Labor Day Love follow up

Sorry to keep you waiting for the rest of the Labor day story. I'm afraid the writers guild went on strike...

... The next day we decided to head over to Yellowstone National Park. Old Faithful made us wait quite a long time but finally it did its thing. We drove around and took some nice photos.

After our long day at Yellowstone, I wasn't too excited to drive back to Star Valley. Kylee wondered if there was a room available at the old faithful lodge. I figured there was no way we'd get a room at the last minute on Labor Day so I encouraged her to ask. Well, the guy must've thought we looked particularly desperate for a room so he said, "Well, there is this one room that we don't usually rent out. It is right above the boiler room and quite often there is alot of noise and vibration from the boiler but I guess I'll show it to you if you want and give you 1/2 off." Huh? 1/2 off? I'll take it... Oh well, I guess we should look at it first. Yep, we took it. We didn't experience any noise or vibration issues but dang-gum that room has HOT. Holy mackeral that room must have been 85 degrees. We opened a window and figured it would air out. Pfft.. I might as well have been trying to air out Hades. After about an hour we drenched every towel we could find in the room plus a couple the front desk brought up and slept under wet towels. Every couple of hours I had to wake up and re-wet the towels. Finally, the morning came and we bailed out. The weather outside was very nice, a little drizzly but cool and crisp, the kind of weather that makes you want to go running. We piled into the Pilot and headed out for more fun in Yellowstone. We finally saw some bison and elk on Sunday.

The weather turned on us so we headed home in a mild rain. By the time we got back to Star Valley, it was a steady down pour and cold enough to be unpleasant. We dropped into bed and realized the roof above the master bed was leaking. I got up on the roof to see if I could stanch the leak but succeeded only in freezing my hands and slowing it down some. We grabbed pots and pans and towels and spent the night curled around them as best we could. The next morning I bought a big tub to leave under the leak and did my best to cover up the leaking area. We left glad to have gone and glad to get home to our own beds. Would I go back? Absolutely! You can't make memories like that at some snooty 5 star hotel.

I swear the egg nog wasn't spiked

black mail

I think the title of the post says it all :)

Labor day love

So, the summer is over. I mean OVER. I just about had a panic attack that we had not gone camping even once this summer. Kylee suggested I follow up on a conversation with Betty and Larry at the family reunion wherein they suggested we spend a weekend at Star Valley. So, I called them and sure enough it was open for Labor Day. I figured that would be close enough to camping to whet my appetite. Meanwhile this summer, our van had gotten worse and worse and worse. I got an estimate from a repair shop for 750 smackaroos. Hmm... I'll pass on that. We had been looking at vehicles and settled on the Honda Pilot. Autotrader.com found us a dealer that only sells Honda lease returns and is cheaper than any other place I can find a late model Honda. Cheap enough in fact that we could purchase one and still have budget to save for the next car we'll have to buy. So we were really interested in that too. Now, where was I? Oh yes Labor Day... Well, we doubted the van would get us to Star Valley at all so I took Friday off and we went and test drove a 2005 Pilot that had 47k miles and was priced at $12,900. Right on! I tried to talk him down but it was a very clean car with a clean title and was below NADA trade-in. He wouldn't come down in price but added a few upgrades (tow hitch & tranny cooler, roof rack, and DVD system all together for less than $1200) and offered $800 trade-in for the van. Well, that was all she wrote. We bought it. Let see, I was writing about something else... Oh yeah Labor Day... Ok, so they installed the DVD, we picked up the keys and packed up the Pilot and kissed the old van good bye. We were on the road for Star Valley by 5 pm in our handsome new vehicle. Did I mention we totally love that thing? Oh yeah, I can actually pass people that are driving slowly now. Even packed to the brim with stuff and all 6 of us in it, we still got 21.9 MPGs. And, no I wasn't driving slow... We arrived just after Midnight and quickly unpacked the essentials and fell asleep. Little did I know that that would be the only good nights rest I was to get over the weekend....

Its Alive!

I would like to publicly apologize for not helping Dad more with his gardening back in my younger years. However, I have caught the garden-fever. Kylee complains that I'm turning our residence into a farm. I don't know why but something about growing plants speaks to my soul. I wonder if it has something to do with our ancestors being farmers? I'll have to post some pics later on

$1600 ER visit

We got the bill for Jayden's trip to the ER. Sixteen hunnerd bucks. That's right One Thousand Six Hundred dollars. Crossing my fingers that our insurance doesn't find a way to weasel out of that bill.

Happy Birthday Kylee

Dear Kylee,
I am so happy we are married. I thank my lucky stars you still love me. Whenever I try to tell you how much I love you, the words I write never measure up to the love I feel for you. So, I'll just say I love you.
Kylee, I love you.

Camille's primary baptism talk

Here is the talk Camille and I wrote for her primary class on Sunday.

I turned 8 on February 29. I was baptized the very next day on March 1^st at the stake center. All my family showed up. My grandmas and grandpas where there so where my Aunts and Uncles and Cousins. My Grandma gave a talk about the Lord Jesus Christ getting baptized and how that was an example for us to follow.

2 Nephi chapter 31 verse 5

5 And now, if the Lamb of God, he being holy, should have need to be baptized by water, to fulfill all righteousness, O then, how much more need have we, being unholy, to be baptized, yea, even by water!

Then we went to the font and I was baptized by my dad. After I felt different in a good way. It was a special day. Then my Aunt Lindsey gave a talk on the Holy Ghost. She showed us some symbols of what the Holy Ghost gives us.

First is a map, a symbol of the Holy Ghost helping us find the right ways.

Second is scriptures, a symbol that the Holy Ghost can teach us truth and help us understand the words of God.

Third is a flashlight, a symbol that the Holy Ghost is like a light in the darkness. It helps us see the good and true things.

Fourth is a compass, a symbol that the Holy Ghost always points us to our Heavenly Father. Just like a compass always points north.

Last is a comforter blanket, a symbol that the Holy Ghost will give us warmth and comfort during difficult times.

Carpet Cleaners and Happiness

So, Jayden woke up at mid-night Monday night screaming his head off. He ran to the kitchen, did a u-turn for the bathroom but wound up puking in the hallway. He settled down a bit after throwing up. I whipped out the carpet cleaner and fixed the hallway. By then Jayden was screaming again and dry-heaved a few times into the toilet. He was completely inconsolable after that. I have never heard any of our kids make that big of a fuss. Kylee grabbed her keys and ran him to the ER. It took 3 shots of morphine at the ER to settle him down. During the ultrasound of his innards, the morphine kicked in and he was the happiest little man. So they didn't find anything specific and decided it was a crazy stomach flu. That seems to have been the case. He has been just fine. He asked to go back to the hospital because he likes it so much :)

Fortunate forgetting

So, normally forgetting something is aggravating at best. However, there are times when it is a blessing in disguise. This is one of those times. Seven days ago, while getting our 4 year old son ready for bed, I discovered that we had run out of pull-ups for him. He was displeased :) I did not know that toddlers became fond of their pull-up night-time diapers. I have thought for some time that he really didn't need pull-ups at night. So, my wife and I convinced him to wear underwear to bed. It was a hard fought battle but the parents out numbered the toddler and we won. Sure enough, he stayed dry. The next night, he pitched a fit because we had not purchased more pull-ups. Fortuitously (I guess), our 7 year old had strep and we had purchased Popsicles for her. I have no compunction against bribing my children when it serves the greater good, so I did. Once again, he stayed dry all night. Here we are, our boy doesn't seem to want pull-ups any more and we get to add about $30 a month back into the budget. All because we forgot to buy pull-ups.