Sightseeing and Costume Changes

After our very late (or very early) arrival, the girls went off to a bridal luncheon

and the boys went to visit a Battleship.

Not to be left out, when the luncheon was over Phoebe, Sophie, Kate and I went to the Battleship too, at least the exterior.

We saw alligator tracks, but no actual alligators. I'm very okay with that.

Here's a closer look.

Then we walked through the quaint downtown area near our hotel. We found a bookstore!

Then we got all fancy and went to the rehearsal dinner where sweet things were said about Bryan's brother Paul and Paul's fiancé. We ate some food too.

Fun (and some mild exhaustion) was had by all.

Home Again, Home Again

Bryan flew out to Utah on Sunday and spent most of the week driving home with Peter. They arrived just before 3:00 this morning.

Topher is especially happy that they're home.

Mile Upon Mile

On Wednesday's drive home from Bryan's work party our van reached an important milestone. I reached my camera over and took a blurry picture to mark the 100,000 mile occasion.

Book Buddies

When I was writing up our Disneyland adventure last year Blogger started having trouble moving pictures from Google Photos into the posts. To circumvent that issue I had to download everything, then upload it all to the blog. This was a pain and took more time and I ended up not ever finishing the posts about Disneyland. I also never wrote about our trip to Utah right after that. I hope to fix that someday. For now though, I want to make sure I don't make the same mistake with our most recent trip.

After spending a few days at Ron and Shari's house, we headed to down Utah County to see friends there. Our first stop was BYU. We tried to get a tour of Peter's new apartment since it looked like he wouldn't be able to move in until after I had flown back to PA with the other kids. When the sweet receptionist told me no, I almost cried. I quickly regained my composure and she gave me some good news: Peter could move in on Saturday instead of waiting until Monday! We would still be there and would be able to see his home for the next eight months. I was thrilled!

After that, we grabbed lunch at the Cougareat, then headed north to see my friend Beth! We were in the same married ward at BYU, but I don't think we ever actually talked to each other then. We found each others blogs and she and I have essentially been blog pen pals since Cooper was a baby. Her kids are just a little older than ours and she's a fellow bibliophile. There are lots of other great things about her, those are just two things we have in common. When we were in Utah in 2023 I stopped by for a quick in-person hello and we've been trading Marco Polos since then. I love that we got to stop by for a bit longer visit on this trip! And our kids got to meet each other, which made me happy.

Thanks for making time for us, Beth!

Fresh From the Tree

On the day that we arrived in Utah, after we had slept in until the middle of the morning, we walked to church with Bryan's parents. Living close enough to the church to walk on a regular basis would be really nice. My sister-in-law Falisha went to church with us. She also joined us for Sunday dinner at Bryan's grandma's house. I was originally supposed to drive her the rest of the way home to Idaho Falls on Sunday, but we were so exhausted by the long haul from California that she agreed to hang out and rest an extra day. I was thankful.

I drove her home on Monday morning. I loved getting to talk with her for the drive up. When I got back to Bryan's parents' house at lunch time I saw that the kids had helped Papa Ron harvest the peaches from their tree. We enjoyed the fruits of their labors during the remainder of our stay. Thanks to Phoebe for the picture of the peaches.

Apparently I took very few pictures during those first few days. We had a great visit though, even without photographic proof. Topher and Sophie pulled out all the toys and claimed the basement as their domain. We ate good food and got to see Uncle Dallin and cousins Harmony and Liam. We also tried to buy supplies for Peter's apartment. It turns out he had very few opinions about what bedding and dishes to buy. We ended up ordering a lot of stuff online.

PA to NJ to CA

Starting Again, Minus One

We spent the last week and a half in California and Utah. We flew back home yesterday so the kids could start school today. Well, most of the kids started today. We left Peter back in Utah so he could move into his apartment on-campus and then start his classes at BYU next week.

Has it registered that Peter has moved out? Not really. It kind of feels like he's on a trip. Though, his all-night packing right before we flew to California means that he left his room a wreck. I spent most of today cleaning it. I've filled four kitchen-sized trash bags just from his side of the room. So far. Maybe all the sorting of stuff will help it sink in that he's in college.

Here's our first day of school picture!

Everyone had a good day. We celebrated by going out to dinner and then getting ice cream, both at places that aren't peanut-safe. We all felt weird, like we were breaking the house rules. And we kind of were, at least the old house rules.

From Here to There to Here

Last week I flew from my local airport to Chicago, from Chicago to Denver, then from Denver to Idaho Falls. I now know that the Chicago airport has a dinosaur in it.

I also learned that United gives these gluten free goodies out as a snack.

Here I am with one of the people I came to visit, my youngest brother, Isaac.

It snowed while I was there. I was not pleased. I had to use my hotel key envelope to scrape the frozen stuff off my rental car. When that turned into a pulpy mess I resorted to just shoving the snow off with my arms.

My sister-in-law Falisha and I went to an art museum that included these lovely pieces. The combination of art and the written word really speaks to my soul.

She and I also enjoyed walking along the Snake River.

I took advantage of staying in a hotel less than a mile from the Idaho Falls Temple and walked over to do a session on Saturday morning. It was lovely. I especially appreciated that the weather cooperated, this was the nicest day we had while I was there.

On Tuesday I flew from Idaho Falls to Denver in a tiny plane.

As soon as we landed in Denver I took my phone out of airplane mode and discovered that my next flight (from Denver to Chicago) was delayed. Then as I exited the plane it was delayed even further. By the time I was in the Denver airport my next flight had been delayed so much that I was going to miss my connecting flight to get home.

I texted Bryan to update him on what was happening and we tried to find a solution. The United app gave me the option of rescheduling to a flight that would change my arrival time from 9:33 Tuesday night to 11:15 Wednesday morning. I didn't want to do that.

I decided to walk to my gate, even though the flight was so delayed. As I went I noticed a gate saying the next flight was going to Philadelphia. I had the thought that I needed to get on that plane. I tried to call United customer service and was bumped to a text conversation with an AI. 

When I got to my gate I saw that my Chicago flight was next, followed by a flight to Philly. I opened the app again and this time it gave me the option of a video chat. I was put through to a person almost immediately. I explained that my flight was delayed so I was going to miss my connecting flight. I said that if I could get to Philadelphia I could get home. I asked him if I could move my seat to the later Philadelphia flight. He said that plane was full, but there happened to be a flight to Philly leaving at 1:40 that had space that he could move me to.

It was a few minutes after 1:00 at this point.

While he changed my ticket I turned around and booked it back to the first gate I had passed, the one that I felt I should get on. That was the flight! I walked up as they were already boarding, told the situation to the gate agent, got a new boarding pass, then walked on to the new plane. The customer service agent stayed on the call with me until it was all fixed and I was walking down the gangplank.

I was so thankful that it worked out. Bryan was able to shift his schedule to pick me up and Cooper and Phoebe took over bedtime duties with Topher and Sophie (Peter was at work).

This is what the middle of the county looked like from the plane.

This is what Pennsylvania looked like from the air.

I exited the flight, so happy to be on the ground two hours earlier than my original itinerary dictated. I was waiting for Bryan at the curb outside the airport when I discovered that my third flight, the one I was going to miss, had been delayed. And delayed again. And then canceled. If I hadn't switched my flight I would have been stuck in Chicago.

I think that experience was a tender mercy.

Thanks for letting me visit, Falisha and Isaac!

New England In the Summer

This was not our year for FSY. Our congregation was assigned to go last summer, and most of the youth went. But we were still isolating, so Peter and Cooper stayed home. This year our Bishop encouraged the boys to sign up as soon as it was open to off-year participants. I meant to sign up right away, but we were waiting on a scheduling issue, so it took a few weeks. By the time I was able to register them, the closest For the Strength of Youth Conference was full. So, I searched for the next closest. That is why Bryan spent aaaalllll of last Monday driving Peter and Cooper up to their camp in Amherst, Massachusetts. 

He drove up, dropped them off, then turned around and drove back, all in one day. That made for a very, very, long day for Bryan. We decided to break up the trip to retrieve them into two days, in part because we had to collect them by 7:30 on Saturday morning and we had no desire to leave our house at 3AM. Because Phoebe had left for Bishop's camp the day before, she missed out on our drive up to New England. We left in the early afternoon on Friday.

New England has a lot of trees. I'm sure it's beautiful in the fall, but the green of summer is my favorite.

I believe the last time we took a road trip with only two kids was in 2009. For real life.

It was about a four and a half hour drive up to Amherst. We took the scenic route instead of the city route which possibly saved us a few hours, depending on traffic.

We checked into our hotel for the night, then drove around campus to see where we would need to pick them up the next morning. I started taking pictures of areas on campus, then texting them to Peter and Cooper to show them where we were. Apparently we just missed Cooper at one building.

Cooper told us that the W.E.B. Du Bois Library at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is the tallest library in the US. I didn't get to go inside, but I did get out of the car to take a picture with it!

As we were driving around campus I found this lab and sent the picture to my sister, Paige. Maybe she's secretly a scientist in Massachusetts? By the way, I cannot spell the name of that state. I have had spell check correct me every time I've typed it.

The next morning Peter and Cooper were sad to leave the new friends they had made, but happy to see their siblings.

We could have gotten right on the road for home, but a friend had told me about a museum in town that I wanted to visit and it didn't open until 10 o'clock. So we got some breakfast, then visited Emily Dickinson's grave ("Oh! Statue world!" as Topher said when we walked into the cemetery), then found a fun park so Topher and Sophie could get some energy out. It was, in fact, such a fun park that Topher was completely filthy when we left. We had to detour back to our hotel room (thankfully we still had some time before checkout) so he could have a bath.

Then, with Topher clean and wearing his clean-ish clothes from the day before, we went to the Eric Carle Museum! This car is outside the museum. When we saw it I said to the kids, "Oh look, it's the Very Hungry Car-tipllar." Who says only dads can make up those jokes?

The museum was small, but lovely. Only the first room was dedicated to Eric Carle. They have a huge collection, but it appears that they rotate out pieces for different exhibits. This one was about his time in Japan and the collaborative work he did there. These two quotes spoke to my heart.

Visitors were invited to sit and create their own books after viewing Carle's work.

The second room was a collection about the artist Claire A. Nivola. I wasn't familiar with her work and I LOVED it! Her use of color and line was so beautiful.

The final exhibit (there was a fourth, but I only found out when I found the link for the museum to add to this post, oops) was all about depictions of horses in literature. It was delightful. Topher appreciated the puppet theater.

This was my favorite piece from the room.

Guess what else that exhibit had on display! A real Caldecott medal! I sent this picture to a few friends and one of them responded that she didn't realize they were actual, physical medals. I hadn't realized either, but now that I've seen one it makes sense that they would be more than just a symbol added to the front of beautiful picture books.

As we finished our visit we of course had to stop in the bathroom since we would be on the road for many hours. The bathroom was themed to match the museum! If you know the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, then these characters will look familiar.

Our drive home was mostly uneventful, except when we had to pull of the freeway and find a bathroom right away because Topher had consumed two kid sized sodas and a Frosty from Wendy's. We found a port-a-potty at a park. He was NOT impressed.

Pennsylvania has fewer trees than Massachusetts (ha! I corrected my own misspelling that time!), but it's still pretty.

We got back into town minutes before Phoebe returned from camping. We had just enough time to drop off our stuff and go pick her up. It was nice to have everyone back together.