Summer 2019
Now that Ian could ride a bike we went on a lot of neighborhood bike rides last summer, he lost some teeth, and he attended tennis camp which was taught by Rylan's high school tennis team. Our town opened up a trampoline park, Ian conquered his fear of the green slide at our city pool, and Rylan taught Ian how to use a knife! He made an "I" out of soap.
For the Stake Priest high adventure this summer Rylan went rafting in West Virginia. When I picked him up Saturday afternoon, they were all sunburnt and tired. A lot of them had the sunburned knees from rafting, like Rylan had. One of their leaders got a thumb drive of all the pictures and videos that were taken by the company. There was a guy on a kayak that went ahead of the boats and took videos of them coming down the rapids. The week had kind of cooled off so they were rafting in 68 degree weather, not ideal but the sun was still out, they did manage to float a little ways just in their life vests but Rylan said he only did that once because it was too cold drying off. He said the first couple rapids were terrifying because he didn’t really know what to expect and he thought they were going to flip over, but then once he got over that he really enjoyed it and had a lot of fun. Rylan is in the blue swim shirt, in the back.
We took a trip to Virginia to visit Oma & Opa and get some much needed beach R&R. The dogs were so excited to see us. Ian was afraid that Heidi wouldn’t remember him. It only took a couple sniffs and she was wagging her tail like crazy. They have a new dog we hadn’t met before named Moxie or Max for short. He is a large hunting hound, very sweet tempered but very smart. You can’t leave anything out on the counter and close all doors. He can open doors with handles, and can open cupboard doors too. The kids went swimming a lot, and we talked in the kitchen to watch them.
When it was time for the kids to go to bed Heidi wanted to snuggle Madelyn which tickled her to death and Moxie slept at the foot of Rylan’s bed.
6-23-19
Rudi is on the high council and he was assigned to go to a ward about 30 minutes away. We went with them and he and Bonnie were like celebrities in that ward. Rylan helped pass the sacrament, there were only 3 other boys. Maddy and Ian were reluctant to go to primary, I had given Maddy some allergy medicine and she was super drowsy the first couple hours of the day, but I asked her to be brave for Ian and she was.
After church they took us on a little civil war history tour that was in the area we were in. We went to Sailor’s Creek Battlefield Historical State Park, it was here where the last major battle of the American Civil War in Virginia was. Lee surrendered his army 72 hours after the battle at Sailor’s Creek. Virginia is beautiful.
Oma and Opa took us to Busch Gardens it was 90 degrees that day and Oma rented an electric wheelchair so she could join us. She had a sun visor and a little fan and could wheel herself. The park had different country themes, Italy, Germany, England, Ireland, Scotland, and France. We had no real plan we just were going to go to each of the sections and hop on rides we thought looked interesting. The first one we did was called Finnigans Flyers, and it was awful, it was like a giant swing that went super high in the air. They have some pretty amazing rollercoasters my favorite was Alpengeist, your feet were dangling, and you flipped and twisted. Ian was upset that he couldn't do it, so Scott took him on some other rides nearby that were kind of babyish and he was kind of ticked. There was a list of rides that they gave him at the beginning of what he could do based on his height that they measured. We made sure that we did some that Ian could do and he loved the ones we did. We did a coaster call Verbolten, Rylan and Ian went ahead of us because we both wanted to be in the front. When it was my turn with Maddy it was a nice coaster, then it went underground and was dark with black lighting and werewolf howls and at one point the coaster stopped (still in the dark) and after about 10 seconds of anticipation it dropped straight down about 10-15 feet and then went super fast and you could see a hole in the wall but it didn't look big enough to go through, but we made it. Whew that was my 2nd favorite. At the end of the day when we were in Scotland they had a Loch Ness Monster Ride that Ian was tall enough for and it looked like a pretty legit big coaster. I sat out because my head couldn't take another rollercoaster, when they came off to come find me Ian was on the verge of tears, he said he didn’t like that one and that his head was hurting so bad. I sat out with him, while S, R, & M did it again. I put some water on his head and fanned him, he was done! With the heat and walking all day he had had enough. Scott had to carry him to the car.
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| The kids mined for gems |
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| This is Ian riding the baby carousel with Scott while I went on the big coasters with Opa and Maddy and Ian, he was mad! |
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| There's a happy face! |
We went to Virginia beach for a couple days, we had to stop at Cafe Rio on our way there!
On our way to Virginia Beach we went through a tunnel that went under water! I’m sure it wasn’t that far underwater, but it was kind of eerie.
We checked in at the Holiday Inn at 3:00, checked out the pools, they had an indoor one and two outdoor pools with slides, lazy rivers...the kids had so much fun hopping around the pools. Scott went over to a near by 7-11 and bought the kids small cheap tubes to play in the water with. Scott and I decided to leave our phones in the room so we could be present, but I kept wanting to take pictures! Afterwards we walked to the beach, played in the water, walked the boardwalk, got some dinner, laughed our heads off, had a great time together. We are close to Norfolk Naval Base and while on the beach we heard and saw some F-16 jets flying. While at dinner we heard another one and then I heard the theme song from “Top Gun” and I look over and Scott is rocking out with his phone. There was a fitness challenge on the beach with rings, monkey bars, and hanging ropes that you could climb up. Ian went right up to it and started climbing like a total pro. I asked him where he learned to do that and he said my playground at school has a pole that I learned to climb.
6-26-19
We all slept in until about 8:30, Scott had bought cereal and oatmeal the night before so we had breakfast on our balcony, then we headed to the beach around 10:00. Our view from the balcony:
The water was pretty cold I thought but that didn’t stop the kids from floating and trying to body board, there weren’t very many waves that were big enough, but the kids had fun trying and just floating. We brought some chairs, our umbrella, and some beach toys, and of course snacks. Scott and I and Rylan had a great talk about his future, girls, and just life. I loved the uninterrupted conversation.
Maddy and Ian dug out a sand fort and were in constant protection mode to keep the water from crashing into it. They were very entertained by their digging project. We stayed at the beach for 5 hours! We probably could have stayed longer, but we could see sunburns forming even though we reapplied every 1 ½ hours.
We showered and went walking along the boardwalk and stopped in a couple shops. Rylan found a swimsuit he really liked and Maddy found a shirt and Ian found a pocket knife with his name on it!
What a treasure. We looked up restaurants and there was a place called Aloha Snacks, so we walked to it and they had all of our favorites, poke’ bowls, spam musubi, Korean BBQ, Loco Moco, they even had some of our favorite Hawaiian drinks. I had their Farmer’s Poke’ Bowl and it was so good, Salmon, sticky rice, mango, fried green tomatoes, flavored with sesame and a little bit of teriyaki.
Afterwards we walked back down the boardwalk, got some Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, watched some people play beach volleyball, they had over 12 courts that are permanently set up on a portion of the beach. Then Scott noticed some dolphins jumping and swimming so we stopped to watch them, and they were still jumping when we got up to our 6th floor balcony. The kids wanted to go to the pool, so we made a compromise with them that they could go to the outside pool for 15 minutes and then the indoor pool for 15 minutes while Scott and I went to the hot tub that was next to the indoor pool. They agreed and soaked up every last moment in the pool.
We drove back to Oma and Opas house with another stop at Cafe Rio, the same one we stopped at on the way there. Scott really misses their food. He always gets the salad with steak and chicken, which is so funny because I can’t get him to eat a salad at home.
We went to Toy Story 4 together and we really liked it! Ian did NOT like one of the ventriloquist dolls because that kind of doll was in another movie that was super scary, so every time that character was on the screen he would turn his head and not look.
Oma showing the kids her garden and Ian enjoying the hammock with a Harry Potter book.
Before school started we took the kids on a weekend trip to Nashville to stay at the Gaylord Opryland Resort. Last time we went to Nashville we walked through this hotel and fell in love! We wanted to experience staying in it and they had just opened up a new waterpark too. The inside of the hotel is a giant terrarium with waterfalls and tropical plants.
Scott and I went to an Opryland show. This time we got seats closer and the music was so good!
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