Our Family – Page 94 – Andelin Adventures

Woodbury Art Museum

I had been receiving emails that Gymboree (a kids clothing store in the mall) was having their $12.99 sale. EVERYTHING in the store was on sale for $12.99 or less. Considering that most items at Gymboree are at least $30, the $12.99 sale is the ONLY sale that would convince me to buy something in that store. Kyle mentioned that the email he saw, said that today was the last day and so we decided to head over to the mall when we were done at the Home Depot Kids Workshop.

By the time we got to the mall it was lunch time, and I was getting really hungry, which meant that I was also getting rather grouchy. We decided to have lunch in the food court, even though that tends to end up being expensive. I sat with the kids while Kyle went to the various restaurants to get the food that the kids had requested for lunch. While we were waiting for him to return with food, I noticed an ad standing on our table. It was an ad for an art museum that was supposed to be upstairs in the mall. I had NO idea that the mall even had an upstairs! Kyle came back and we got the kids fed and as we sat to eat as well, I showed it to him. There was a map showing where the stairs were to get to the museum upstairs and Kyle said “Let’s go check it out.”

So after we had all finished eating and we made a potty stop and got everyone washed up, we headed for where the map said the stairs were. We found them, and as we wondered how we were going to get the stroller upstairs, we saw a sign saying that the first Saturday of every month, the museum does workshops for scouts. Cub scouts, boy scouts and girl scouts can come and the museum will help them earn different things for their different groups. We discovered an elevator around the corner, and took that upstairs. We found the museum and once inside we asked them about their scout programs. They gave us some packets to look at for the different scouts awards, but they stop the workshops at 2:30 and we had got there at 2:25. 🙁 So we’ll have to come back next month to do the scout thing, but we still took the kids around to look at all the art.

I really liked this picture of space:

Dinah really wanted to have her picture taken with the picture of horses.

I think the kids really enjoyed looking at the various forms of art. And getting to Gymboree and finding out that the sale I was interested in was over, the fact that we found this museum today, kept the trip to the mall today from being a complete waste of time. 🙂

Jeremy Lost His First Tooth!

What a way to finish our 4th of July celebrations! Jeremy was VERY slow about eating his dinner, and really didn’t eat much at all because he had a wiggly tooth. I think he was afraid of ending up having it fall out in his food and swallowing it or something. But he wouldn’t just yank it out so he could eat either. Finally as we were finishing up with the eating of our home made ice cream and getting ready for bed, he let Kyle yank it!

And then he went back to the table and heartily ate his dinner, that he had left sitting there. 🙂

Happy Independence Day

I have been kind of nervous about Independence day this year. With most of Utah ablaze lately, it seemed very dangerous to be having fireworks on the 4th of July. First thing in the morning I went shopping to see if I could find a patriotic dress for Lydia to wear, and to find a patriotic shirt for Ethan. All the other girls had dresses from previous years to wear, so we didn’t feel a need to buy them new ones for this year. When I got back we got everyone all dressed up in their Independence day clothes. While we sat around waiting to hear what the plan was for Karen’s birthday, (which is also today) I made the girls some red, white and blue flower hair bows.

To celebrate Karen’s birthday this year we all went out to lunch at Rib City. Kyle had told her that he didn’t want to be away from home for too long and that we definitely wanted to be back before anybody started setting off fireworks so that we could water our lawn so that it couldn’t accidentally catch fire. She was totally fine with that, and so we met for lunch. Laurel invited us to go over to her place afterward, but we REALLY wanted to be home with plenty of time to prep our yard.

We came home and made our traditional homemade ice cream. This year we made vanilla. And we sat down to watch 1776. Debby and Jeff came over in the evening to have dinner and watch fireworks with us. This year, instead of buying any of our own fireworks, we just walked to the end of the street to watch the neighborhood collection of fireworks. They did this last year and called it the “Dead-end of Fire” (because they live right next to a dead end in the road), and it was such a success that they decided to do it again this year.

The kids had a good time being on the corner watching all the fireworks. Although we had several occurrences of kids going missing. Tyra kept going across the street with her friends without saying anything. Ethan did once as well. Dinah ran across the street and just went into our neighbors house without knocking or anything, and I went over to bring her back and she straightaway went into another of our neighbors houses without knocking or anything. I collected her and told her that if she ran off anymore I would be taking her back home!

I loved watching Lydia watch the fireworks though:

Chloe really didn’t like the loud fireworks:

I love how she has Debby covering her ears for her. 🙂

In general though, the kids did a pretty good job of sitting on the curb to watch the show:

Then when the fireworks were all over, we came back to the house and ate our yummy homemade ice cream!

Fathers and Sons Campout

Father’s and Son’s Campout! Yay!

At least, that was the overall impression I got from Ethan and Jeremy, ever since we left the last campout. They asked if we could go again, and every so often throughout the year, would mention it and ask if we were going again. I never said we wouldn’t, and as time came closer, we made plans to go again. As luck had it, earlier in the week all the kids had turns throwing up, and I was afraid we wouldn’t be able to go. However, as Friday rolled around, Rebecca was the only one feeling ill and she okayed our leaving her for the night.

Last year was off in the picturesque Hobble Creak Canyon, in the shade surrounded by hills and trees, with the typical outhouse (hole in the ground) toilet for facilities. It was over an hour from our house to there, with a good portion of the drive just getting from the freeway to the campground.

This year, our ward opted to go with a campsite at Willow Park, a local state park off the Jordan River, about 20 minutes from our house, where the Girl Scout and Cub Scout day camps were also held at. The distance was one of the best perks about the location; the campsite we ended up with was in a grassy field with no trees around, although we did have a covered pavilion with tables to sit at.

I got off work early to get home and pick up the boys, then on the way to the campsite, we stopped off at Wal-Mart and Smiths to get some camping food and supplies (another perk of the location is it’s within a mile of both stores). We then arrived and set up our tent on the vacant southern portion of our campsite, and then the boys started playing with the other boys who were there.

One of the other fathers arranged a “Ladder Ball” competition, as he brought a few sets for people to compete on, and that went on during the light (and into the night). We ate whilst the competition went on, and my turn finally came as dusk was coming. Unfortunately, with the park’s location being so close to the Jordan River, that brought mosquitoes, which quickly attacked us all. Bro Whiting (whom I was playing against) graciously let us use some bug repellant wipes, which we quickly rubbed on our exposed skin, so we kept the bug bites to under ten apiece.

The game went on well past dark (we had lanterns and car headlights to see the playing field), and a campfire burning bright. Around 10:30 at night, we heard Taps played on a bugle from a neighbouring campsite, amongst the trees – must have been a scout group? After some more general hanging out at the fire, roasting marshmallows, I convinced the boys to go to the tent so we could get some sleep.

Last year, most of the fathers sent their kids to their tents, bringing portable electronics to watch movies on. I didn’t want to do this, this year, so I had our kids just in the tent and tried to get them to sleep. However, being past 11 at night, I didn’t realise I was one of the early ones to do this. Most of the other boys were running around wild, coming up to the tent and making noise well past midnight. I guess I was one of the stricter parents there? Then, as luck would have it, our tent was next to a group of gamers, up well past 3am playing Magic. (the only reason I knew the time was I heard one of them comment as they walked back to their own tent.)

In the morning, some of the men started making the standard camping fare of pancakes, bacon, sausage, eggs, and hash browns, with orange juice to drink. For some reason, Ethan and Jeremy weren’t overly hungry, and I only ate a minor portion of it. Immediately following this, about half of the group packed up and went home. However, we decided to go exploring some of the paths first, so we went walking along the Jordan River and found some animal paths along some of the woodsy areas (I can’t call it a forest, as they were just some random trees). Eventually, we finished exploring and came back to the campsite, where most everybody had packed up, so we put the tent away and went home as well.

Mom and Me at the Cabin

Whenever I post things that are related to girl scouts, I have to take a moment and make sure that I am in the right mindset. I don’t feel comfortable posting from the leader perspective, as there may be parents that don’t feel comfortable with me sharing stories or pictures about their girls. And so I have to make sure that I am thinking of things from the perspective as the parent, focusing mostly on myself and my daughter. 🙂

When discussing with Amy and Michelle, (my co-leaders) the activities that we wanted to do through the summer, I mentioned that I would like to do an overnighter. Maybe just a simple campout in someone’s backyard that way we were close to a toilet and not out anywhere scary or far from home. After thinking about it, Amy brought up that her family has a cabin that we could probably use. We decided to make it a mom and me since we didn’t want to be responsible for anything happening to the girls while we were away. 😉 And we decided that we would use the time at the cabin to work on earning a few badges.

The girls got to finish up their potters badge by making some beads out of clay. We forgot to bring some toothpicks to bake the beads on, so we ended up using some spaghetti noodles that we found in the cupboard in the cabin. 😛

After we baked them, the girls got to string them up to make necklaces or bracelets.

The girls also got to earn the bugs badge. It was pretty funny to watch so many of the girls scream and freak out at being so close to bugs. One of the activities that they did to earn the badge was to use a shoebox to make an observation area, so they could catch a bug and watch it for a bit.

Several of the girls had difficulties in catching a bug, but after we helped to make sure that they all had one, it was pretty funny that some of the girls would no longer even touch their box JUST because there was a bug inside. 😛

We also had the girls earn the snacks badge, and they got to do things like make and eat guacamole, make and drink homemade root beer, and each girl brought something to contribute to a trail mix (which we planned on taking on our hike with us).

When we had lunch, Amy realized that she had forgotten to bring the grapes. I think she was going to mix some into the chicken salad, and she realized they weren’t there when she was mixing it up. Then when we were helping the girls make guacamole for the snacks badge, we realized that the limes also did not make it up to the cabin. After a while, Amy’s husband sent her a text asking her if she had realized that she left behind the turkey lunch meat, the bacon and the eggs, all of which, happened to be our food for today!

We weren’t allowed to have a campfire, due to the extremely dry weather and the many fires that were already blazing all over Utah (seems like the whole state is on fire right now). The moms that had phones that had access to internet were on their phones a lot checking the status of the fire on our mountain. We even heard a rumor at one point that the city center had been evacuated. I sent a quick text message to Kyle to ask him about it, and he answered back that he had had the radio on for quite some time to get news updates on the fire and that he hadn’t heard anything about our area being evacuated.

So we knew we weren’t allowed to have a campfire, but we weren’t sure if we were allowed to use charcoal or not. We ended up starting our charcoal so that we could do our dutch oven pot roast for dinner. We went on a short hike to the water tank after dinner, and the girls all climbed up on it.

Tyra looks a lot shorter than all the other girls, but I think that has something to do with the way that her neck seems to have disappeared. She is younger than a lot of those girls, but she is not younger than all of them. After they had all climbed on the tank Amy showed them how she used to slide off of it when she was a kid and so they all had to slide off too (with the help of one of the other moms because they were all too afraid to slide off on their own). 😉

One of the mom’s helped keep the coals that we used to cook our pot roast, warm so that we could roast marshmallows later in the evening. Roasting marshmallows over warm coals was very slow business. Some of the girls actually figured out how to get their marshmallows to turn that nice golden roasted color. But everyone was able to get their marshmallows warm enough to be able to squish them between two graham crackers.

By the end of the day, as bedtime drew nearer and nearer, Tyra became more and more nervous. She still has problems staying dry at night, and she REALLY didn’t want to have an accident while we were at the cabin when we were around so many people that aren’t family. I think she was also concerned that the other girls might tease her about it. She was getting really tired and decided that after she finished her smores she had better get ready for bed. I also felt that it would be better for her to hit the sack early and actually be able to use the bathroom before going to bed, instead of her just falling asleep wherever she happened to be sitting, without having used the bathroom first. So she ended up missing the final ‘campfire’ time where Amy read the girls a story that she wrote about a girl and some Brownies, and she missed the Brownie hunt. I was sad that she missed it (actually I missed it too since I was inside helping to get Tyra ready for bed), but I really wanted to make sure she had a chance to properly prepare for bed.

The other girls came in and got ready for bed shortly after Tyra had gotten into her sleeping bag for the night. It took awhile for everyone to get a turn in the bathroom so they could change and brush teeth and use the toilet. But at last all the kids were up in the loft and in their sleeping bags. One of the mom’s was concerned with how hot it was up in the loft, where the girls were sleeping, and thought that her daughter was looking as though she wasn’t feeling very well. So they decided to go out and sleep in their jeep (I guess the seats fold down and so they could just lay some sleeping pads down and they had plenty of room to sleep). Later, after I had gone to bed, a couple more of the girls came down, one saying that she was homesick and the other just wanted to be with her mom. I tried to get some sleep, but it’s always hard for me to sleep in strange places, and the fact that some of the moms were still up talking and the fact that there were a couple of girls up too, made it REALLY difficult for me to drift off. I just laid there in bed listening to everything that was being talked about, and every time someone went into the bathroom I heard them in the hall and saw the light go on. After most of the commotion and most of the conversations seemed to have ceased and things seemed like they were going to be quiet for the night, the real commotion began. The girl that was feeling clingy and just wanted to be with her mom ended up throwing up! I heard it splat all over the wood flooring. Then the crazy rush of everyone that was awake trying to get things out of the way so they could get it cleaned up. Her mom took her to the bathroom to give her a shower to try to get her cleaned up. Unfortunately Amy’s uncle had forgotten to come up to the cabin before us to turn on the water heater, and Amy couldn’t find the key to the basement so that we could turn it on ourselves. So there was no hot water, it was freezing cold spring water. I kept hearing the girl complain to her mom that she was cold. I felt so sad for her. I think after they got her cleaned up and the main room all cleaned up things really calmed down and that was the end of the chaos for the night.

Since most of the food for today had been forgotten, breakfast plans had to be altered. One of the mom’s made a run to a local store to pick up some eggs and bacon yesterday, and so we were able to turn our loaves of bread (that were meant to be turkey sandwiches for lunch) into french toast. We were also planning on taking the girls on a 3 mile hike to Strawberry Ridge right after breakfast, but considering everyone was up so late, and the fact that one of the girls threw up in the night, we decided it would be better to scrap that and maybe just take the girls that felt up to it, back up to the water tank one more time. Other than that we basically spent this morning packing up and cleaning the cabin up so we could get everyone home. I think the girls had a good time, despite the drama and vomit. And I think we are going to plan on making this a yearly activity. 🙂