Fri, July 18 – Left around noon, arrived in Colorado AirBNB. Lovely home, well-appointed, lots of space, but they plugged in air freshners Joy was allergic to. Four bunk beds to sleep in, one large enough for Joy and me. They provided breakfast foods and water bottles in the fridge, which was special and welcome. I cooked things up at night to be reheated the next morning so we could leave first thing. The kids were particularly impressed by their outdated technologies: a record player, a Playstation 2, and an 8-track!
Nia: “It stank, and we found four different scent dispensers
in the house. We removed them but we’re sure there were more because it still
smelled in the morning.”
JT: “It was really nice. I liked being on the top bunk for
once. It had stairs”
Nia: “I couldn’t sleep because it kept creaking. But I liked
the pretzel.”
Sat July 19 – We drove through CO and WY to reach Logan via
Bear Lake. It was a small AirBNB: two rooms with large beds and one child on
the couch. There was barely enough room with our luggage for us to walk around.
The tree dropped a LOT of pollen on us. On the other hand, when I mentioned to
the owner that we needed something, it was on our doorstep the next morning
complete with four breakfasts from McD’s.
We stopped at the USU Creamery for ice cream. Nia stayed in
the bathroom until her stomach calmed down.
Hyrum: “The ice cream was really good.”
Nia: “The leaves were sticky, so we kept tracking them into
the house, and the couch was dusty so you had to go to the store to get a
sheet. But they had funny signs decorating the house: ‘Welcome-ish, depending
on who you are and how long you plan on staying.’ I was badly homesick for the first
week.”
Nia: “He had throwing stars too! Plus a punching bag”
JT: He’s an actual ninja!
Hyrum: I really enjoyed spending time with Christopher. We
played on the Switch and talked and played board games.
Nia: We played Boomerang Fu and Christopher got a caffeinated
hot sauce powerup chasing a bunch of chocolate milks around!
We gave my brother the Trogdor board game for his birthday.
Mon 21 – We visited Joy’s youngest brother, Dustin, and his family.
We played outside with bottle rockets, a homemade slip and slide, and water balloons launched by a 3-person slingshot. Joy, Christine, and Nia made dessert. We also played Robo Rally, which Joy had been eagerly looking forward to. Nia attached herself to Eva, their youngest, and watched three Chinese/Korean animated movies. Christine showed us the impressive drafting work she has been doing.
Nia: Christine gave me yarn!
Joy: We need the recipe for that treat still.
Hyrum: We also played fox tail and Minecraft.
Nia: Also, they had this cool closet, and you crawl through
the bottom half of the wall into someone’s bedroom!
Tue 22 – I drove Hyrum and Nia to the Bountiful temple to do
baptisms. We picked up the rest of the family and a glorious Chinese dish known
reverently in the family as “tiny spicy” chicken. When JT was a toddler, he
loved tiny spicy so much, we joked he was now made up of 2-5% chicken by
weight. We bought enough to share not only with Fran’s family, but also brought
a case to Doug the next day. Abby’s children came by for a visit. They didn’t
remember us, but they are still adorable.
On our way out of town, we tried an ice cream shop Casey
recommended because of its excellent non-dairy Dole whip for JT. Then we drove
to Bountiful and stayed in a very spacious basement AirBNB.
JT: The Dole whip was awesome!
Nia: I loved that place because I got a room all to myself
and I was so happy about it.
Hyrum: The birdies we used had lost their spring [the nose
cone] and we couldn’t be like Nephi and make our own, so we had to use them
without the nose cone. That was still fun, just, they broke faster.
Nia: We got to meet Anna-Mariah’s family – her mom and brother.
Cal may have given me a high-five, but he also might have been pushing my hand
away.
JT: He walked on the table and really enjoyed trying that
out.
Tue 23 – In the morning we joined Joy’s brother Doug and his
daughter Paris. Doug was so excited to see us, he ran out of the house, waving
his arms and jumping around to direct us where to park like a gigantic golden retriever.
He had a present for us and a scavenger hunt to find it that let him show us
some of the many improvements he had made to his house and his neighbor’s koi
pond. The present was a game of Uno with Giant cards, each card about the size
of a half-sheet of paper. They are very difficult to shuffle but we laugh each
time we play with them. The kids bounced on the trampoline while the sprinkler
doused them and Nia set a record for modified trampoline jumping jacks without
a break. We watched the live action/CGI remake of “How to Tame Your Dragon,”
which was surprisingly good. Paris graduated high school and is starting at
Snow College. Kari joined us after dinner and we drove to the AirBNB home in
Provo that would be our base of operations for the next week.
Nia: He called himself “The Pirate of the Great Salt Lake”
[who buried the treasure we were seeking]. The decoder toy was cool. They have
a tree house and I climbed up the ladder to look into it. I’m kind of sad I
didn’t climb all the way into it, but oh well.
Joy found a message in her junk mail last week from the
online high school we’re trying to get Nia into. It warned us that we needed to
set up a meeting with their counselor to schedule classes this week or her
application would be dropped! We hurriedly set up the appointment and waited
for their call on the 23rd that didn’t come. Worried, we sent them a
message asking if they were just behind schedule or what more we needed to do.
Turns out, we had the wrong day! We set a new appointment and were eventually
successful in signing her up for classes with iUniversity Prep. It was a pretty
stressful few days.
Nia: I am officially an owl! [Their mascot] Woo-woo-woo! [owl calls]
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