"The Destroyer" Heads Upstairs

Elizabeth crawled up 13 stairs on Friday. She made it all the way up the first section of stairs in our house, turned the corner and went up the landing, and then made it up half of the second section of stairs before she got too tired and started sliding all the way back down.

This is bad that she learned this new trick because she's not really allowed to play up there - she usually heads straight to the lego wall in the playroom where Tristan and Oliver have all their Lego creations set up.

Oliver calls Lizzy "The Destroyer" because she always tries to wreck the things they are playing with. He says things like "AAah, Tristan, watch out! The destroyer is coming! Hurry, move it out of the way!" and "Mom, don't let the destroyer come up here because I just finished building a really special boat."



It looks like she could use the workout, though.

Accessories for Girly

Rachel's nickname has always been Girly, but I think she just recently discovered her "girly" side. She even has her own personal hairdresser now - Oliver put himself in charge of doing Rachel's hair today. She was very pleased with the "3-headband look" that he came up with.

Camping in Bastrop State Park

Here's a little "trip report" from our latest adventure: On Friday afternoon we went camping in Bastrop State Park, which is about an hour away from our house. We planned on leaving around 1:00 so we could get there, set up camp, start a fire, and get our dinner cooked right away so we wouldn't be eating in the dark. Ha ha. We ended up not leaving until a little after 3:00, I think (and we did eat our dinner in the dark). It felt weird to get all of our camping stuff packed up and make all the other trip preparations and then only drive for an hour. I'm used to going camping in Yellowstone, where the drive there is a big part of the trip. This was a nice change.

We had been assigned a campground, but not a specific site, and nobody else was in our campground so we got to choose. It was a great campsite, in my opinion - a few logs around the campfire, a table, grill, and huge tent spot (we were able to fit our big family tent in it, plus a little one for the boys to sleep in). We also had a water faucet right at our site, and there was a lot of open space all through the campground for the kids to play/hike/explore.

Daniel and I got our tent set up first while the kids ran around exploring and shining their new flashlights everywhere (84 cents each at Wal-Mart - definitely worth it) and then Daniel and the boys got started on the fire. The boys had way too much fun with the fire. They tried their best to find good little sticks to put in it, but then they discovered that handfuls of pine needles were easier to find and also made the fire flare up for a few seconds, which was pretty exciting. Rachel helped by adding several leaves to the fire. They also had fun doing "fire sticks" - Daniel helped them find big huge sticks/branches and then they sat in their chairs holding them, sticking one end into the fire and then frequently lifting the stick out of the fire to check how much it was burning and then waving it around recklessly. Daniel monitored the safety, and I tried to just let them be boys.

When the fire had been going for awhile we stuck our tinfoil dinners in (I had already made them at home that morning). While they cooked, Rachel and I prepared our banana tinfoil desserts, with me stuffing the bananas and Rachel trying to eat all of the marshmallows/chocolate chips/reese’s pieces before they could make it into the bananas. It reminded me of two summers ago in Yosemite - I remember sitting in our tent putting those together, and Rachel was crawling all over me trying to eat everything.

It was dark by the time our dinners were ready, but we didn't mind. They tasted really good. I thought I had made way too much, but we didn't end up having any extra - I guess we all had our camping appetites. I had put Elizabeth to bed before dinner (we brought her porta-crib and set it up in our tent) so that made eating a little less chaotic.

After dinner we ate our banana desserts (also delicious) and roasted some marshmallows. Then we sat around the fire for a little bit and told stories before putting the kids to bed. Tristan and Oliver slept together in a little tent behind ours. They were pretty excited about doing this. I had brought it out of the garage on Thursday and set it up in our family room to see if it would work, and I think Oliver spent most of the day sitting in it.

Daniel and I slept in our big tent with Elizabeth and Rachel. I guess I should say that Daniel and I planned on sleeping, but we didn't actually get to sleep very much. For starters, after we got our tent set up and I got out our nice king-sized air mattress to blow up, I noticed that the velvety top was covered in mold. It was pretty bad. We had to throw away the whole thing in the dumpster. So a thin wool blanket was all that was between us and the hard ground. It was not very comfortable. I think we would have managed okay, except it was only about 30 degrees that night. I don't remember ever being so cold on a camping trip. Rachel was also freezing and very restless, so she spent a lot of time going back and forth between her sleeping bag and mine (the first time she came over, for a few seconds I thought it was nice, because she felt like a big cornwarmer laying next to me, but then she turned into a big cornwarmer that was thrashing about every 2 seconds and causing my sleeping bag to come completely unzipped, and it was not so nice). Lizzy also had a really rough night. I think she was the only one who wasn't cold, because she was wearing about 7 layers and a cozy suit on top, but she just thought that because we were camping she should also sleep in my sleeping bag and not her bed.

The boys did better than we expected in their little tent, but I don't think they slept very well. It was funny because at one point during the middle of the night we were all chatting about how cold we were, and Oliver called out that he was sweaty. It made us laugh. It turned out that just his hands were sweaty because I had made them wear gloves to bed. Also, Tristan informed us in the morning that the blanket they were using for their pillow had gotten wet (condensation or something) and I think Oliver thought that it must be wet because he had gotten sweaty.

So, basically, I think I slept a little bit between 11:00 and 12:00 and that was it. The rest of the night I was just laying there in my sleeping bag freezing to death and trying to stop Rachel and Elizabeth from crying. Daniel finally decided to get up at 4:30 and built a fire. I stayed in the tent with the girls, but Oliver got up with Daniel and they had some fun fireside talks for a few hours until the rest of us got up. It was so nice to already have the fire going when I got out of the tent (thank you, Daniel). I scurried right over to it and got as close as I could to putting my feet right in the fire, just to warm up my toes a little bit.

I made my first dutch oven meal ever on Saturday morning. It was a sausage, hashbrown, egg, and cheese combo. It was not nearly as complicated or time-consuming as I thought it would be, and tasted great. I have always loved dutch oven meals, of course, but I never thought they would be worth the hassle if I was the one cooking them, so we've never done it before. I think we'll do it more often now. I mentioned to Daniel about how Dad sometimes cooks dutch oven stuff right in the backyard, and I think he's trying to figure out how many meals a week we can do out on our back porch in the dutch oven.

After breakfast we cleaned up and took down the tents and everything. Never fun, but nice to get over with. While Daniel and I were doing this, the kids played around near our campsite. We've been watching this show on the discovery channel called "Man Versus Wild" about a guy who gets dropped into all these remote areas and then shows how to survive, and he always makes little shelters at night. Anyway, Tristan really loves that show and he had been begging me all morning to come see something that he had done, and when I went over to check, I saw that he had built himself a real little shelter, just like the guy does. He had broken off branches and gotten them all set up and everything. It was pretty cool.

Then we went on a little hike down a trail that started right by our campsite. The weather was great on Saturday and we didn't even need our coats for the hike. We let Tristan be our hike leader on the way, so he got to make all the decisions about which way we went. He thought that was pretty fun. At first he was going too fast for us, so we had to have a big talk about how a good leader needs to keep checking behind him to make sure people aren't getting left behind. After that he did pretty well. Then on the way back we let Oliver be the leader. He was a different story. We talked to him about not leaving anyone behind, and we even did a few tests where Daniel or I would hang back, and then we would remind him to check, and he would look back and see us and know he needed to stop and wait. That worked for about 5 minutes, and then all of a sudden he took off and started running down the trail. We thought he would stop after a little bit, but we lost sight of him completely. We hiked most of the way back by ourselves, a little worried about where he was. When we finally caught up to him and asked why he had run away, he said that he thought it was supposed to be a race. Hmmm. He got a little depressed when he realized that we didn't think he was the best leader, so we gave him another chance to lead us the rest of the way back to the car, and he did okay, so everything was fine.

After the hike it was around 11:30, and we all got in the car and headed for home, stopping for lunch in Bastrop on the way. We were home and had the kids bathed and down for naps less than 24 hours after we started, so it was a short camping trip, but a lot of fun (if you don't count the night).

Missing Family - Email to Daniel's sister Audra

"Audra,

Today Rachel was playing with her new dancing princess doll she got from your mom, and she was so excited that it was a "ballereen" doll (she calls ballerinas "ballereens" for some reason). Anyway, I told her that her aunt Audra was also a ballereen, and she thought that was super cool.

Oliver was kind of listening in to our conversation, and when he heard me mention your name, he said, "Mom, I almost forgot that Audra was real." It made me kind of sad, and also made me realize that we need to see you guys soon! I'll try to show the kids some pictures of you all so they don't start to forget."

Pictures

Tristan (6 years old)


Rachel (2 1/2 years old) and Oliver (4 1/2 years old)


Rachel


Two Heavyweights (Ollie and Lizzy)


Elizabeth (8 months old)

Special Days

I love it when I have a chance to be with one of my kids all by themselves. It seems like they act totally different, because they try to be all grown-up with you. In December Daniel did a "special day" with each of the kids. On different Saturdays he took them each out to breakfast and then to the store to pick something out and then to a playground or something. We were going to switch back and forth so that I did special days in January, and so on and so forth, but it kind of fell apart because I never did it in January with Sister Trip and all. I guess my trip shouldn't be an excuse for the whole month of January. Somehow it took up all my Saturdays.

Anyway, Rachel's "special day" with Daniel was 2 months ago, and she still talks about it. We'll just be driving around somewhere, and out of the blue she'll say, "Dad, remember when we went on that special day? That was awesome." And then she'll do a big sigh, like "yeah, those were the good old days."

I remember going on dates with Dad when we were little. Once he took me to a little Mexican place on State Street and I think we got taquitos and guacamole. I'm pretty sure that was the first time I ever had taquitos.

Speaking of food memories, you know what I think of every time I eat an egg roll? One time when I was younger (old house in Orem), Mom and Dad came home kind of late from some dinner, and I think it either was a ward get together and Sister Kwong made egg rolls, or they went out to eat and bought them, but for some reason (either Mom just thought I would like them, or she thought I needed extra attention, or both) Mom came into my room when I was in bed and let me taste her egg rolls dipped in sauce. I remember I was very suspicious at first, but then I thought they tasted so good. I've loved egg rolls ever since. Did anybody else get a taste, or was it just me? I remember feeling very special, but maybe she was going around giving everybody tastes. I don't know.

Thinking about these memories makes me want to do fun little things with my kids individually, so they can look back and think they had a good childhood. I wonder what they'll remember.

Uncle Rico

Just so you all know (and can consider yourselves warned if you are planning on coming to visit us), we are now the proud owners of a California Kingsnake. We got it on Saturday. I'm still getting used to it, but I think I like it. We're not sure if it's a boy or a girl yet (it's pretty young still, and I guess you can't always tell until they get older and bigger). Right now everyone but Rachel thinks it's a boy. It doesn't have an official name yet (we're still deciding) but at the moment it's being called Uncle Rico (From Napoleon Dynamite - Oliver's idea, in case you couldn't tell).

It lives in a cage in the boys room. The cage is full of fun rocks and sticks and caves for it to hide in, and it spends most of its time hiding from us. We get it out about once a day to hold it and be friends with it. It's supposed to be a pretty easy pet. It's a really pretty snake, as snakes go. Right now it's about 14 inches long, but it's supposed to double it's size in the first year, and then double again in the second year. I'm not sure how I'll feel about a four foot snake. I don't get nervous holding it at all, but I sometimes (okay, always) get a little nervous when I have to pick him up out of his cage. I just don't know how to tell what he's going to do - I've decided that snakes are very unpredictable pets. Sometimes they don't move at all, and then other times they get all jumpy and zoom around, and I'm never sure which he's going to do when I stick my hand in.

Anyway, it's been pretty fun so far. The kids like it, but I think Daniel and I spend the most time in front of the cage. I always feel like I need to go upstairs to check on it, and then I waste a lot of time trying to find him and watching him scoot around the cage. I don't know why it's so fun watching him. We act all excited about it, like it's another kid or something. Daniel even calls from work to ask me about him ("so, where is he right now? Did he climb on any of the rocks this morning?", etc.) I guess with the snake plus Oliver's stack it's like we already have six kids.

So, what do you guys think? Will you still come visit us? Dad, we can just keep that door shut when you're here.

Pet Store

Last night we went to a pet store on a little whim (we're considering some sort of reptile) and after going to three different stores to see all the selections of snakes, we started driving back home. I wanted to know which ones the boys liked best so I asked, "So, Tristan and Oliver, after seeing all of the different kinds of pets, what do you guys think would be the best thing to do?" Oliver thought for a moment and then called out, "Color them?" He was already trying to figure out the best way to transfer what he had seen onto paper. This morning that was the first thing he started working on. I stole it out of his stack just for a minute so I could scan it.

Notice how one of the snakes is lifting up the lid of its cage and trying to poke its head out. We saw one trying to do that. Makes you want to buy one right away, huh?

The two things in the bottom left are chinchillas.