Happy birthday to me!

Yep, today was the big day.  The last day of August (I always liked my birthday-- thank you Mama for waiting until 12:05 AM to have me so I could have a cool birthday!).  I am now... gulp... 35!  Which means I am NO longer in my early 30's.  My age rounds up to 40, which really seems impossible.  I just spent the last few days with my little sister who is a senior in high school, and I swear I just graduated a couple of years ago!  Is growing older as bizarre for everyone else as it is for me??
Today was a good birthday.  My boys were pretty darn good!  I got phone calls from family members, wonderful emails, and about 50 birthday wishes on Facebook.  (Makes me feel guilty that I'm such a crummy Facebook friend.  I feel sorry for anyone who friends me, because I post something about twice a year.) 
We had piano lessons this afternoon, and then we all went out to eat at a Chinese restaurant close by.  And then went for shaved ice at GBJB's in lieu of a birthday cake (I just made two cakes 9 days ago, and about half of each of them are still in our freezer).  Then we went home and watched Tangled.  I loved it!  And my boys watched it, too!  Joseph hid underneath my desk (we watched it on Netflix from my computer) whenever he even slightly suspected there might be a "kissy" scene.  I guess I've still got a couple of years left of girls being icky.  :-)
And now I'm going to bed.
Good night everyone!

20 seconds of fame on Good Day L.A.

So, we're finally back from CA after a wonderful, fantastic trip that will get its own post pretty soon.
As we were going through security at LAX yesterday morning, Brigham noticed a bunch of news cameras up near the security lines.  We went up the elevator to the screening area, and there were a couple of reporters and a bunch of cameras.  Hmm, we wondered what that was about?  After I showed the TSA guy my ID and our boarding passes, we were headed over to the X-ray machines when one of the camera guys stopped us and asked me if I'd be willing to be interviewed on-camera.  OK, sure, why not?  We had time since we weren't rushing to get to our flight (there are some benefits to being early for your flight-- like getting to be on TV!).  We talked to the reporter for a couple of minutes about airport security since 9/11, and then were on our way.
I didn't know if any of my interview would make it on air, but they showed 20 seconds of my boys and I!  We're famous.  :-)  Except for the fact that they got my name wrong.  Danielle!  What the heck?  They even asked my name and verified the spelling-- the guy put it on his i-phone and I double-checked it!  Oh well.
Here's the video:

9-11 Ten Years Later: TSA Screening: MyFoxLA.com

We're at about 1:09, if you want to see us.  :-)
As soon as the interview was over, I thought of lots of other things I could have said about TSA screenings (the time they singled out Brigham as a baby for the extra-special search, or the time my 6-year-old Mosey touched me on the arm after he had gone through security, but before I had my pat-down, so they automatically had to subject him to a full-body pat-down, too-- such logic and common sense among the TSA folks!), but since they whittled down the interview to 20 seconds, I don't think it mattered much what I said. 
So, I guess I still get 14:40 left on my 15 minutes.  :-)

Happy 10th Birthday!

My boys are ten!!
The boys had a great day.  They woke up and went with me to the DMV to get my handicapped placards renewed.  On the way, Mosey snapped a picture of each of them at the very minute they actually turned 10 years old (8:23 AM for Joseph, 8:28 AM for Brigham).  On the way home, we stopped for breakfast at McDonalds.  Our tradition is for them to choose their favorite cereal for their birthday breakfast, but since I bought the cereal on Saturday, and neglected to forbid them from eating it until today, most of it was already gone by this morning.  :-)  They both chose Pocketini, a German cereal-- yummy little crunchy nuggets filled with nutella-esque chocolate.  So, it was sausage mcmuffins and smoothies instead.
We went home and got ready for piano lessons, and then they got their first present of the day which was when we went to piano lessons and realized that there are no lessons this week because it's the first week of school for most kids.  Oops!  So anyway, the boys got the morning off from piano lessons.
After lunch we went to our friend's house to swim.  This is the friend with the great big golden doodle whom my kids love and adore.  They had such a fun time, and even managed to get Hannah to jump into the pool once!  We had to leave in order to get Joseph to flute lessons.  They said next time they want to go over early in the morning and stay ALL day.  :-)
Joseph's lesson went fine, and then it was home again.  Ben came home early and we ordered Papa John's pizza for dinner.
Then, the boys "opened" their present, which was really an email from Southwest with the itinerary for a surprise trip to L.A. tomorrow morning!  I got the tickets a few months ago when Southwest was having a ridiculously good sale.  Joseph said, "I LOVE it when you surprise us like this!"  We are also going to get to go to a Hollywood Bowl concert with John Williams conducting pieces from his famous movie scores.  This is so perfect for my boys right now since they have been pretty obsessed with listening to movie soundtracks on Rhapsody lately-- especially Harry Potter.  We are all very excited.
My mom and dad and sister and brother called us right as we were lighting the candles for their cake!  My mom always calls on our birthdays, along with whoever else is home at the time, to sing Happy Birthday for us.  So I put the phone on speaker phone, and they all got to sing with us!  I made Brigham a lemon blueberry cake and Joseph his favorite white chocolate raspberry cheesecake.
After cake we jumped in the car to take some leftover cake back to Hannah the dog's house (and her master's), and THEN we came back home and I gave Joseph his second present which was to sit with him and play Civilization for a while.  Or really, watch him play and listen to him explain it all to me.  He's pretty good at that game!  I don't think I possess the computer-game gene, but I'm happy to sit with my boy and play with him on his birthday.  :-)
Then, after getting ready for bed, the boys watched half of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets while I packed, then I sent them off to bed.  And now, since the boys still have to pack in the morning before we leave for the airport, and I have to get up early, I'm off to bed, too!
Happy Birthday my sweet boys!

Joseph is ten at 8:23 AM!

Five minutes later, Brigham is ten at 8:28 AM!

Hannah the dog gets very wet.  Joseph tried to get a picture of her in the boat (in the background), but she jumped out before he got it.  She was so cute in there!

Joseph and his white chocolate raspberry cheesecake.  And TEN candles!

Brigham and his blueberry lemon cake.  Blueberries and lemon cake are a great combo.

The two birthday boys.  They keep growing up, no matter how hard I wish they wouldn't.  :-)

08/21 Weekly family letter

Trevor, our erstwhile pet toad.  Isn't he sweet?  :-)

Dear Everyone,
Here it is Sunday morning, and I'm writing my family letter.  We'll see how much I get done before church.  After church I will be busy making TWO birthday cakes!  Yes, my little bitty baby twins are turning TEN years old tomorrow.  It is simply not possible.  I'm excited for them-- ten is a big birthday!  But I gotta say this growing up business is keeping me up at night.  Every year is another year closer to when they leave home, and I can't stand it.
But ANYWAY, I'm trying hard not to think about that.
This last week flew by again-- time is accelerating toward the new school year.  I hope I'll be ready.
Here's the week in review:
Monday:  Piano lessons.  One of my boys had a small "encounter" with their piano teacher in which he was unwilling to practice something she wanted him to do.  She wouldn't back down (I'm glad), and they stayed at the piano an extra 10 minutes until he was finally willing to comply.  This is a first for him with this teacher, so I'm hoping it was just a bad day.  But whenever my boys don't show deference to their teachers, I get really stressed out, wondering if I'm raising hoodlums-in-the-making.  I would have been completely humiliated to have any sort of confrontation with any teacher, and I cannot relate at all to my boys' occasional lack of deference to teachers or other people in authority.  From my reading on raising boys I realize that some of this is simply due to gender differences, but that still does not help me understand why they do this, or how to motivate them NOT to do it again.  I don't want to threaten consequences for that kind of behavior, I want it to be inborn!  I want them to feel personal shame at being thought of as disrespectful.  But I don't know how to accomplish that except to tell them that they *should* be ashamed.
The day improved, though, and the rest of the afternoon was productive-- more practicing, Joseph's flute lesson, etc.
Tuesday:  In the morning we did practicing and and I continued getting organized for school, the same thing I've been working on for the past couple of weeks.  In the afternoon I went visiting teaching.  A conversation we had has sent me on another flight of neurosis and I've spent the past few days wondering if I'm doing the right thing, having the boys involved in so many activities.  Is it better for them to have long, boring, empty summer days?  Am I over-scheduling my kids?  I know I definitely feel over--scheduled sometimes, but I'm perfectly alright with that if I'm doing right by my boys.  I'll have plenty of unscheduled time after they're grown.  I know I am very grateful for all the opportunities Mama and Daddy gave to me, and I want to provide those same things for the boys.  I don't *think* they're over-scheduled individually (they don't complain about it, anyway), it's just that when I'm making everything happen for all 3 of them it is a lot for me.  Anyway, it's just more for me to obsess over.  Am I trying to relive my childhood through my children?  Am I trying to force them to achieve my dreams for them?  These are hard questions for me.  I don't think so.  I'm trying to give them opportunities and skills that will enrich their lives and for which they will be grateful one day (and even now, I think).  I guess I just have to be true to my own instincts as a mother, but that doesn't stop me from second guessing myself all the time.
Joseph and Mosey had Tae Kwon Do at 4:30 and later in the evening Ben took Mosey and Joseph to the church parking lot and Mosey FINALLY learned to ride his two-wheeler!  I've been telling him for months and months that he can do it, he just needs to actually try!  The problem with bike-riding is that you never can do it by yourself unless you get going with confidence.  The faster you go, the easier it is, and yet going fast was what scared Mosey.  the faster you go the harder you fall.  Anyway, he finally asked Ben to help him learn to ride because he thought that people would think it was weird to see a 7 year old riding around the block on a big-wheels.  :-)  See boys ARE sometimes motivated by what other people think of them!
Wednesday:  Joseph and Mosey had Tae Kwon Do in the morning, during which time I took Brigham to get new goggles at the pool supply store.  Then I took them over to a friend's house to go swimming.  I was supposed to go see "The Help" with a couple of ladies I visit teach, while the boys stayed to play at one of their homes.  But I scheduled Mosey's first cello lesson for 3:00 that afternoon.  It wasn't until Wednesday morning that it dawned on me that there was no way I could watch a 2 hour 17 minute movie (not to mention the half hour of previews!) that starts at 12:30, and get back in time for a cello lesson at 3:00.  Oops.  And I didn't want to reschedule the cello lesson because Mosey had been asking me EVERY DAY if his cello teacher had emailed me yet about his lesson.  Every time my phone rang he asked me if it was his cello teacher.  He was SO excited!  I dropped the boys off to swim anyway (and play on their Wii!!  A first for them, I think), since I had already told them they were going to do that, and I went home and cleaned the house in peace and quiet.  :-)
Mosey's cello lesson went well.  His teacher is definitely more formal than his violin teacher, but I think he will be good for Mosey who needs to be challenged and held accountable by someone other than his mom. :-)  Really, I think the fact that he wants to play and has been asking to play for a few months now is going to make a huge difference.
After Tae Kwon Do I went home and changed my clothes and headed down to pick up Ben.  He was going to dinner with the CFO and his wife and their reinsurance brokers, so I tagged along for a free date.  Texas Mutual is a big client for these reinsurers so they come a couple of times a year and wine and dine them to keep their business.  The evening was marred by the darned speeding ticket I got on the way down there!  I haven't gotten a ticket in almost 10 years.  I was very mad at myself because I'd seen this particular speed trap a couple of times already this past week.  But I got behind a car going slow in the left lane who wouldn't move over, so I got over into the next lane and was accelerating to pass, when I saw the motorcycle cop parked on the side of the freeway with his radar gun.  I tried to decelerate, but it was too late.  I saw him pull out and sure enough he got behind me and turned on his lights.  Grrr.  I was speeding, though, so it was a legitimate ticket.  He was nice enough, and honestly I felt so sorry for him out there in his heavy black leather motorcycle jacket sitting in the sun in the 103 degree heat.  That's got to be a really crummy job to have on days like we've been having recently.  He was nice enough to make it the FASTEST ticket I've ever seen anyone get.  He had my license for probably 3 minutes or less before he was back with the ticket.  And he did bump me down to only going 10 mph above the speed limit instead of the 13 mph I was actually driving at, which saves me $30, so there's that.
Anyway, the dinner was nice.  We went to a super swanky steak restaurant downtown.  The reinsurance brokers are really nice, and one of them was really friendly and joked around with us the whole evening.  He talked Ben into ordering escargot and turtle soup!  Ewww, ugh, gross.  Ben said they were both very tasty, and I'm sure they were but still, no thank you.  We had a good time, and ate the best "deconstructed" lemon meringue pie we've ever had.  OK, so it was the only deconstructed lemon meringue pie (basically the filling is at the bottom, meringue on top, with the crust crumbled on top) we've ever had, but it was still delicious.  And Ben doesn't like lemony deserts, so the fact that he raved about it means it was pretty fantastic.
Thursday:  We went to another friend's apartment to go swimming with her and her son who is 8.  The boys had a good time, and so did I (I stayed in the pool pretty much the whole time).  Mosey learned to jump into the deep end and swim to the side!  He can swim, but hasn't ever been confident enough to jump straight into the deep end.  Brigham was trying to learn to dive (leaned over into the water and basically sort of toppled in arms and head first-- a good start!), and Mosey wanted to dive, too.  So he put his hands together over his head and jumped straight into the water, feet first, fully convinced that he was diving.  :-)  Cute.  My friend and her son have a new 7 week old Golden Retriever puppy who is SO cute.  The boys are salivating over a golden retriever now, but I really don't think I can take the dog hair, no matter how cute and sweet those dogs are.  I'm not ready for another dog any time soon.
Mosey had his yellow-belt award ceremony in the evening.  I accidentally brought him a half hour early, so he had his ceremony with the little tiger cub group, but he didn't seem to mind.  I took him to get a smoothie afterward and then went home and made macaroni and cheese for dinner.  I've been so bad about making good dinners this summer.  It's hard to be motivated when it is so hot, and when the boys are so happy and excited when I just make macaroni and cheese.  :-)
Friday:  I can't remember what we did on Friday.  I don't think we really did anything, just practicing, etc.  There was an Elders Quorum hot dog and ice cream social down by the lake.  Ben took the boys and I stayed home.  I just can't be out in the heat.  It doesn't cool down below 95 degrees until well after 9:00 PM.  But the boys had a great time and Joseph came home with a great big toad he caught.  He's put it in an empty garbage can and has been feeding it crickets.  He's a pretty entertaining guy, especially when he catches crickets.  Sluuurp!  This is only going to be a short-term pet, though.  Meanwhile, the boys have named him Trevor.  :-)  (After Neville's toad in Harry Potter, but you all knew that, right?  RIGHT??)
Saturday:  Saturday chores.  6 loads of laundry.  The boys helped Ben clean the pool.  Violin lessons in the afternoon.  Their teacher informed us that he's moving to Boston in 2 months.  Waaah!  Now I have to find a new teacher!  This stresses me out.  I like this teacher.  I like my boys to take music lessons from male teachers if possible, and there aren't as many male teachers as female.  Maybe it doesn't matter, but I do want my boys to have role models in music that they can look to, as well as experience with different teaching styles.  So I have to start looking around again.  We went home and picked Ben up and went to Marie Callenders for dinner where all three boys got... Macaroni and cheese.  (See?  Why should I bother cooking anything else when that's all they really want?? :-))  Then home, more laundry folding, and bed.
Sunday:  Church day.  (I didn't get this letter finished before church.  It's now 7:34 PM.)  My committee leader is moving and today was her last day at church.  I will miss her a lot.  She's been awesome in her calling (really, so good), as well as a good friend.  It's hard for me to be very social, simply because I'm really busy, and because physically it's difficult to go out and do social things with other women.  So her friendship has been precious to me.  She's not moving far, but still, things won't be the same.  One of the many unanticipated losses that has accompanied my loss of mobility has been the opportunity and ease of making friends, so I really value the ones I've been able to make here.
Now, as soon as Ben gets back from home teaching, we're going to have dinner and go to bed!  (Well, the boys will, I have got some baking to do tonight.)  Birthdays tomorrow!
Have a great week everyone!

New Mexico, Utah, Colorado trip!

OK, the long-awaited travelogue!  (Just kidding.  I post this not because it is of any remote interest to anyone else besides my own family, but because someday I know I will love reading this and remembering it!)
As we pulled out from the driveway, I noted the mileage on my van's odometer.  98,000 miles.  I figured we would probably hit 100,000 on this trip!  (We did, and then some!)

NM/UT/CO trip day 1

Day one was driving from Austin to Albuquerque.  It should have been straightforward, and it mostly was, after the first 3 hours of driving during which my GPS was possessed by the devil and showed my car traveling happily in exactly the right direction, despite the highway number on the GPS not exactly matching the highway signs on the road we were actually driving on.  I figured it was typical weird Texas roads with multiple names and numbers.  My mom, who has a bit of an aversion to technology in the first place, was skeptical of the GPS and lamenting that we had not printed any maps.  I assured her that the GPS was completely accurate, and would get us to Albuquerque with no problem.  Except that the whole time the GPS was showing us traveling on the right road, we were actually not on the right road at all, and went nearly an hour out of our way.  Finally even I started getting suspicious and called Ben to have him look up on the map to find out where we really were.  We were not on the way to Albuquerque.  :-)  Luckily we had not got as off-course as we might have, and after unplugging, turning off, turning back on, and reprogramming the GPS, it worked perfectly the whole rest of the trip.  But not before irrevocably losing the trust of my mom who from then on wrote down directions and bought a real life map.  Oh well.  :-)
The drive from Austin to Albuquerque is exceedingly dull.  I love Texas, oh how I love Texas, but 80% of Texas geography is as dull as dirt.  Because that's what it mostly is.  Dirt.  :-)  The most exciting thing we did was stop at Dairy Queen for ice cream cones and hamburgers.  I know some perfectly lovely people from Lubbock, but Lubbock is not itself perfectly lovely.  Even the crossing of the New Mexico state line was a total let-down, as New Mexico doesn't think to put a "Welcome to New Mexico" sign until you're a good 5 miles over the state line!  We did see a lot of charming windmill farms and oil wells, though!  The drive over the mountains into Albuquerque is probably quite nice, but by that time it was after 10:00 PM and we couldn't actually see anything.   
It was OK, though, since we were listening to a very good audio book (The Maze Runner).  A good audio book makes even the most boring drive slide past pretty painlessly.  We stayed the night at our friends Kara and Mike's house.  We had impeccable timing and crashed their pad exactly 4 days after they moved in.  A perfect time to host 6 weary travelers, amidst half-unpacked boxes and barely-assembled furniture.  They were great hosts, though, found beds for all of us (I hate to think which of their children were bumped from their beds for our sake), made us a great pancake breakfast in the morning, and sent us off with written instructions for how to get to Cortez, CO (remember, my mom is now convinced that GPS units are of the devil), and a bag full of homemade sandwiches.

NM/UT/CO trip day 2

On our way up toward Colorado, we stopped at Chaco Canyon.  This was really an awesome place!  To get there, we had to drive 16 miles on a very rough dirt road.  This was pretty nerve-wracking for Joseph especially, and for me as well as I had to try to navigate the windy road at a precise speed between 30-40 MPH where we achieved some kind of resonance with the washboard road so as not to rattle all of our teeth out of our heads.  :-)
Anyway, it was well worth it when we finally got there.  Chaco Canyon is the site of the oldest Indian ruins in North America.  They date from as far back as 800 A.D., and at one time was a big city, a center of trade and society in that ancient culture.  The city consisted of multi-story buildings, some with hundreds of rooms!  The ruins are remarkably well preserved for a part of the world that is definitely somewhat techtonically active.  My mom was able to push me around in my wheelchair through a couple of the ruins that were technically wheelchair accessible, but in reality barely wheelchair accessible, and certainly only with a pretty strong person pushing.  Thank you, Mama!
I'll let the pictures do the talking:

Petroglyphs!

Those round things are called Kivas, and were important structures for religious rituals among the Indians of this area.  My mom grew up on Indian reservations and knew quite a lot about them.

Finally we made our way BACK over the bone-jarring 16 miles of dirt road (the road is owned by the Indian reservation and unfortunately is not particularly well maintained, even though the roads in the Chaco Canyon national park are very nicely paved (funded by taxpayers).  If the reservation would pave that road, I imagine they would get far more visitors, which would increase tourist dollars spent in the area.  Oh, well.

Once back on the freeway, it wasn't too far to the border of Colorado.  It was really interesting to see the geography change from the high desert ecology of New Mexico to the green foothills of the Rocky Mountains.  We drove to Durango, thinking of possibly riding the Silverton narrow gauge railroad.  Well, after discovering that the ride is 8 hours round trip, and would have cost the 5 of us well over $300, we decided to fore go that particular tourist trap.  We did tour the small railroad museum and walk up and down the picturesque little downtown where we bought the best shaved ice I've ever had.  It was also the first shaved ice I've ever had, and after coming back to Austin I've been trying to find a place to equal it, sadly with no success thus far.

Mosey has an almost pathological inability to maintain eye contact with the camera for longer than 1/500 of a second, usually not quite long enough for me to actually depress the shutter.  :-)

Joseph was clearly thrilled to be having his picture taken.  He wasn't feeling particularly well this afternoon (he had a little stomach bug which subsequently got passed to Mosey and me) which accounts for the stony expression with which he graced the camera.

Mosey wasn't that thrilled with the railroad museum, anyway.  What?!  I thought all little boys loved trains!

Finally we got back in the van and drove back up into Cortez where we spent the night in a Days Inn.  The boys went swimming in the motel pool and then Grandma (I am never sure whether to refer to her as "Grandma," which she is to my boys, or "Mama," which she'll always be to me) went to the grocery store to buy food for dinner and for the next day.  Then she lay on the bed with the boys and kept reading to them from "The Boxcar Children" which she had started reading to them every night back in Austin.  She's such a good grandma.

Her many good deeds of the day were repaid by a sleepless night in which she was kept up by the regular bathroom visits of my sick boys.  Joseph finally was able to throw up at around 2 or 3 AM and then slept the rest of the night and felt better the next morning.  But I don't think my mom slept much at all...

Anyway, that was the first couple of days of our trip!  Up next: Mesa Verde and Arches National Park!

NM/UT/CO trip day 3

Thursday morning we woke up and headed out to Mesa Verde.  I'd last been here 14 years ago, before a huge fire burned about 75% of the park.  It was enough years later now that it was all green again, but all the tall trees were gone.  We stopped at the visitor center to get tickets for one of the guided tours.

(View of the canyon from the visitors center-- you can see how all the tall trees are gone-- this whole area was fairly forested before.)
First up was the Spruce Tree house.  Actually the trees are Pinion Pines, but the people who first discovered it didn't know that.  The boys hiked down to the cliff dwellings and I stayed up in a nice shaded overlook where I could actually see and hear them across the canyon!

 (I'm up there waving, can you see?)

Here's what the Spruce Tree house looks like.  So incredible to think that 1000 years ago people were living here.
My mom was nice enough to take some pictures of the boys down in the cliff dwellings for me while I was waiting.

 Here's where the Indian women would grind corn-- apparently their teeth would get all worn down fairly early from the stone grit in the meal.

After they hiked back up, we drove over to the trail head for the Balcony House tour for which we had tickets (and by "we" I mean my mom and boys :-)).  After getting thoroughly chewed out by a ranger (who took his job WAAAAY to seriously) for driving backwards through the parking lot in order to get back to the handicapped spaces, instead of driving 14 more miles around the one way loop to get back to the parking lot (for Heaven's sake, really?), we ate lunch and then I sent the boys and my mom on their way.  Joseph was not too keen on going, but I pretty much made him.  I told him it was something he wouldn't forget and that he would be very glad he did it.
Well, I was very wrong.  He made it down to the cliff dwellings, but when they got to the 3 story high ladders sort of hanging over the precipice of the cliff face, he balked.  I don't blame him.  He tried mightily to get up the ladder-- actually tried 4 different times, with everyone else on the tour cheering him on, but in the end, his nerves got the best of him.  My mom took him back up the trail to the car.  He was crying, and I felt so bad.  Well, at least I was right about the fact that it was something he wouldn't forget!  The tour guide took Brigham and Mosey under her wing, and they completed the tour and made it back up to the car before too long. 

 Yikes!  Look at that!  If I had known it would be like that, maybe I wouldn't have been too thrilled about my boys going on this tour!  No wonder Joseph was scared!  How did the Indian mothers ever trust their kids around here-- back then there were no chains or safety nets!

After the Balcony House tour, we were on our way out of Colorado.  We stopped briefly to look at the Blanding Temple just over the Utah border.

My mom told the story of how my grandpa, the night before my grandma was to drive from Arizona to Salt Lake City to pick up my aunt, suddenly got the strong urge to install seat belts in the car.  He stayed up all night installing them.  On the way home from SLC, it started raining hard.  Going around a curve, the car started to slide, and the car left the road and rolled several times with my grandma and 4 kids in the car.  They certainly would have died without the seat belts.  As it was, they were hardly injured.  The good people of Blanding took them in for the night while my grandpa made his way to pick them up.  Amazing story!
Next stop: Arches National Park!

This is the first arch we saw-- technically not in the park yet.  The boys thought it was awesome and had to jump out of the car (sans shoes) to clamber up as far as they could.
As we drove into the park, the boys were enthralled.  Especially Brigham.  He immediately started trying to draw some of the scenery he passed.  After saying in frustration that he couldn't draw fast enough before we drove past what he was drawing, I handed him my camera and told him to take pictures of the things he wanted to draw later.  He took about 50 pictures.  :-)
Arches truly is an amazing place.  I'd only been there one other time as a child, but I remember being amazed at this natural sculpture garden. (Well, sculpture "desert" I should say. :-))
My mom hiked with them to several of the destination points while I waited in the car.  Arches is not particularly wheelchair accessible.

We finally left the park as it was approaching sunset, and drove up to I-70, heading west toward my grandparents house.  That section of I-70 is truly spectacular.  Here is an image of the sun setting over the many canyons surrounding this stretch of highway.

We reached my grandparents' house in Centerfield (about 15 miles north of where Highway 89 meets I-70) pretty late-- around 10:00 PM.  My 90 year old grandma was there to greet us with banana bread and toast and turned down sheets.  Talk about hospitality!

NM/UT/CO trip day 4

In the morning we ate breakfast, talked with my grandma and grandpa (who was about to turn 92), and then got back in the car.  Instead of driving up 89 to I-15, we decided to go through Manti and over through Spanish Fork Canyon.  What a beautiful drive!  All the rain Utah had this spring and summer has resulted in the most lushly green scenery I've ever seen in that area of Utah.
Fist we stopped to walk around the grounds of the Manti Temple.  We felt just a bit underdressed.  :-)  The last time I was here was at my sister's wedding in 1997.  I was a little sad as I remembered how I walked all around the grounds taking their wedding pictures.  That was just before my terrible exacerbation in the fall of 1997 that landed me in this darned wheelchair...

We drove on up through Spanish Fork Canyon (we actually meant to meet up with I-15 in Nephi, but missed the turn-off-- oops!), and then straight up through Provo and into Orem.  We got off at 8th north, stopped at Wendy's to pick up lunch, and then drove up to Canyon Glen Park in Provo Canyon where we got out, ate lunch, climbed some trees, and admired the huge, rushing Provo river.

Such a sweet look from my boy, don't you think?  :-)

  

After lunch, it was back in the car and on up into Colesville!  Colesville is about 15 miles or so up past where 89 meets I-80 (near as I can tell).  We were thrown off just a bit when our GPS told us to stop right at a dirt road.  Well the dirt road definitely did NOT lead us to the campgrounds, and it took a couple of times driving back and forth along the road before we finally made it to the real camp.
It was a nice camp!  There were several cabins with bunks, a separate bathroom building with showers, a small cottage with 2 bedrooms and 2 real bathrooms, and a kitchen/cafeteria/meeting hall.  It's run by a Methodist church (I think).  It was really fun seeing my aunts and uncles and many of my cousins and their children tricking in one by one-- my dad, Eva, Abraham, Benjamin, Rachel, and Rosalia came up in the truck, and Rosalynde and her kids were there as well.  It took about 2 seconds for the Jack-Joseph alliance to re-form, and they were inseparable for the whole weekend.  :-)  Each family took turns preparing meals, although the bulk of the work certainly went to my aunt Kathy who organized the whole thing.
In the evening after dinner, we had a bunch of skits-- each family was given a theme and did a skit/song sort of introducing themselves.  My family's theme was "On a trip to Mexico."  We set up chairs like our old 15 passenger Ford XLT Family Wagon, and each person introduced themselves: "We're going on a trip to Mexico!  I'm (their name) and I'm bringing (something that alliterates with their name)," and then piled into the "van."  Well, Mosey was not thrilled about being part of this skit.  He did NOT want to do it.  I tried to convince him, but no go.  So when it was our turn (we were last, and I had the "punch line"), Joseph introduced himself: "I'm Joseph and I'm bringing my jazz flute," Brigham introduced himself: "I'm Brigham and I'm bringing my blocks," but then instead of Mosey introducing himself, I stood up and said, "This is Mosey.  He does NOT want to go to Mexico, so he's staying home with his Mad Face."  I got a big laugh, of course.  And then I had the punch line: "As you see, we have a lot of people going to Mexico, and we're bringing a lot of stuff.  But we're missing the very most important thing.  I'm Gabrielle and I'm bringing Grandpa!"  (This is the punchline, of course, because Grandpa was the one who took us on all of our Mexico camping trips and got us through many a fix.)  It was a funny skit, until I sat down and realized that Mosey was crying.  He had turned around in his chair, his head buried in his arms, crying.  It suddenly hit me that he interpreted my words as mocking him-- making fun of him in front of 100 people that he didn't know.  Suddenly the skit didn't seem so funny and I felt rotten.  I tried to apologize to him, but he was really angry.  I think it took him the rest of the night before he got over it.  Note to self:  Never humiliate your child in front of large crowds.  I'm so sorry, sweet boy.
My boys all went to sleep in the cabin along with Rosalynde and her kids, and I (after drawn out negotiations with Grandpa) slept in the cottage on a twin bed sharing a bedroom with Grandma.  It was very luxurious!

NM/UT/CO trip day 5

Saturday morning came pretty early (7:00!), and after breakfast we had our first family choir rehearsal.  Wow, talk about a quintessentially Hansen thing to do!  My aunt Janet was the conductor and she brought music for all of us ("Take Time to be Holy").  Musical talent abounds in the Hansen family (the Frandsen side, too), and we sounded really awesome.  My brother Abe accompanied on the piano.  If only ever ward choir sounded as good as we did!  Anyway, as we were walking back from rehearsal, I was wishing Ben were there.  He would have thought we were all so weird, but he would have probably come away with some new insights into his weird wife.  :-)  I mean, how many other big family reunions have a choir and music rehearsals?!
Most of the rest of the morning and really most of the day was then spent doing a lot of this:

 Field games!!

 Soccer!

 Making new friends!  This is Mara, Rosalynde's 5 year old, and one of my cousin Joseph's girls, Brielle.

 Softball!  This is my dad and my cousin's adorable son Peter.

 More soccer!

 More soccer!  Whenever my dad is at a reunion, there is sure to be a lot of soccer.  :-)

 And, more soccer!  Mosey and Miles (Rosalynde's youngest boy) were sooo cute.  They kicked the ball back and forth to each other for about 15 minutes.  5 year age difference?  Who cares?!

Here are my Grandma and Grandpa Hansen, the ones responsible for all the madness and mayhem.  :-)

In the afternoon, my cousin Lizzy (of Your Cup of Cake blog fame) did a cupcake decorating demonstration.  We all got into it!

 Abe and his masterpiece.  Very nice!

 And the newlyweds, decorating their cupcakes together.  Awww...  :-)

 And Lizzy herself!  She is beautiful and talented and available.  :-)

After cupcakes, there was a family history presentation.  My cousin Eve's father-in-law from Sweden did a fascinating presentation on Sweden and Denmark (most of my ancestors are from Denmark).  So interesting to hear the European stereotype of Swedish men and women!  I never would have known.
My cousin Z did a presentation on some of our ancestors who were in the Revolutionary War, my uncle Mark did a presentation on my Grandpa's family, and my mom did a presentation on my grandma's mom, Kathleen Bentley. 

After the presentations, there was more field play, more making friends (Mara and Mosey above), and lots and lots and lots and lots of talking.  Cousins were there whom I had not seen for 15 years or more.  I think we ended up having right around 100 people (more came for the family history presentations-- grandpa and grandma's siblings and some nieces and nephews).  It was so great to catch up with many of them.  I needed about 10 more days to have all the conversations I wish I could have had.
I didn't take as many pictures as I wish I would have.  I was wishing so hard the whole time that I could walk around better.  The camp was not wheelchair accessible, and so I was dependent upon my crutches.  I just can't walk that much on uneven grass and gravel.  I would have loved to get pictures of all the different family groups, all the little children playing games, all the bunches of conversations that were happening everywhere.  :-(
I did manage to get some adorable pictures of my incredibly adorable niece Rosalia.  Look at those blue eyes! 

 

Here's another funny picture-- Rosalia is, shall we say, *very* attached to her mother.  She must be within eyesight, and preferably physically attached to her at all times.  She's in the throws of early-toddler stranger-anxiety, in other words.  Fun times for a mother.  :-)  Anyway, here, Rosalia got mixed up with which jeans-clad legs belonged to her mother.  She came and snuggled right up to Eva for quite some time, and didn't realize her mistake until Eva reached down to pick her up.  Then she noticed.  :-)

Another exciting happening of the day was the finding of the snake.  Joseph, my animal-lover-and-finder extraordinaire found this pretty big snake.  He was the pied piper for all the little boy cousins, and some of the girls, too.  They kept the snake for most of the day before letting it go at the encouragement of my aunt Janet who apparently has a warm spot in her heart for cold-blooded snakes.  :-)

 He kept it in his backpack for some of the time.  I wouldn't want to open up that backpack unexpectedly!

After a late, late night talking and watching a movie (a funny Sherlock Holmes movie), it was time for bed.  I was just getting ready to get in bed when Joseph came bursting into the cottage.  He had stayed up late to watch the movie, and so was one of the last to get in bed.  He climbed up onto his top bunk, lay down, and saw a great big spider on the ceiling right in front of his face.  He did exactly what I would have done, and high-tailed it out of there!  So he and I shared a very snug and very cozy twin bed for the night.  :-)

NM/UT/CO trip day 6

Sunday morning dawned early-- too early for me.  I was to give a talk in Sacrament meeting, and I was still pondering on what to say.  I got ready, and then skipped breakfast to write my talk.  I had a lot I wanted to say, and only 3 minutes to say it.
My uncle is a Bishop, and he got permission from the local stake to conduct Sacrament Meeting.  It was a really wonderful meeting.  It was so special seeing my cousins passing the Sacrament and my brother accompanying for all the hymns.  Each family had a representative speak.  My uncle Mark's family went first.  His son Eli has CP and is very disabled.  But he has a communication device whereby he can use his head to press a button, and cue the computer to "read" the next line of his talk.  The talk, presumably written by my uncle, was nonetheless profoundly touching.  He spoke on Christ's love for broken things, and how all broken things, hearts, bodies, families, will be healed by Christ.  I'm pretty sure everyone in the room was crying by the end of his talk.  And of course, I had to go next.  :-)  I first talked about how my family-- extended and nuclear, has so strongly shaped my identity as an individual an as a daughter of God.  I named some of the many qualities that have been passed down to my generation from our parents and grandparents-- the same qualities that we now see being passed down to the 4th generation of great-grandchildren.  These qualities will bind all of us together in the future as they bind us together now and to our ancestors who have passed before us.  Then I spoke briefly on a favorite theme of mine-- the atonement of Jesus Christ.  Our own trials and pain and sorrow and disappointments are sanctified as we offer them up to Christ as our own sacrificial offering in humility and gratitude.  I closed by saying how I look forward to a much larger family reunion someday where we will be reunited with our ancestors, and especially with those family members who have gone on before us.
Our family choir sang next, and we sounded great!  I was kicking myself for not having one of my boys video it!  Oh, well.
After the rest of the talks (which were also wonderful, I just don't have the endurance right now to summarize them all), my grandmother gave wonderful closing remarks and benediction.  It was especially poignant and she is in the early-ish stages of Alzheimers, and in this beautiful moment of clarity, we all caught another glimpse of the intelligent, spiritual, creative, and truly special woman that she always has been.
After the church services we had a great big giant family picture taken by Frederick, my cousin Eve's husband who is a photographer.
Then it was time for goodbyes and last-minute photos.  Here is a favorite of mine:

Here I am with 2 of my favorite Hansen cousins, Maren and Susannah.  My cousin Whitney had been there the night before.  All four of us, Maren, Susannah, Whitney, and I are within a few months of the same age, and I have so, so many memories of these cousins of mine.  Susannah had not been there the night before, so I didn't get a picture of all 4 of us, and I didn't get one with me and Whitney!  Darn it!  But, here are 3 of the 4 of us anyway.  I look kind of awful since I had been crying during the Sacrament service.  Oh, well, it's just as well-- I was always so jealous of my cousins who were and are so, so beautiful.  Maren has 3 beautiful kids of her own (including a--gulp-- almost-13 year old who is nearly as tall as she is!!), and Susannah is engaged to be married on 11/11/11!  I met her fiance, who wasn't quite yet her fiance at the reunion, but within a few days afterward, was official.  :-)

On the way back up the hill from taking family pictures, my legs had really had it, so my dad and brother carried me back up.  Fun!

 Here are my grandparents with my boys and I.

My parents with my boys.

My parents with my kids, Rosalynde's kids, and Rachel's Rosalia!

And, for the fun of it, here are some of the pictures Frederick took:

 The Frandsen-Hansens (well, some of us anyway).

My wonderful parents.

A whole lot of the Hansen clan.  My grandparents have 55 grandchildren and... a whole lot of great-grandchildren, so getting the *whole* clan together will be nigh-unto-impossible, but this was as many of us together at one time as I think has ever happened.  I love it!

Me and my boys.  Can you tell who was pretty well fed up with photographs?  :-)  I really like this picture, otherwise.  I'm going to have to bribe him into taking another picture so I can swap his face out.  Maybe for a belated birthday present for his mom?  :-)

And me, red eyes, almost no-makeup, camp-hair, and all.  Also, note to Frederick: don't photograph women from an upward angle.  Oh, well, I'm happy to have the picture anyway-- proof to my boys someday that their mom was once young and slightly more attractive.  :-)

After tearful goodbyes, we loaded up the van and headed back down the canyon.  We ended up at the Welch's house (Rosalynde's in-laws) in Provo.  I called Jackee and asked her if we could stay at their house for a few days.  I felt bad calling last-minute, but there had been NO cell-service at all up in the mountains.  Of course she was glad to have us.
We said goodbye to Mama and Daddy and Rachel and Rosalynde and Eva and Abe and Benjamin, and drove down to Salem where we were just in time for Sunday dinner.
Brigham and his brothers quickly had the blocks and toys out and were making themselves at home.

Ben's brother Tyler and his sister Liz and their families came down for dinner also, and we had 10 (yes TEN) boys sitting around the kitchen table.  Ben's side of the family runs a little heavy on the boy side.  :-)  Between Ben, Tyler, and Liz, there is not a girl among the grandkids!

Left to right, clockwise:  Jack and Cal (Liz's), Joseph, Mosey, Zachary (Ty's), Benjamin (Liz's), Brigham, Max (Ty's), Isaac (Ty's), and Luke (Liz's).  Wow!
Finally, none-too-soon for this tired mom, it was time for bed.
What a weekend!

NM/UT/CO trip day 7

Monday morning we all slept in.  Ahh, luxury!
Our only agenda for the day was to spend some time with Turner cousins.  After getting up and eating breakfast and starting some laundry, we headed up to Liz's house in Highland.
Utah County is once again in the midst of freeway construction on I-15.  I don't believe I have ever been in Utah when there has NOT been construction on I-15 in Utah County or Salt Lake from about 1996 onward.  :-)  It's pretty bad right now, though.  I-15 is all torn up, and the traffic is routed and re-routed from on side of the freeway to another, depending on where the construction is currently happening.  The result is a windy, rough drive with narrowed lanes and cement barriers RIGHT up against the sides of the freeway.  It is affectionately known as the I-15 luge run, and I can see why.  SO STRESSFUL DRIVING ON IT!  Especially when a torrential downpour happens and gigantic trucks are speeding past on both sides, spraying muddy water up everywhere.  But, we managed to make it to Liz's house in one piece, and just in time for the sun to come out on a beautiful afternoon.
Liz and her family live in this idyllic little neighborhood in Highland in a new house with a huge basement and even bigger backyard full of such things as chicken coops, raspberry bushes, and abundant vegetable garden full of corn and squash and beans and all manner of other temptations.  The yard is open to the neighbors' backyards, the better for neighborhood children to mix and mingle and go from one home to another.  Behind the backyard is a big field, bounded by tall cottonwood trees behind it, and framed by a gorgeous view of the Wasatch Mountains and American Fork Canyon.  Oh, Liz, you have got it so good!
The boys (hers and mine) played downstairs, played upstairs, played outside, picked raspberries, jumped on the trampoline, found spiders, and generally had a fantastic time all afternoon.

 Liz's raspberry bushes are so fruitful, that she has not been able to keep up with picking the raspberries-- they're literally falling off the vine!  She's already made pints and pints of raspberry jam, with no end in sight of the raspberries.  And we're paying $6 for a pint of raspberries out in Texas!  The boys jumped right in and picked a couple of bowl-fulls.  Liz and Jackee made jam that afternoon and sent us home with several jars.  So good!

 A neighborhood dog came wandering through the yard, and Joseph was very quick to make friends.  Oh, how he misses his own dog.  :-(

I sat in the backyard swing and watched the children playing, enjoying the mild Utah summer weather.  I can't sit outside like this in Texas this summer!

Finally, after a long afternoon of playing, we got back in the car and I drove the boys a short distance over to Tyler's house in Lehi where they had been invited to spend the night.  Afterward, I enjoyed a quiet evening to myself shopping at Walmart and driving around old haunts in Utah.  I got back to Jackee's house, and was getting ready for bed when I got a call.  Tyler called with Mosey in tears.  Mosey did not want to spend the night.  I couldn't quite get out of him what was wrong, but I went back out to the van and drove the 45 minutes back up to Lehi.  I thought it would be easier driving up the I-15 luge run at night with less traffic, but I was quite mistaken.  The nighttime is when the bulk of the construction work is actually being done, so the road was even more crowded with construction trucks, with the added pleasantry of incredibly bright, glaring work lights making it nearly impossible to see the road!  Ugh.  Then I missed the exit, and ended up on a really annoying detour (again, construction), before I finally got back to Tyler's house.  Joseph decided he wanted to go home, too, so the two of them got in the car and we went back home.  I'm still not sure what was wrong.  A strange house, strange bed, strange sounds, and two boys not used to spending the night away from their mom, I guess.
Anyway, the ride home was a little shorter thanks to not missing the exit, and soon enough we were asleep back at Grandma Jackee's house.

NM/UT/CO trip day 8

After getting a quick breakfast, we drove back up to Lehi to pick up Brigham.  We drove out to the Mt. Timpanogos Temple where we met up with Rosalynde and Mara and Miles.  Jack and Elena were both busy at fun summer day camps at BYU.  My goal was to take an artsy-type photograph of the Temple (the one where Ben and I were married) to make into a canvas to hang above the piano.  I discovered that the angles available to a person in a wheelchair confined to the footpath around the Temple, are not exactly conducive to pleasant, artsy photographs.  Oh, well.  I took some standard photos of the front view of the Temple, which is also very nice.  The kids ran around on the grass, climbed trees, and played games.
Here's the picture of the Temple I ended up with:

 Not bad, but I'm still looking for that great artsy-looking print.  Maybe I'll use this one, I don't know.

The kids were great and played well together, even though we were there a lot longer than the 15 minutes I had estimated to Joseph.  :-)

After that, we drove out to Thankgiving Point in Lehi.  This was on the must-do list for the boys.  They love, love, love the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point.  We ate lunch at the deli there, and then basked in the wonderfulness that is the dinosaur museum for several hours.  Rosalynde and her kids hung out with us for a couple of hours before they had to get back to pick up Elena and Jack from their camps.  I love hanging out with my sister!!!

 The highlight of the dinosaur museum is definitely the water room.  They've loved this place for the last 3 years we've gone here.

 Brigham is totally in his element.

Finally the boys got their fill, and we headed out to get some dinner.  But not without another photo-op in front of the dinosaur museum.

 I particularly love these two pictures of my twins.  Such little characters!

As we drove out of the parking lot, I noticed this:

 Wow, can you believe it??  After getting gas, I pulled over again as soon as the mileage turned over to an even 100,000.  That is over 4 times the circumference of the Earth!

We got dinner at Burger King (boy, we really ate healthy on this trip :-)), and then went BACK to Thanksgiving Point to watch Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 again.  It was just as good the 2nd time.  Then back to Salem!

NM/UT/CO trip day 9

Wednesday morning I woke up with my mind working.  The plan was for the boys to go to Seven Peaks with Susie (Ty's wife) and her 3 boys.  But she got worried, thinking about keeping track of 6 little boys, including my 3 who had never been to a water park before.  I didn't blame her!  But I still wanted the boys to be able to go since it was one of my favorite places when I was growing up.  As I was laying in bed thinking about it, I got the bright idea to call Abraham!  I called him and, very fortuitously, he happened to be available that day.  After getting ready for the park, we drove up to Provo and picked him up from his apartment.  I told him he only needed to stay for an hour or two until the boys were acclimated an having fun, and then he could call me and I'd come pick him up.  He had to move out of his apartment in two days, and still had some work to do with his summer math research group.  I felt guilty keeping him from other things he may have needed to be doing.
I drove up to the Welches' house again and hung out there for the rest of the morning and afternoon.  I never did hear from Abraham until 5:00 PM!  He had a blast with the boys, they had a blast with him, and I was SO glad I asked him to go!  I had a good time at the Welches' house, talking with Allison and Jeanne (Rosalynde's sister- and mother-in-law) about the school system in England (where Alli lives), and healthcare, and other interesting subjects.  Rosalynde came back just before lunch and we had the afternoon together in peace and quiet while Miles napped and Mara played with her cousins.
Finally, Abe called to let me know they were ready to go home, and I drove back down to Seven Peaks to pick them up.  The boys were overflowing with enthusiasm.  Abraham really made that trip for them, and I'm so glad my boys will always have that memory with their awesome uncle.  :-)

Back in Salem, we made dinner, and Grandpa Kent showed the boys his marble collection.  He ended up sending them home with a great big gallon-sized zip-lock bag of really cool marbles.  Wow, thanks Grandpa!
The boys fell asleep pretty quickly that night after their day in the sun.

NM/UT/CO trip day 10

Thursday we got up, ate breakfast, packed our suitcases, loaded up the van, said goodbye to Grandma Jackee, and hit the road.  After stopping at Walmart for snacks for the road, we drove back up through Spanish Fork Canyon, and down Highway 6 through Price, finally hitting I-70.  Brigham, with his artistic eye, loved the scenery and I wished I had given him my camera again so he could have taken some more photographs as we drove down the beautiful forested mountainside.  The drive is very pretty up until Price, and then... it's not so pretty.  :-)  However, we persevered through Green River and on across the Colorado state line and into Grand Junction.  Colorado is just plain pretty.  So beautiful!  Especially this summer after a lot of rain.
So many memories flooded back through my mind as I drove that I-70 stretch up across the Rocky Mountains.  I drove that way several times over the year and a half that Ben and I lived in Denver from 1998-1999.  The boys got a kick out of being up so high-- over 11,000 feet at the Eisenhower Tunnel!  As we drove down the Eastern side of the Rockies, my brakes got quite the workout.  I should have shifted down to 2nd gear.  Oops.  Anyway, we started to smell that pungent, acrid brake smell permeating the car, and so *just* outside the outskirts of Denver, I pulled off the highway and into a pretty little park where the boys gratefully got out to stretch their legs and let our car rest a while.  :-)
We had to get on our way before too long, however, to make it to the airport in time to pick up Ben.

(This is the only photograph I took this entire day!)

The boys were all happy to see Ben.  So was I!  It had been 11 days since we'd all been together as a family.  We drove to our hotel, the boys and Ben walked to a neighboring McDonalds to pick up dinner (again, healthy eating :-)), and none-too-soon for me, went to sleep.

NM/UT/CO trip day 11

I woke up in the wee hours of the morning not feeling great at all.  Oh no, a stomach virus is NOT the thing I need today!  I didn't eat anything at breakfast, and lay back in the front seat of the van while Ben drove us on our tour of Denver.  We drove past our old apartments, drove straight to our old church building, surprising both of us since we couldn't consciously remember how to get there!  We drove past the Vilen's old house where I spent a happy year nannying those cute twins Colin and Leigha.  I miss those little guys!  Not so little now-- they are 15 now!  Ack!  We drove downtown (Colfax is still as dodgy as we remember :-)), past Ben's old work building (the tallest building in downtown), past the Rockies' stadium and the new basketball arena, past the State Capitol Building, through Ben's old bus-route back home, and finally down Colorado Blvd. toward I-225.  The boys remembered the funny story about the run-down old Jack-in-the-Box on Colfax, onto the wall of which someone had spray painted, "Jack-- Clean up your Box!"  Someone cleaned it up all right, cleaned it right off the map.  It's no longer there.  :-)  We did drive past the King Soopers where I used to grocery shop and past the Black-Eyed Pea which was our favorite restaurant (and accounted for some of the weight we both gained while we lived there :-).
Too soon, however, we were saying goodbye to Denver (for how long?), and heading down the interstate toward Colorado Springs.  Next destination: Garden of the Gods!
We bypassed Castle Rock and the Airforce Academy, both of which would have been fun to stop by, and finally got off at Garden of the Gods Road.  I remember this place so fondly.  You don't expect to see anything, and then suddenly you round a bend in the road, and this magnificent view opens up-- startling red sandstone monoliths jutting up from the verdant green vegetation in the valley at the base of the Rocky Mountains.  It is so beautiful!  We got out and walked all along the very nicely paved, and very wheelchair accessible path around the Gardens.  I'm so glad we went there!

 All my boys with Pikes Peak in the background!

We wanted to take the cog railroad train up Pikes Peak, but it was too late to purchase advance tickets.  If we wanted to go, we'd have to go standby, which meant we had to be up there early.  So we piled back in the van and drove up the road to Manitou Springs.  Ben jumped out of the van and quickly put our name on the standby list.  Then, we waited and hoped.  We needed to take the 3:00 train in order to be back down by 6:00 in time to be able to drive down into New Mexico where we planned to stay the night.  We were very discouraged when the couple *right* in front of us in line got called up to get on the train, and then were told that the train was full.  Darn it!  However, Ben talked to the guy in the office, and he said that if we were willing to sit on these fold-down benches, we could get on.  Yes, of course we were willing!  So we were officially the very last people aboard the train.  So lucky!
The ride up the mountain was beautiful.  And not as scary as I remembered it being the last time I was on it.  It was chilly at the top, but definitely worth it.  We got freshly made donuts at the gift shop, took some pictures, and then got back on the train for the ride down the mountain.  We felt doubly lucky when a big rainstorm rolled in when we were nearly down the mountain.  The poor 5:30 train folks probably didn't have much of a view up on top with all the clouds.  :-(

 Looking down into Colorado Springs, about halfway up the mountain.

 Just above the tree line, looking west across the "purple mountains majesty."

 I took some pictures of the boys while we were waiting for one of the other trains to pass us by on their way down the mountain.

Finally, we made it to the summit!  We had about 45 minutes up at the top.

Katharine Lee Bates wrote the lyrics to the famous "America the Beautiful" while she was up at the top of Pikes Peak.  Looking around, I can see why she was inspired!

Joseph declined to bring his jacket, or to wrap up in a blanket.  He was NOT COLD!  :-)

A nice lady took our picture "above the fruited plains."

My two boys perched over 14,000 feet into the air!

Another look down into Colorado Springs.

After we got off the train, we had to hurry out of there.  We drove through a big rain storm out of Manitou Springs, and back onto I-25.  These summer rainstorms are beautiful, but a little scary to drive in!  I drove for a while until we stopped to get dinner at Taco Bell.  I still was not feeling great and asked Ben to drive after that.
The drive down through southern Colorado is beautiful (gosh, I've used that adjective about 100 times so far in regards to this trip!).  It got dark too soon-- it would have been neat to really see the transition from the mountains and plains of Colorado to the high desert of New Mexico.
We made it to Las Vegas (NM, not NV!) by around 10:00 that night, and spent the night in a Super 8 motel-- the nicest Super 8 I've ever stayed in!

NM/UT/CO trip day 12

After breakfast, we headed down into New Mexico toward Roswell.  The New Mexico desert really is quite pretty.  The temperature started to climb, however, as we drove south.  Our respite from the brutal Texas summer of 2011 was coming to an end! 
We stopped to get gas in some no-name town (well, I'm sure it had a name, I just don't remember what it was), and Joseph did it all himself!  Impressive, babe!

We got into Roswell at around 11:00, and spent an hour or so at the Roswell UFO Museum and Research Library.  It was very interesting!  :-)  I don't think any of us became UFO converts, but it was fun seeing all the alien paraphernalia and reading about the mysterious Roswell crash of 1947.

 The UFO really spun around, and the aliens moved!  Cool!

Mosey and his little green (OK, gray) friend.  :-)

After stopping for lunch at Sonic (continuing our healthy eating streak), we high-tailed it down the freeway toward Carlsbad.  We were hoping to make it there on time for a 3:00 tour of the King's Room in Carlsbad Caverns.  It was HOT down in southern New Mexico!  It was well over 100 degrees as we drove through the city of Carlsbad.  The drive into Carlsbad National Park is interesting geographically, if not esthetically.  A big forest fire had gone through the area not too many years before, and things have not quite come back to life.  We made it to the visitors center by 2:40, only to find out that tickets for the tour had been sold out since 9:00 that morning.  I was quite annoyed at the park ranger who, at 11:00 AM, told me that while we couldn't reserve tickets the same day, the tours only "sometimes" sold out.  When, in fact, that particular tour had *already* been sold out!  Oh well, it ended up just fine anyway.
Ben took the boys around to the natural entrance and hiked about 40 minutes down into the main cavern.  I stayed up in the visitors center looking around for a while before going down the elevator and meeting them.  We walked along the 1 mile + path through the "Big Room" which, along with the boys' hike down into the caverns, ended up being plenty for them.  The pathway is not entirely wheelchair accessible, so we weren't able to go along the entire loop.  We tried to send the boys around along the parts of the path where the wheelchair couldn't go, so they at least would be able to see the whole thing.  But, partway through the second segment of non-wheelchair-accessible path, a ranger asked them where their parents were.  My boys, so smooth and quick-thinking, turned tail and ran back down the path where they breathlessly caught up with us.  We kept on walking down the pathway, but after a few minutes, the ranger caught up with us!  He followed the boys!  He sternly told Ben and I that the boys were not allowed on the path without an adult.  Well, OK Mister Ranger Man!  At least it gave me the opportunity to talk with the boys a bit about how *not* to respond to authority.  :-)
I didn't get any pictures of the boys in the cave.  Too difficult along the narrow path with so many other people.  But some of the formations were so, so interesting!

 I love how this one looks like multi-tiered mountain covered with tall deciduous trees.

We got back to the elevator, only to be dismayed by the very, very long line of people waiting to go back up.  Only one of the elevators was in operation, and the line was at least 30-45 minutes long.  However, the wheelchair served its purpose again, and we were able to bypass the line and go right on the elevator.  I didn't even feel guilty.  I would have traded that saved 45 minutes for a working pair of legs any day.  :-)Back up in the visitors center, I did get a few of the boys in the Ranger cut-out.  Brigham is so funny!

After making a couple of purchases from the gift shop (Brigham got a crystal, Joseph got a flying bat to hang up from the ceiling of his room), we went from the cool 55 degree caverns into the 105 degree heat of the outside world.  Ugh!  We decided to forego the emergence of the bats from the caverns, since we've seen plenty of Mexican free-tailed bats back home in Austin.
As we were driving out of Carlsbad toward the Texas state line, we saw a tornado in a distant rainstorm!  It was not big, but still, pretty exciting!

It's pretty hard to see here, but it was the first (and, I'm hoping last) real-life tornado any of us have ever seen.
It's too bad that rain storm didn't travel east a few miles.  Texas could certainly use the water.  As it was, driving into west Texas was pretty depressing.  It is SO brown and dry.  About the only redeeming feature of west Texas was the beautiful sunset, and even that, I guess technically, was over New Mexico, and not Texas.  :-)

I handed my camera to Mosey to get a picture, but just as I gave it to him, the road curved around, and this was the only glimpse he was able to capture.  Just trust me, it was spectacular!

We drove and drove and drove through the twilight and struggling little towns of west Texas (how do they survive?!), and finally ended up in Midland where we finally got a semi-healthy dinner at Subway and spent the night in a very run-down Motel 6.  That's the last time we'll stay in a Motel 6 if we can possibly help it.  The last couple of ones we've stayed at have left much to be desired.  The doorknobs were literally falling off the doors, the carpet was stained, the air conditioning control panel had been ripped off, leaving nothing but exposed wiring.  And Midland is the home of the officially most disgusting tap water I have ever had the misfortune to taste.  The guy at Subway even gave us our soft drinks for free, and it was a good thing because they were absolutely undrinkable-- the water that the soft drink machine used to mix the soda was awful, and overwhelmed the flavor.  I could barely stand brushing my teeth in the tap water!  Truly, it was awful-- permeated with some horrible chemicals I can only imagine.  I'm so glad we don't live in Midland.  We'd spend a fortune on bottled water!
However, we were tired, so yucky motel room and disgusting tap water notwithstanding, we did all manage to fall asleep.

NM/UT/CO trip day 13: The Long Road Home

The next day was Sunday.  We hoped to make it to a Sacrament Meeting in Odessa, and actually did manage to get there in plenty of time for the Sacrament, only to discover that this particular ward does NOT take the Sacrament out to people in the foyer.  What?!  How about those poor parents out with a noisy baby?  We were very annoyed, because we could have gone into the chapel, but didn't want to disrupt things.  Oh well, we sure tried.
The drive through west Texas into central Texas was... boring.  Sorry, there's just no other word for it.  I sure do love my state, but gosh, a pretty huge percentage of it is brown and dry and very, very boring.  :-)
We listened to the end of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, however, and we managed to make it back into Austin with our sanity intact.  We only had to stop 4 times for Mosey to pee.  That's what happens when there is a 12 pack of orange soda that he has free access to.  :-)
We were happy to get home, OUT OF THE CAR, and into our clean, air-conditioned house.
We drove almost 4,000 miles, saw a ton of awesome things, and managed not to kill each other in the process.  That, my friends, is a successful family road trip!

Good job, guys, on a trip well traveled!