SUMMER ROADTRIP 2014: To Salt Lake City on the Train!

Each time we go out to Utah I feel compelled to take our children to some of the places I went to when I was a kid and visiting Utah.  Last time was Timp Caves; this time?  Temple Square in Salt Lake.  Uncles Kevin and Dane came along again, as well, but we also had a bonus guest: Dane's new fiance, Jenica.

Side note: Hooray for Jenica!  We got to spend some time with her (not enough, though), and I really like her!  I am so excited to have another "outlaw" join the Madsen family next summer. :)

So instead of fighting traffic and spending MORE time in the car, we decided to take the FrontRunner train. Brilliant idea!  I definitely earned Mother of the Year points for this.

Tess was quite enamored with the train - and she talked just about non-stop to prove it. ("Oh look!  A mountain!  Oh look!  A stream!  Oh look!  A car!" etc.)

They kinda have the same smile...

Cole LOVES trains - he was so happy!  (And so very cute.)  Please note that Uncle Dane got stuck sitting with the three boys on this part of the train, while poor Jenica (whose arm is on the right) had to sit by herself.  Welcome to the family, Jenica! (This is also the only picture I got of Jenica, because I am a terrible person.  Dang it.  It thought about stealing a picture of her from FB, but decided I didn't want to creep her out too much this early on... Welcome to the family, Jenica!)

So we stopped at Temple Square first and went to the South Visitor's center because my grandma told me about this cool model of the temple they have there.  It really was cool - just the temple in miniature.  (No bad English translations this time, unfortunately.)  (Seriously, how awesome would that have been?!)

Then I forced my children to take pictures in front of the temple because 1) I am a mean mom who likes to torture my children, and 2) I'm planning on using these pictures for our upcoming school year theme.

Fun fact: the temple was closed for cleaning and repairs that day, so the top oval windows were all swiveled open.  It was pretty cool.

Mr. Spencer, who is really growing up so much.  Only 16 more months until this child is 12 and becomes a deacon.  Good heavens!!

Mr. Josh.  Only one more month until he turns 8 and can be baptized!  Good gracious!

Mr. Cole.  Remember not too long ago when this child hated church?  He now loves it, behaves, and even insists on giving talks, scriptures, and prayers during primary.  (Kanien, what did you do without him while we were gone? ;)

Sweet Miss Tess.  Well, mostly sweet.  Usually.  Kinda.  Sorta.  When she wants to be. Being three is hard.

The whole Madsen Family.  In not one shot did everyone look at the camera.

It must be noted that while trying to take a picture of just Lance and I, I literally had to kick Cole out of the way because he and Tess felt they should be in the picture as well.  This amused Kevin (our photographer) to no end, who started laughing and saying "Families can be together forever!"

Yes.  A kissy shot. I though it would gross out the kids more, but they weren't even paying attention.

Next stop: the Conference Center. (Or, as we like to call it, the Meganacle.)  Even though I used to live just a few blocks from it I had never been on the tour.  So today was the day!  We met up with a nice tour guide, who assured us that she could give us the abbreviated tour instead of the 45 minute one.  Ninety minutes or so later and we were done!

I had actually been in the conference center several times, but I had forgotten just how beautiful and big it is!  The kids really liked this glass fountain. (Well, maybe not Spencer.  He was skulking around 'bored'. Sullen teenagery behavior has begun!)

In the conference hall - the organ is huge!  Spencer was happy; I just didn't get a good shot of him. Fun Fact: the pulpit has it's own mechanical 'trap door', so it can be raised and lowered under the floor as needed.

Tess would NOT hold still. Unless she was posing.

Looking down on the fountain.

We got to go up on the roof and look at the gardens; it had a pretty good view of the city.  But it was really hot. And we were all getting pretty tired.  And now that I think about it, why did I never get any pictures of Dane and Jerica or Kevin?  What is wrong with me?  I blame the lack of ice cream.

We lugged our heatstroked selves over to the Gateway mall and enjoyed some ice cream.  Revived, we headed to the SLC planetarium, which is cool because it's free, air conditioned, and just the right size. (Not too big, but not too small.  You know - just right.)

The kids had a great time playing with all of the exhibits. My favorite was the dust tornadoes you could make.  There was one exhibit that had something to do with black holes, where you could put pennies in the slot and they would go round and round the big funnel until they went in.  We were doing that and talking about how we should space the timing of the penny release out so they wouldn't run into each other and Lance said "Oh, don't worry about that.  What are the chances of them ever running into each other?!" and RIGHT THEN the pennies ran into each other and just fell down the whole.

Maybe you had to be there, but it was AWESOME.

The kids had a chance to walk on Mars.

It made me laugh that there were signs all around this exhibit that said you should stay on the path and NOT climb on the rocks.  There wasn't a single child there who didn't climb on the rocks!

Apparently Josh conquered Mars.

And Cole did a little moon jumping.

The ride home on the train was uneventful, although I do seem to remember Cole yelling about something for a while, and although part of our group was on the other end of the car they could hear him clear as day.  To be honest I don't even remember what we did that evening.  I'm sure it involved food and TV, because we were all so tired that we didn't have the energy for anything else!

Addendum
According to Kevin:
"I remember on the ride back Cole told me I couldn't make the "Choo-Choo" sound.
Also, after we got home you made teriyaki chicken from the box and we watched "The Conjuring". I remember you kept making the Lucille Bluth surprised sound every time something scary happened."

SUMMER ROADTRIP 2014: Pioneer Day

We spent a good chunk of the 24th of July hanging out at Grandpa and Grandma Madsen's house.  It was so good to see them?  Even better?  Lance's sister, Katrina, was visiting as well!  What a fantastic surprise!

The kids had lots of fun playing with all the bubbles and other little toys grandma got out for them.  They also really enjoyed all of the snacks aunt Katrina kept giving them. (Why have an aunt if she's not going to buy your love with food, right?)

Side note: Joy has been having issues with her oxygen levels recently.  She is now on oxygen all the time, so there's a long line of tubing that follows her all throughout the house and she has a cannula in her nose.  We talked to the kids about this before hand and said that if they had any questions they could ask grandma and she'd be happy to answer.  The kids couldn't have cared less.  Seriously, it's like it wasn't even there. Kids are great like that.

That afternoon we took the kids to a new splashpad in Highland.  They had fun splashing and chasing and tattling on each other for no good reason.  It was stinkin' hot, so even though the water was pretty cold they had a good time.  Why no pictures of the splashpad?  I was too busy gabbing it up with Katrina about life, the universe, and everything.  When you only get to see your only sister in law every couple of years you have a lot of catching up to do!

After the kids were done Katrina treated us all to shaved ice.  (Side note: what is with all the shaved ice places in Utah?!  Seriously, there seemed to be a shaved ice shack on every corner. Almost as many shacks as Mormon churches. ;)

Kids + shaved ice = happy cuteness

We had thought about taking the kids to see a big fireworks show that night, but decided against it when we realized: 1) the closest show was in Mapleton, a good 20 minute drive, and 2) the kids were all grouchy and tired and jet lagged.  (Okay, I know a 20 minute drive isn't that far.  But when you factor in all the crowds and traffic, it was just more than we wanted to deal with.  We're the world's meanest parents, I know.)

Fortunately, my Grandma Roper had given us a little package of fireworks the night before when we had dinner with her. (Thanks, Grandma!)  So we set those off that evening.  Yes, I know it's still light.  But the kids were going crazy and it was either do this or lose our minds.

Wait - where's Grandma Susie and Grandpa ElRay in all of this?  Glad you asked.  Grandma Susie was away for the week at Girl's Camp, because she is a saint.  (No, really.  She is.)  Grandpa ElRay was living it up in Switzerland on business.  (It's a hard life he leads, isn't it?)  Ever notice how whenever we visit Dad and Susie my dad has some sort of business trip?  Now Susie's taking his lead and skipping town, too.  (Just kidding, Susie!!)  (It's fun to tease.)

So Uncle Kevin hosted us for that first week, which included putting on the fireworks show.

Of course the pack included sparklers. (Or, as I like to call them, "finger toasters".)

Even Tess got in on the action.  Which is a little dangerous, because the child does not watch where she is walking.  I don't even know why she had a dang sparkler... oh yeah, the screaming and the yelling and the tantrums.

We started to do some bigger ones (well, bigger than poppers and sparklers), so Tess found this little seat off to the side and sat safely there for the rest of the evening.

One of the my favorites: "Dueling Chickens".  Why chickens would ever duel, I don't know.  But I like the idea.

At one point all the kids were up on the hill and Kevin through some sort of bomb think and he threw wrong (so he claims) and it exploded right above their heads.  It was hilarious because no one was hurt, just freaked out a little. (I don't know why, but uncles on each side of the family seem to have a death wish for my children.  Especially when it comes to fireworks.  Must be an uncle thing.)

Lance tried to blow up a car with a wayward bomb thingy, so that was fun.

We saved the biggest firework for the end, but it turned out to be a dud.  So sad. So disappoint.

That night we introduced Kevin to "Adult Dinner".  Meaning we fed the kids mac & cheese and put them to bed, and then got yummy food (Carl's Jr. in this instance) to eat at home in front of the TV.  Welcome to adulthood, Kevin!

Addendum
My brother Kevin has made a few points of clarification:
"Excuse me, it was Lance who threw the firework that exploded right over your kids heads.
If you remember, I kept throwing the poppers too early and they always exploded seconds after hitting the ground. Well away from any of your children."

SUMMER ROADTRIP 2014: Yellowstone - Day 2

Our second day in Yellowstone started pretty much like the first - with a drive in.  Only this drive was even longer because we were going to see Old Faithful, which is on the western side of the park.  This meant we had to drive all the way around Yellowstone Lake, which is HUGE.  The drive was slow going and seemed a million times longer than needed with all the RVs and twists and turns and such.

We decided that there really should be a bridge across that dang lake, views and EPA be danged.

Also, Tess kept asking when we were going to be at the park.  She actually asked that about a thousand times the day before as well, but she obviously hadn't listened to a single patient explanation from us that we were, in fact, in the park and that there were no playgrounds.  Yellowstone is a park, but not that kind of park.  Hard stuff for a three-year-old to comprehend.  (She never did get it.)

We got to the Old Faithful parking lot around mid-morning and the place was pretty packed.  It was then that I decided that Yellowstone is the Disney World of national parks.

We saw lots of people waiting around for Old Faithful and decided to wait for a bit to see what would happen.  There weren't any benches left, so we sat on the edge of the boardwalks and had a fantastic, uninterrupted view.  Old Faithful belched and gurgled and faked us out several times.  The best part for me was listening to the crowd whenever something interesting happened (with collective oooohs) and then with disappointed aaaaahss when it turned out to be nothing.

The kids were pretty good about the wait, although Cole really couldn't figure out what we were waiting around for.

We picked a great time to get there, though, because we only waited around 20 minutes before the show began.  Very exciting! It erupted for quite a while, allowing for lots of viewing, oohing and awwing, and picture taking.

A selfie with the world-famous geyser seemed the obvious thing to do.

After the geyser was done we hiked around the big loop in the area, seeing tons of geysers and pools and such.  Tess was in a stroller and promptly fell asleep for the majority of the hike. (This was a good thing.)  Lance and the older boys lead the way while Cole and I meandered hand in hand in the back. Cole especially liked pointing out the stinky spots. (Of which there were many.)

About 10 minutes in Josh complained about needing to go to the bathroom.  Unfortunately, there weren't any nearby, so for the rest of the way he walked quickly and scampered and just about exploded.

The blue pools were my favorite.

More big geysers erupting.

Cole had to read EVERY SINGLE SIGN out loud.  This was entertaining and a little annoying, at least when we were trying to keep going and he insisted on stopping.  Poor Josh was crossing his legs at this point.

I remember this one was pretty loud.

Okay, so we have a lot of pictures in front of steaming pieces of earth.  But it was very cool and impressive!  And if any of my kids have to do reports on geysers or volcanoes or Yellowstone then we will be all set.

We finally made it to the potties - and there was a line.  I thought poor Josh was gonna die.  Tess woke up soon after I took this picture.  Then she decided to go into the potty with me, which was actually a pit toilet.  So, of course very loudly she exclaimed "Ewww!  I smell something in here!!", much to the amusement of all in line behind us.

More pools.

We decided to take the more direct way back because we were running out of water, it was getting hot, and it was well past lunch time.  In the past year or so we have discovered that I get very cranky if I don't eat on time - a bad habit I learned from my children, I'm sure. (Or my hormones, one of the two.) So we booked it back.  It was a pretty long walk and we were all dragging by the time we made it back to Old Faithful - just in time to see it erupt again!  Score!  Bonus eruption!

We finally made it back to the car - the parking lot was a a MADHOUSE by this point - and threw some Capri Suns and snacks at the kids.  There was nowhere near by to eat because the park wants you to eat at all of the Old Faithful restaurants in the area. (At those prices?  No thanks.)  I was pretty sad about not being able to go into the Old Faithful Lodge or the visitor's center, but everyone was HANGRY (hungry+angry) at this point and there was no way we were going to face the ever-worsening crowds and come back.  Oh well - next time.

We stopped at the Whiskey Flats picnic area and dug in.  Halfway through eating Tess declared she had to go potty, and of course there was a line. But while in line we chatted with a Mormon Momma and her three girls, who were visiting from Alaska.

After lunch Tess found a nice rock to sit on. And one to hold.

Then Cole declared his potty intentions, heaven only knows why he didn't have to go earlier and save us another wait in line.  So while Lance and Cole waited the kids and I played "balance on the logs" and took some pictures.

I'm really sad Cole wasn't in this picture, because what a great one it would have been of all my kiddos!  Still pretty cute, though.

True story: Josh told me to stand just like this.  Attractive, I know.

We had had discussions about how you couldn't pick the wildflowers - much to Tess's dismay - so she improvised with a bouquet of sticks.  She was really in a silly mood that afternoon, and kept cracking her brothers up by saying funny things and singing silly songs she made up. (Their favorite? "The Flying Boat".)

We hit a few more spots that afternoon.  I *think* this is part of Grand Prismatic Spring, but I can't really remember.

I do remember that this was called the Bacteria Mat.  Attractive.

My husband, who was probably thinking something along the lines of "How many pictures is this woman going to take?"  More.  So many more.

Spencer in front of some geyser or hot pot or something.  Really, it's all starting to blend together at this point.

Because really, if you've seen one hot pot...

... you've seen them all.

We stopped at the Painted Pots last, but we didn't even go all the way around the loop.  It had been pretty dry, so there wasn't much to see.  Plus, by this point we were all TIRED.  Fun fact: at this hike you couldn't throw a rock without hitting a German tourist.  They were everywhere!

So we all piled into the car and started our long drive back to the east entrance.  A few miles south of Fishing Bridge we came into sudden traffic and there were all these people acting crazy, getting out of cars, standing in the road, taking pictures of what appeared to be nothing.  But, as we got a little closer we realized there was a bear way off in the distance!  A real live Yellowstone bear!  Only I was tired and just wanted to get the heck outta Dodge, so I had little patience for all the hullabaloo.  But since we were stopped I did snap a quick picture.  The bear is that tiny brown dot almost dead center - it kinda looks like a tree trunk.

We stopped for a potty break, drove for about 10 minutes, when Tess declared she had to go potty.  Grrr... Lucky for her there was a pit toilet along the side of the road by the lake.  So we stopped there for a few minutes and used the facilities.  Everyone had a grand time throwing rocks into the lake.  It was actually really nice, with the wind blowing and the sound of the waves and our kids laughing and having fun.  It helped me remember why I go to all the effort of planning trips like this.

That night in Cody we decided to eat at a local Mexican place. (This decision based solely on the ad that claimed "Food so authentic you'll wonder if you can drink the water.")  Bad choice.  The food wasn't bad, but it was not really a kid-friendly place.  And it was super-pricey for what it was and there were all sorts of spills and growls from the children and - get this - you had to go through a candy store just to get into the restaurant.  What the what?!  So of course we got suckered into buying the kids large suckers on the way out.  (Which was good and bad - they were quiet for a good 90 minutes of the drive the next day.  But then they were also quite sticky for the rest of the drive.)

Overall, it was a great trip to Yellowstone.  Worth the extra day of driving we had to do the next day to get from Cody to Provo. (Which was very, thankfully, uneventful and will not be getting its own post.)

Great Summer

I'm pretty sure that awkward tan lines from sandals are a sign of a great summer. (You should check out my farmer's tan, too.) ((No. No you shouldn't.))