Utah or bust!

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.

Changes

We've had some changes in our house. When our business shut down, my dad moved back home to Ashland. We miss him a lot. Kiersa is bewildered as to what happened to her "Bump-ah". She doesn't have anyone to race down the stairs now. It was great having my dad around because he made us his famous biscuits-and-gravy, his delicious homemade salsa and he read my kids Brer Rabbit stories, which is priceless. We grew up on my dad reading us those.

Know you are loved, Dad.

In the 17 1/2 months that we've been living in this apartment, we've had it arranged in a lot of ways.

First, our bed was in the living room, and the kids' bed and the crib were in the one bedroom. Then after I got walked in on by a friendly relative while I was in my skivies nursing Kiersa, we decided to move our bed into the bedroom and put the kids in the living room, and it's been that way since. The crib has moved from the bedroom to the living room and back many times, and a bassinet was moved into the bedroom when Paisli arrived 5 1/2 months ago. When my dad moved in, we moved a second twin bed into the living room and the babies went back into our room. Now that we're down to 6 people again, we took one twin bed out, brought in a recliner and a dresser/bookcase (our $4 garage sale steal) and moved the crib back into the living room.



We also moved the computer armoire into the bedroom so that when Hyrum starts school he can shut himself in the bedroom to work on the computer while the rest of us banish ourselves to the living room/kid's bedroom.

Oh yeah, we moved a couple of our big dining room chairs into storage and brought up a couple of smaller stools instead for the bigger kids. The house actually feels quite large now!

Our fair share of excitement

Let it never be said that living in little ol' Myrtle Point is boring.

Myrtle Point is the home of the Coos County Fair. It's only about 5 or so blocks from our house, so we walk to it every year.

Yesterday, we went to the fair. My camera was dead though. Talea was in heaven going on the rides and only wished she could go on the big kid ones (she only hits the 42" mark), but Hyatt is the biggest chicken and had to be coaxed to go on anything that looked like it may require a seat belt. Good thing Tilly didn't mind going alone. Kiersa was DYING to go on the rides and reached her arm out to them and cried, but she barely hits the 36" mark and only 2 things were small enough for that, but she came down with a mystery fever suddenly and spent the rest of the time sleeping with Tylenol in her belly.

There was a rodeo that night at the fair and they were selecting kids under age 7 in the audience to go in the arena and chase chickens. If you caught one, you could take it home. That is SO up Tilly's alley, so she raised her hand, but they kept overlooking her, and kids were just squeezing through the fence, so I shoved her through the fence also and let her have at it. She didn't catch one, and she got plowed over by a large boy, but she had fun anyway.

By the time we got home at midnight, all the kids but Tilly were asleep. We got in bed and just as our eyes were closing, we heard running footsteps outside and our dogs started barking. I was feeding Paisli so I didn't see any of this action, but Hyrum looked out the window and saw a couple of boys trying to climb over our neighbors fence via the alleyway. He yelled "Hey! What are you doing!", so the boys jumped down and hid in the dead end. All was quiet for a bit, then the boys ran back down the alley, then in a matter of seconds we heard our fence crashing down as Hyrum saw a boy jump over the fence into our yard. He yelled at him then jumped out of bed, pulled on his shorts, grabbed his rifle and ran outside. I grabbed clothes and followed after him. I went to the dog run where the fence was knocked down and saw flashlights behind the neighbors fence. I called to Hyrum, who was down the alley looking for signs of the boys, but it ended up being the police who had the flashlights. They came into the alley (Hyrum had to show them his gun, but it wasn't even usable because he had a lock on it...it was just for scaring the guys) and we talked to them about what we saw. Apparently, the boys had been running from the cops.

The wood fence in the distance is the one the boys tried to climb the first time and the library is the building with the green trim that the boys were hiding by. The silver one just in front of that is the one the boy jumped over and the gold one in the front is the one he ripped down when he tried to jump it.


So Hyrum took the dogs in the big house and had them search it, then he locked up the house and the storage rooms and came to bed.

Paisli woke up in the night and refused to go back to sleep, so I had to get her up and feed her (she sleeps in a bassinet at the foot of our bed). She hasn't done that in AGES! Just as I put her back in bed around 3 am, Kiersa woke up crying (she's in her crib in the living room now that my dad is gone). Guess who got up to get her? Hyrum. She smelled like vomit, but there was no sign of it in her bed. We let her sleep with us and we gave her a bottle of water...then she threw it up all over our bed and the floor. Guess who took care of Kiersa? Hyrum.

So...we mopped her and the floor up (I LOVE LOVE LOVE not having carpet!!!), scrubbed the mattress protector (an essential item with kids) and changed the sheets and pillowcases, then tried to get some sleep.

Theeeen...Paisli woke up in the 8 o'clock hour for a bottle. Guess who dragged their tired body out of bed to make the bottle? Hyrum.

I have the best husband.

Tilly crawled into bed with us at some point in the morning. We all ended up sleeping in until 9:30. I can't remember the last time I did that. I get up at 6 am every morning except Sunday to work in the yard, but this morning, I couldn't do it. I went to bed way too late and had way too much excitement during the night.

Thankfully, Kiersa seems recovered this morning, with only a bit of a heat rash from the fever. We think it's her molars trying to break through that are causing all the trouble.

Theeeeeen....when Hyrum got up, he noticed there was a parade about to start outside. Oh yeah! Fair parade! I jumped up, showered the kids, then Hy dressed them and headed out knowing I would catch up in a second. Turns out, the parade was going right by our house, so we sat on the corner and didn't have to walk anywhere. It was great.

The fair parade is pretty rural, so it was mostly comprised of horses, tractors, log trucks and banjos. It doesn't get any better than that.






Ah, fair week. Never a dull moment. In fact, it seems Keirsa's fever is spreading because now Hyatt is coming down with it. Hmmm. Tomorrow it should be Paisli's turn. Maybe it wasn't the teeth after all.

Kids will be kids

Keirsa has discovered the joys of checking out her hairstyles or clothes in the full-length mirror. Though I managed to get a rubberband and bow in her hair and have her look at how cute it was, she still wasn't a happy camper. Seriously, this girl won't let me make her look girly.



Hyatt's cryptonite: food. It puts him to sleep all the time.


Paisli is a round little ball of interest and exploration. Don't get your face near her hands or your nose may get ripped off.


If elbows on the table are bad, how naughty is Kiersa to constantly put her foot up on the table while she eats?


Is there something to worry about when your child actually TRIES to get snakes to bite her because she thinks it's funny since it doesn't hurt?


And if the snake bite grosses you out, this is worse. She actually SAW a fly (that she had captured and torn the wings off of course) give live birth to 2 maggots during its distress. She came and told me about it, but not believing her, I told her to bring the maggots to me to show me. Sure enough, she was right. Hyrum could have died right then. He HATES maggots with a passion.