Good Things Come in Fours

Good Thing #1: First Day of School
Last week, Jonas started 3rd grade, Elise started 6th grade, and the day before yesterday, Ethan started EIGHTH GRADE. (I swear, when I was in the eighth grade I was almost a woman. Almost.)

Here are their official first day of school photos. The only difference is Ethan didn't let me take his in the front yard. Somehow he didn't want the ninth graders waiting for the bus to see his mom posing him in front of a tulip tree. Go figure.



Good lookin' kids, I agree. They're all doing swimmingly and seem to be adjusting to their new classes--Jonas even came home today after a week and a half of school and told me he's Student of the Month for his class! I always told him first impressions were important. The theme for the month is "caring," so I'm glad to have a caring kid.

Good Thing #2: Jordanelle Triathlon
Forrest and my brother Tony and our brother-in-law Peter competed in the Jordanelle Triathlon. Last year, Jordanelle was Forrest's first Tri ever, so it was fun to come back again and see how he's improved (even though last year's foray was pretty impressive, especially for a first-timer).

Before the race, looking studly. Even in a swim cap, Tone.

Everybody's in the water! That's Forrest, waving hello.

The kids, trying to take advantage of some shade while they wait for Dad to run past.

Dad, running past. High fives all around!

The T-Man, zipping by on his new bike. Sweet bike, T.

Forrest about to cross the finish line.

Peter, doing the same.

And Tony, bringing it home.

Forrest got in early enough that he was able to get a free massage. (The line's so long that only the truly zippy get a chance for an anonymous female massage school student to give them a rubdown.) Forrest had a really good race, though, and cut over five minutes off of last year's already fast time. Good job, hon!

Are the men in my family handsome or what?

Good Thing #3: Organizing the Basement
Kay, so I don't "do" triathlons. But I did organize the basement, which was a Herculean task in its own way. What I really should have done is taken a "before" picture after I dumped pretty much every single available toy, car, doll, puzzle piece, lego, etc. in the middle of the basement and decided to embark on an organization project of truly epic proportions. But I didn't take a before picture, so you'll have to trust me that the junk piles were monumental.

I needed to do more than clean up, though. I did a "we're done having kids and need to figure out what to save, throw away, give away, sell" type job, and that, my friends, takes a considerable amount of energy, both mental and physical. Of course, we're keeping a lot of the little girl stuff (doll houses, Barbies, dress up clothes) for cousins to play with when they come over, but my 11-year-old isn't much interested in dress up clothes anymore, so I figured it was time to get them put up and out of the way. Dress-up clothes and tons of other stuff, too. Here are my after pictures. (Yes, I took pictures. I was proud of myself, okay? :-)

Wyatt, actually playing with the train table. I made Forrest secure the track to the table with screws. After eight years of waiting for my kids to be "creative" and put together their own tracks, but instead dealing with a train table in constant disarray but never played with, I'd had it. Now, voila! A toy a kid can have fun with! It's a miracle. I actually glued down the tracks about a year ago, but a friend of Wyatt's came over and methodically yanked each and every piece of track from the table in the fifteen minutes I left them downstairs unattended. That was a disappointing afternoon for Mom. Now watch him try to yank THESE puppies off the table!

Disclaimer: Our basement is not cute. No, our basement is utilitarian. It's for kids to play in. I figure I'm not going to expend a whole lot of time and money decorating a space that the kids are going to bang around in. But now it's a lot less cluttered and more organized, which will help THEM keep it cleaner too. Makes me happy inside. Don't know how long the little animals will stay in the "little animal bin," or the big legos in the "big lego bin" . . . but it made me feel good to get it that way, at least for a little while.

We also got the computer/tv area--movies, games, books, etc.--in ship shape. Every movie in the correct case, present and accounted for. Well, except for this one Wii game that we're pretty sure a friend of Ethan's "borrowed" but now isn't owning up to. Grrr. Anyway, maybe now I won't avoid going in the basement for days on end unless somebody is screaming.

Good Thing #4: Ethan's Birthday! The Big 1-3
It's true: Forrest and I are the parents of a teenager. I know! He's such a good kid, though, I don't feel the trepidation I probably should. To celebrate, he went to Lagoon with some friends (last week), and then today I brought him lunch at school--10 piece chicken nugget combo from McDonald's, his request, and he tells me his friends were jealous of the fries--and tonight we took him to his favorite restaurant, Famous Dave's. Grandma and Grandpa Sweat joined us to make the night a real party.

Ethan was going to order a half rack of ribs, but his Dad told him to go head and order the full rack. Yes, he weighs 85 pounds, but he can put away some ribs.

A happy 13-year old, enjoying his red meat.

Voila, the full rack. (Yes, we brought a number of ribs home. His eyes were a little bigger than his stomach.)

Good times at the Famous Daves.

Thirteen years ago, one of the greatest people I've ever known came into the world. I was lucky enough to get to have him be my kid. Love you, Ethan. Happy Birthday!

Yellowstone (Finally)

First, yes . . . it's been a long time since I've updated my blog. Probably the longest I've ever gone, and that's saying something. But I've been in the thick of finalizing the manuscript for Dispensation, the anthology of short fiction written by Mormon authors that I've been editing for Zarahemla Books, as well as the Irreantum fiction and essay contests, and I've spent way too much time at my computer lately. So I've had computer guilt. But the Irreantum contests are put to bed and (hooray!) I sent the anthology manuscript off to Zarahemla today--550 pages long, 27 contributors, and it's gonna be AWESOME--but that's another post.

The post today is about our wonderful trip to Yellowstone from August 6-9. (Has it been THAT long since I've posted? Sheesh.) What I'll do is provide some photos and a little commentary. The photos speak for themselves pretty well.

Except I didn't take pictures on day one. Day one we drove to Jackson, through Lava Hot Springs. I hadn't been to Lava since I was a teenager--and even then I only remember it very vaguely--in fact, part of me wonders if I've even been there at all or just think I have because it seems like I should've. BUT, now I can say with confidence I've been to Lava, even if I don't have photographic evidence. Took the kids to the hot pools (too hot, left), then took them to the regular swimming pool (temperature just right, stayed) where they enjoyed the diving platforms and super fast water slides. We spent a few hours there and skipped town just as the storm clouds started rolling it. It was the story of our trip, in fact: constantly escaping the storm clouds.

We used Forrest's hotel points to stay at a Hilton Homewood Suites--an otherwise pricey place in a resort town like Jackson Hole. Luckily we didn't have to pay because it was kinda teensy. Like a hotel suite that had been put inside a shrinky-dink oven--everything was like 33% smaller than you'd expect. (Remember shrinky dinks?). Our bed was nice though. Comfy bed. And I'm all about the suites when traveling with kids. "Kids! Turn down Nickelodeon! We're going to bed!" [Close door, silence, mmmmm. . . .]

So, despite dire warnings of thunderstorms all weekend, we woke up Friday to lovely sunny skies in Jackson and took the kids first thing to the Alpine slide.


It took all my courage to take this picture because, what with my irrational fear of heights, I had to let go of the safety bar, unzip the camera case, take the picture, put the camera away and rezip camera case. I was very proud of myself. I was going to take a picture of Forrest and Wyatt behind me but I didn't dare: first because I'd have to twist around, second because I'd have to actually LOOK at Wyatt wiggling on that ski lift. Give me strength.

But we made it to the top without anyone flinging himself--accidentally on on purpose--off the lift, much to my relief. Everybody had a great time on the slide. Well, except Jonas. He was a little too light to make his slide go very fast and kind of put-putted down the hill, much to the consternation of the teenage girl who got stuck behind him. Sorry, teenage girl. Jonas did his best.
And this is a picture of Wyatt, just because he's cute and smiley and I like the sun in his hair.


Whilst in Jackson, we visited the Grand Tetons, taking a boat on Jenny Lake to a hiking trail and pretty waterfall in the mountains. Observe:

Forrest (stubble, cool dude sunglasses), lake, mountains, sky, fellow hat-wearing boat passengers.

All my favorite people, sitting on a rock, looking happy.

Kids. Posing.

Ethan and Jonas spent a fair amount of time scrambling up rocks--and I would have, too, had I not been a 37 year old woman who recently sprained her ankle stepping into a hole coming down the hill after watching a musical at Sundance. (See previous post.) The reason I would have is because the hiking path was SUPER crowded. One of the problems of having a boat deposit you at the foot of a hiking trail is that everybody on the boat heads out on the hike at the exact same time, so at times it felt more like we were in line for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad instead of meandering through God's country.

And the crowded trails also explains why Wyatt spent a lot of time in this position. Wyatt, he doesn't DO lines. Nope. He also has a bit of a patience problem. So he was either pushing between the legs of the hikers in front of us or trying to follow his brothers up the rocks or running down paths in that pell-mell way toddlers do, scaring me to death. Either way, it was the teensiest bit exasperating. So while Jenny Lake was beautiful, it was marred a bit by Wyatt and even more by ME being annoyed by Wyatt. Sorry, family. Glad some of you were able to escape me by climbing up a rocky mountainside.

Mom has to be grumpy at least once per vacation. It's a rule. I got over it. By the time my parents came to join us in Jackson I was full of good cheer, and we headed out for a chuckwagon dinner and show. Turned out that the company I chose after reading good reviews online--the Bar T5 Ranch--is run in part by some Wilkeys, which means they're almost family! Pretty cool! And put on a good show they did.

Grandma, Jonas, Ethan and Elise waiting for the action to begin. (Doesn't Grandma look cute in that picture?)

Mom & Kids, on the actual chuckwagon. Or is it just a wagon? Is the chuckwagon the one with the food on it? I don't know my cowboy terminology very well.

Grandma and Grandpa Sweat. ANOTHER good picture, this time of both of them. Don't they look great? And the pretty evening sunshine and beautiful hills behind them?



I had to include a shot of the "I See Wywatt!" face. This is what Wyatt would say every time I took a picture. He is obsessed with seeing himself on the camera screen. I've tried to tell him "You know, son, back in the day we had to wait for WEEKS to see our pictures. And half of them were terrible! You kids with your instant gratification . . ." but he wasn't interested in listening. I guess if I was as good lookin as Wyatt I'd want to see myself all the time too.

While on the wagon we were attacked by "Indians." The whole thing struck me as mildly racist (white kids in war paint screaming like maniacs pretending to kill us, etc. etc.) but I suppose we can put racism aside for a time in the name of authentic cowboy entertainment. Although if I was a Native American I might disagree. The kids sure liked seeing the horses racing by, though--but Wyatt was a little freaked out by one girl who was particularly committed to super-shrill screaming.

After a tasty meal, we had some real cowboy entertainment with a band that was surprisingly good. Forrest (of course) was called up on stage, because whenever adults are pulled out of audiences to do something mildly silly (like wear a teeny tiny cowboy hat and say "Hi, Babe!" and the appropriate time during a rendition of "She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain"), well, Forrest usually gets picked. Must be something about his aura.

They invited all the kids to come up and join, so Ethan, Elise and Jonas had a good time up there too.

The next morning, we left Jackson Hole behind and headed to Yellowstone itself. First stop? Lake Yellowstone:
It's a really big lake, and beautiful. Reminded me of Minnesota.

Mom & kids, accosted by vapors at a hot pot spot.

And lo and behold! Our first buffalo sighting! The funny thing about this particular sleeping buffalo is that traffic had came to a complete stop then inched along for over an hour just outside of Lake Yellowstone. What I couldn't figure out was why the traffic on our side had stopped, but the traffic on the other side was whizzing along just fine. Well, when we came to this particular fellow we understood the slow traffic: everybody was stopping and taking pictures. But why weren't the people coming from the north interested? Well, this is why:

Turns out the Hayden River Valley is LOUSY with buffalo. (Bison? I never know which to say. It's like "Latino" and "Hispanic." I know there must be a distinction and the fact that I'm not quite aware of it makes me nervous.) But we rounded the bend after getting so excited over our one sleepy buffalo and they were suddenly everywhere. No wonder the people coming from the north were whizzing by. They'd been there, seen that.
We let the kids get out, but they never got any closer than this to the buffalo. Was that negligent of us? I did some quick motherly calculations and I figured if the buffalo started charging they'd have just enough time to leap back into the Tahoe to safety. But none of the buffalo seemed at all interested in charging, as a matter of fact.



These ones actually mosey-ed out right in front of us and hung out in the middle of the road for a while. It was cool.

We also saw some cool scenery, including this waterfall. Unfortunately, the sleeping-buffalo traffic jam made it impossible to see as much of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone as I would have liked---but we had to get to West Yellowstone by 5:00 for our horseback riding.

We also saw some elk, a cool eagle, and lots and lots of Lodgepole pine--and it was really neat to see the areas that had been burned twenty years ago and how they're coming back. The kids, though, weren't as interested in looking out the window as we were. Luckily they had books, DVDs, iPods and Warm Bebe to help them pass the time. (I think Jonas read pretty much constantly this trip. He even read when the buffalo was crossing the road in front of us. I suppose I should be glad he's reading??)

So! On to horseback riding! We arrived in West Yellowstone and checked into the Holiday Inn just in time (no suite this time--instead we were give a "honeymoon" type room with a gigantic two person tub in the middle of it, which the kids found hilarious). Grandpa and Grandma graciously agreed to stay with Wyatt while we took the big kids to a great ranch just outside of town. The clouds were dark and threatening, though, and I was a little afraid we were going to get rained on the whole time.

I love this picture.

Heading out on the trail.
We wound up through the mountains. And our horses were beautiful! Really well taken care of and well-behaved. (Except Ethan's was a little piggy. No matter how hard Ethan tried he wouldn't stop eating. That's probably what he was doing as I snapped this picture.)

Considering Jonas was just old enough to come on the trip, he did a great job handling his mighty steed. I also love how he has his hoodie on, THEN his cowboy hat. Suburban cowboy?




I love, love, love this picture. What a beautiful spot! And Elise looks so happy. If anybody loves to be riding a horse, it's her.

Miracle of miracles, we finished the ride without a drop of rain hitting us, even though the guide guaranteed us we'd get wet. Although it was a bit chilly, we couldn't have asked for a better ride. One of the highlights of the trip, for sure.

On our final day there we headed out to see Yellowstone's signature attraction, Old Faithful. Once again luck was on our side as we pulled up 15 minutes before she was scheduled to blow. (And isn't it amazing that Old Faithful IS that faithful? I had this vague feeling that, while the geyser had been spouting off for, I don't know, thousands of years, today would be the day that she finally went kaput. I mean, that's a lot of spouting.)

Grandma and Wyatt, patiently waiting.
Along with hundreds of other folks, also patiently waiting.

Soon, she started to hiss and spit, and then . . .
Kaboom! Right on time. Amazing.

So we saw a few more sights that day--burbly pots, sulphuric emissions, and all sorts of cool natural wonders--but eventually Wyatt had to hop on Dad's shoulders and head out of the park. (You can tell it's the last day of the trip by the seriousnes of Forrest's scruff. Look at all that gray in his beard! Since when am I married to an old dude!?!?! Good thing he's still so ruggedly handsome.)

We had a wonderful time, and I'm so glad my mom and dad got to come along too. I can hardly believe the summer's almost over! Elise and Jonas have already started up with school again and Ethan begins 8th grade in just a few days. Which reminds me: I have some catch-up posts to do. But at least the Yellowstone Trip is hereby memorialized. Thanks, Blogger, for helping me keep the memories fresh.