We went to Utah.
Tilly brought along the alligator lizard she caught, and a garter snake and two large grasshoppers. Oh, a spider, too. She later accidentally snapped the lizard's tail off when he was escaping into the car's DVD player, to which her comment was, "Eeww, his tail is still wiggling." The lizard proceeded to get lost in the car, and has never been recovered. She caught a second garter snake in Utah, but she released the snakes and grasshoppers and spider outside.
On our way, we of course stopped for our traditional rolling of rocks off the Cliffs of Insanity in Eastern Oregon.
I guess we should have seen the signs of impending jinxes when we got to the salt flats and the wind took the visibility from bad
to worse. SCARY worse!
After the salt storms, came the smoke storm from fires by the freeway.
We went for a Johnson reunion of sorts, and to get our van door fixed, BUT...
We caught the stomach flu that the Johnson clan had just gotten over the week before.
I was the only one in our little family who didn't lose the contents of their stomach (you can thank my cast iron Cluff stomach for that...and the suspicious Babcock food I was raised on that made me immune to any stomach-churning toxins). Instead I suffered from severe sleep deprivation since any move or peep from the kids in the night jolted me awake and sent me running in case there would be vomit.
We stayed in Gram and Gramps immaculate basement...the LAST place in the world you would want to be spreading sickness and vomit.
Could the Jinx get any worse? Of course!Talea gave Hyrum a rude awakening in the night after crawling into bed with us by throwing up all over him and Kiersa.
The van ended up costing A LOT more than anticipated to get fixed.
We caught a cold, WHILE suffering from the stomach flu.
We went out to dinner at a rib joint with some of the family, and Kiersa choked on her french fry and threw up all over, twice.
Yet, amidst the vomit, diarrhea, runny noses, head aches, coughing and borrowing cars while ours was getting fixed, we managed to have A LOT of fun. It was our most enjoyable visit yet! Probably because it wasn't a rushed trip with a deadline to get home. We didn't want to leave!!! It even made us want to move out to Utah to be closer to family! And for a visit to make us want to move to the desert of Utah after being in the green paradise of the Oregon coast, it must have been great.
We visited Hyrum's dad's grave.
We had lots of get-togethers!
We got to hang out with Tana and her family a lot too!!!
Here is Hyrum holding (from left to right) Marlee (David's girl), Omar (Tana's boy) and Paisli (ours of course). Omar is 2 1/2 weeks younger than Paisli, and Marlee is 5 weeks younger.
Marlee and Paisli are pretty much opposites. Dark features/light features. Hairy/bald. Innie/outie. Strictly breast-fed/mostly bottle-fed. Skinny/chubby (do they take after their daddies?...nahh).
We had a family picnic and pictures (though we were still reeling from the stomach flu).
The kids were introduced to Duck-duck-goose, Red-Rover and Fag-Tag (who made up THAT name?).
The babies (Marlee, Rocky and Paisli) got a chance to play together. Rocky is Teresa's son who is 6 weeks younger than Paisli.
Teresa was a stellar Aunt to my kids, as always.
Tilly was in absolute heaven with so many cousins to play with, and is now wishing we lived in Utah so she could play with them.
Hyatt was just there for the food.
And Kiersa was just there to be cute and love on her Aunt Maren. I'm not kidding, Kiersa was obsessed with Maren! She would call for her all the time and only wanted to be with her, not me.
We took some spur-of-the-moment sibling pictures, even though Rachel wasn't there. At least we had 6 together at once! Getting a serious picture out of this family is next to impossible! Between the barbeque smoke and the fanny-pinching, it was rough getting a decent picture. Such a fun family!
Here are all the sisters with their mom, minus Rachel (Teresa, Maren, Nana, Susan and Elisabeth).
There's even a squeeze from Teresa for Rachel!
The two boys of the family, Hyrum and David...10 years apart in age. If the baby of the family is always the spoiled one, what is the #3 child?
The favorite!!!
Even with the age gap, they have similar interests...uhhh, spitting sunflower seeds.
Tana's boy, Omar, and Paisli got to hang out, which is cool since poor Kiersa has never met her Smith cousins who are only about 6 weeks older than her.
Paisli is constantly scowling,
while Omar constantly looks surprised,
so it's only fitting that they were both doing their famous faces with each other.
Rocky joined the tummy-time,
and so did Marlee (though she was asleep).
Hyrum with his Johnson and Smith siblings that had babies within 6 weeks of Paisli.
David & Marlee, Tana & Omar, Hyrum & Paisli and Teresa & Rocky.
They're imitating what their baby is doing...sleeping, looking up, crying and sneezing.
We also went to Thanksgiving Point while there for the first time ever. We went to the dinosaur museum since they were having cheap admission that day. Too bad that EVERYONE else in Utah county was there too to make it choked with people.
Hyrum was frustrated with the crowds and pretty much bored stiff...until he remembered he could entertain himself by offering our kids as sacrifices to the displays.
Next we went to the Monte Bean museum (Dakota's favorite in his early childhood) and Tilly was in heaven with all the animals and bugs.
She got picked to imitate a turtle and was lucky enough to wear a real turtle shell while the guide pretended to be a grizzly attacking her.
We played at Raging Waters since Rain got us in with a great discount. The jinx struck when I got whiplash on one of the rides. What's up with that?
There was a big-rig truck show at Thanksgiving Point, so we went to that, but it was rather disappointing.
The coolest thing was the quad pulling a train of cow-cars. Tilly and Hyatt LOVED it! They sat in the first two seats.
The tree climbing was a hit too, and Kiersa's old enough to want to join in.
They also thought it was pretty cool to look around inside the semis.
Poor Paisli is always in a stroller or car seat in pictures since she's such a tub-o-lard. She gets so heavy so fast!
We swam at Nana's several times, and before we left, we had another family get-together at her house where we barbecued and went to the park.
Awww, Tilly and Braxton holding hands.
When we'd been there for almost 2 weeks, it was finally time to head home. We didn't want to go, but our van was fixed and we had looked into schools and housing, just in case. We didn't want to leave Utah this time! I know. Crazy.
We took the Boise route home and stayed with Hyrum's cousin, Josh. Hyatt threw up in the night! Of all the rotten luck!! So not only did we give Gram a laundry nightmare while we were at her house, we left infected laundry at the Smart's! Turns out, their kids got sick from us a few days later and a much anticipated backpacking trip was canceled because of it. Dang the jinx! So so sorry guys!
In Burns, Oregon, we stopped at a gas station that even Edward would be proud of.
We went to Bend to look into a school there, and found a sweet lava flow not far from there. I'm telling you, the west is nothing but scenic routes and cool locations!
There was a super-cool lava castle there with neat peep holes that pinpointed and named the various volcanoes and mountains around. How have I never been here before?
Of course there was a car-fire in the road on our way home that had emergency crews blocking the road for hours, so we turned around and found a park in the woods in a tiny town and let the kids play until it was cleared up.
Though the jinx threw it's punches left and right, we still managed to have such a great time. We even got to visit with Darin for the first time since he married Teresa!! Yeah! We miss all our Johnson and Smith family out there and hope to move closer in the future.
