Mini-Vacation (For Us Girls, at Least!)

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

So toward the middle of September, James had two days of embroidery seminars to teach in Salt Lake City, which necessitated him to stay in the hotel where he'd be teaching. Which prompted him to invite Bethany and me along for a mini-vacation! And although we would have LOVED to attend the two-day seminars about machine embroidery (Bethany, especially, would have been riveted and fascinated the entire time, I'm sure), we decided that while the cat was teaching, the mice would play!

We had three nights in the hotel room, when all was said and done (there's set up and take down at those kinds of things) and Bethany and I just had a blast. Two days of mother/daughter playing time. And we dug it.

The first day, we drove up to Hogle Zoo to spend the day. The first stop? The baby elephant, Zuri. So cute!



And the giraffes. You gotta love the giraffes.



I think the Lord must have chuckled when he made giraffes. Anyway, after we had spent a couple of hours we were thrilled when Nana Karen joined us for the rest of the day! Bethany loved dragging her around:







We're so glad you joined us that day, Karen! It was so fun to hang out with you! After we said goodbye to Karen, we headed back to our hotel. But en route, Bethany finally bit the dust. Actually, we didn't even make it out of the parking lot before she was sound asleep. But I was starving, and needed to eat, so we stopped at Cafe Zupa's on our way back to the hotel. I just held a sleeping Bethany in my lap and I had a nice, quiet lunch all by myself. It was actually really fun!

And that night, Bethie and I went swimming in the hotel swimming pool. We had a great time, despite being joined by two old German men in Speedos. (I'm thinking that old German men in Speedos are always a bit awkward.) But they were fine.

The next day, Bethany and I hit the Discovery Museum at the Gateway. Bethany did NOT want to leave when it came time--we had so much fun and spent the whole morning there! We're definitely going to have to go back to that place and take Daddy this time. Poor Daddy, teaching his embroidery seminars while we played and played and played . . .bless his heart.

But back to the museum. The best was the little store section--we had a ball in there! Although the flash in this picture makes Bethany look like the demon cashier! (I'm thinking this is great material for a Broadway musical? The demon cashier from North Logan? Sweetie Toddler?)



Shopping in the "store" was awfully fun, too--



You know, I really didn't take many pictures at the museum. We were just too busy playing, and playing, and playing!



We then went to have lunch with James' parents, Stan and Kristie, Bethie's "big friends" and Annie. James' Uncle Lynn had just had surgery at the Huntsman Cancer Institute, so after lunch we all went up to the hospital to visit him. It was a nice visit, despite the circumstances, and we were glad to see things had gone well with Uncle Lynn.

And after all of that, we just went back to the hotel and helped take things down from the seminars. Then we went out to dinner at the Olive Garden (at, like, 10:00 at night--MAN were we wild!) and our mini-vacation was done.

Thanks, James, for working so hard so your girls can play!

Labor Day Fun

A week or so after our big "little women" week (see below), we had the fun opportunity to play with more cousins! Bryan and Angie came to visit, with little Lexie and Hoyt in tow. It was Labor Day weekend, and lots of fun to be had!

Here we are at the Labor Day parade in Wellsville, a small town parade all the way with lots of candy throwing, horses, and floats with beautiful girls.



Bethany and Lexie really enjoyed each other!



And my dad always enjoys his little parade buddy:



And the carnival attractions are always a big hit:







Just one question: is it really wrong to pretend your niece is frightened of the bouncy slide and so you need to go with her, when really it's YOU that wants to go down the slide but know that people will look at you askance if you go alone?

Don't answer that.

A Week of Little Women

Man, have I missed blogging! I've missed the time I used to have to blog--or, rather, the time I used to make to blog! So here I am, once again, ashamedly trying to catch up. But better late than never, right? I'll just try to hit some highlights from August, September and October before they forever fade away!

So to begin: our week of "little women." I do not capitalize "little women" because I am not talking about the book (which I adore, BTW), or the movie, or the musical. I'm talking about four little women who came to stay at our house for a week in August--namely, our nieces Amanda, Nicole, Alisa and Elora. I call them "little women" because that's what they are--teenagers on the brink of young adulthood. I also call them "little women" because that's a much more flattering term than what Bethany calls them, which is "my BIG friends." (They're really not big--just much bigger than Bethie!)

Anyway, it was a whirl of a week but very fun! James, Annie and I had had some long discussions about what activities to plan for the girls when they arrived. We decided to do one major activity a day, and to keep that activity a big surprise. I LOVE surprises. The girls were good sports about being surprised (although the suspense almost killed them on more than one occasion)!

They arrived on a Sunday, and we took entertainment matters into our hands right away and, after feeding them, herded the whole gang into Dieter (our Honda Pilot--Dieter Utchdorf was a pilot, hence the name). We wanted to do something fun, yet appropriate for the Sabbath, so we drove out to Clarkston to visit Martin Harris' grave--the girls had never been there before!



I mean, how cool is that? We're talking about Martin Harris! MARTIN HARRIS, people. One of the three witnesses. If you ask me, that's pretty cool!



We took the time, at the monument, to read the Testimony of the Three Witnesses at the beginning of The Book of Mormon, and it was beautiful and peaceful and so nice! Then we played around a bit in the amphitheater. Bethany put on quite a show. (That child is a performer, through and through!)



After that, we went home and watched Legacy (the girls didn't remember ever seeing it) and apart from making just the teensiest fun of the actor playing Joseph Smith (just to clarify: LOVE The Prophet Joseph Smith. NOT crazy about the actor in that movie)we had a really good evening!

The next day, Monday, we took the girls to Crystal Hot Springs in Honeyville. It's only about a 25 minute drive--I really don't know why we don't go there more often! I guess you have to have company to force the fun ideas. Anyway, I don't have pictures of Crystal Hot Springs because:

a) I was wearing a bathing suit the whole time and
b) I am NOT fond of pictures of myself in a bathing suit, and
c) I didn't want my camera to be wet and
d) I was having way too much fun to even think of taking time for pictures.

Actually, I think Annie did get pictures--I'll have to see. At any rate, we had a ball. On Mondays, for family night, 8 people can swim and slide for just $20. WOW! What a deal. So we swam and swam and went down the water slide I don't know how many times, and really just had a blast!

On Tuesday morning, we took the girls hiking. Logan Canyon is just so beautiful, and there are so many great trails! We took them just along the river walk by Second Dam. We could have hiked a lot farther without a three-year-old, but she was so much fun and we just really enjoyed the scenery!







Such a peaceful place. Again, why don't go there more often? It's practically in my backyard! Anyway, after the hike, we all headed home and the girls all got haircuts. Then we headed to the movie Toy Story 3. To keep the girls off-balance, we really had to be sneaky about these big surprise outings. As I recall, Annie and I had to concoct a real whopper of a story to keep the girls from guessing we were going to the movie. (I think our story included some sort of heist, like a bank robbery or something? But I forget. SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN TOO MUCH TIME LAPSES BEFORE I BLOG!!! Bad Jenny.)



After the movie, and after James got off of work and we'd had dinner and all of that, we took them to Aggie Ice Cream. You cannot, I repeat, you can NOT come to Logan without Aggie Ice Cream! Which reminds me, I have not had a pumpkin pie shake this season. Hmmmmm. I'll have to take care of that.



The next day was our BIG day. The grand-daddy activity of them all: Bear Lake and Minnetonka Cave. Such a fun day! Here we are, posing by Ricks Spring on the way up the canyon:



And then at the entrance of Minnetonka Cave:



It had been many years since I went on the Minnetonka Cave tour. I'd forgotten how cool it was (both figuratively and literally)! The whole thing took about an hour and a half and there were many, many stairs (like over 800 round-trip) so we got our workout for the day! Here are some highlights:

The Three Sisters:



The Seven Dwarf Stalagmites:



All those stairs . . .all those stairs . . .



Keeping warm in the deep, dark cave . . .



Did I mention the stairs?



James gets "dad of the year" award for climbing all of those stairs with a three-year-old in his arms! They let us touch one of the stalagmites on the way out--very smooth and knobbly!



After the coolness of the cave, we next hit the heat of the beach! James came up with a rather clever dressing room, which worked bee-you-tiff-lee!



I thought those were pretty great dressing room digs! We all changed and played in the sand and water all afternoon:

Burying Elora:



Building a killer sand castle:



Bethany trying to recreate Minnetonka Cave with its stalactites and stalagmites:



Alisa and Elora taking a dip:



It was a wonderful day, followed by dinner and raspberry shakes at La Beaus. When we got home, we were tired, but happy!

The next day, we did a little service for Annie. She had just moved (and I mean just moved) into a little house that needed a little (okay, a LOT) of TLC. So we all took paintbrush in hand and tried to spruce up the place a little. I think we did a lot!





I'm just glad, after tackling the oven, that my brain cells are all intact . . .or ARE they?

After a few hours of painting/cleaning, we took a break--for awhile. We next painted our toenails, which were in sore need of some refinement:



And then we watched a movie on the backyard fence--James projected it so we could watch a movie under the stars. So we watched The Truman Show and it was so much fun to be outside! Like a drive-in, only without the driving.



On Friday, we had a cookie baking contest. I don't believe we ever judged which batch was best--all were eaten, all were enjoyed!



And that night, we had a BBQ up Green Canyon:



And we hiked up (since we hadn't done enough hiking yet) up to that cave in Green Canyon--does anyone know what that cave is called? Anyway. It's cool.



And then night fell. So we went home.

The next day, Saturday, Stan and Kristie joined the party. So we had a party--a luau, to be exact. Tiki torches and all! Here's the whole haole group, enjoying a taste of island life via the backyard!



My parents even joined in on the fun, with my mom (and Bethie) teaching the hula to the group!



After we had been hula-ed and luau-ed out, we all hit the hay. And after church and dinner the next day, we called the week a wrap and they all went home. It was a fun week, and Bethany definitely enjoyed her "big friends!"

Bear Lake: Part Two

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Yes, it's been over a month since I posted Part One of our Bear Lake trip. And do you know what? I'm just too tired to post much of Part Two, so here's the day in a very short synopsis:

We went to a different beach and flew kites:



I was so blissfully watching Bethany's first kite-flying experience that I failed to notice that she let the string run out, and away went the kite! Off it went, into the wild, blue yonder . . .



. . .and crashed right into the trees over by the porta-potties. Oh joy. And the kite was my cousin's, so I felt all responsible for it and did what any self-respecting, responsible woman would and should do. I sent my husband after it. And bless him, he saved it! Can we say, "HUSBAND OF THE YEAR???!!!"



And we went boating and water skiing again that second day, and it was SO fun. I didn't ski for long--I've not done it for years and I'm out of shape--but I was so glad that I could still do it!

But once again, our day was cut short with weather problems. Not thunder and lightening this time, but WIND. Lots and lots of wind that blew over our umbrellas and got sand in our eyes. And so we had to leave early again, dang it! But never you fear . . .

WE'LL BE BACK!

Bear Lake Fun: Part One

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Ah . . . Bear Lake. One of my favorite spots on this earth! And we just got back from two whole days of bummin' on the beach. (And now we're trying to recover--poor James is a tomato. But I'm getting ahead of myself.) It all starts back in January, when my cousin Brianna decided to orchestrate a Johnson family reunion at Bear Lake and set August 5-6 as the dates. Since that time, we'd been counting down to lake time!

On Thursday, we got to the North Shore and set up camp:



This is actually a picture before all of camp was set up--it actually got bigger. All told, there were about 64 of us there ("All Because Two People Fell in Love" as Brad Paisley sings). And we made quite an impressive camp, if I do say so myself--and I do, because this is my blog and I can say whatever I like. Anyway, it was great to see cousins I don't get to see very often and Bethany immediately jumped into the fun--or into the lake, which is the same thing! Fun! Fun! Fun! She didn't seem daunted at all by the lake's chilly temp.

Here she is with first cousin Lizzy and second cousin Savanna:



Rub-a-dub dub, three girls in a tub! (Er, tube.) My sister Julie, her husband Chris and daughter Lizzy drove all the way from Arizona to attend the reunion. She'd been looking forward to it for forever. Which brings us to the good news and the bad news. The good news: Julie is expecting again, so another baby is on its way! The bad news: Julie is SO sick when she's preggers. She just throws up her toenails and tosses her cookies and just has a hard, hard time. So she didn't even get to attend the reunion--she just stayed on my mom and dad's couch and cried while Chris fed her ginger snaps and tried every home remedy in the book. So we missed Julie terribly, but got to enjoy her daughter, who came with my parents.

Bethany LOVES her cousin Lizzy! She's really missed them since they moved to AZ.



Anyway, it didn't take us long to really dig into the fun. And apart from loving my aunts and uncles and cousins for being wonderful people and all-around good folk, I must admit I also love them for their water toys! We had three ski boats there and two Sea Doos, and if any of them read this blog I just have one thing to say:

THANK YOU FOR SHARING YOUR WATER TOYS. FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART.

Here we are on Uncle Kelly's (and Aunt Sharon's!)boat. And although the other boats there were just fabulous, I must admit I like Kelly and Sharon's boat the very best. Why? It reminds me of Grandpa Johnson's boat. And boating and Grandpa are all tangled up in my heart in those really deep, permanently imprinted places. The end.

Anyway, here we are getting ready to enjoy the ride (Bethany's first boat ride!) with me in my floppy beach hat. Even if this hat is somewhat old ladyish, in my mind I am a 1950's beach babe when I wear it. And I'm all about creating my own reality. In fact, I'm this close to taking down all of my bathroom mirrors and replacing them with pictures of Kimberly Williams Paisley so I can pretend I look like her. But I digress. Here we are on the boat:



Here Bethie is, enjoying the ride:



And here she is again, REALLY enjoying the ride:



"And she had fun, fun, fun 'till her daddy took the Four Winns away . . .")



All of the little kids got a turn driving the boat, actually--and believe me, it was a highlight in Bethie's young life! We haven't seen the end of her boat driving career. I must say that I really love boating. I've missed it so much. There's just something about the wind in your face and the spray of the water and the total exhilaration, you know? Like you haven't a problem in the world.

I miss Grandpa so much.

Anyway, back to the lake. After trying her hand at driving a ski boat, Bethany decided to try her hand at rafting. So Dad and James took four little girls out in the raft. I must say, the men looked like they coordinated outfits--swim trunks, tee shirts and fedora hats from Australia! But it was all unplanned, I assure you. The spirit of Steve Irwin lives on--but no crocs were spotted on this expedition. Not even the Bear Lake monster.

Here are Bethany, Lizzy, Cambrie and Macy on their big rafting adventure:



And now comes my favorite part of the day: the Sea Doo. Bless you, Mike, for bringing Sea Doos and for sharing them so generously. I sure like that Mike. (I may or may not be brown-nosing in hopes that he'll read this and share his water toys again . . .) After my experience, I really think owning a Sea Doo is in my future. And if not, we'll at least rent them often because hot dang, they are SO MUCH FUN. A blast, actually!



Do we not look cooler than Arthur Fonzerli? (Don't answer that, I create my own reality, remember. And my reality is that I look like Kimberly Williams Paisley.) But wow, what a ride. Bethany and I just loved it. In fact, Bethany loved it so much that she fell asleep after awhile! He he he.



My hero, driving me off into my happy place:



Not long after our boating, Sea Dooing, rafting, swimming, seashell hunting and sand toy playing, we noticed that the sky looked, well, rather ominous. And then we heard thunder. Yikes. Now, I'm not a scientist but where there is thunder, there generally is lightening. Am I right? So I started feeling a little nervous. We were all back on the beach, just doing our thing and watching the sky, when Mike starts yelling, "Everybody in the cars, now!" Apparently, Mike, who has had experience with lightening before, saw that people's hair was starting to stick up and you know, that's just not good.

Now, I'm quite fond of a lightening and thunderstorm when I'm in the safety of my own little house and snug little bed, but on the beach? That really makes me anxious. So when Mike yells, "Everybody in the cars, now!" I take heed. I start picking up three-year-olds and tossing them in the back of my Pilot, which is how I ended up with four three-year-old girls in the back of my Pilot! Everyone is in their respective cars and all of our antennas are buzzing with electricity and I'm feeling anxious but trying to be calm, because moms are supposed to be calm. And I have four three-year-olds in the back of my car who are starting to get restless and testy. So what do I do?

Fortunately, I remember that I have my portable DVD player and a few Backyardigans videos. So I lined all of the girls up, plugged in the movie and kept them plied with Golden Oreos. That's what I did.





Judge me all you want, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and if you have four three-year-olds crammed into the back of your car (at the beach!) in the rain, wind and lightning, you'd give them each 15 Golden Oreos, too, if that's what it takes to keep everybody happy. And bless The Backyardigans for coming through for me again!

So the big question at this point was what to do now? Do we wait out the storm or head home? We all tried to wait it out for awhile, but when it became apparent that it was going to be a long wait (and after one of our cars--Matthew and Laura's?--got beaned and dented by a tumbling canopy, most of us decided to call it a day. So the adults all ran out of our cars and gathered up things as fast as we could. (Jake got zapped a little when touching the metal poles of the awning, as I recall.) And we got the heck out of there. I returned all of the three-year-olds to their respective families (keeping our three-year-old, of course) and we all headed home.

We got to Mom and Dad's house and ate the dinner we were supposed to eat at the beach, said "Hi!" to Julie on the couch (at least we got to eat with her!) scrubbed sunscreen and sand off the little girls, went to bed and just died. What is it about playing so much that wears a body out? But it was worth it. What a fun day.

And the next day, we went back for more. Stay tuned for Part Two, which I'll post later. You see, I haven't downloaded all of the pictures yet and frankly, I'm too tired to do that tonight. So if you care to hear about Day Two of our adventure, be sure to check back!