The wheels on the bus

A couple months ago whenever I would take Christopher to and from swim lessons, we would pass by a school bus depot or farm or corral or whatever it's called.  Otherwise known as The Place Where School Buses Are Kept When Not In Use. 

He would see those buses and get all excited and say things like, "That's my school bus!", so I got to thinking how it would be fun for him to see a bunch of  school buses up close.

I knew just the lady to call.

My mom is a school bus driver here in Utah and was happy to lead us on a field trip to her place of work.

Christopher was so excited.  He was positively giddy. 

We looked at rows and rows of buses (There were almost 200)

and we climbed in a few of them,

and the kids even got to sit in the driver's seat.

Then we got to go to the service areas, and because my mom befriended the service guys who work on the buses, they were happy to give us a tour.  It was actually pretty interesting.

"School buses go up, up, up!"

I think this was the highlight of Christopher's summer.  We even went back a second time, and will probably be back a third.  It's like Disneyland and Christmas all rolled into one.

~~~~~~~

"The driver on the bus says 'move on back, move on back, move on back.' "- unknown

fly me to the moon

Since we were already in Idaho, and weren't in any rush to get back to Salt Lake by a certain hour, we took a little detour to go check out Craters of the Moon.  It's a national park consisting of miles and miles of old lava fields.   I remember my parents taking me there when I was little, and thought my kids might like it.

We used to go up to Idaho all the time because that's where my grandparents lived.  My dad was born and raised in Idaho Falls, and we would make the four hour trek up there about a couple of times a year.  (I didn't know how good I had it.  I thought four hours in a car was an eternity.   It's three times that for my kids to see theirs.  ) 

Side note- we stopped in Idaho Falls for lunch, but I didn't even recognize the place.  It had probably been 20 years since I'd been to my grandparents house, and I had no idea how to even get there.  I've been told though that it's totally changed though.  According to my dad there is a "big ugly metal roof" on the top of the house, and the flower beds were ripped out to make way for a wheelchair ramp.

Anyway, upon seeing that we were fairly close to Craters of the Moon, I thought we could go check it out.

It was still pretty cool. 

The kids liked it too.

They had some caves and we were able to check out a couple, but because we were woefully unprepared to go hiking and climbing, (most of us were in flip flops, we had no water and no flashlights) we had to skip the better caves, and stick to the easy, well lit ones.

Interesting fact- these lava fields were not caused by a volcano. Just a series of cracks and such.  I seriously spent some time wondering where the volcano was.  Apparently lava doesn't need a volcano.

So that was fun.  We walked around until we got hot and tired.

The kids climbed around and explored and saw something they had never seen before, and best of all expended some of that restless energy that seems to buildup in car rides.

That's a win-win in my book.

~~~~~~

"Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars.  Let me see what spring is like on a Jupiter and Mars." - Frank Sinatra

row, row, row your boat...

Knowing that we would be heading up to Utah for the summer, a few months ago I started looking for coupons and good deals on things we could do with the kids.

Despite the fact that it wasn't exactly in Utah,  I couldn't pass up a deal on a half day river rafting trip down the Salmon River for our whole family in the tiny town of Stanley, Idaho.

It took a little wrangling, and John had to fly out of the teeny tiny airport in Hailey, Idaho, but we made it work.   He sent me this text with this picture-

"Gotta love prop airplanes.  I guess I am just spoiled :)"  (prop airplanes are noisier and slower)

Side story- As we were driving through town in Hailey, I looked out the window and spotted a building I recognized and said- "Hey! The Mint! I've been in that bar!"  I worried my children a bit until I clarified with this story- Once, a long, long time ago, when I was in college (and only like 19) I went on a road trip with my friend Christine.  They had a condo in Sun Valley, Idaho and we had to drive through Hailey.  She wanted to stop and use the excuse that we needed to use the restroom just so that we could go into the bar, because at that time it was owned by Bruce Willis and Demi Moore.  So we did. We went in, we peed, and we left without a celebrity sighting. :(  Of course the giant "For Sale" sign in the window almost 20 years later came as no big surprise to me, except possibly that it was still there.

The day was cloudy and gray and a bit on the cool side (50's and 60's) and it rained the whole way up that morning. (It was a six hour drive from Salt Lake)  Truthfully I was worried that the trip would be miserable because it would be too cold. 

Fortunately they provided us with all the gear we needed to stay as dry and as warm as possible. 

It was my very first time ever in a wet suit.  I am sure it was not a pretty sight.

And I'd like to mention that while she waited to suit up, Maddie fell in love with Charlie and was ready to bring him home with us. "He's just so sweet!".  Fortunately Charlie already has a good home, so there was no begging and whining from her and me having to be the meanest mom ever and say no.

My other big concern was Christopher.  He has been anti-boat this year, and the whole trip up he would say "No boat.  No boat.  I throw rocks in the water.  No boat."

But after awhile, he finally accepted his fate.  We showed him the blue rafts on the trailer behind the little bus we would be riding to the drop off point and back again.  And he was happy to suit up like his big siblings because most of the time he wants to do what they are doing.

And he had fun.

You can't see him in most of these pictures because we strategically placed him in the middle so that we could hold onto him during the biggest of the rapids, but I had a good view of him and he was smiling the whole time.

Our guide, Cita, even stopped at a bank and collected a whole bunch of rocks so that Christopher could chuck them into the river as we floated along.

It wasn't all class 3 rapids. (I think that is what the rapids in these pictures are)

Most of it was pretty tame.

But the scenery couldn't be beat.

The kids are already asking to go back next year, but they are hoping for a wilder ride.

(Even Zach, who clearly doesn't look like he is enjoying himself)

Can't say I blame them.  I enjoy the wilder stuff myself. Ü

~~~~~~

"Row, row, row, your boat, gently down the stream, merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream." - Unknown

Superhero Academy and a Jurassic Journey

With all the fun activities the older two had going on this summer (EFY, trek, girls camp...) I figured it would be fun for Zach to do something that was just for him.  So I signed him up for cub scout day camp again.  Which means I signed myself up for cub scout day camp again because unlike the older two, I can't just drop him off somewhere and say "Have fun!"  But it's all good though.  I think as the middle child a little one-on-one time is always a good thing.

 Of course the conversations I had with people during the course of camp generally went like this-  "Is there really only one kid in your whole den?"  "No, there's lots more, we're just the only ones who wanted to make the drive from Phoenix."  "Really?  You came all the way up here just for cub scout day camp?!?"(they would ask with a look on their faces that clearly indicated I was a couple sandwiches short of a picnic)  "Well, it's hot in Phoenix."

We had fun.  It was hotter than I would have liked.  I think it was like 100 degrees, but there was plenty of shade and we were in a canyon with a little stream running by so it didn't feel quite that bad.

Day one we attended "Superhero Academy".  Many of the camp counselors wore capes and such, and they all had superhero names. Like "The Elementalist" or my personal favorite - "Mama". ( Cause moms have super powers Ü.) 

I do have to mention that Zach and I debated whether the superhero counselors or the Space counselors from last year were the biggest bunch of nerds ever.  We decided it was probably a toss up.  I mean don't get me wrong.  I love nerds, I married one, and I am the mother to at least one, and I think it's great what these kids are doing, they could be spending their summers playing video games instead of teaching little nine year old boys about rocks and knots and stuff, but I mean, wow.

So, day one was fun.  Zach liked shooting BB guns, (I even got the opportunity to shoot too, which was my very first time ever shooting a gun.  For Reals.)

but I think his favorite were the "race cars".  Basically one kid rode while four kids pushed.  He thought that was pretty awesome.

Day two was "Jurassic Journey".  They learned about rocks and dug for dinosaur bones.  

Zach liked shooting with the bow and arrows,

and he bought a sling shot at the trading post which he got to shoot as well. 

Zach's best and worst moments had to do with a particular part of the obstacle course.   He was the very first person to go across the monkey bridge, and despite the counselor being right there holding on, he slipped only moments after I took this picture.

He was stuck on the bridge for what seemed like a full minute, straddling a rope, in a whole heck of a lot of pain.  We finally got him down, and I took him over to a bench where he cried for 15 solid minutes.  (but who can blame him?  Besides being in a lot of pain, he was pretty embarrassed as well. )  When he started to feel a little better, I asked him if he wanted to go try other parts of the obstacle course, and he eventually did,

but even though he had told me over and over while crying that he did not want to do that again, he decided on his own that he did in fact want to give the monkey rope bridge another try.   He was looking forward to jumping off the platform at the end of the bridge onto a giant blue pad, and the only way to get to the platform was to cross the bridge.

And so he did. The bell telling us it was lunch time had rung only moments before, so he knew it was now or never.  The counselor stayed back and helped him as well.  I was so proud of him, it really took a lot of courage for him to try it again.   I am happy to report that he made it all the way across without injury to either body or pride.

Anyway, that's about it. We got dirty, shot stuff, did some fun things, made pet rocks and leather bracelets,

came home with a couple cool souvenirs (besides the sling shot he also got a pretty cool blue and yellow cub scout "survival bracelet" which seems to be all the rage these days)  made some new friends, shot off rockets we made out of paper,

spent some quality time together, had fun, and were able to sign off a few things in his cub scout book.  

Time well spent, I say.

Vernal?!?

A whole week?!?

Okay, so maybe we didn't spend a whole week there this time, only like 5 days, but we do spend a good amount of time in the very small town of Vernal, Utah almost every summer.  And we get our fair share of people who are puzzled by this.

If anybody knows anything about Vernal, it's this- Dinosaurs.  There's a whole bunch of dinosaur bones up in the mountains there, and that's their big claim to fame.   We thought about venturing up to the new and improved dinosaur quarry this year, but we got busy doing other things.

And yes, believe it or not, there is plenty to do in Vernal.   First off, we have awesome friends so even the mundane is enjoyable.

I guess it helped that we went up there over the 4th of July, where we rode our bikes down to Main Street for the parade.  

We were late and so I heard we missed the highlight- the high school drill team on unicycles, but we definitely got our fill of semi trucks, and what seemed like every single company truck in the whole town.  I do not exaggerate- there were THREE Aaron's Rent to Own trucks.  However, besides the load of candy the kids came home with,  Zach scored a free hat out of the deal, so that's good I guess. (We tried to leave it in Vernal, but Zach wouldn't hear of it. )

That night we tagged along with our friends to a barbecue and then watched the city's fireworks display.  Guess what you get when you add Utah's recent lightened laws on personal aerial firework displays and a rash of nearby forest fires causing town rules stating that the ONLY place in the whole town to set off fireworks is the main park?  A seemingly never ending display of fireworks.

At first I am thinking that that's a great idea cause those aerial fireworks are pretty expensive, and if everyone brings theirs, that's quite a show, it's like the ultimate firework block party, except would you believe that after a few hours you were emotionally done, even if the rest of the pyros at the park weren't?  I seriously fell asleep a couple hours later to the sound of small explosions in the distance.

Other activities included swimming at their Rec Center (it has a fun play area and water slides) and trying not to get lost in the labyrinth of caves in the mountains.  We didn't get lost, but we managed to get pretty dirty and smack a few heads on low hanging areas.

We played at a park and Maddie found a little creek/stream/river to play in. 

She's very adventurous, unless she spots a water snake and then she screams like a little girl and her daddy has to come rescue her. Ü

One of the highlights of the week was when we went camping and boating.  

They have a little boat to take out on a lake and go fishing or haul around a kid or two on a tube. The older three had fun on the boat,

and Maddie even did a little bit of cliff diving, (or I guess she's technically cliff jumping)

but Christopher would have none of that.  "No boat. I throw rocks in lake."

So that's what we did.  For hours.  We also found a stick we were pretty excited about.

Of course it wasn't all spelunking and cliff diving.  ALL the children did their fare share of parking their fannies in front of any available wii, xbox, or computer.