New Member of the Family

I made the very difficult decision to give up Cenizas on Saturday. It was hard for me and the kids, but it was time for her to go. Tom decided that he wanted to get another dog, a big dog this time. We looked at all kind of dogs for adoption and did a lot of research to make sure that whatever breed we got would be a good fit for our family.

Sort of as a joke I suggested a Mexican Hairless, but as we read more about the breed, we realized that this was actually a great match for our lifestyle. We've learned quite a bit about Xolos (Mexican Hairless) in the last week, including that (a) they are actually pretty rare - very few breeders; (b) not all of them are hairless; and (c) trying to find a standard [lg] size (rather than a toy [sm] or miniature [med] size) is almost impossible. Add that we wanted a young female (not a pup), and we had color preferences, we realized we would probably be waiting a very long time before we were going to have another dog.

But not so. Tom found EXACTLY what we were looking for within a day, so while we weren't expecting another dog for quite some time, we now have Kaiya in our family. She's a year old and very, very sweet. I haven't ever owned a large dog, so I'm still getting used to how to handle/train one. But she's doing very well and is quite a mellow dog so we're enjoying her.

So proud

Josh got his orange belt last week. I'm so proud of him for all the hard work he's done and continues to do!

Rock On!

Tom and I competed in a Guitar Hero competition with his boss, Frank, and Frank's wife, Shanna at the inContact Christmas Party this year. Our band took gold, with the highest GH score the gaming/hosting company has ever seen. :)

Shaolin

Probably the quickest blog post ever here. Josh started Shaolin (kung fu and tai chi) about 3 weeks ago and last night he earned his yellow belt. I'm very proud of him.

Best Way to Spend Halloween

I was scrolling through the very small number of postings on this blog and tripped across the one from Halloween last year. It seems my ho-hum attitude about Halloween has actually gotten progressively worse. How can that be? Well, this year I completely gave up on trick-or-treaters.

The boys were all at the other house, which left a Saturday night alone for Tom & me. Now why would I spend that hopping up and down answering the door? The answer is, I didn't. Tom and I put two big bowls of candy out on the porch with a sign to take some and then went out for a nice dinner and a movie. It's the most enjoyable Halloween I've had since I was a kid. Oh, and the bowls were completely empty when we got home so that eliminated the possibility of my snacking on candy for weeks afterward. This may well become a tradition. :)

Bayly Family Camping

It's nearly a month late, but figured I'd better post. The last weekend in June was our annual camping outing with the Bayly family. Our last camping trip with the Baylys ended in evacuation because the entire mountainside was on fire.

This year it was rain. Okay, I can't complain too much because it didn't rain the entire trip, just the first night. And boy did it rain!! It started literally as we zipped up the tent the first night at 10:00 PM and didn't stop until about 7:30 the next morning. The entire campsite was drenched, everything was soggy, and to make things truly enjoyable, our tent leaked. Tom and I both woke up to a long trail of water down the entire side of each of our sleeping bags. Hmpf!

Fortunately, things did dry out and we were able to enjoy the next couple of days relaxing, fishing (the kids, anyway), reading, and hiking (okay, walking on paved trails). Treg & Carolyn brought a zip line for the kids and it was definitely a hit. I think my kids played on the zip line from sunup to sundown. Wtg, Cole and Jordan for lashing a ladder so the kids could get to the zip line!

The one thing this camping trip taught us was that it is time to buy a camping trailer. We've now found the one we want, but based on the price tag, we'll be saving our pennies for a long time to come. We had hoped we would be able to purchase one before the end of camping season, but that's not looking promising. Sell, Tom, sell like the wind! We need those commissions! :)

Best Vacation of My Life

Day 1: Saturday

We boarded the plane in the morning, direct flight to Los Cabos. There were 15 or 16 people from inContact, along with their spouses/guests, and we were all buzzing with excitement. After a 2-1/2 hour flight and 30 minute van ride, we arrived at the Riu Palace in Cabo San Lucas, an all-inclusive resort where we would all be staying for 8 days. The resort was absolutely beautiful!

After checking in and unloading our bags (we both managed to pack for 8 days using only carry-on luggage - we were so proud :)), we changed into swimsuits, hit the beach and hung out there until sunset reading and talking with Tom's boss Frank, who was primarily responsible for making this entire trip happen for all of us.


Day 2: Sunday

Sunday is a day of rest, and that's exactly what we did. We slept in late, and spent the entire day on the beach and by the pool, reading and napping.

We picked up a couple of Sony Readers (competitor to the Kindle) before we headed to Cabo so we wouldn't have to pack so many books. May I just say what great toys they are! We were able to load several books, including a triple combination, onto them. I ended up reading 3 books during our vacation. Great investment!

Sunday night we had a late group dinner for all inContact employees and their spouses/guests. The food wasn't that great, but the company was a lot of fun.


Day 3: Monday

Another lazy morning by the pool. But after spending the entire day doing nothing the day before, Tom was starting to get antsy so we rented a wave runner and bumped around on the waves - and I do mean bumped! My behind got so sore that I ended up supporting all of my weight by basically doing squats so I wouldn't take so much of the shock. My quads hurt for days afterward.

Late in the afternoon we headed into town to board the Fiesta Cabaret for a sunset dinner cruise. Admittedly, the boat was rather cheesy. The food was actually pretty good, and they had a show after dinner, which was a bunch of different styles of Latin dances. Tom and I were feeling a bit ho-hum about the show until the guys came out and did the dance with the I-can't-remember-what-they're-called things. But here's a clip I found on youtube that shows what they were doing. This is the same guy we saw in the show that night. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YQ1hwzRB9k It was INCREDIBLE! It made the entire night.


Day 4: Tuesday

First thing in the morning we headed out to the middle of nowhere in the desert to do the Wide Open. It's a place where you get to drive the dune buggies (they don't call them dune buggies) that they use in the Baja 1000. It was absolutely Tom's favorite activity of the entire vacation. They put a governer on the vehicles so you can't drive past 70 mph, but I'm quite sure we pushed the limit several times as we raced around the track, took the jumps and the 90-degree turns. What a rush!

That afternoon we paired up with 5 other couples to try out parasailing. Tom and I thought it would be kind of a thrill ride, but it turned out to be not at all what we expected. It's actually quite peaceful and quiet way up there in the sky. They had us harnessed in tandem and we sat up there and took in the scenery, chatting. Tom made pals with the guys driving the boat because of his Spanish, and he asked them to dip us low enough that we could drag our toes in the ocean at one point.


Day 5: Wednesday

Another morning and early afternoon sitting around the pool reading and snoozing. Late in the afternoon we headed out to the middle of nowhere again to do sunset horseback riding. It was absolutely my favorite event of the week. Some people say they should have been born in a certain century or certain country. I'm convinced I was born to be on horses. I don't want to own one, but I sure do love riding them. It still cracks me up that we live about a quarter mile from an equestrian park, but the only time we manage to ride horses is when we're out of the country on vacation.

Tom was hoping we could gallop along the beach, but it seems these horses are so well trained that they can't seem to reach any speed higher than a trot for about 3 seconds and they appear to be most comfortable with their noses in the arse of another horse; i.e., they only walk single-file. It would have been nice to ride side-by-side with Tom, but try as we might, we could not get those horses to do anything but walk one after the other.


Day 6: Thursday

After all the fun and excitement for the last three days, I needed another break. We had planned to go 4-wheeling, but someone from our group said that after doing the Wide Open, the 4x4's would seem pretty boring. So we saved the cash and laid around by the pool again. (Why always the pool and not the beach? Not many chairs in the shade on the beach; many shade umbrellas by the pool.)

There wasn't much swimming in the ocean at the resort because the waves were pretty strong. It was actually pretty humorous trying to get in and out of water taxis and on and off wave runners. By Wednesday night the waves had started to get pretty intense. There were some people who said that it actually kept them up that night.

We went to dinner with Frank and his wife Thursday night and they told us a story about one guy who went out into the waves Wednesday evening and lost his swim trunks. I say it serves him right for not having the common sense to stay out of the water under those conditions. Our dinner with Frank and Shanna was out on the terrace of the restaurant where we had a clear view of the beach. The waves were incredible! I really wish I'd had my camera with me to take a shot because it was really breathtaking, and rather frightening at the same time. It certainly gives you a deep appreciation and respect for how powerful those waves can be.


Day 7: Friday

On the docket for the day: ziplines and bungee jumping. The zipline course we chose was the "extreme" course. It had 8 ziplines throughout the canyon, some as high as 300 feet up. We discovered that the "extreme" part was not necessarily the ziplines themselves, but the extreme heat in which we had to hike from one zipline start to the next. It really sapped my energy.

I enjoyed the feeling of zipping through the air and the rush of the wind, but we ended up missing out on a lot of the scenery. We were told time after time that we needed to keep the wire in the center of the pulley, otherwise we would create friction, slow down, and get stuck in the middle of the zipline. The only way out: hand over hand until you reach the end. No thanks. So we spent the majority of our time watching the pulley above our heads, rather than taking in the scenery. Admittedly, though, there wasn't much to see, just one big desert.

Following the zipline, Tom, his CEO Paul, and Paul's wife all headed to attraction #2 of the zipline area: the bungee jump. They put you in a little suspended cart-thing like a cherry-picker and haul you out to a glass-bottom tram fixed to cables 300 ft in the air smack dab in the middle of the canyon. You jump from the tram. There was no way I was going to do that, so I sat by on the secure ground in a shaded area to watch. We actually have Tom's jump on video, but it was done with Paul's phone so we don't have it yet. I'll post it when we get the file.


Day 8: Saturday

Last day in paradise. We slept in, packed up, and waited in the lounge area playing cards while we waited for transportation to arrive. Tom and I had talked about doing another horseback ride on the beach right outside the resort, but we didn't end up having time.


This was absolutely the best vacation I've ever had. I've never felt more relaxed and carefree. This trip was great incentive for Tom and me to make sure we end up going on next year's trip to Playa del Carmen.

My two goals between now and then are (1) get in better shape so something like zipline hikes doesn't kill me; and (2) become fluent in Spanish. I noticed while I was surrounded by people speaking Spanish all the time (yes, they knew English, but with Tom around there was quite a bit of Spanish speaking going on), that I got really comfortable with the language, understood quite a bit, and was even speaking un poco myself by the end of the week. With that in mind, Tom and I agreed that we're going to have "immersion" days at our house. Every Sun, Mon, Wed, and Thu we will speak only Spanish, including when we're speaking to the kids. We don't expect the kids to answer in Spanish...yet.

More warm destinations

One of the very nice things Tom learned during his sales conference in Las Vegas is that we will be going to Cabo San Lucas in April along with several other people from the company. Eight days, seven nights. While this winter has been relatively mild, I do still look forward to spending some relaxing time in the sunshine.

Ahora, necesito practicar mi Espanol. :)

Viva Las Vegas!

Tom was in Vegas all last week for a their annual sales conference - the big meeting to kick off the new year. Things went very well for him and he was very excited about all the things that are coming up this year.

I flew out on Friday afternoon to join him for the weekend when the conference was over. We went to see Phantom Friday night. When Tom bought the tickets (as a surprise for me) he asked the lady where the best place to sit was. She told him, "Row M, that's the best place for this one big special effect". So yes, we were RIGHT UNDER the chandelier when it fell. It was a really spectacular effect. I was impressed with the way they coordinated everything as far as backdrops, stage props, etc. It's amazing to me how creative it all was and well it worked to draw the audience in.

I will say, sadly, that the live musical was not as good as the movie, IMHO. Maybe it's just because I fell in love with the movie without ever having seen the musical. Emmy Rossum just has a sweetness in her voice and character that really makes her Christine for me. The woman playing Christine in the live performance had a very strong voice. Kind of took something away from the character. And besides, who could ever beat Gerard Butler at being the phantom?

We went to see "Defiance" (movie) on Saturday afternoon. It's the Daniel Craig film about the Jewish people who hid out in the woods for years during WWII. It's based on a true story. I enjoyed the movie, thought it was well done. Tom said he was expecting it more to be an action flick than a drama so he didn't like it as much.

Saturday night we went to see the O show (Cirque du Soleil). It was very impressive. People were diving from the rafters of the stage (about 100 feet up) into the water, there was fire dancing, trapeze work, you name it. It was quite a spectacle. And of course the musician in me homed right in on the live singers in the wings. One of the singers had an absolutely beautiful voice. Wish I could have found out who it was so I could see if she had cut any albums.

After the O show we decided we wanted to go for ice cream. We punched Cold Stone into the GPS and arrived at our destination a few minutes later. Unfortunately, it was also a few minutes late, as they had closed about 10 minutes before we arrived. Undiscouraged, we typed "ice cream" into the GPS and found there was another place very closeby, only about 0.2 miles away. We turned left, we turned right, we turned left...and found ourselves in the middle of a residential neighborhood. Huh? Tom joked, "What if this is just a guy who drives an ice cream truck?" We made the last turn left...into a cul de sac, and there in the driveway of one of the homes was, yep, an ice cream truck. I laughed so hard it brought me to tears. At that point we gave up and headed back to the hotel (Red Rock) and just ordered room service. Not Coldstone, but it sufficed.

We packed it up and headed home Sunday. It was a great weekend, nice to get away.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas at the Milligans. This whole season has been rather disorganized for our family. Never did seem to get ahold of things. We did end up hanging our beautiful wreath in the front door archway, the lights were already up in the eaves from last year, and we bought a new artificial tree that we managed to get up early in the month. But that's about where it ends. I'll just take a moment to say that those reading probably think this post is made with much grumpiness, but in truth, it is completely hilarious to me that we never got any further than we did with decorating for Christmas. No stockings hung by the chimney with care - just sitting in a pile on top of the mantle. We did get the decorations down from the really, really high storage area in the garage, but...well...they never did make it onto the tree. It's a good thing our new tree is pre-lit because otherwise it would have been completely naked. :) I guess the good news is that we don't have much to break down after the holidays.

So why so much disorganization? Well, the church Christmas program would be one really big reason. Since I am the Primary pianist and the ward choir pianist, I ended up doing 6 musical numbers for those groups. Additionally, I accompanied one of the sisters in our ward who sang a solo she had written for piano, flute, and voice. It was BEAUTIFUL! There was a women's group that did Mary's Lullaby and I accompanied them, and was also asked to write parts for flute and violin, which I think turned out very nice, if I do say so myself. Then finally I did my own piano solo - an arrangement I wrote of Silent Night a couple of years ago. Needless to say there were many rehearsals and lots of writing and practicing. Whew! Nine musical numbers! I am so glad that's over. But it did sound really nice when all was said and done.

We weren't able to have the boys on Sunday night when we went over to my dad's for a family celebration, but I'm undecided about whether that was a blessing or a curse. It was sad they didn't get to play with all the cousins and see Grandpa & Grandma. But it was also very nice not having to remind them to mind their manners and stop running around their house. :)

We went over to my brother's on Christmas Eve day for a luncheon with my mom and the rest of the family. This time we did have the boys with us and we all had a great time. We were sad we missed Tris and Kris, but we had to leave earlier than we would have liked in order to get the boys back to the X-Men's house on time for their Christmas Eve plans.

After we dropped the boys off, we headed straight to Cafe Rio to pick up our traditional Christmas Eve Mexican food. :) Actually, Cafe Rio is one of our favorite spots and we didn't feel like cooking on Christmas Eve, so we stopped there. Much to our disappointment, they were already closed at 5:30 PM. Bummer. So we drove aimlessly around for a bit trying to think of something that would be close to satisifying. We ended up going to Chili's and doing takeout, which we brought home and ate as we watched a movie while bundled up in a blanket. The film was Kingdom of Heaven. It was interesting but extraordinarily long, so I can't give it really high ratings.

We woke up Christmas morning (slept in) and wrapped all the Christmas presents. Did I mention that despite having all of the Christmas shopping done by Thanksgiving, we didn't get around to wrapping any of the gifts? So there we were at the kitchen table Christmas morning wrapping all the presents for the boys and the family.

The boys arrived around 1:00 PM and we had Christmas "morning". This year's Christmas was all about gaming. The family got a new gaming computer, which means we won't have one boy playing with three boys huddled around offering advice to the player. Now we can have one boy playing on each of the two machines with only one other boy "coaching". The rest of the gifts were all about the Wii, PS2, and new DS's.

Things were going very well until around 4:30 PM when we lost power because of the big storm. A call to Rocky Mountain Power informed us that the power was expected to be out until around 9:30 PM. Hmm, how does one entertain 4 boys for 5 hours in the middle of a power outage on Christmas? They did okay until the batteries went dead in their DS's. By then it was pretty much completely dark in the house. I had lit a couple of candles, but they weren't doing much in the way of providing adequate light. I roped Tom into reading to them for a while and after that I got them to join me for a game of Disney Trivial Pursuit by flashlight. Gage creamed us all.

By that point it was 7:30 and we were losing control of what was becoming a rather loud and rambunctious group of kids. We decided an outing to the District for a movie was in order. After finally deciding on one (Tom and I weren't really anxious to see anything) we loaded up the kids in the car. I was literally starting to put my shoes on when the power came back on. Ah, blessed electricity. Since Tom and I weren't keen on the film we were going to see, we hauled all the boys back in and told them we weren't going to see a movie, but the Wii, PS2, and DS's were all available and now fully functional.

Now I have to go back and say that a few minutes before the power outage, Tom and I discovered Guitar Hero - one of the games we got for Christmas. OH MY GOSH!! What an incredibly fun game!!!! We were disappointed because we couldn't play when the outage hit. So we made up for it afterward...until about 1:30 AM for the boys, 2:30 AM for me, and 3:15 AM for Tom. VERY addicting.

This morning I was proud of myself for displaying enough restraint to shower and brush my teeth before going downstairs to start playing Guitar Hero again. Tom joined me after returning home from taking the boys back to the X-Men. We pretty much did nothing but play Guitar Hero all day today. I cannot believe how fun that game is! I had to pull myself away to cook dinner. It was a good excuse for a break because my hands are all cramped up. :)

Needless to say, I am very much enjoying my time off of work for the holidays.

Bah Humbug for Halloween?

As I realized yesterday that I didn't take a single picture of the kids in their Halloween costumes this year :( it occurred to me that I've become rather Bah Humbug about Halloween. I never cared much for Halloween after I got too old to go trick-or-treating, and never was one for having Halloween parties, but after Josh was born, it became an enjoyable holiday again.

This year, after 10 years of good Halloweens, I guess I've lost the spirit. I delegated the responsibility for answering the door to my children. We sent the boys out unescorted for the first time ever. And Josh, who was feeling sick, decided he didn't even want to go trick-or-treating this year. I was holed up in the family room on my laptop until midnight trying to catch up on work.

While a part of me is sad that next year will be Joshua's last year for Halloween (I don't think I've told him this yet), there are certainly some things I am looking forward to, like not having to go to the school Halloween parades and sit by myself because I don't know any of the other moms who seem to be very close friends because they actually have the time to volunteer in their kids' classes. I also won't miss spending $40 for a costume Josh will wear one time. I can't imagine spending $40 on a piece of clothing I would wear only once.

Have you ever heard me say I'm turning into the old woman I never wanted to be? Little yappy dogs, telling children to get out of my yard, etc. I guess this attitude toward Halloween is just one more example of my trip down that road.

Crossing the bridge

Joshua received his Arrow of Light on October 2, and moved up into the 11yo scouts program. This is a shot of him crossing the bridge from cub scouts into boy scouts.

He went on his first scout campout last Friday. They had originally planned to go up to Kamas, but with the weather being so bad, they decided not to risk the snow and instead camped out in the backyard of one of the leaders. Didn't stop him from coming home with his clothes smelling strongly of camping out.

Next Stop, Boy Scouts

Josh got his Webelo's badge this past Thursday. He completed all of his requirements, and has just one requirement left to get his Arrow of Light before he turns 11. He'll receive that in October and move up to the 11-year-old scouts. I'm so proud of him!

For Time and All Eternity

Most of you were there, so this is something of a repeat, but for those who are out of town and weren't able to be there, I thought I'd share the events of Wednesday, September 3rd, the day my best friend became my eternal companion.

We didn't need to be at the temple until 5:00 PM but we decided to go early and do a session together. It's the first time either of us had been there in quite some time and it was a beautiful, peaceful experience. At the end of the session, right before we moved on into the c. room, a temple worker came in with a notebook and said, "Is Tom Milligan here? Is Tiffany Milligan here?" He took us to the back of the room and said, "We just needed to make sure we knew where you were." We chuckled. As it turns out, we ended up throwing pretty much everyone in the whole place off by going through this session before our sealing.

After changing out of my "extra gear" after the session, I headed out to the foyer to meet Tom and go to the office to make sure all of the paperwork was in order. While I was waiting for him I was chatting with one of the temple workers and mentioned to her that we were being sealed that night. She got very concerned and said almost frantically, "Where's your temple attendant? You should have a temple attendant! Let me go get our coordinator and find out what's going on. Come with me. No, wait! Stay here and wait for your husband. Is that what you're wearing to be sealed? [referring to my normal temple dress]" Me: "Uh...yeesss. Oh! Yah, no big dress or accoutrements or anything. Just this." It was rather amusing. :)

After everyone ran around, gathering yet another two or three people, we got to the office, finished the paperwork and headed off to our respective dressing areas. I was led to the bride's room, and my attendant seemed a little dismayed that I already had a locker, as they usually assign one to the bride when she gets there. While I was in the bride's dressing area putting on my "extra gear", the attendant asked, "Um, do you need to uh, um, do any hair or makeup things or anything?" Me: "Nope." "Do you need any help with your [extra gear]?" Me: "Nope." Temple attendant: "You are one of the EASIEST brides I've ever done." I felt like saying, "Oh, you should have been there for the wedding. Justice of the peace, two witnesses, both of us in Levi's. Yah, we're pretty easy going." Instead, I just chuckled.

We had a nice sealer, who did a good job. He was a bit...wordy. (Got flashbacks to The Princess Bride: "Marriage...is what brings us together...today.") It was wonderful to see all of our friends and family there, and even more wonderful to be sealed for time and all eternity to my best friend and loving husband.


Following the sealing, we headed out with the Bayly clan and the Milligan clan for some Mexican food at Su Casa, and enjoyed a lot of laughs. It was a wonderful day!

Yeah, Coaster Babies!!

Last Saturday was eBay's summer party. This year they decided to do it at Lagoon. Who could pass up an opportunity for $10 per all-day pass for family members, and free admission for yourself?

This was the morning Tom and I had flown back from Spokane after Cynthia's funeral. We woke up at 3:00 AM in order to get on the road and catch our 6:30 AM flight back to SLC. We were toast.

We arrived at Lagoon amongst grumblings of "why didn't we bring camelbacks?" and "I'm hot" and "Why can't we buy one of those?" Grrrr. But after a few rides we found ourselves in line for Jetstar 2. Ah, a rollercoaster. Mom and Dad's favorite. All of the kids went with us, the first time on a real rollercoaster for all of them. They loved it!!! Then we headed over to The Bat, and finally Tom got Gage & Cole to go on Colossus with him.

Here's a pic of the boys on the Wild Mouse.

We are so pleased to have four coaster babies in our family. When they get tall enough, we're heading to Six Flags.

Move over Michael Phelps

Gage participated in his first swim meet this morning. He raced in the freestyle and backstroke heats, taking second place in freestyle and third place in backstroke.

Jealous?

Tom's company has been having their annual Sales Conference this week. Tonight to wrap up the festivities, everyone (including spouses) went to see Brian Regan down at Thanksgiving Point. Traffic going in was a nightmare (45 minutes to get from the "Cabela's stoplight" on the west side of the freeway to the first light on the east side of the freeway)! The show was absolutely worth it, though. He had a lot of great material I hadn't heard before. For all who missed it tonight, he has a new 1-hour Comedy Central special coming in September (the 7th, I think).

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The Good

Last weekend our family headed to the great outdoors for the final camping trip of the summer season. This was the 4-day camping weekend we had been planning with the Bayly family since our earlier camping trip in June. I had been waiting anxiously for two months and was really looking forward to it.

We arrived first at the site, followed closely by Tregaron (my brother) & Carolyn and fam, and lastly Dad & JoAnn came right around sunset. The kids were getting along great, everyone was having fun, and the weather was cooperating nicely. As we were sitting around the campfire on Thursday night I commented that I had never seen a more beautiful sky, as it was a moonless night and you could see hundreds of stars out.


The Bad
That night (Thursday) we had put all the kids to bed, including a separate tent full of Milligan boys and Nathan and Aaron (Treg & Carolyn's boys). No sooner had the kids slipped into their sleeping bags, then we heard painful cries from Nathan. It turns out he had a yellow jacket, wasp, hornet, or something trapped inside his pajamas. The poor guy got stung on his finger and on his hip. Fortunately, he didn't have an allergic reaction and Carolyn was able to get the swelling to go down some.

Treg and Tom took the lead as wasp-hunters, going into the tent and finding an additional 3 live and 4 dead hornets (or whatever they were) in the boys' tent. Yikes!


Back to the Good

Friday morning Nathan woke up feeling much better. The day's activities included finding a geo cache, (it turns out we were the first to find it), and the kids painting wood-crafted snakes, followed shortly thereafter by rocks, and just about anything else the kids could pick up, while the adults sat under the shade tent chatting

Teag and Kerri arrived mid-afternoon with their two girls, but Teag had to leave soon after to fly his boss' family somewhere. He was scheduled to be back to the campsite in the wee hours, around 2:00 AM.

At 8:00 PM, Tom and Treg left to pick up Treg's oldest son, Jordan, from scout camp. They anticipated about 2 hours' drive each way.

Tristin and her son, Kolby, arrived a little after dark (her daugther was sick so her husband stayed at home) so we set to work putting up her tent by lantern-light. It was no small feat, but we were able to get her all taken care of before too long. At that point Dad & JoAnn called it a night, the kids were already in bed, and the four moms (Carolyn, Tristin, Kerri, and I) sat around the ashes of the campfire talking.


The Ugly

We hadn't been there long when Carolyn and I heard noises we thought must be Tom and Treg returning with Jordan. We walked up the trail to the main road to discover the campground hostess informing everyone that there was a fire in Payson and because of the winds they were concerned it might travel farther up in the mountain and everyone had to evacuate NOW. So there we were, four moms with no husband's around at midnight having to evacuate our camp because of the threat of a fire.

With Dad & JoAnn's help, we bundled up the kids, put them in the cars and started down the canyon toward Nephi. It's a good thing Tom asked me as he was leaving, "Do you want the car keys just in case?" We certainly had a just in case! I can't imagine what we would have done if we hadn't had our car for the four boys and me. We all agreed to meet up at Treg & Carolyn's house to regroup and wait for the men to join us. Since we didn't have cell phone coverage in the campground, we weren't able to call Treg and Tom to tell them we had been evacuated. Once we were out of the canyon, I was able to reach Teag on his phone to let him know that he needed to meet his wife and girls at T&C's house. Unfortunately, Carolyn and I were never able to get ahold of Treg & Tom.

It turns out they had found Jordan and returned to head up the canyon by way of Payson. They were turned away by the Payson police who told them the canyon was closed because of fire. The police did NOT inform them that the campground had been evacuated. So Treg & Tom found their way back up the canyon and to the campground via a back route through Santaquin. We were all shaking our heads thinking how stubborn these two were until they pointed out to us that they didn't know if we had been evacuated or not, and if we hadn't been, all we would have known is that the men set out at 8:00 PM and never showed up again that night. Ok, they did the right thing.

Our little women-and-children caravan arrived at Carolyn's house around 2:00 AM. Carolyn had finally been able to connect with Treg & Tom and they were just leaving the campground then, after finding everything had been abandoned. Everyone was exhausted and Carolyn set everyone up with a place to sleep, me being the exception because I had decided to wait for Tom and take our boys home. While everyone else went to crash, Josh, Coleman, and I sat on the couch in Carolyn's livingroom waiting for Tom and Treg (Gage and Connor had fallen asleep in the car during the drive). Treg & Tom showed up around 3:00 AM, and Tom and I set out for home. We finally got to bed ourselves at 4:00 AM.

The next morning...ok, I guess it already was the next morning...Tom called Payson police dispatch to find out what the status was. The fire never reached the campground, the canyon was still closed through Payson, but we could go up there and retrieve our belongings through any other entrance to the canyon. Tom and I left the kids with the Ex-Men and headed up the canyon in the afternoon to pick everything up. The rest of the Bayly family had already been up there earlier; in fact, we passed them on the road as they were leaving the campground and we were arriving. They had packed everything up and cleaned everything up before we got there. They said they thought about packing everything up for us and putting it out by our trailer in the parking area, but they were concerned about theft. No problem at all. They certainly went the extra mile taking care of everything else. (Thanks again, guys!)

After a speedy drive home, a 5-minute shower, and a quick ride to pick up the boys, we headed back down to Treg & Carolyn's for the Saturday night family dinner we were supposed to have been eating that night at the campground. After all, Carolyn pointed out, we all had all this food we brought for that dinner.

Following a fantastic-tasting taco salad dinner we spread out downstairs in Treg & Carolyn's family room and watched a movie, yet another thing we were going to do that night at the campground.

We're glad everyone got out safely and that our belongings were unharmed. I have to say, though, I really feel jipped out of my camping weekend with the whole family. I was so looking forward to it and it got cut short. :(

My son, the comedian

You all know Tom is an aspiring comedian (http://youtube.com/watch?v=jT6Qy5-28lA), but it seems my son is also getting in on the act. Comment from Josh yesterday: "To make a long story short, The End."

Stagnant you say?

Well, yes, our blog is a bit stagnant. But really, there's not anything that's all that exciting to post.

Josh finally came home from spending 3 weeks at the other house. I was MORE THAN READY for him to come home. I really missed my boy. While he was there they all went to Hawaii for a week and a half. Interestingly, however, the boys all reported that it was boring. I don't know whether to laugh or feel bad - I feel bad that they didn't have a good time, but I guess Hawaii is really a place more enjoyed by grown-ups. I laugh that the Ex-Men didn't have the good sense to realize that Hawaii is really a place more enjoyed by grown-ups and spent all that money taking the kids. This is the reason Tom and I will be waiting to take the kids on a "real" [read: expensive] vacation until they're older and can enjoy it. First destination - Magic Mountain!! :)

Now that Josh is home I'm working from home again. I go into the office on a few days for one-hour meetings and then I'm back home. I took away the DirecTV card from the receiver when Josh got home last week. I can't stand how much time he spends in front of the boob tube watching inane cartoons.

Sadly, I didn't realize he would become so hooked on games on the Net instead. I won't let him on the Net unless I'm right there next to him, but he doesn't seem to mind spending hours trolling through different games. That boy needs to get out and get some sunshine, but everytime I suggest that he go play with his friends I get a mumbled, "Don't want to." In order to detract him from all the games I make him do logic puzzles at least to get his mind going.

Josh was scheduled to go to Illinois with his father the day after we return from this weekend's camping trip, but I was surprised to find out from a note from his father yesterday that Josh has decided not to go. When I asked Josh about it he said, "All they do is hike and fish and it's boring." I asked him what kinds of things he would like to do that would make it so it wasn't boring and he said, "I want to bring a laptop there. There's just not enough electronics when you go camping." An explanation of the physics of laptop batteries and recharging times didn't seem to deter the desire any. But he did say that camping with the cousins is fun and he does enjoy that.

Tom has been to California and back so many times in the last few weeks I've lost count. He's just walked through the door, so this seems to be a good time to end this blog post.