Big Family Vacation 2025 part 4 - southern Utah

Payson - the road not taken

Saratoga Springs

Fri Aug 1 was the day of changing plans. We had, like, four different plans for what would happen before the day came. Our original was to go Friday night to the temple in Payson and stay at a new AirBNB that night. But we got everything done in the Provo area we needed to early. So then I found temple baptisms at, like, 6:30am for the kids in Saratoga Springs, so we didn’t have to stick around in Provo for the whole day. We could do baptisms and while they were doing baptisms, one of us would come back and pack the car, then return to pick up the kids and head off to Washington. Then the night before we decided that was a mess and we were all too tired. Even the teenagers were too tired!

JT: Yeah, I wasn’t too tired!

There were 1-2 other plans in there somewhere. So this is what actually happened:

We got a baptismal time around 9am or so, some reasonable hour of the day. We packed up the car all together and went to Saratoga Springs. Hy and Nia performed baptisms and then Joy and I did an endowment session. I used the temple microwave to reheat our Brick Oven pizza for lunch. We tried to do some banking at AFCU to set Hyrum up, but they have problems giving checks to people who are technically still minors. #He’sOnHisOwn

We finally made it on the road to Washington, UT, in the early afternoon, which gave us a foretaste of what driving cross-country without AC was going to be like. Also, one of the rubber/plastic thingies that attaches to the roof of the car had a meltdown. For some time, it’s been coming loose on long drives, but only a couple inches. This time, more than a foot peeled off and it started slapping the car at high frequency – fwap fwap fwap fwap fwap fwap….

Nia: While I was trying to nap! It woke me up!

Got really old really fast! So we got some duct tape and taped it down, which had to be reapplied every couple hours because it melted in the heat and peeled off too! It was during this trip that we also lost a metal Chrysler side-strip, whatever it’s called, on the driver’s door. Just last week, we lost the one on the passenger side. I’m hoping this car makes it to a full 200,000 miles, but we’re at 197,000 right now and we’re driving it pretty hard…. Anyway.

Big Family Vacation 2025 - Part 3 - Provo and BYU

[Derrill's narrations are in black, Joy is in blue. This is an excessively long post, sorry.]

Our AirBNB in Provo was an older home owned by a fun host who set up a scavenger hunt for the kids. The electricity did shut off in the middle of the first night, but we were able to fix it in the morning. Nia slept upstairs in an attic room with four beds all to herself. 

Joy: It was so nice to have central air. I think it was the coolest place we stayed. There was an AC upstairs that we needed to leave on all the time and the labels on the cupboards were helpful. It had a nice dinning area in the living room and some great toys and books for kids that we used latter.

Since our car’s AC wasn’t working the entire trip, such considerations were high on our list. Joy: We had our car checked before we left and the AC in the car had needed to be charged for the second time this summer in hopes of it working for at least the trip, alas.

Nia: They had a welcome sign that mentioned us by name. The scavenger hunt told us to find the rest of the letters and leave them a message in return. Daddy found the letters. I wrote “Thank you for letting us stay” and then put a smiley face using two 1s for eyes and a parenthesis for the smile.

Fri 25 – Today was devoted to touring BYU.  The visitor’s center gave us a tour, then I showed the family around the student center and library. Joy: We had scheduled the tour in advance and the cool thing about it was that it was on a golf cart, not walking.

We got Hyrum his student ID card, then Joy and the kids had lunch at home while Hyrum and I joined the economics faculty for lunch. I really enjoyed getting back together with friends and former teachers. As I gave Hyrum the rundown on the faculty, he was amazed at how many of them had attended Cornell. Joy and co rejoined us to tour the Museum of Art and explore the rest of the campus a bit more. 

Mary and co. leaving the cross

They of the Last Wagon. I particularly liked this painting, based off the tribute by J. Reuben Clark, Jr., to the forgotten, struggling pioneers in the back of the wagon trains.

A sculpture made of hangers

Delicate rainbows made with very thin strands.
Joy: I really loved that.

Big Family Vacation part 2 - Pioneer Day

July 24 is a state holiday in Utah, celebrating the day Brigham Young and company arrived in the Salt Lake Valley and he declared, “This is the place.” Each city has a major celebration planned. We joined the Provo festival two blocks away from our AirBNB from 10-2 and then did fireworks in Orem after dinner. Joy visited her cousin Heather while the rest of us did the Provo festival.

The pioneer village and museum (always there) were both open and populated by folks in period clothing showing off skills like leatherworking and blacksmithing. The kids enjoyed a pioneer version of catch played with sticks and hoops. I was impressed by the hair art (pictued) – people would weave the hair of their departed loved ones to remember them by. At the museum, I noticed (on my mother’s behalf) that there wasn’t any bobbin lace, but lots of crochet. Apparently that was the skill the pioneer women took with them to make pretty things. I laughed about the collection of musical organs they had on display. One told the story of how they acquired it and the previous owners were happy that more people would get a chance to play on it. That story was next to a prominent sign: “DO NOT TOUCH OR PLAY.” More than half a dozen century-old organs and I’m not allowed to touch any. So sad!

Nia: I made a dolly out of corn husks! There were very few places to sit at the museum – one spot next to the bathrooms.

Hy: And the sign said you could only sit in the chair to look at the display case next to it. At every pioneer thing I’ve been to they’ve had that ring toss game and I enjoy it because I like sports.

Nia: I’m terrified to do that again because when I launched the hoop aiming at JT, it flew too far and went through the fence and broke! So I am afraid of doing that again in case I break the toy and ruin it for everyone else. I liked milking the bear.

<We all stare at her. She reminds us.>

One of the toys was a toy, wooden bear that had two ropes through each paw. By pulling on the ropes really fast, alternating back and forth, the bear would “climb” the ropes to the top. This was there to teach the children how to milk a cow.

Nia: So it was milking the bear! You milk the bear up the wall.

Hy: If I tried to milk a bear, I would sure milk it up a wall.

 

They had many games. Despite Hyrum’s great strength, the heavier person won each stick pulling contest.

Nia: Dad pulled Hyrum to the side to win, but I actually went up, so I lost with style!

We did a root beer chug as a family plus one guy we didn’t know. He won. I came a close second and the kids came close to exploding before they finished. That guy incidentally won the citywide root beer chug at noon.

Hy: So you feel less bad?

Yes. Only the winners of the “family” chug got to participate in the full contest. It reassures me that I could have placed better in the rootbeer chug than I did the pie eating contest. I mentioned to some of the other guys in the pie eating contest that if you looked to your side and see someone Way ahead of you, the winning strategy is to slow way down and just enjoy your slice of pie. Turns out the guy next to me was the clear winner, so I slowed down pretty early on and enjoyed it slowly, shared some with the kids. One remarked that they could see when I gave up. There were also food trucks so we could have something resembling real food too.

Hy: JT and I raced ducks. They have two paths of water and we both get a small rubber duckie and a straw that we turn so that when we blow down, the air shoots out forwards. We raced to see who could get our duck to the end fastest. Most of the booths gave prizes for participation. My real success in the festival was in the ring toss. It was very difficult because the bottles in the center were close together, and I got on in the back. They only gave prizes to actual winners at that one, so that felt like my real prizes.

A bunch of crafts were on display. I took pictures of this crochet dragon. We assembled a bucket, which is a lot like a 3D puzzle where you have to put the puzzle pieces in a particular order. Nia and I added to the crochet chain everyone did. There were wood carvers. Joy got a couple miniature pencil sharpeners (a grandfather clock and a grain mill).

Nia: I bought a tiny crochet octopus! There were some really cool earrings!

Joy: It was really cool to be at the pioneer park on Pioneer Day. Since we don’t usually get to be in Utah for the holiday.

The Orem fireworks were Very well attended. We couldn’t find a place to park, so paused our car in the middle of the parking lot and everyone but me got out to watch. An older couple had set out lawn chairs behind their parked car, so we were with them, knowing we weren’t blocking them from getting out. I tried playing some music to go along with the fireworks, but the kids kept asking me to turn it off. ☹  It was a very nice display.

We set off sparklers, poppers, and some flower-works at home afterwards and had a late sleep.

JT: It was really sad when the last flowerwork was a dud.

Nia: It was!

Joy: The fireworks were really neat. We haven’t seen a display like that in a long time.

Nia: The 24^th of July is like a million times better than Stephenville’s celebration of the 4^th!

Hy: I noticed the Y on the mountain was lit up.

Big Family Vacation to Utah 2025, part 1

 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.”

 

Sun July 20 – We attended church with Joy’s sister, Fran, then joined her and her family for the rest of the day. Casey made some wonderful French beef and we brought a pork roast for dinner. We got to meet Christopher and Anna’s baby, Cal. The kids admired Christopher’s sword collection. Joy wheedled Casey into playing Uno with us.

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.

Arrived in Texas

Wed, June 25, about 10:30pm we pulled up to our new home in Glen Rose, Texas. I hadn't realized it had been two solid months since I last posted, and I wanted to remember the last couple weeks. Hopefully more regular blogging will resume. We'll see. In the meantime, here's what we've been up lately.

What we did this summer - Timp

Way back in July, we took the family to Mount Timpanogos to go hiking through the caverns. It was a perfect day to take off. In the canyon it is at least 10 degrees cooler than in Provo/Orem, and of course in the cave it's down in the freezing temperature range.

I had checked Google maps and found out how long it took to get there. We left with oodles of time. We arrived only to discover that Google map only takes you to the entrance to the park. It's another half hour's drive to the ranger station! We drove on in and were told we'd have to book it to make our scheduled tour and that all the tours for the day were packed full so if we missed it they couldn't fit us in later. It's a mile and a half walk (not bad...) straight up (stink...).

"Oh, and you can't use your stroller."








Aack. That's going to make this whole two-year-old-with-us thing much more difficult.

Confessions: Our plan for 2013-14

This has not been a good year for Nigeria. Increasing terrorist attacks, kidnappings, and more, and it seemed to be coming closer and closer to Yola. We were rather frightened and had Joy start shopping only every other week. On top of all the other stresses of last semester, this was too much.

We started contemplating the idea of moving Joy and the kids to the US in early 2014. We would only be apart a couple months - we've had to do that before - and it would give Superstar a chance to start school in the US before first grade .... it sounded nice and safe.

As things got worse, we even started to consider the unthinkable. What if we moved them to the US in summer? We prayed to know if that was what we needed to do to keep them safe and protect them. The answer to our prayers was unexpected.