! So fun! They had a bubble machine and a bubble blowing lawnmower! Apparently the bubble machine gets regular use in their apartment, which is awesome.

And we took some pictures with Lena.

We left late Saturday night to go to Becky's house so we could help with all the preparations for the 50th anniversary party on Sunday. Stay tuned for another blog post about that!

Utah Trip 2017: the plane ride

This year we were able to go to Utah again! We left on June 13th.

I have to say, the trip takes a lot longer when you have to drive two hours to the airport. Then when we got to the airport we parked the car in long-term parking and moved five suitcases, five backpacks, five people, one stroller, and two car seats onto the shuttle bus. Then when the shuttle bus stopped at the airport, we found out they couldn't drop us off at our terminal because of construction, so we had to get five suitcases, five backpacks, two big people, three little people, a stroller, and two car seats through the building to our terminal. I still don't even know how we did it. Kevin and Heidi were big enough to help with the suitcases and wear their backpacks, and I think maybe I hung the car seats on the stroller and Ryan took most of the suitcases. Once we got the suitcases and one of the car seats checked things were a little more manageable.

We got through security pretty well and we even were complimented for getting our family through security so efficiently. Then we rode the train to the gate and we had a bit of a wait for our flight. Our flight was at 7:10, but we gave ourselves a lot of extra time because we didn't want to be arriving in Atlanta during rush hour and miss our flight.

I think the flights went pretty well. I sat with Kevin and Heidi for the first flight, and they mostly entertained themselves with the things they brought in their backpacks, plus they enjoyed getting to order drinks and have snacks. I was able to read my book. The second flight was delayed, so we arrived in Salt Lake pretty late. Ann Marie spilled her drink (water, thankfully) in my lap, but fortunately that dried by the time we landed. The plane was freezing and I had left my jacket in my checked suitcase because it's hot in Georgia. It took forever to get our bags and we had to pick up our rental car.

While Ryan was waiting in line for the car, I was sitting with the kids and the bags. Ann Marie was tired, and she ended up crying face-down in my lap. Then suddenly she screamed, "I'm having an accident!" which was interesting since she was wearing a diaper, and then I realized that liquid was spilling from my lap and making a puddle all over the floor under the seat. Yeah, the diaper failed to contain the sudden flow and she peed all over me. In geology we call it Hortonian overland flow when precipitation flows over the ground because it fell so fast there wasn't time for the soil to absorb it. But I was grateful we at least had our suitcases, so we were able to get a change of clothes and change in the bathroom.

Meanwhile, waiting to get a car was taking forever. There was a very rude Jewish man who was yelling at the lady at the desk because they didn't have the type of car he had reserved and they were asking him to use a different car. He stomped off, and I'm not sure what ended up happening with him. We ended up with the very last car they had, and it was a ten-passenger van! But we took it because it was better than the fate of the three people behind Ryan, who didn't get a car at all. I was just laughing because on top of everything else that had happened on that long day we ended up with an enormous car at 1:00 am.

Then we still had to drive to Brigham City. Elizabeth was kind enough to stay up late to let us in.

Camping At Deep Creek in the Great Smoky Mountains

June was our big trip to Utah, and Ryan was going back to work almost as soon as we got back (he was only teaching during the second summer term). On June 8th we realized this weekend was probably our last chance to go camping this summer, so we made a last minute decision to go to the Great Smoky Mountains on June 9th and 10th.

The drive was interesting. A lot of it went through rural Georgia. We did drive through Elberton, which claims to produce more granite products than anywhere else in the world. There are monuments everywhere, and along the road you can see all the big warehouses where they cut the stone and the railroads where they bring in the granite. It seemed like a tiny little town, but I looked up populations and it's actually bigger than Kimberly, Idaho. I guess the difference is that if you live in Kimberly you're fifteen minutes away from Twin Falls, whereas Elberton is the big town in the area.

We left early enough that we got to our camp site in time to have a slightly late lunch.

Once we had the camp set up and had eaten lunch, we hiked the loop to Juney Whank Falls.

There were lots of little purple butterflies fluttering along the trail, and it was quite magical to the girls.

We stopped to check out this waterfall (Tom Branch Falls) and explore the creek a bit before going back to our campsite for dinner.

We roasted hot dogs for dinner. We just grabbed some buns and hot dogs from the freezer before we left since this was so last minute, although I think this was actually the first time we've cooked on a camping trip.

I think everyone slept okay. It was kind of cold. I usually wake up a lot when I'm camping. The kids slept all night without a peep.

We had sausage for breakfast, also grabbed from our freezer. Here's proof.

We decided to pack everything up so we would be ready to go after going to see Indian Creek Falls.

We were able to get some better pictures of Tom Branch Falls with the morning light.

A lot of people were renting tubes and floating down the river, so we had fun stopping sometimes to watch.

Heidi really wanted to go out to this rock. It was tricky because the rocks were smooth, so it was easy to slip.

These pretty lilies were growing on the hill all along the trail (so was poison ivy, which I'm pretty good at recognizing now).

The trail up to Indian Creek Falls was about a mile uphill. The kids made it. Ann Marie got a few piggy back rides. It was a very nice hike. It was nice and shady and not very hot, and there was some great scenery.

Ann Marie really wanted to climb up the rocks like Kevin and Heidi had, so Ryan helped her.

We walked a little farther up to see the waterfall from the top. Kevin wandered into the foliage a little bit and tripped and twisted his ankle when Ryan yelled at him that he was walking right into some poison ivy, so he limped a bit on the way back down. We stopped to watch people fall off their tubes going down some rapids.

We parked in the picnic area to have more peanut butter sandwiches for lunch, amidst much weeping and wailing on the part of the girls because there were gnats flying around their heads. Then we drove home. The kids really wanted to stop somewhere to get dinner, but being in all the rural areas there weren't a lot of options, so we ended up getting Papa John's when we got home.

Then it was time to get ready for our Utah trip!