Who doesn't enjoy a good riddle?!

What takes 33 1/2 hours, 1775 miles, 91 gallons of gasoline and 8 states to accomplish? A real life road trip! B and I talked about how neither of us had ever been on a real life road trip. Now don't misunderstand, when both of us were younger we would go see grandparents in another state, but our grandparents house was the final destination. We had both been to California, but once again there were no planned stops on the way to California. We wanted to go on a family vacation, so we did! To say that it was awesome doesn't do the trip justice. As we all know, I hate the car for any amount of time, so I was worried that I was going to be the one asking if we were almost there and pretending that I needed to go potty every exit just to get out of the car. But, I was shocked to find out that to drive on the East coast is truly beautiful! There are so many trees! I am a little bit of a tree hugger, so to see so many trees filled my soul with total delight! I will warn you that there will be a lot of pictures!

We left our house on the afternoon of the third of July. The plan was that I would have the car totally packed when B got home from work. I would have done it too if it weren't for the cargo box. We got one of those awesome cargo boxes that go on top of the car. The thing is so awesome that it opens from both sides of the box. But it isn't supposed to open on both sides at the same time. So, I opened one side and loaded stuff in. I shut the lid, locked it and went to the other side to put the rest of the stuff in the box. I unlocked it and loaded in the rest of the cargo. I went to close the lid and the other side popped off, so the whole lid was off the base. The hinges on both ends of the box were all wonkey. I have no arm muscle, truly, lifting the suitcases to put them on top of the car was a workout. I'm pretty sure the workers building the house across the street had a good laugh watching me do that. Anyway, I tried to pull the lid, I tried to push the lid, I tried beating it into submission, but it didn't work. I was worried that leaving it like that would break the hinges. I didn't want to ask the workers because they make me nervous. I walked up the street where the teenage boys play basketball almost around the clock. I asked them if they would come help me. Of course they had no problem putting the lid exactly where it needed to be. They walked away all macho like. Not that I blame them! I was pretty sure that I broke it because I couldn't get it to lock. So, sadly, when B got home from work we weren't totally ready to go. He locked it, we loaded up and waved goodbye to our house. The first leg or our trip was from our house to Washington DC.

Spending the Fourth of July in Washington DC was A.W.E.S.O.M.E!

 This was at the hotel before we went out for the day. They were all so excited that they had matching shirts!

 We started the day going to the National zoo. I love that this zoo is free. I love that this zoo has a normal panda and a giant panda. I love that we saw a cheetah and the biggest gorilla I have ever seen!

 Wait a minute, what's going on here? M said that she was too tired and couldn't walk anymore. Little B loves to push the stroller! He was more than happy to push her around. He pushed her for about three minutes before he wanted to just run around. Things we loved about the National zoo: It's free, there is a normal panda and a giant panda. The cheetah they had was up and walking around. There was the biggest gorilla we had ever seen! Things I didn't like about it. K got lost. Well, not super lost, just a little lost. He was looking through a telescope outside the reptile house. As I walked by him I told him that we were going in. M was next to me and B was bringing up the rear with little B. I was told that we had to park the stroller before we went in. I parked it, turned around and B asked where K was. I bolted into the reptile house to see if he had already gone inside. I came out with no K. B looked back towards the telescope and could see that K was walking away in the opposite direction. B yelled his name, but K thought it was coming from the direction he was walking. K took off running towards where he thought B was calling him from. Thankfully B saw him start running and ran after him. The whole thing was probably less than three minutes. As B and K walked towards me I could tell that K was trying to be brave. I knelt down and opened my arms. K ran into them and started to cry. I asked him what had happened. He told me that he had been looking at the telescope and then looked up and we weren't there. I held him for a long time while he cried. It was so sad! I am so thankful that he wasn't really lost. We left the zoo and went to the National Mall. We thought that it would be pretty crowded, we were right. We weren't the only ones with the idea of spending the Fourth of July in Washington DC. The last time B and I were in DC was in July of 2001. A lot has changed since then thanks to 9/11. In order to get onto the Mall, you have to go through security. They had bomb sniffing dogs that sniffed our stroller. There were cops and military people all over the place. I told B that I think it's so sad really that we live in America where we have so many freedoms, but there are guards on every corner and security check points with bomb sniffing dogs. Anyway, the Mall was amazing. To be there on the Fourth was awesome! We saw the White House from a distance. They had it all blocked off because the President was home and wanted to be outside with his family. When I say from a distance I'm not kidding. If we looked between two trees. we could see it, but not well enough to take a picture of it. I asked the guard if it was always that blocked off. He said no, just that day because,"The Big Guy is home and wants to be able to go outside with his family." He told us that if we came back that night at 11:00, the President would be inside and the barricades would be taken down. A guy next to us tried to take a picture of the guard and he put his hand up and said,"Sir no pictures! I don't want to be all over Facebook and social media." The guy laughed and said,"I don't do Facebook!" He tried taking another picture. I was worried he was going to get tackled to the ground! The guard said,"Sir, it's not funny! I'm serious. I need to keep the Big Guy safe, my face can't be on anything." We decided not to make eye contact with the guard and kept walking. We also decided to come back to the White House the next day. Into the Mall we went!

We all thought that the Washington Monument was so cool! We wanted to go inside, but you have to have tickets. In order to get tickets, you go stand in line in the wee hours of the morning and hope you get in. We didn't want to wake the littles up to go stand in line, so we just looked at it from outside. We wanted to see the fireworks from the steps of the Lincoln Monument. We were there at four and there was already a huge mass of humanity. There were no seats on the higher steps. We were worried that if we left, we wouldn't be able to get a seat at all. We also didn't know how the kiddos would do waiting for five hours for the fireworks to start. But, they did awesome!

It was kind of hot on the Fourth. Not as hot as we thought it was going to be, but hot enough to know that it was hot. We had been walking all day and had five hours to burn. We let them take their shoes off and put their feet in the reflection pool  between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. The water was nasty, but they didn't care and I tried not to think about it. They played in it for a long time. When they got tired of that, we went up to see the Memorial. Before we went up there, they asked if he was big. B and I tried to tell them he wasn't big, he was HUGE! of course they had no idea. We had already gotten our plot of step to sit on for during the fireworks. We didn't want to lose the prime real estate. B and I took turns taking them up to look at good ole' Abe. B had taken them first. They came zooming back to be with huge smiles on their faces as they yelled,"Mommy! We saw him! You and daddy were right, he's huge! We wanted to sit on his lap, but there's a chain so daddy said that we couldn't." They were so excited to take me up there to see him. K told me all about the steps we have to climb up and M was so happy to lead the way.

Taking them to see this was so awesome! I am so glad that they loved both the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial so much!

This is waiting for the fireworks to start. I think this was taken at about 7:00. Only two hours and 15 minutes to go!

This is just because I like this one. 

That is crazy! That's crazy that we were crazy enough to join the throng of people to watch the fireworks. I am so glad we did too! There was a spot in front of us and a couple came and laid out a few blankets. When I Saw them I thought, I wonder if they are members of the church. All the sudden it went from one couple to a large group. One guy laid out a Utah State blanket. All the girls had long shorts and the guys had white sticking out above their t-shirts. Now, I'm going to risk sounding cheesy, but it was so awesome to feel the spirit as they walked up and sat down. The whole group brought the spirit with them. They noticed our BYU cooler and said,"Hey! They're one of us!" It was pretty awesome! Finally the clock struck 9:15 and the show began! Watching the fireworks over the Washington Monument was truly amazing. These were the best fireworks that we had ever seen. They put the stadium of fire and the beach to shame. Not gonna lie, being in Washington DC, watching the fireworks and being surrounded by people I love so so much made me a little misty eyed.

If those aren't cool pictures, I don't know what are! We didn't know how little B would do with them because this is his first year being big enough to not sleep through them.

He kept pointing at them and saying,"Whoa! What's that?!" He loved them! I love these people so much and I am so thankful that we were together for the Fourth of July.

Day II of Washington DC was for the viewing of the White House, The Air and Space Museum and the Museum of American History. 

 M was so excited about going to see the White House. Not that you can tell because she's not smiling, but she was really excited about it. We learned that this is the front of the White House. We wanted to see the back too. When we went to walk around to the other side, a secret service guy stopped us and told us that that area was being shut down, so no public was allowed. At least we got to see the front close up and the back from really far away!

 They loved riding the Metro. Thankfully it wasn't too crowded. When we got on, K was in a happy stunned silence. He would whisper once in awhile that this was his first time on the metro and then happy silence would follow. Little B loved it too and would say Whoa over and over. The Air and Space museum wasn't as big of a hit as we thought it would be. Well, at least not when we first went in. There were a million and a half people there. Ok, maybe not that many, but there were a whole lot of people. We started with looking at the space part of the museum. We found out that no one in our family has a huge interest in a space movie and reading what happens to a astronauts body in space. We went upstairs and saw the actual plane that the Wright brothers flew for the first time. That was really cool! Then there were all kinds of planes to look at. K loved that! M liked it too, but not as much as K.

 There was a small aircraft carrier in a case that we could look at. Next to it was this display case of things that could land on the carrier. That was cool too.

There was a thing that you could watch what it would have looked like to land an airplane. All I heard as I took the picture was,"Whoa! Is this really happening right now daddy?!"

Naps were kind of tricky. He took one everyday. They were a far cry from his regular three hour naps, but they were better than nothing! We would lay the seat in the stroller back, cover the shade with a light blanket so he wouldn't just look around. He fell asleep and would sleep anywhere from 15 minutes to just over an hour. He was a trooper the whole trip. He didn't really get too cranky and loved being able to get out of the stroller and walk around.

The kiddos had earned their own spending money. Of course everything K got had wheels on it. At the museum he had found a Blue Angels Jet that he decided he couldn't live without. He made it all the way out of the museum before he started playing with it. This is what he looked like every time we were somewhere he could play with it.

At the American History Museum, they have an original Ford Mustang from the early 1960's. No need to say that this little kid was in car heaven! The American History Museum is so awesome! We saw the flag that was made from 1812 that inspired the words for the Star Spangled Banner. It's kept in a dark room, no pictures allowed with employees on guard to make sure that no one tries to take a picture. There are no words to describe how amazing the flag is. There is also an original sun stone from the first Nauvoo temple. It was up too high to get a picture with cute kids and the stone, so we looked at it and moved on. We didn't want to cram tons of things into each day. We didn't want to get burned out and we didn't want our already tired kids to get cranky from doing too much. We left DC the next morning and drove to New York City. The drive is only supposed to be four hours. Traffic was awful! We knew it would be crazy once we got on the Jersey Turnpike, but it was bad from the get go. Instead of taking four hours, it took 8. The kiddos did fabulous! We had thought that we would get there with enough day left to see Central Park and do the Empire State Building. We got there when it was almost dark, so Central Park was totally out. We're no New Yorkers, but it doesn't take a genius to know that you don't go to Central Park after dark. Thankfully the Empire State Building is open until 2:00 A.M. so we had plenty of time to do that! Traffic in NYC is the craziest thing I've ever seen! It's like the lines painted on the road don't matter. People drive wherever they want to. I think honking one's horn is something they do out of habit. It seems like if one car honks, someone else honks just to hear the sound of their horn. B and I wonder if people that live there just tune out the sound of honking horns. Our Hotel was about two blocks off the freeway. We drove through the Lincoln tunnel and turned left twice and we were there. It took us about 20 minutes to get from the Lincoln Tunnel to our hotel. We were so happy to park our car and walk! There was humanity everywhere! People in NYC are rude and loud and only concerned about themselves. Little kids walking may as well be invisible. We were told that we have enough kids to almost fill a bus. We just stared at the guy since we only have three kids. We had to push M and K's heads down to stare at the ground more than once. I'll spare you the details, just know that people are a strange breed and do strange things to earn money. Going to visit was fine, but I can't say that I ever want to go back. 

Because we were in NYC so close to the Fourth, the top of the Empire State Building was red, white and blue! That was really cool to see. When we went up, we were on the white section.

This is on the wall right as we came off the elevators. We wanted a picture. We got our camera out and the elevator man said,"There are a lot of people up here and you want to take a picture. Now is not the time to take one!" I said ok and started to put the camera away. He got all flustered and said,"take the picture if you're going to! You do it and then someone else sees you and wants the same picture and pretty soon there's a line to take a picture there." I wanted to say,"Simmer down hot sauce! It'll be ok. If you don't want us to take a picture we won't. Calm down, you are doing a great job of pushing the down button on the elevator. Will you take a family picture for us?" But, I didn't. We took a picture without B and hurried along. There were way too many people up there. It was so crowded, you really couldn't move very well. We would be standing behind someone waiting to get their spot next to the wall. They would move and someone else would push us out of the way to get the spot. 

It was crazy town at the top, but the view was awesome! The city is huge! 

These little people loved it up there! I don't think they noticed that it was crazy. I don't think they noticed that they were shoved out of the way more than once. They just loved the lights!

We tried to take a family picture, but little B wouldn't look at the camera. He just kept saying"Whoa!" and pointing at the lights. A little oriental lady started laughing and said"Oh! Baby is so excited!" She was right. When we tried to leave, he cried because he wanted to see the lights again.

We left the Empire State Building and went to Time Square. It smells disgusting in NYC. There were huge piles of garbage all over the sidewalks. So, it smelled like a dump until you got passed the piles of trash and then it smelled like a nasty soggy diaper. But, the lights and the people watching were fascinating! K wanted to take a picture in Time Square. He took two. The first one was no surprise...

When he saw them just standing there, he said,"I want to take a picture!" The next picture he took was pretty awesome.

   He doesn't like that people walked in front of him, but he loves that the flag was in lights!

The next day was our visit to the U.S.S. Intrepid, Central Park for lunch, The Natural History Museum and then at the last minute we decided to go see Ground Zero.

The U.S.S Intrepid- Thought it would be a whole lot cooler than it was. It was cool to see so many planes on the top deck. It was cool to see that during World War II, the ship shot down 302 enemy planes. They destroyed a lot of the ships from the bad guys too, I just don't remember how many. It was pretty hot with no shade and three tired kids. That means it wasn't as cool as we thought it would be. We left there in time to go to Central Park to eat lunch. The subway system in NYC is way more confusing than in DC. We truly had no idea what we were doing. We, and when I say we I mean B had me ask the lady in the booth how to get to where we needed to go and pay for it. I told her I had no idea what I was doing. I told her that we wanted to go to the American History Museum(it's across the street from Central Park) She told me what train to get on and what stop to get off which I promptly forgot. Then she said that she needed to see how tall the kids were before she could tell us how much it was. She looked at them and then told me a total. There was a slide thing for a card, so I tried to slide the credit card to pay for the subway tickets. She asked me what I was sliding. I told her our credit card. She started laughing really hard. Hard enough that she needed to rest her head on her hands. I asked what she was laughing at. She said that was to slide your subway card in to see how much money you have left. She told me that sliding a credit card through that would ruin it. I was laughing too, kind of, and said,"I told you that I didn't know what I was doing!" She said if we wanted to use a credit card we had to use the machines on the wall to buy tickets. We used cash so she could just do it for us. She hadn't stopped laughing yet. I said,"It's Monday right? So, I'm allowed to not know what I'm doing." She said,"That's right! I've made a lot of mistakes myself this morning! You go right ahead!" I told her thank you, we walked through the emergency exit, because it's the only place big enough to take a stroller through, set the alarm off and kept walking. More like a speed walk because we didn't want to get tackled to the ground for setting off the alarm. We got to the actual trains, didn't know how to get to where we wanted to go. We asked some guy if he lived there. He said yes and tried to help us. He said the problem is that he'd lived there for so long, that he doesn't even think about how the subway works, he just knows what trains he needs and what direction. So, it took him a minute. He told us to get on the C train. He said,"Whatever you do, don't get on the E train. That goes to the scary areas." He got on the D train and was gone. Another guy leaned over and said,"I think you can get there on the A train too." The A train was there, so we got on and were whisked away. We were on there for a long time. We wanted to get off  at 81st street. You can imagine our surprise as the 81st street stop zoomed past us. B said,"That was the stop we wanted." A guy sitting there said that we were on the express train. It didn't stop at 81st street. He said we needed to get off at the next stop which was like 180th street, get back on the C train and rode back to where we needed to go. We should have just listened to the first guy. Oh well right? Central Park was different than I thought it would be. I had pictured the grass really nice and green. It was more yellow than green. I thought it would be landscaped really well. It wasn't. It was fine, just different. I get that it's huge and we only saw a teeny tiny part of it. Maybe there are parts that are more like I pictured it being. The Natural History Museum was cool. You could spend weeks in there and not see everything.

This is one of a set of Tusks that were found on an elephant in Africa after it had died. I had no idea that tusks could get so big!

He was so happy to just walk around and point at everything.

Of course we had to get a picture next to the gum gum guy from Night at the Museum! After we saw him, M and K were ready to go, so we left. It was so nice not really having set plans. To just go with the flow and as soon as they were ready to leave, we left. As we left here is when we decided to go to Ground Zero. I am so so glad that we went and I am excited to write about it, but it will have to wait. Little B is awake from his nap and needs some attention. So, until tomorrow, farewell! 

The sun rises and our own little miracle!

We just got back from an amazing trip, I will write about that later. But I couldn't let another day pass without writing about our vacation miracle. As most of you know, and if you don't then you must not know me, I love to take pictures. I take pictures of almost anything. I love to take them and look at them and if it's of B's face, I even kiss it on occasion. No, that's truth, I really do kiss his picture that I have tucked in my scriptures. Anyway, I put the pictures in a book and we love to look at our books. I just finished our 27th book. I print the pictures out at the end of each month and put them in the book. We planned and executed an amazing trip. The last stop on our trip was a national park. We had taken a lot of pictures on this trip and the picture taking had continued in the national park. B had taken some pictures on his phone, but the really good ones were on the camera. We had one more thing to look at before we left the park and started the drive home. B found a perfect picture taking spot. He said we should take a picture, I asked if he wanted to do it with his phone or the camera.He told me we should do it with the camera. I went to get the camera off the stroller where we had been keeping it and it wasn't there. I thought,"Oh that's right, I put it in the backpack." I went to get it out of it's designated spot in the backpack, it wasn't there. I asked B if he had it, he shook his head. I pulled everything out of the backpack in case it was put in the wrong spot. It wasn't there. B said that we should go retrace our steps. We looked for over an hour all over the park. I took everything out of the backpack again and felt in every pocket. It wasn't there still. We looked everywhere we had gone asked in the gift shop if anyone had turned it in. We asked almost every park employee that we passed if anyone had turned in the camera. Checked where we had been again. I took everything out of the backpack again and checked all the pockets, still no camera. I remembered that at one point the backpack had fallen out of the stroller and had landed upside down and open. We went back to that spot and it wasn't there. I took everything out of the backpack one last time, turned it upside down and shook it hoping the camera would fall out. No such luck. We filled out a form with the park police, looked at the last thing we were going to look at and started the long drove home without our camera. To say that I was upset would be a gross understatement. I felt like our favorite family pet had just died. I cried and cried over the lost pictures that were still on the camera. I hadn't remembered to download the pictures from June onto our computer before we had left on the third of July. So, not only were all the pictures from our amazing trip lost, but all our pictures from June were on there too. There were over 100 pictures just from June. I'm telling you, I take a ton of pictures. We drove five hours that night. All I could think about were the pictures that were on the camera. That night as M and K said their prayers, they both asked if Heavenly Father would help us find our camera. When I said my prayer I told Heavenly Father that it's not the camera I cared about. It was the pictures on the camera that I wanted. I told him that if I could somehow get the pictures, but the camera was destroyed the next day, I would be fine. I wasn't trying to morn over something worldly, but I love pictures and think it's a great form of record keeping to put the pictures in a book and write about each one. In my prayer I told Heavenly Father that I knew he had the power and the ability to get us our camera and that if it was his will that we somehow got the camera back so we could have the pictures, I would be so thankful. I closed my prayer and went to bed. We drove the other five hours home the next day. My OCD makes me unpack everything and put it away the same day we get home from a vacation. I had gotten everything in it' s place and just had the backpack left. I pulled out all the junk that was in there and looked in to make sure that nothing was left and there sitting in the bottom of the backpack was the camera! I am not making any of this up. The camera wasn't there the day before. I had pulled everything out, turned it upside down and shaken it. The camera was not in the backpack the day before. When I saw it, I gasped, grabbed it and started jumping up and down and screaming. All four members of my family stopped eating mid-bite to watch me act like a crazy woman. B asked where it had been, but I was jumping up and down and spinning in circles and saying"thank you Heavenly Father!", so I couldn't answer him for at least two minutes. When I finally stopped jumping and was just doing an excited run in place really fast, I was able to tell him it was in the bottom of the backpack. He asked how that could be because I had checked it so much. I stopped all movement and said,"Heavenly Father put it in our backpack! That's the only explanation there is!" K said," Maybe there was an invisible string that the camera was hooked to that made it so when you turned it upside down, the camera didn't come out." I said," No way Jose. I pulled everything out of the backpack. I turned it upside down and shook it. The camera was not in the backpack. Heavenly Father put the camera in our backpack." He asked how. I can't answer that question. I don't know how he did it, all I know is that Heavenly Father heard and answered our prayers. It is so amazing to me that Heavenly Father cares enough about me and my love for pictures that he let me have them back. In the eternal scheme of things, our pictures aren't going to mean a whole lot. But for here and now, they mean a lot to me. Heavenly Father is wonderful and amazing and I love him!  

The biggest caverns in the East!

After the bike ride, we drove the four hours to see Luray Caverns. B and I have been in them before and loved them, so we took the offspring. We were not let down. They were as beautiful as we remembered them being. What I didn't remember was a lot of people when we went before. This time there was line of humanity that was really long. I didn't time how long we had to stand in line, but it felt really long. They only let a certain number if people in the cave at a time.  Of course little B wouldn't stand in line, so I followed him around while B took one for the team and held our spot in line. There was another little boy that was about the same age as little B. He saw little B walking around and started to follow him. Little B noticed this kid following him and kept walking. He would look over his shoulder to see if he was still being followed. He was, so he would walk faster. The follower would pick up his step too. After about 15 seconds of being followed, little B looked over his shoulder, saw that he was still being pursued, burst into tears and ran to B's legs to be picked up. For some reason he really didn't like the idea of someone his same size following him. We finally made it into the caves and loved every minute inside!

This is right at the bottom of the staircase we had to walk down to get to the start of the cave. F.Y.I- the caverns were found in 1878. A guy was walking in the mountains and felt cold air blowing up from the ground. He started to dig and five hours later he was inside the cave.

This looks like these are in the process of growing together, but they aren't. It's actually a pond that's only 20 inches deep. It's just a perfect reflection of the stalactites that are on the ceiling. The picture is foggy, but in real life, it's really cool looking!

Look how big this stalactite is! Pretty awesome if you ask me! Don't panic, they didn't touch, they just stood in it.We didn't want the oils in our skin to make it stop growing. 

We were told when the tour started that if you felt a drop of water on your skin while you were in the cave, it was a kiss from the cave and that it would bring a year of good luck. We hope that it's a year of good luck per drop, then all of us are going to have at least four or five years of good luck! K said that he felt 100 drops. That may or may not be an exaggeration. ;)

Aren't they cute? What's not to love about a cave that has these three little people inside of it?!

Let's go ride a bike

Hip Hip Hooray! School is finally out! I truly love summer and having the little's around. To celebrate that they were finally free, we decided to go to Virginia and try this awesome bike trail called the Virginia Creeper. The whole trail is actually 34 miles long, we only did half. Yes half of 34 is 17, so we rode 17 miles on our bikes. The trail is all downhill. We took a shuttle up to the top, that in and of itself is a beautiful thing! To not have to ride up was real swell! There are some crazies out there that ride up and then ride down again. We didn't want to join that elite team. 17 miles! Our amazing older little's did the whole thing! They didn't complain that it was too long or that they wanted to stop. They just kept peddling on. As we rode to the top the weather was a little cloudy. We were hoping that it wouldn't rain on us. Alas, that was not to be. Right as we got to the top of the trail, it started to rain. Not a light drizzle, no no, full on down pour. It was not great. The shuttle man unloaded our bikes, told us good luck and left two adults and three smalls standing in the rain. There was a teeny tiny bite sized bathroom that had an overhang that we stood under. M was crying saying that she didn't want to go down in the rain. We all used the bathroom and then took a picture

This picture doesn't do the weather justice. It truly was raining hard enough that you could almost see the cats and dogs falling from the sky. After we took this picture, we said a prayer that the rain would stop and we would be able to ride down without getting wet. We said amen, put on little B's helmet and the rain was just a drizzle. We put him in his seat and it was just a drop here and there. By the time he was buckled in, the rain had totally stopped. It was so awesome to have an answer to our prayer so quickly. We told the offspring to say a thank you prayer and tell Heavenly Father thanks for such a quick answer to prayer, and off we rode.(After another quick picture of course!)

When we first started out, it was pretty cold. I kept praying in my head that the kiddos wouldn't get too cold. Another answer to prayer was when the clouds parted and the sun started to shine. It stayed out long enough to warm us up and then it got cloudy again. So, then we got to go on a beautiful trial and not cook or freeze. It was awesome!

If that isn't beautiful, I don't know what is!

The only annoying thing was that K's peddles kept falling off. We hadn't brought a wrench, odd I know, but we didn't have one. So, we had to stop often and tighten his peddles. I will say that it was pretty funny to be behind him and see him peddle and then all the sudden his foot wouldn't have anywhere to go because the peddle was on the ground, so his foot would fly out to the side. Every time it happened you would hear,"Oh dear, lost a peddle!" 

The trail used to be a railroad line. The train was taken out in 1956 and now it's a beautiful, downhill trail. We went on a Thursday, so four people passed us, but other than that, we were alone. Truly, M, K and little B did awesome! 

The trail was pretty bumpy, but little B didn't seem bothered by it and he took a quick little nap . *Helmet disclaimer. He started out with a helmet, but it kept sliding down over his eyes and he didn't totally love that, so we took it off.

This was on the side of the trail. We decided it would be good to stop and walk around for a minute. We only stayed at this spot for about five minutes, but it was long enough that K was able to throw rocks into the water and little B was able to get out of his seat. M liked the waterfall, but was nervous that it was going to start to rain again and if it rains, then she thinks there will be lightning and if there's lightning, death is soon to follow. So, as to keep the peace, we didn't linger too long.

Look how gorgeous that is! There were a lot of bridges that we got to go over, but this one was the coolest. All the other ones were just flat like this one,

Sometimes we were really high up and could see the tops of the trees and the water below. Heavenly Father has made some pretty amazing places!

K is pointing to the starting point and M is pointing and the finish point. 17 miles! They did it! It took us four hours to do the whole thing. I have been proud of our kids before, but to do 17 miles on a bike and like it made me extra proud of them! After K's peddles had fallen off a thousand times he did say that it was annoying, but he was smiling while he said it. M said that her bum hurt from the bike seat, but she didn't say anything until we were done. We all loved the creeper trail and think that we might try doing it again in the fall when the leaves are changing color.

The happenings when nothing's happening

So, it's been a couple weeks since I've done anything on this here blog. The reason being that nothing's been happening. The millipedes are in full force in our house. We don't know how they get in, but they do. They crawl around with their hundreds of millions of little legs and give me the willies! When I have to come downstairs at night to get medicine for sick off spring, stepping on a millipede is my number one concern. Nasty! We did go camping over Memorial Day weekend with four other families from our ward. It was really fun except for the spiders that came out at night. They were in the bathroom and they were as big as my hand. No that's not an exaggeration. They were big enough that when we would shine a flashlight on them, their eyes would glow greenish yellow like a cats. They were truly awful! We tried to get a picture, but we weren't willing to get close enough to put something next to them(there was more than one. I know, NASTY!) so you could see how big they were. Full body chills is what happened when I saw the spiders every night. One odd lady came into the bathroom while I was standing there with my mouth open staring at the spider. She came over and asked what I was looking at. I couldn't speak. I just pointed to them. She counted the legs and then said,"Oh good." and walked away. I asked her what was good and she said,"spiders that have 8 legs aren't usually poisonous." Now, I'm no spiderologist, but don't all spiders have 8 legs?

Here's proof of the camping experience. We love camping! We loved it in Utah, but since moving we have realized that Utah has no trees. Truly. My older brother told us that Utah has no trees after he moved back east and I didn't believe him. I would look around and see a tree or two and think, we have trees here! It's true, there are a couple of trees in Utah. But nothing like here! It's beautiful here! There are so many trees that you can't see the campground next to you. It's awesome! The campground that we stayed at is kind of weird. You can't park at your campsite. You park in the parking lot and have to haul your stuff in. Thankfully we had taken our bikes so we had the bike trailer that we could use to load our crap in.

He loved riding with all of the stuff, unless of course it slid into him. Then he didn't totally love it, but he wouldn't complain!

What else has been going on, lets see here. Oh! Little B walks, kind of. He was doing awesome! We went to a ward picnic on Saturday and he walked all over the place. But then he got sick and only wanted to be held. But, I have pictures of him walking!(Of course I have pictures of him walking! I take pictures of everything!)

He walks in a line for a minute and then he walks in circles and laughs and laughs.

He comes down the stairs from the playroom into the living room, uses the couch to stand up and then walks across the room. When he walks from one side of the room to the other he gets really excited. He loves to hit his hands on the other couch and then turn around, 

 and walk back to the stairs so the he can go up into the playroom. 

I know it's not a walking picture, but it's cute and should be on here!

We have nothing else to report. No major callings, no broken bones or major sicknesses. School's not out yet, I know, it should be illegal to still be in school. We still have over a week left. Every morning when the alarm goes off I want to cry. The annoying part is that they did end of year testing 2 1/2 weeks ago. So since then school has just been parties and field trips. Of course they love it and are excited to go to their camping day at school or their chef day where they make yummy treats. To me, I want them to be out and be home with me. But, I can't pull them out, because they still take attendance and here if you miss too many days of school you have to do mandatory summer school. That's worse than taking them to school for the last month and a half just so they can play. I will say that we have a couple pretty awesome trips planned in the next few weeks. I know I probably shouldn't have said anything because now you probably won't be able to sleep from the excitement of waiting for another post. All I can say to that is, take some Benadryl that should help! 

No fun

This poor little thing didn't feel well this last weekend. We had planned on going down to the temple but M got an ear infection on Friday morning. Ear infections, those are something I wish there was an over the counter antibiotic for. When she started screaming at 1:00 in the morning, I instantly knew what was wrong. When she was a baby she always had ear infections. She has an ear infection cry, so no need to take her to the Dr. I already knew what was wrong. Alas, there are no antibiotics over the counter, so to the Dr we went. She had it Friday and by Saturday night, he had a fever and his eyes gave it away that he didn't feel well.

His fever stayed around 103 for two full days. We gave him luke warm baths, pumped him full of Tylenol and Ibuprofen. We took him to Urgent Care and they gave him an antibiotic just in case it was an infection. B gave him a blessing and we all prayed that he would get better soon. His fever finally broke this morning. Now he's just grumpy and tired from not feeling good for three days. We are all glad that he's feeling better and hope that he's not cranky for too long.