Koala bears!

This cute little Koala is a little out of focus, because she was climbing the bamboo in the backyard. Oh, you need a clear shot? Here you go.

She’s a pretty dang cute Koala if you ask me.

(July 24th)

Jameson has figured out letters, and how they correlate with people. I came home from my activity with the young women Tuesday night, and found Jameson still awake. I couldn’t get too upset, because he was so excited to show me his letters he drew.

Don’t ask me why, “M” is for Mom, but “K” is for Kevin. Not sure why I don’t get a “B” but oh well. His “J’s” are backward every time, and “A” is for his friend, Abby. He also drew his head and neck, but not his body. Maybe another time.

I think he’s doing pretty good for a 3 year old, don’t you?

(July 24th)

Kevin thought Ella eating her noodles was hilarious…

She thought so, too, and wanted a high five. This girl loves to eat. I rarely have a problem trying to get her to eat, it’s just if she wants what I’m giving her or something else. Jameson, on the other hand, is a whole lot more picky.

Jameson spent the whole afternoon playing outside, trying to catch a butterfly in his net. He tried so hard, but to no avail, the butterfly got away.

He tried so hard. Because of all of his efforts, his feet looked like this by the end of the day.

Time for a bath.

(July 2oth)

And now, bike riding skills. That’s right. Jameson is now the proud rider of a 2 wheel bike without training wheels. Kevin decided to try taking his training wheels away to see how he would do. Instead of taking them off, he just turned them up. Then, if Jameson didn’t catch on, he could just twist them back down rather having to put them back on. He had his knee pads on, elbow pads, and helmet and was ready to go.

Kevin held his seat, and ran along side him for a few times down the hill, but then… he took off. Check him out!

It took about 3 days before he no longer needed help getting started. After a few more days, we took the training wheels off completely. Now he is an all out bmx biker over the bumps in the grass.

(July 16th)

We planned to go on a whale watching trip to Friday Harbor with some friends. We also were really smart and thought it would be better to make it a day trip and save some money. Really not sure if it was worth it.

Our day started at about 5:20 am. We got up and ready to go, packed lunches, diaper bags, and other things needed. The Larsens met us at 6 am. We made the 2 hour drive north, and got ferry tickets from Anacortes to Friday Harbor. The ferry left at 9 am, so we had some time to let the kids play. We took some pictures, but I no longer have those. My card got wiped clean before I could save the pictures from our trip. Sometimes, I hate digital.

We took the hour long ferry ride, and tried to give the kids some breakfast. Kevin passed out, because he took Dramamine the night before to help with sea sickness. Instead, it caused him to pass out every chance he got. We got off the ferry, and 10 minutes later, we were on our whale watching boat. Ella was not allowed outside of the covered area, which was not good for me. It was a really foggy day, in fact, we were worried we wouldn’t be able to see the whales. This meant there was nothing to focus on, because you couldn’t see any land.

So while I was stuck in the covered area with nothing to focus on, I got sick. I laid Ella on the bench, and asked one of the ladies if they had barf bags, or if right over the side is preferred. I made Kevin switch me spots (he was out in the open air), and the ladies gave me ginger chews. I’m proud to say, I made it through the entire boat ride without losing my breakfast.

We started to head out south, but then heard the whales were spotted in Canadian waters, so we turned north. We had a wildlife watcher on the boat, so any pictures I post will be taken from her website. Her name is Monica Wieland, and it was actually nice to sit by her. They spotted way more animals than I ever would have.

Because we were on the boat, once the whales were spotted, we trailed along side them. By law, the boats had to stay 200 meters away from the whales. We saw lots of whales. We followed one group of 5, but saw 3 or 4 different groups as we trailed beside them. If you go to her website, she knows the names of all the whales we saw.

The fog actually cleared for a bit for us. Jameson loved the whales! Ella woke up for them, too. She talked her baby babble and pointed at them also. When I told Jameson we were going to see whales, he said, “But Mom. What kind of whales? Orca whales, or shark whales, or a different whale?” I didn’t know. Dang kids shows. Telling him a we were seeing a whale wasn’t good enough, he had to know what kind of whale, and I don’t know kinds of whales.

As soon as he saw them he shouted, “Mom, it’s an orca whale!” He couldn’t get enough. We were even able to see a few tail slaps as a few played in the water, and a few breaches.

Again, check out her website for other whale and wildlife photos. She has more pictures of these same whales on a better day.

Soon the boat started to turn, and we realized the whales were chasing us. We had followed the whales right back to the islands, and returned to the dock around 1:30pm. As we were getting off the boat, and I was getting Ella strapped to my back, the sickness hit again. Luckily, I made it off the boat and lost it over the side of the dock while holding onto another boat. Poor Ella was strapped to my back during all this, and Kevin had no clue. My friend turned around in time to see me lose it, and yelled at Kevin to go help me. Luckily, I was the last one off the boat, so at least it wasn’t in front of everyone. I had a half opened ginger chew in my hand that I just couldn’t get in my mouth fast enough. My recommendation? Never ever stand in the covered area on the boat. Stay out in the open air.

I did feel better afterward, and we went and got the kids ice cream. We played around and watch the boats until it was time to board the ferry. Once again, Kevin fell asleep on the ferry. He tried hard to stay awake, but it just wasn’t happening. We got back to our cars around 5 and headed home. We called some other friends to meet us at Olive Garden for dinner. We had a group of 17 with 8 adults and 9 kids under 5. Our waitresses loved us. Actually, they said they couldn’t believe how good the kids were.

We got home around 9:30 that night, and we all went to bed. We were exhausted. I’m still not sure if it was worth it. It was fun to see the whales, and to see Jameson get so excited. His dad made the mistake of asking him if we should bring one home, jokingly of course. The next day Jameson was so concerned. He said, “Mom, we forgot to bring our orca whale home.” Great. Hopefully, we’ve filled the void for now by finding a small plastic one he can bring with him at the store. I just don’t think a whale would fit in our house.

(July 13th)

Kevin has been working hard fixing up his new project. I found Kevin repainting his grill in the backyard…

I also found a little boy who wants to be just like his dad fixing his tractor. Or car, I’m not sure.

(Tuesday, July 12th)

I took the kids to their first rock concert. It was out of control, let me tell you. Every Tuesday, the Redmond library has concerts on the grass behind it. This week, the “Not It’s” were playing. They are a children’s rock band. Ella did what she does best, eat. She sat with me and ate our lunch the entire time.

Free milk and fruit bars were given out. Jameson sat with me, while all his friends headed to the front and rocked it. He hates loud noises, so he stayed far away from the speakers.

He finally became brave enough to go up to the front. He did not enjoy it as much as the girls did.

They were right by the speakers, to his credit. He is a wuss when it comes to loud noises, though. The band was fun, and are actually one of the top kids bands in the area.

While we were on Trek, my Dad got to play with our kids. Some of the things they did…

(Taken by my dad)

“Taking care of my grandkids is a breeze. Play cars with Jameson, Ella slept till 9, now a little breakfast. But it’s only been 2 hrs out of 3 days. It’s going to be an interesting time! :)”

“They’re so innocent when asleep. 🙂 (they both have been so good to me)”

“Spent the afternoon at Ballard’s Lock watching the boats go thru and listening to some chamber music in the park.”

I am told they went to Burger King and McDonald’s, along with the Ballard Locks. I guess an orchestra was playing outside, so the kids got to dance around. Dad also found a love of wet wipes.

We made it home Saturday by about 5 pm. Ella and Jameson were so excited to see us. They did not want to sit still for a picture with Grandpa, though.

Thanks for all your help, Dad!

Saturday morning, we got our breakfast made, and packed up our camp. It was our day to leave first, and we told our kids that if we were packed, we could be the first ones in line within our company. After breakfast, we had a morning devotional and testimony meeting. The kids were given letters to read that their bishops had written for them.

The night before, at our dinner, we had told our kids the history of their names. Of our kids had picked the brother. He was in his 40s, and lived through being struck by lightening. A month before reaching Utah, he died of dysentery. The rest of our family lived to reach Utah. At the meeting Saturday morning, they asked everyone who represented a person that died to stand up. Quite a few stood up, and really set the the tone for our testimony meeting.

After the meeting, we headed back to our camp, and got our wagon. We were the first wagon ready, which meant we were first in line for our journey back down the mountain. As we waited for the other wagons in our company to gather, and the vehicles to head down the mountain ahead of us, we made the kids take a picture.

Back row- Peter, Emma, Marie, Ashley, Gabby, David

Front Row- Vincent, Aaron

Our company was finally ready to head out. Because it was such a steep hill, and downhill the entire way down, we were told to turn the wagons around. This way, no one was in front of the wagon in case it got out of control. It also allowed for more braking power for the wagon. I walked a lot of the way with President Yost, our company commander. He set the pace for our company, and that way, I could hear his radio. The kids cruised down the hill, only slipping a few times. Our wheel actually broke, right out of camp, but since it was just a spoke and not effecting our travel, we left it alone. It was fine the rest of the way down.

About a mile from the bottom, we got word that a truck needed to be sent up for someone in the last company. She had taken a Benadryl, and it had really affected her.  The road was only wide enough for a car, so we all pulled over and waited. By this point, we had passed a few different sets of people. A group of 4-wheelers passed us close to the top. I’m pretty sure they took a picture of us. The lady actually said, “This is so cool.” as we walked passed.

The next was two trucks with dirt bikes. Those guys didn’t seem to excited as we traveled passed. They really looked annoyed. I looked at them and smiled while saying, “There’s about 20 wagons behind us.” I’m sure that didn’t make them too happy.

The last set of people was a family on horses. They looked at us and laughed saying we looked like we needed horses. We told them we sure did, and we asked to borrow theirs. The daughter looked at us, and asked, “What are those.” We smiled and told them, “Handcarts.” I’m sure it looked even more confusing, because we were pushing them backwards down the hill.

Originally, we were supposed to wait a little further down the hill, and gather everyone together. The parents were waiting at the bottom, and they wanted us all to enter together, without breaks between the companies. Since we had to wait for the truck, we regrouped further up the hill. The last mile, all 21 wagons were together.

We were the first wagon to enter the valley, coming out of the mountain. The parents lined the trail and sang “Come, Come Ye Saints.” What a thrill the saints must have felt as they entered the Salt Lake Valley. We made our way to the trailers, unloaded our wagon, and the men there to help immediately started to break the wagon down. There was a pulled pork lunch for the us and the parents. Once all our kids gathered their stuff, and were with a parent, Kevin and I asked if anything more was needed of us. Our task was complete, so after I got some allergy medicine, we got in our car and headed home. I called home to check on my Dad with the kids, and to let him know we were on our way. We survived.

I awoke to the sun, and saw some people moving around. I got up and found out it was 6:45 am. We had a Ma and Pa meeting at 7, so I got up and ready and woke Kevin up. We had our meeting, and found out it was about 40 degrees that morning. We were informed of the days events, and what was to come. The different trials they were going to put the kids through, including starting the day with only bread and jam. We got back to our camp and woke our kids up. Each day we assigned a head boy and girl. They were in charge of getting meals, heading up the wagon, and the other details of the day.

The kids went to retrieve breakfast while the others started taking down our camp. They came back with bread, butter, and jelly. They couldn’t believe that’s all they were getting (We knew this wasn’t their real breakfast). Kevin cracked open his smuggled can of soda in front of all of them, so as a peace offering, we gave them each a chocolate Hershey bar. So they did get a little more than others that morning.

Our company was set to set off 2nd that day at 9 am. We thought it would warm up as we started walking, so we put our coats in the wagon. Big mistake. We were freezing the entire morning, but didn’t want to have to untie our wagon to get our coats. This probably did not help out my sickness.

The road was as rocky as a river bed, which made the carts difficult to pull, and even harder to walk on. We kept having to stop and wait for others in the company as wagon wheels broke. One family in our company had 3 brakes by lunchtime, one wheel broke twice. After about 2 miles, we came up to a stop where we learned about the food the pioneers ate. A few stories were told, one being about a man who would sleep with his family’s provisions under his pillow. In the middle of the night, he felt a hand reach under his pillow. He told the man that if he were to take food from the mouths of his children, then he would not live to see Zion. That night, the man who tried to steal the food passed away. The pioneers faced many trials, and food was scarce. Once the stories were told, the kids were told to walk over to the trees, and their hot sausage mcmuffins were waiting for them.  The point was made about how the pioneers had to pull the carts on empty stomachs, but these kids did not sign up for a starvation trek, and neither did I.

The funny part was we knew about this stop, so about a half mile before, Kevin started talking to the kids about how good a McMuffin from McDonald’s sounds. He talked about the dripping bacon and hot sausage with melted cheese. He got them all worked up, till the kids were telling him to be quite about food. So after the stories were told and they were given  their hot mcmuffins, they all turned to Kevin yelling, “You knew!’ Of coarse we knew. We just laughed at them.

We continued on a few more miles, and came upon an “Indian.” She told stories of how the Indians would help the pioneers, and entertain them. Sometimes, the worst would happen, but usually, there was friendly interactions. She gave directions speaking her “native language” and had a translator relate where our direction were to go. (It was really funny, because I know her, and she was speaking Romanian.) She would also give a 30 second direction, and then the translation would be 2 words. The kids loved it.

She directed us to a pond that we had to cross. It was about 20×30 ft of snow run off water. There, they told the story of the 3 teenage boys who helped carry the whole Martin company across the icy river…

In October 1856, Brigham Young learned they were in deep trouble. The semi-annual conference was about to begin, so during the conference, he asked for volunteers to form a rescue party. The rescuers found them, bringing food and help. However, by the time they reached the Sweetwater River, the people in the Martin Handcart Company were very weak from having been hungry and cold for so long. The very deep, wide, and icy cold river was more than they could handle and they were afraid their journey would end right there, because they weren’t strong enough to cross it. Three teenage boys from the rescue party, George W. Grant, David P. Kimball, and C. Allen Huntington, took matters into their own hands and decided to carry people across. Those three boys carried almost every member of the handcart company themselves. However, this came with a price, as heroism often does. They became quite ill themselves from the strain and the challenges of spending so much time in icy water with heavy loads. Eventually—years after their heroic actions—they all died from complications of that day of heroism. Brigham Young was moved by their sacrifice and cried when he learned what they’d done.

Two of our girls decided to walk around the water. One had finally gotten warm, and didn’t want to freeze in the water, the other was a pretty small girl who would have been waist deep in the water. They helped me collect the shoes of those pulling the cart through the water, and we walked around. Last minute, Kevin jumped in to help the kids with the cart. We were told we had the fasted cart through the water, which resulted in one of our girls becoming drenched. She was basically pushed by the cart through the water.

Peter did not have a drop of water on his pants. I can’t believe he got them up that high.

We made it out of the water and continued on till lunch. It wasn’t much further, and the kids were all hyped from the water crossing. We didn’t have that long at lunch, because we were behind schedule. We were actually the last to leave lunch, because we had to unpack and get something out of the wagon for one of the girls. We hike for a few miles, and then met another leader. They explained how along the trail, the men were often taken away for different reasons, and the women were left to pull the cart. The men were sometimes called to serve missions, had to hunt, died, and other reasons that left the women alone.

At that point, the boys were taken off on their own hike, and us girls were left. The Stake Young Women’s President spoke to the girls about the strength women showed along the trail, and after they arrived to Salt Lake. She told a story of a young woman who’s father was called to Settle “The Muddy” (which was actually the Las Vegas valley if I remember right). She cried, and her friend asked why? She said that their fathers had just been called to go to “The Muddy.” The friend replied, “Yes, but why cry? My father will never go.” The girl replied, “But my father will, and I should not call him father if he didn’t.” Or something along those lines. What respect this girl had for her father and his mission call.

I think the girls pulled the hardest part of the whole day. I grabbed one of the boy’s gloves before he left, and the girls were surprised I was going to help. I hadn’t helped them up until this point. I didn’t feel like my help is necessarily needed when there is 8 of them, and now there was only 4. Most of the trail up until this point was relatively flat, just bumpy. While just the girls were pulling, we actually faced a few hills. It was not the easiest, but the girls were tough, and didn’t complain. The boys joined us after 2 miles on a steady incline. They walked silently beside us for about .5 mile. Some of the boys took their hats off to show respect to the girls. They had been given a talk about missionary work. We finally reached “Independence Rock” and were given fresh cold oranges. From there, it was just the 2 mile trek home. In all, the kids pulled about 10-11 miles that day.

We all signed the Rock.

We got back into camp, and had to find a new place to set up. We had one base location, but each night they switched the area we were supposed to camp in. We built a better tent that night, in hopes to stay warmer. There was a burn ban, so we could only heat the coals to cook our food, and then had to put them out. We were freezing. We made our dinner, and then it was time for the Ho Down. The kids were tired, and really didn’t want to go, but after telling them there was no choice, they all had a good time. One of our boys even ended up serenading the crowd at the after party.

There was an array of desserts for everyone, and dust caked the air. We collected our kids, and around 10 pm, made it back to camp. We even had a few extras we had to kick out. That night, I slept much better, but I’m pretty sure the exhaustion had set in.