Spencer the Bear

Spencer earned his Bear rank in Cub Scouts. At Pack Meeting he was called up to be presented with the award. The Cubmaster gave him a teddy bear with directions that he needed to return the cub to his dad in the cave (a tent). Spencer went into the cave and got attacked by the daddy bear (Eric). After he finally escaped from the ferocious bear, he got flipped upside down to get the bear pin pinned on him.

Basketball & Rock Climbing

Logan has been asking for quite some time to play on some kind of sports team. We finally found a summer basketball league for him to join. He has been so excited about it. He had one practice and one game so far. He seemed kind of lost during the game and didn't quite "get" everything. He managed to get sweaty and stinky, but he had a fun time. He was also cute to watch.

At the gym where Logan plays basketball, there is a rock wall. Spencer had a blast climbing on it. He did a great job and made it to the top.

Princess Day Camp

Kaylen's dance teacher held a workshop for the girls she teaches, named "Princess Day Camp." I signed Kaylen up to go, along with 2 of her cousins. Kaylen looked forward to the day she could go back to dance (we're taking a break during the summer). She learned a princess dance, made a princess craft (the sparkly crown), and ate a snack. At the end of it, we we able to go watch the girls perform. It was a cute litle dance.

Kaylen is such a little dancer/princess. She loves to dance. If we watch some dancing show on tv (like "So You Think You Can Dance" or "America's Got Talent"), Kaylen will start dancing away. If Eric plays a slow song on the piano, she will also dance to that. She has these arm movements that she does where her hands are cupped and she will slowly bring each arm, up above her head. She will continuously repeat this. She is a very cute little dancer.

After the "performance," my parents took us and my sister and her kids to Sam's Club for lunch. We must have been quite a site, with 7 kids in tow. As if lunch weren't chaotic enough, we decided to walk around the store. We had each gotten drinks with our lunches, so off we set with like 10 drinks in the cart to walk around the store. We even went at the right time and got to have lots of yummy samples. I'm sure the old ladies serving the samples felt like they were being attacked by a group of starving seagulls. It was fun, and I'm sure it will be one of the highlights of the summer - the lunch trip to Sam's Club with some cousins.

Hannah and Logan "driving" on the water bottles

Kaylen, Caleb, and Abbie

I love Abbie's face - she didn't really want to sit by Kaylen

Road Trip: White Sands National Monument

The last place we visited was White Sands National Monument near Alamogordo, New Mexico. We stopped at the gift shop and bought sleds and wax and then headed out to the bright white dunes. The sand was amazing. There were huge hills of blinding white sand. The kids had fun sledding down the hills. The hard part was climbing up to the top to go again. Since New Mexico is a desert, it was incredibly hot and zapped the kids' energy quickly. Lindsey was the first one to give up on sledding, and hung out in the car. Logan and Kaylen weren't too interested in sledding, they preferred hanging out and playing in the sand. Spencer managed to scrape up his leg while sledding. By the time they were finished, they had sand on their face and all over in their hair. The van ended up looking like we had visited a beach, with sand all over in it. (It was also interesting cleaning out the dryer's lint filter after I washed the sandy clothes.)

Kaylen making a sand angel

Logan doing somersaults down a hill - hilarious

The Conclusion

After Eric slid down once, he realized he wasn't feeling too well, and got back in the car to rest. He gradually started feeling worse. We finally left. He toughed out driving for a while. At one point I glanced over at him and could tell he wasn't feeling well. I was also afraid that he was going to fall asleep. I insisted that he pull over and I began driving. He must have really been feeling bad because I NEVER get to drive him anywhere (except crazy) - he HAS to be the driver at all times. We had planned to go to Glenwood, NM where there was an area named the "Catwalks" with high bridge/ledge things over a canyon. I decided that Eric wasn't up to that and I didn't want to tackle that with the kids alone, so we skipped the extra 2 hours of driving and headed for Safford.

We stayed the night in Safford (in the hottest room ever). The following morning we headed home, with everyone feeling fine.

It was a good vacation. I swore I would never drive across the country with the kids, but for some reason I agreed to it (even after last summer's Utah blowout). I'm glad that we did it. We were able to see some neat things and have some wonderful experiences. I hope the kids can remember their experiences and look back on them happily.

Road Trip: Carlsbad Caverns National Park

We also visited Carlsbad Caverns. Eric had been there when he was younger and I had never been there. We got there early enough that we were able to go down into the caves (via a very long elevator ride) before they closed. We walked around the cave, going through the Big Room. The formations inside the cave were amazing. We rented handheld audio guides that we could put up to our ears and listen to recordings about different areas inside the cave. Kaylen and Logan even were interested in what they got to listen to. (There was a kids version that wasn't as drawn out as the adult version.) Unfortunately, Lindsey wasn't feeling good. She had some type of stomach bug. Being the mean parents we are, we made her come along anyways. We did tell her to bring a cup, which of course she didn't. She really needed it because she ended up throwing up inside the cave. Poor cave, I'm sure it disrupted some sort of cave ecosystem that was going on in there.

After visiting the cave, we ate dinner at the cafe there. Eric took the older kids to watch a movie while I waited for Kaylen to eat her food (She took forever; the movie was over before she was even done).

We then went to the Bat Flight Ampitheater and waited for the bat flight to begin. Every day at dusk, the bats inside the cave fly out. Sometimes they fly out all together, sometimes their exit is a bit delayed and prolonged. We heard a clicking sound to signal the start of the flight, and the bats slowly exited the cave. It was neat to see. Eric, since had seen it before, was disappointed because there weren't quite as many bats as he had seen. Lindsey, of course, was sick during this and missed it.

The following morning, Lindsey wasn't feeling well still and Spencer was starting to get sick (which I think was an anxiety attack because of the activity we had scheduled). Eric was planning on taking the 3 older kids on a guided cave tour. Unfortunately, we had to change plans and missed going back to the caves to see anything. We just started heading for our next stop.

Road Trip: Frontier City

We took a break from driving during the day and went to Frontier City in Oklahoma City. It was a low-key amusement park. There were just enough rides that it gave us a good break, but we still had enough time to drive to the next city. Spencer had started out the morning quite worried about the park, worried so much that he was sick to his stomach just thinking about them. I wasn't able to go on any of the fast rides. I made it on 2 slow-moving rides, though. This was the hottest place so far on our trip. The kids also enjoyed the carnival-type games and loved the stuffed animals, basketball, and racing car picture that were won.

The Steel Lasso - the most favorite ride for the family

Kaylen loved the swings and giggled the whole time

Road Trip: Grand Falls

Looking for an area to take a break, we found Grand Falls on Shoal Creek near Joplin, Missouri. The waterfall is Missouri's largest waterfall. We enjoyed hiking on the rocks surrounding the waterfall. We also watched a guy fish. The kids were quite grossed out by the fact that he caught a fish, then put it in a little tidepool of water. They watched the poor fish squirm around, thus re-confirming that they don't like to eat fish. We also watched some people cliff jump into the falls. Too bad our swimming suits were packed, otherwise we probably would have had some wet kids and a drenched husband.

Road Trip: The Magic House

While doing our research for the trip, we came across a children's museum named "The Magic House." It looked like fun, so we added it to our list of places to visit.

I was amazed when we got there and saw how huge the building was. There were two wings to the museum, with each wing having 3-4 levels. We headed one direction. There were so many activities for the kids to do. It was tough to pull the kids away from one activity to move on to the next activity. We've been to science centers and children's museums across the country, and have never been to one that was this awesome. Most of the other museums have the same exhibits, with a few specialty exhibits. About 75% of the exhibits/activities at the Magic House, I've never seen before. It was amazing.

Lindsey at the Louis and Clark play area

Spencer in the mystery/crime scene area

Hitchhiking Spider Story

Just before we arrived at the Magic House, Eric noticed a moving fuzzy thing. He soon realized it was a spider crawling around the speedometer. I caught a glance at it, and told him to pull over so we could get it because it was huge (about an inch in diamter). Of course, he didn't listen and waited until we got to the house. Just as we got to the house, the spider crawled behind all of the dials and gadgets and wouldn't come out. We waited for a little bit and the creepy critter never came out.

When we came back to the car after a few hours, there were spiderwebs all over the steering wheel. There was no sign of the spider, though.

Two days later while we were driving, I went to get something out of the cooler that was in the middle of the middle row of seats (in the back). Right where the handle was, just where I was about to touch, was the fuzzy monster. I screamed and jumped. I immediately grabbed a tissue and smashed the stupid thing. Upon further inspection, I noticed that this spider had fangs! It was so close to crawling into Lindsey's backpack. I'm sure he would have bit us eventually, so I was so glad that I got him (since Eric was too wimpy to).

Road Trip: St. Louis Arch

Our next stop was in St. Louis. We stayed at a hotel downtown, within walking distance of the Arch. We went to the arch. To get to the top of the arch, we rode in this egg-shaped elevator cars with seats, which looked like something from the future. It was an interesting ride, knowing that the "cars" were travelling in a zig-zag shape.

The view from the arch was pretty cool. We could look out both sides of the arch and see quite a ways in all directions. When we came down from the arch, we watched an IMAX movie about Louis & Clark. After we were done with that, we walked out of the building and were greeted by an awesome lightening storm. There was lightening all around us, lighting up the sky. It also started to rain on us, so we hurried back to the hotel where we ordered pizza for delivery.

Road Trip: Nauvoo Handcart "Trek"

We are spoiled. I had a hunch we were, but after attempting a "trek," it is fully confirmed.

We signed up to do a handcart trek in Nauvoo. It was supposed to be 1 mile. We started the trek crossing a stream, with Eric and Spencer pulling the handcart. We put the Logan and Kaylen in the handcart so their shoes wouldn't get ruined, but that didn't protect Lindsey's and my shoes, which got wet, much to our disliking. We walked along for a little way. We traded off so Lindsey and I could each have a turn pulling the handcart. It was hard, and the only thing in the handcart were Logan and Kaylen, not any of our belongings like the pioneers had. At one point, I climbed in the handcart, along with either Lindsey or Spencer, to try to give those who were pulling an idea of how heavy the handcarts were. We weren't able to follow the trail, so we didn't get the full 1 mile done. We walked up and down and around a hill, which gave us a small experience of how tough tiny hills are. There was rope included to help with some larger hills and ravines. It would have been interesting if we had to tackle those. We did hear whining from at least one child (I'll leave her nameless). It was a good experience and I'm glad we took the time to do it.

Lessons learned from the handcart trek:

• don't wear new shoes.
• working together is much easier than working alone.
• it's hard to pull (a pretty-much empty) handcart. It's even harder pulling it with a pregnant lady in it (according to Spencer).
• I'm thankful I live when I do, not having to face the challenges that the pioneers had to.
• Don't volunteer for any handcart trek my stake does.