Utah Trip Continued

I'm not really sure how far away from home Colter and I traveled on our trip to Utah, but it was far--a little over a thousand miles. It took a good day and a half to reach our destination, and Colter did amazingly well. He watched movies, colored pictures, threw things at Poppy, played with my hair, and ate lots of snacks! He did better than my sister Courtney and me. We're whiny. We did find some ways to amuse ourselves besides whining though. During part of the long trip through Colorado, we stuck our heads out of the moon roof to take pictures of the Eisenhower tunnel for entertainment. That way we wouldn't have to Photoshop the hundreds of dead windshield bugs out of the picture. Cool, huh?We also got to take pictures of some bighorn sheep grazing at the side of the road. At least I guess they were grazing, but there wasn't much to graze on besides rocks. Maybe they eat rocks. Maybe it was rock candy. Hmm... Maybe they were just hanging out at the side of the road to see how many people would stop to take their pictures.Then a nice big horned sheep let Colter pet him. Colter even got to grab his horns! What a cooperative, patient sheep! Kids were climbing all over him, and he didn't even care! It's almost like he was made of bronze.On the second day of our stay at Arches National Park, we were recovered enough from the long journey to actually go on a few hikes. Most of the cool rock formations are off the main road, so visitors have to hike a mile or two. Here's the desert landscape we were hiking through.The first arch we hiked to was Broken Arch. (The color seems to be a little off on these pictures I uploaded. Grr... They looked fine before I uploaded them. What's up with that, Blogger? Oh, well. Imagine this picture with more vivid colors.) Courtney took 3 gazillion pictures because she didn't have a baby on her back and was able to take more than me. She had her camera stuck on her face almost the whole trip. As a a sidenote, she's wearing a sweatshirt she stole from me seven years ago in this picture. She's also wearing my hat. What a thief.Looking up at Broken Arch...I assume it's called Broken Arch because of the crack down the middle.Colter got mad because I wouldn't let him jump off a cliff. I'm such a mean mommy.On the same trail, we saw Tapestry Arch. It's not really obvious from the pictures, but these rock formations are huge! Colter got to climb with his poppy underneath Tapestry Arch, so he was happy.

The trails were kind of challenging in spots. I love this picture of my mom scratching her head trying to figure out where to go next. All the rock formations we saw are really awesome but strange. We watched a video in the visitor's center about why there are a bunch of rock arches in this area of Utah, but I was so tired when we saw it, it didn't really register. Some mumbo jumbo about salt in the rocks, erosion, and 17 trillion 7 billion 3 million years ago. The wind had something to do with it too. Oh, and the ocean that used to be in Utah. I tend to tune things out when the scientific explanation involves time periods that are so long ago, that it seems ridiculous for people to claim they know what was happening during that time. To me, the explanation is simple. God decided it would be cool to have some weird rocks in Utah because heaven knows, there's not much else there besides salt, sand, and a lot of Mormons. :)

The Week of the Rock

This past week, Colter and I looked at rocks...climbed on rocks...threw rocks...and played on rocks. See my shadow? This is one of two pictures of the over three hundred from the trip that include me. I'll have to raid my mom's pictures.

Here's where we lived for the week.

The arrow is pointing to a little blue dot. The little blue dot is Colter standing by the camper. The orange dot in front of the camper is my brother, Sawyer. The orange dot was supposed to be watching the blue dot while I was scaling rock walls to take pictures, but I'm not sure how seriously the thirteen-year-old orange dot took the responsibility of one-year-old blue dot watching considering the blue dot is on the opposite side of the camper.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig

Yesterday, travel through much of Kansas was NOT recommended because of the blizzard-like conditions. Some areas between Kansas City and Wichita got around 28 inches of snow! At the end of March! Crazy! Other areas of Kansas had an ice storm that left down power lines and broken trees in its path. Guess where I was? KANSAS! During the epic winter storm of 2009! Oh brother. Thankfully, my daddy the superhero was driving, and we made it home fine, though hours and hours behind schedule. It also didn't hurt that John and my mother-in-law were praying all day that we would be okay because even though my daddy the superhero is a great driver, the greatest driver in the universe can't do anything about all the other drivers that aren't so great and are speeding their giant semi-trucks around the snow-packed interstates completely ignoring all the other giant semi-truck drivers that already drove their idiot-selves into the snow-drifted ditches. There were too many trucks in the ditch to even count.

When Colter and I FINALLY got home around 9:00 after two days in the car, my sweet husband was waiting for us with a spotless house, pizza, a new ball for Colter, a homemade miss-you card, and these beautiful flowers.

I think he missed us. :) In fact, we decided that eight days was entirely too long to be separated, and we're never doing it again. Next time Colter and I take a random trip to Utah, John is going too.

Colter was really, really glad to see his daddy! He has not wanted me to do anything for him last night or today. That's totally okay with me as he's been picking Daddy for diaper duty. Hee Hee.

I am amazed at the changes in our yard during the eight days we were gone. The pear tree has leaves...
This tree was completely nude when I left. Now look at it!

The plum tree's flowers are already all gone. Sniff. Look at the green, green yard! It was brown a week ago!
And the helicopters are out. Man, a lot happens in a week!

Guess what? They do have Internet in Utah! I have to drive 20 miles to get it though and then frantically get caught up with my online teaching job, so I'll keep this short.

I just wanted to let everyone know that Colter and I are having lots of fun and seeing many interesting things. We are missing Daddy a lot, however! We're ready to get home to see him.

Arches National Park is really neat--there's a ton of cool rock formations, and everything is red. It reminds me of Mars. Because you know, I've spent so much time on Mars. I've taken lots of pictures that I'll share when I get home. I probably would have a lot more pictures, but I'm spending a lot of time keeping Colter from jumping off cliffs or climbing giant rocks. He's having a ball! There is so much mischief for him to get into. :) We have gone on several hikes to see things that are off the beaten trail, and Colter is doing awesome. He's such a little athlete. Sometimes, I have trouble keeping up with him! Other times though, I'm hauling him on my back in his carrier, and just in case you didn't know, carrying an extra 35 pounds on your back while trudging up hill through sand is quite a workout!

I believe my computer is dying, so I must go. Camping would be lot more fun if it had regular electricity (and HEAT! Heat is nice.).

Off to Utah?!

Who in the universe would agree to take a 21-month-old on a 16+ hour car ride with around 36 hours notice? You guessed it! ME! Colter and I are taking a spur-of-the-moment spring break trip to Arches National Park in Utah with my parents, my brother, and my sister. They’ve had the trip planned for months and my sister’s boyfriend was supposed to go along. He backed out at the last minute (He’s in BIG trouble), so there’s room for Colter and me. My dad rarely goes on family vacations because he’s a workaholic, so I want to go, but at the same time I’m wondering what in the world I’m getting myself into. John has to work and can’t go with us. Colter won’t get to see his daddy for a whole week! I won’t get to see my husband for a WHOLE WEEK! I kinda like that guy and am used to seeing him EVERY DAY. I’m a big girl though. I didn’t cry when we said good-bye this morning. Okay, so I did.


I have no idea how Colter is going to handle being in the car for over 16 hours. That’s a long time! I think I’ve got lots of stuff to entertain him with, but we’ll see. I hope he doesn’t scream the whole way because we might end up having to stay in Utah. Then I’d really miss John.


If you have a moment to spare, pray that Colter does all right on the really, really long car trips there and back and that we stay safe. I’ll try to post some pictures of arches if Utah has the Internet. :)

FFF- Look What We Found!

Big kids are bullies. Well, probably not all big kids, but there's always a kid or two at the park that I have to make sure doesn't run over my baby. At the large, really nice park in our town, the playground equipment isn't really suitable for almost two-year-olds and especially on warm spring days when there is three gazillion kids at the park, it can be hard to keep Colter from getting ran over or pushed down. It's not like kids go out of there way to run over little ones, but they get so excited in their play, that they just aren't very careful.

We discovered a solution! My friend Gina told us about a little park that's perfect for toddlers. We had it all to ourselves, too! It was so much fun. Colter loved it, and I'm pretty sure the park is going to be our new hang-out. It's only a mile away from our house (I'm pretty observant, huh?), so we can walk there to play. Hooray!

Colter and his friend Carter were spinning the wheels so fast, their hands are a blur!

For more Favorite Foto Friday, go see Sarah.

NOW

It took awhile, but I'm finally posting the "now" pictures I said I would post. Sorry for the delay, Nell!

Here's Colter on Sunday.

Here's his big-boy hand! Look at the picture on Friday's post to see how he's grown!

Oops! I Almost Forgot!

I forgot my own blogoversary! I'm glad I don't have a blog wife who's moping because I didn't bring her flowers and a box of chocolates because she would have been out of luck. I didn't remember until she came by and wished me a happy blogoversary. Silly me.

If I were a more motivated individual, I would celebrate this milestone with a ginormous post with blog highlights from the past year during which I went though phases with lots of blog activity and phases with NO blogging activity. I went M.I.A. several times. I'm back for now, though, and but too hungry to write a proper blogoversary post--instead I'm going to go have a peanut butter and blackberry jam sandwich to celebrate. Happy Blogoversary to me! Hooray!

FFF-THEN

Today's Favorite Foto Friday theme is THEN! OH, Look at those wee little hands! So sweet!

Colter's still sleeping (yes, he's still sleeping at 9:30! He's not a morning person), but I'm going to try to get some pictures of his hands today for a NOW picture. I'll post later.

Here's another "then" picture...

and a "now."

See! I really did alphabetize my spices. You thought I was too much of a flibbertigibbet to actually be that organized, didn't you? Hee Hee. See Webster's word-of-the-day.

Bathroom Boogeyman

The ghost that lives in my bathroom has been redecorating. I heard a noise coming from the bathroom, and when I went to check it out, I found this.This picture was taken from a weird angle, but apparently the clock fell off its nail, and the two picture frames below caught the clock. I'm not really sure how this happened, since the space between the two photographs is normally a bit wider than the clock. Mysterious! Maybe the toilet phantom has branched out from merely clogging the toilet at random to interior design. I'm not sure I like his style. It seems a bit precarious...like the clock could fall on my head at any second....hmmm....maybe that is his plan....

OOooooooooOOOOOOOoooooOOOOOOOOOOoooooooo (ghostly sounds)

For Real?

After much discussion and hair rippage, John and I have decided that even though the crazy bank approved us for a second loan, we are going to try to sell our house before buying a new one. In other words, we chickened out. :) We don't want to forge for berries if for some reason our current house is on the market for three years before someone buys it. I don't think it will take three years to sell our house though---unless all the potential buyers have an aversion to neighborhoods with dogs, or they've read my blog and saw all my complaints about the dogs.... What? Complaints? I've never complained about the incessant barking in my neighbor's backyard! It's marvelous music to my ears! The dogs don't frighten Colter's playmates or wake us up in the wee hours of the morning. The dogs are awesome!!! So awesome that you should buy my house! We'll have it on the market a.s.a.p.

Now that we have decided that it would be smarter to sell first, I've done some Googling to find out what we can do to improve our chances of selling quickly. When selling a house, sellers are supposed to rid their house of all personalized objects, like photographs, so that potential buyers do not wonder about the people that live in the house but imagine themselves living in the house. Sellers are supposed to pack away all their books, so, again, buyers aren't too concerned about the people that live in the house. Also, rooms are supposed to be in neutral colors because hot pink or purple rooms must turn people off. Don't most people want to redecorate when they move anyway? Can't they imagine what a room would look like painted differently? Apparently, many people have very little imagination.

I have no desire to paint my walls (which are mostly blue! Ack! Not neutral!), and there is no way I am painting Colter's bedroom. Would you want to deprive a boy of his awesome jungle island walls that his mommy and aunt spent hours on?

I wonder if it would be okay to post a note saying I'll paint the room a nice, boring white before we move out?

I'll be posting more about getting the house ready to go on the market soon. Right now, I'm off to alphabetize my spices because this article said to.

Favorite Foto Friday-February Favorite

Spring is springing! Hooray for spring! We had a wonderful 70+ degree day yesterday, and it was so uplifting. I am ready for some nice warm days. Colter is too, as we get to play outside more. Although I am totally ready for spring and am excited that the cold weather is going to retreat soon, I cannot believe February is over. Time flies! Before I know it, the nice, comfortable, warm days of spring will be replaced by hot, sticky, skin-melting, July days! Oh, well. As the wise man, Groucho Marx once said, "Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana." Hee Hee. I'm a silly girl.

Onward to the point! Today is Favorite Foto Friday, and I'm reflecting on the swiftness of time because our task for today is to pick our favorite picture from February. Of course, Colter is such a darling, handsome, precious, cute, adorable (and so on and so on...I'm not biased of course), little man that it is hard to choose just one. Here's one of the top fifty.

Happy Favorite Foto Friday!

Scrambled Cerebrum

How do people manage to buy a house when they still own one? Real estate ventures seem so confusing to me! John and I are considering making an offer on a foreclosed house and even just thinking about the whole process is frying my brain. :) We don’t want to sell our house until we know we have a place to live, so that means we’d have to have two mortgage payments for awhile (providing we can even get approved for a loan). We could swing that for awhile, but come December, we’d have to start forging for berries and hunting rabbits (unless I happen to get a full-time online teaching job, which I’m trying to get). Houses have been selling in our neighborhood, and the real estate agent we’ve spoken to acts like our house would sell within a few months, but what if it didn’t? Maybe we should try to sell our house first and hope that the house we want to buy is still on the market? Then we would probably be homeless for awhile. Plus, we want to make really low offer on the foreclosed house that the bank probably won’t even accept, so there’s no real reason to even be thinking about this. Probably none of this rambling makes any sense. That’s what’s going through my head right now though. Nonsense. Have a nice day!