A Utah Family Travel Writer's Adventures with Altitude
Go from this…
To this
and this in one back-breaking week.
It would have been pathetic…had I not been blubbering along with him.
Memorial Day means different things to different people. Some, like us, will celebrate life and have a BBQ with family and friends. Others will memorialize death and visit grave sites.
My sweet dad was recently diagnosed with cancer and goes in for surgery tomorrow. It seems everyone knows someone, somewhere who is living with its ravages. Many of you know that Jamie is a survivor.
On this day, I would ask you to put in a special thought or prayer for Papa Canuck and anyone you know who is suffering. And for all those fine men and women who are serving this country… and their families who are often caught in the crossfire.
Just take a moment to remember.
************
And so is my childhood crush, Jimmy. Only he’s not looking quite so adorable these days.
Oh wait. Neither am I.
Dearest Hadley,
Happy 3rd birthday! I cannot believe how fast you are growing nor how quickly this year flew by, taking into account that your first year was the longest of my life. But I think I already said that in last year’s birthday letter. And I really am still recovering from it all.
But you have bloomed into a beautiful little girl so full of vigor, independence, fun and excitement. At times, you remind us so much of me until you throw one of your infamous “I can do it myself” tantrums and then it is confirmed.
Even when in the womb, we knew you were going to be feisty. Nine days before my due date, work-stressed Daddy promised you that if you were born the next day, he would buy you a car on your 16th birthday. I don’t know how you did it but you ensured my water broke at 7 a.m. the very next morning and made the deadline by your 11:05 p.m. birth. And if you had your way right now, that car would be pink because that “is the color of girls.”
But you’re not a girly-girl. Sure you love to play dress-up and think there must be something wrong with those friends who do not want to change their clothes 10 times a day. But you also love to get dirty and come back from our regular hikes even more sullied than those woosy boys. This is after you blew them away on the trail. You may get filthy but you’re fast. And you even throw in a few side bouldering expeditions just to rub their inadequacies in their faces–another trait you have obtained from your proud mama.
In addition to hiking, you recently took swimming lessons where you finally learned you were not going to die if you put your head under the water. At least not immediately. This summer, you will take gymnastics followed by dance in the fall, thereby proving that someone in this family besides your father actually has rhythm.
Even though you are dying to play soccer, we will wait to enroll you until next spring. Y’see, you have a little sharing problem and it’s not what one would think. Since baby Bode was born, we have constantly drilled you to share. Of course, you try to ignore our wise counsel most of the time because this is not a communist society. The only time when it becomes of the utmost importance is when we are teaching you to play soccer and you accusingly explode that we are not sharing. And your father and I just don’t think that would go over too well on the playing field.
Your biggest fan is Bode and you can make him laugh like no one else. He loves to come wake you up to snuggle and then play with your beloved Thomas the Trainset with you. And for the most part, you adore him back. Sure you occasionally push him over during his attempts to stand because “that is how he is going to learn.” And never mind those times you drag him away by the jugular after he tries to sneak up the stairs. You are, after all, saving his life.
You are surrounded by people who love you and if you had your way, you’d probably divide your time up between your grandparent’s houses. We live in a fantastic neighborhood and you are blessed to have many friends with whom you play everyday. Friends with toys. Lots of cool toys. You are learning at a very young age that sometimes superficiality can be beneficial, especially if it snags you a ride on your neighbor Gabe’s sweet Quad.
You will start preschool in the fall and though I admittedly look forward to a two-day reprieve from my little Hurricane, I am also cognizant how quiet and lonely our house will be. You fill it with such laughter, energy and love. And destruction. You are, after all, labeled as a natural disaster. In the nicest possible way, of course.
We will celebrate your birthday tomorrow at Casa Bonita, your favorite place on earth because of the sundry of activities and half-naked men cliff divers. Your birthday presents include your wooden playset and an Elmo bike.
Grandma and Grandpa B. generously pitched in for the swing and also sent you $6 whole dollar bills. You immediately announced you wanted to go to our favorite store on earth–Target. I wondered what you would spend it on: Cookies? Candy? A Garmin eTrex Vista Cx GPS?
But then you announced clothes. And it was confirmed that maybe you aren’t much like me.
And we thereby won’t need to send you to therapy after all.
Happy Birthday!
Love,
Mommy
Is anyone else having a stressed-out week?
I’m barely treading water these days. It isn’t bad enough that we’re in the middle of this landscape monstrosity but we are throwing a Memorial Day party so we have a deadline. On top of that, we have to buy gifts and attend three birthday parties this week, one of which is Hadley’s. Evidently, August is The Month to Conceive. Nothing like summer lovin’.
On another note, I recently gutted Hadley’s closet of all her outgrown clothes with the intent to donate them to a local children-in-crisis organization. I was thrilled when my friend generously offered to pitch in items that had not sold at her garage sale. In all, we must have had more than 100 pieces of clothing.
Well, the organization never came to pick them up so this gargantuan box sat on our porch. And sat. And sat. I didn’t know what to do because I wanted to ensure the clothes went to someone in need. Plus, that box was really big.
Fast-forward to last weekend. Jamie and I hired a hard-working friend who is out of work to help with the yard. To make his situation even more stressful, he is the father of four boys and his sweet wife is pregnant. While we worked, I asked him if they knew what they were having. Ecstatic, he replied they had just found out they were finally having a little girl.
A light bulb went off as I thought about that box that had been sitting. And sitting. I offered it to him and he gratefully took it. I was on Cloud 9 the rest of the day.
Later, I told Jamie about how perfectly it had worked out.
“You know, I think I was really inspired to hold off on moving that box.”
“Either that or lazy,” he joked.
“I like my explanation better.”
Love Is:
While you are at work in your air-conditioned office, asking your busy wife to haul about 500 pounds of dug-up sod down the ditch, up over the hill and then hoist it over the fence into the empty lot…
…and thoughtfully covering up the sod with a tarp during a rainstorm so your sweet wife does not have to haul 1,000 pounds of mud.
(Thanks Honey but flowers will do next time.)
Requited Love Is:
A busy wife who hauls about 500 pounds of dug-up sod, nearly breaks her back throwing it over the fence and loses control of the wheelbarrow on the way down and runs over a few of her hubby’s prized plants….
….as an eternal reminder of their love.
I do not like sand. Some would even go so far to say I have OCD regarding my aversion to the stuff. I hate it anywhere on my body and most of all, I freak out when it is on my feet for even a moment after I leave the beach.
So one would wonder why I once spent an entire summer playing sand volleyball. Or why we’re taking all these recent trips to the ocean. Y’see, I would be in heaven if I was able to stretch out on a nice, rocky beach but sadly, very few people share my illness. And so I suffer for the betterment of those around me.
That said, how is it I had to haul eight tons of it over the weekend and also threw in several thousand pounds of bricks for good measure?
Project Hadley Playset from Hades is well underway and I am pleased to say we are almost halfway done. It has been a beast of a job trying to build a retaining wall and fill in a rather substantial ditch our developers thoughtfully left all the houses on the west side of our street. Eventually, this is where the swingset will go.
Jamie took Friday off and diligently worked most of the weekend. I pitched in a good number of hours but now that Bode is mobile, I can’t turn my back on him for even a moment. I learned that the hard way last week. I let him nap on our bed and when he woke up, he briefly discovered the freedom of flight. It did not end well.
I promised Jamie he would have my undivided help during Bode’s two naptimes (that were not on our bed). I admittedly had a devious plan. Y’see, I nearly had a nervous breakdown last week because Bode was a terrible napper and Hadley didn’t do it at all. So I figured for once, these kids of mine would give me an out and I would have to endure Jamie’s slave labor for maybe an hour each day.
Bu then they both slept. And slept and slept. After my hundredth trip with sand and bricks, I was at my limit but couldn’t back out. I deliriously made up a catchy little jingle in my head, which I sang over and over again to get me through:
“WAKE UP, DARNIT. WAKE UP, DARNIT.”
OK, so maybe “darnit” wasn’t the exact word but my lyrics aren’t exactly along the lines of what Mormon girls would say. Well, at least not the good ones.
But I survived Round 1 and am ready for Round 2 next weekend. But this time I plan to be armed with an even better secret weapon for the children.
You know, like sugar. Lots and lots of sugar.
Are they:
a) Currently under house arrest for defacing an entire Thomas the Trainset with blue marker.
b) Passport pictures wherein they look like the Taliban.
c) Totally busted for stepping on and/or consuming yard-obsessed Jamie’s plants.
d) All of the above
If you guessed “d” you must have a few delinquents of your own.
Last week, a Farewatcher Alert appeared in my inbox with a crazy-cheap deal for flights to Mexico. Jamie and I had planned to take the kids to Orlando in August but after doing some figuring, determined it would be less expensive to go to a foreign country than to vacation in our own. Go figure.
The 24 hours that followed were frenzied, primarily due to the need for the kids to now have passports for travel to Mexico and Canada. Surprisingly enough, they were champs whilst getting their photos taken. Much better than I, who was reprimanded for not standing still enough and for looking “too chipper.” Forgive me for not perfecting my Taliban glare.
Hadley cannot stop talking about the beach and has been practicing her Spanish, muchos gracias to that bilingual Dora the Explorer. Our conversations are repeatedly interwoven with “hola madre,” “amigos,” and “vaminose, let’s go!” She even shows off with some made-up Spanish words because she knows her north-of-the-border mother doesn’t know what the crap she’s talking about.
In order to afford our getaway we had to relinquish some local trips this summer, including a trek out to Utah for Jamie’s grandpa’s 90th birthday. I am surprised by just how much discord this has caused Jamie’s sweet mother. She can’t figure out why on earth we would we chose a trip to the sun-kissed beaches of Mexico vs. making polite conversation with relatives we’ve never met in the desert?
Duh.
Truth be told, I was sad to miss this trip. I still have many friends in Utah and had planned to trail run walk OK, crawl many of my old haunts. On the other hand, I cannot wait to watch Haddie bodysurf for the first time and witness Bode ingest a quart of sand. Every hour. Call me crazy but it just sounds better than the humiliation of watching Jamie fumble around trying to remember his 243 cousins’ names. Talk about embaracada.
Oh wait. I think that means “knocked up” and not “embarrassing.”
But if I were a true Dora devotee, I would have already known that.
Travel writer travelin’ tip: Jamie came upon this gem when we booked our recent cruise: SkyAuction.com. It is an online eBay-esque site where they auction off travel for CHEAP. We saved several hundred dollars on our cruise and this time around, got an all-inclusive hotel for half the price. My only payment for this little plug is that you take me with you. So I guess that doesn’t mean savings in the end but think of what a delightful addition I will be to your romantic getaway.
