It's always a good day

. . . when you get to ride the ambulance train. That's what it's called at our house. Actually, it sound more like "ambience." We rode the train, met cousins and grandparents in Farmington, and headed to the Discovery Gateway.

It was a really fun (and exhausting) day. Thanks grandma and grandpa!

Twenty-Fourth of July?

 Wait. Am I in the right month?  Yes, it is nearly September, but I've got some catching up to do. I can't keep a face like this to myself.

 We went to Ogden's parade on July 5. I haven't gone to a parade in years. Something about crowds and junk. But even though I wasn't expecting to have a good time, I did. There was a national guard band playing, and so I felt all patriotic and stuff, and then there were airplane gummy snacks and letter cookies to share, and so the two hours seemed less. Also, umbrellas are fun. Just ask Nathan.

 Clara didn't care so much about umbrellas, or keeping her hat on.

 But we had plenty of cousins to keep us company. Lydia was kind enough to put Clara's bow back in her hair when it fell out. Three year olds are so helpful. She was so proud of herself.

 And when the parade got to be too much, there was a cement barrier to lean against and look homeless while eating poptarts. You could peek through the screen and watch the construction crew demolishing the temple. Don't you find it ironic that people working on the temple were not allowed to celebrate pioneer day?

 And now, our reason for coming. My grandma was part of the Pioneer Days Daughter of Utah Pioneers royalty. She's the one in the purple in the middle.

Happy Pioneer Day.

A place of refuge (and lots of bragging)

This is Clara's favorite place. When it gets a little suspiciously quiet in the house, I have to go looking. While Nathan is usually downstairs absorbed in trains or cars, I usually find her here. With a book.

The only drawback is, it's not her place. She wishes it were, but her lucky older brother gets to sleep here every night. But I have a feeling she's biding her time.

(By the way, did you notice the horrid green walls are gone? I'm almost ready to unveil the new kids' room. Did I mention I was redoing it? I am. And it's taking me a while to finish.)

Clara's really learning a lot. A couple weeks ago we had a real conversation:

Mom, side please?

No, we can't go outside in our pajamas.

Yes!

No.

Yes! (accompanied by heartbroken wailing.)

It's so refreshing to ask somebody a question, and know that they really mean their answer. Nathan's knee-jerk reaction to everything is no, even when I know he really wants it. It's making me crazy. But when Clara answers, it's definite. There's no waffling here. (Now waffles sound really good.)

Last week we left the kids at their cousins' house so we could go to the Salt Lake temple. We missed the 7:00 session, and had to wait till 8:00. So it was a late night for everyone involved. About 9:00 Clara turned to Grandma and said, "Home please?" She's been talking about grandma quite a lot for the last few days, though. Today she called grandma on her phone, which happened to be one of my dress shoes.

I could go on, but I won't belabor the point. She's just so fun to hang out with lately.

At the car wash

Apparently these are the only pictures we got of our latest car wash. But aren't they adorable? Mmm...I hope those bubbles are nontoxic.

Hanging out Poolside

Brr... Water right out of the hose is cold. I bought this pool during June I think, and then it was always too cold to set it up. We were able to set it up a couple of times in July, though. And the kids loved it. It took Clara a minute but she made it.

And my favorite part? Weeks later, Nathan could still tell dad where we bought it: "Cake-mark."

Going to the Bear Lake

The little noisemaker-peacemaker. On the drive up, when Clara would fuss, he'd usually yell along with her/at her. Once, though, he stopped mid-sentence to say, "Oh, I need to talk to my sister. Calm down, Clara, it's okay." It didn't really work.

What do you think you're doing, dad? Taking my picture?

 If you can't be rich, you should know rich people. That's my motto. It's helpful. Some people my dad knows let us use their beach house for a couple of days and we turned it into a vacation extravaganza: seven adults and nine children in a two-bedroom house.

 We spent one morning at Minnetonka Cave. I'd never been before, so it was fun. The kids were a little nervous, but they enjoyed it.We even got to see a couple of bats sleeping. That was Nathan's favorite part.

When we got to the farthest point of the tour, the guide turned off the lights. Did you know if you lived in total darkness for a couple of weeks you'd lose your sight? Turns out eyes like light. While the lights were off the guide tested everyone's diamond rings. She'd shine a laser at the diamond and tiny refractions of red light would bounce on the uneven rock ceiling. Luckily everyone's turned out to be real.

I was impressed at Clara's vocabulary demonstration: dark, wet, outside.  She asked to go outside for about half of the tour.

 The rest of our time was spent at the beach. The water was high and the weather was slightly stormy. It was good times.

 Unless you dislike getting dirty. She was really unhappy if you set her on the sand.

 Going through a tunnel.

 Being unexpectedly pleasant about being in the water. She'd reach over and touch it, but didn't want to be too much in. I can't blame her, though. It was pretty cold still.

 Rediscovering as a family our love for speed rummikub. We grew up playing Rummikub at my grandma's house, and then somewhere as we got older we learned speed rummikub: you just play as fast as you can until all your tiles are gone. What's not to love about that? We could have played all morning if the kids hadn't insisted on going to the beach.

 The next day I put shoes and pants on her, and she gladly sat down to play in the sand. Then she'd want her shoes off to touch the water, and then she'd want them back on because the sand was sticking to her.

 Luckily the cold water didn't diminish our enjoyment of the sand. There was no shortage of sand toys and castles, swimming pools, and roads were built.

 The boys made this little swimming pool and she liked that, until a curly-headed little boy started splashing. Oh, cousins.

We had a great time. Then we came home to catch up on all the sleep we missed. Turns out kids (clara) don't like to go to sleep when not at home. And other kids (Nathan) stay up until 11 and still get up at 6:30. Naps were solely in the car. And we're thinking of going camping for a week? Parenting is a state of perpetual forgetful optimism. Probably because we're so tired we forget how awful it was. But really, we had a fun time.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

 I'm talking, of course, about my birthday.

 My mother, a very wise woman, told me once that when you're an adult, no one but yourself is going to make sure you have a nice birthday. So make a big deal about your birthday. So I decided to make a day of it at Tracy Aviary. I'd never been that I remember, and we get in free with our dinosaur park passes. What's not to like about that?

 My mom and sister were kind enough to come with me. I really appreciated the extra help in chasing certain children around.

Case in point: Nathan got a little too interested during the bird show. I volunteered to help and got to pretend to be a tree and have a parakeet jump on my arms. When he got to my second arm, he stopped and looked at me for a second, drawing a remark from the bird show man. I think he was just wishing me a happy birthday. Or wondering why I had plastic foliage on my head.

 And what's a birthday outing without a little rain and hail?

 It seems to run in the family.

 And we got to see a duck sitting on her brood of nine eggs.

And then home just in time to go to my presidency meeting. And here's the blessing of going to my meeting instead of going out to a birthday dinner (I wanted to go to Taggart's): When it was time to go home, I was stranded two blocks from my house instead of up past Morgan. (It turned out to be a dead battery, easily fixed the next day.)

I got a ride home, the naps-less kids let loose their tyranny, and I couldn't activate my new cell phone. Angry. I was.

We ended the day in defeat, eating Arby's and watching mediocre sitcoms.