Tripping Around

This is a random picture of me from the family reunion. I haven't written in so long that we enjoyed a reunion one weekend, a trip to a friend's house the very next Monday, a trip to the cabin with Q and T and family on the next weekend (complete with a trip to the drive in theatre), and another outing to a friend's house today for family home evening. We are looking forward to another trip this weekend to Idaho. Der will be enjoying not sleeping on a camping trip. He has acquired "Bear Spray" which is supposed to help us all feel safe about him running into bears. I will be hanging out at my sister's house with the kids and we are planning to relax. I'll let you know how it goes.

At the reunion, I enjoyed the people. I like seeing married couples who work well together and who like to be together. I like to see brothers and sisters who help each other and get along well. I like to see all of the cousins playing and having a wonderful time. I like to see patient grandparents who are patiently dealing with their house being over-run by flys and people. Everywhere I looked (and really, people were everywhere), every day, there were people that I liked to be with.

We had fun at both family home evenings with friends. I'm thankful for the impressive people I get to "hang out" with!

The cabin was free of mice, there were fun things to drive around and beautiful scenery to see. I even slept well after arriving back there late from the drive in. Sleeping well with that many people in the cabin is a miracle really. I enjoyed the nastalgia of a drive in theatre and the kids now know what we're talking about when we talk about having gone to them in the past. I enjoyed having people there for me to visit with and my kids to play with. I enjoyed the game I played too even though Q won and I lost miserably.

All in all, life is still hectic and busy but at least we are spending our hectic and busy times "tripping around" with some of the best people ever.

Necks

This pancake dinner started cheerfully ("Yeah! Yeah! MMMM!" -- Dan loves pancakes and cheers for them). That's really not what this particular blog is about though -- it's about last week's adventure to the Dinosaur Museum. I thought the kids would be excited but Tia had a cold and her neck was stiff so she couldn't go and the other kids seemed lukewarm at best -- not a good beginning.
I didn't take the stroller because Dan likes to walk. Silly me. This was Dan's main attitude at the museum. He wanted a "huggy" almost the whole time and if he wasn't holding his drink he was panicking every time he saw another child with one because he thought they were taking his. You must protect your prescious possessions I guess. So, I spent most of the time in the museum with Dan's arms around my neck -- which would be very pleasant if he didn't weigh a lot.
My oldest son started out by grumbling about everything. "This is stupid -- there aren't even any big dinosaurs" and then when we got to the big dinosaurs I said "See there are some big dinosaurs" and he just said "It's about time". He was not pleased at the lighting in the museum (too dark) and really seemed to be the most excited when he discovered from looking at the map that we had almost made it through the whole thing so that we could go home. This from someone who loves dinosaurs. As you can see in the picture above, he did occasionally smile and he did try to obey my instruction to make the next 5 comments positive ones. Sorry, no tie in with the title other than I think Connor was feeling a bit stiffnecked (or at least determined to be ornery). This is the long necked dinosaur's neck bones. I thought it was amazing -- the tail was even longer I think and I was impressed.
Jake was interested in having his picture taken several times and that was his favorite activity besides asking if it was time to go home. Thankfully Kayli was interested and, if I ever go back, it will likely be with her so she can have a more enjoyable experience. Of course, we would have all enjoyed it more if there weren't wall to wall people so that we had no desire to do the fun things. I think it would have been great if they would have sent half of the people home but, since they weren't going to do that, we went -- after one hour. We probably set a record for the fastest trip to the museum.

So we had a sore neck, a hugged neck, a long neck, and some stiffneckedness. Not the description I had hoped for for our adventure -- but at least we didn't have any wrung necks.

Something pretty and TAG you're it!

1. What is your favorite day of the week? I don't currently have a set favorite -- though I still try for it to be Sunday. If I can not be too tired or feel too sorry for myself because Der's gone all day, then it usually works out.
2. What is your favorite candybar? Umm. Maybe Butterfingers still but I don't eat candybars enough to know.
3. What is your favorite restaurant? I'd have to say the Cracker Barrel
4. Favorite fast food? The Big Mac -- but in general I like Wendy's better.
5. What city in UT would you most like to live? Where I am is great -- where we plan on going should be too.
6. Would you rather get flowers or a pint of ice cream from your hubby? Flowers -- the cut variety. I accidentally kill the real ones.
.7. Would you rather be an anchorwoman or an owner of a small shop? A small shop -- probably a book shop or a music shop -- or both.
8. Magazine editor or prosecution lawyer in the big city? Magazine Editor -- not in the big city.
9. Favorite household chore? Vacuuming
10. Least favorite? Perhaps it would be cleaning the bathroom floor after the boys have been there -- or cleaning the tub which I find discouraging.
11. Favorite cereal? Walmart brand Bran Flakes -- no kidding.
12. Favorite season? Fall
13. What is your favorite active activity? Riding my bike or playing indoor soccer or maybe even basketball if it's a good day and I'm not playing against anyone who's really, really good -- I like to have a chance of winning.
14. Favorite leisure activity? Reading
15. Do you take vitamins? Sporadically
16. How many traffic tickets? None
17. What does your retirement bring? I don't think Mom's retire but we're planning a mission.
18. What talent do you want to have? Singing. I work hard at not coveting voices -- I just appreciate them.
19. Favorite dessert? Ginger cookies (today)
20. Favorite food? Butter rolls or hot homemade bread, butter and honey.
Now, the idea is that you cut and paste this into your blog and answer it so that your readers can do the same. I was tagged and now you have been. Feel free to add your own questions!
PS. If you don't have your own blog please just answer a couple of your favorite q's for me. Thanks!

Adventures

"Into the woods, into the woods, and home before dark" (from "Into the Woods" -- that play we have on video) We went hiking again -- through the water again -- and we thought it was beautiful and fun again. The company was great. This time instead of hearing "I'll NEVER go on that hike again" we heard "I Love this hike! I want to go on it every day!" Different hikers, different perspectives.

Today we revived a tradition from many years past with my sister's family and got ourselves out of bed extremely early to view the balloons.
They are big, and fun, and amazing.
And getting up early is exhausting.
We're semi awake now and heading off again to a family event. This summer I have NOT been bored.