Saturday afternoon the kids and I ventured off to have some outside-the-house fun. We started off at Bricks’n’Minifigs for a little LEGO shopping for Emmett, then had lunch at Chuck-a-Rama in Provo. Lastly, we hit up the Prove Town Centre mall for some playground and escalator action. The kids could go up and down and up and down all day long; they just love it.
This weekend we tried escaping the never-ending winter of the north by coming to St. George with some friends. We were hoping for sunny days, little warmer temperatures and some fun in the hotel pool. Well, we ended up with one of those things and it wasn’t sunny days and warmer temperatures.
Our hotel also happened to be just a short distance from the home of the popular YouTubers Matt’s Off-Road Recovery and we had to stop on by to see if they were there! While the shop was mostly open and all their rigs were there, Matt was home sleeping off a very late-night rescue the previous evening.
We did get to meet Ed and Tom and the dogs, as well as see the Morvair, Banana, and the Off-Road Wrecker they were frantically trying to finish up.
Spent the day at Yuba Lake State Park with some friends, and almost had the whole place to ourselves. What’s really fun is you can drive and camp right on the beach, so we set up my camper as close as we could and spent a pleasant day being lazy in the sand the sun.
Over the past several months my car suspension has been making sounds – creaks, clanging, and finally banging. Last week I discovered the source of the sound and knew that it was way past time to fix the problem. This weekend I had the time all set aside to get everything fixed. Which also meant my car was in pieces. So, when my next door neighbor asked to borrow the camper to join the other neighbors camping in the Uintah’s I happily obliged. When they got to their spot they sent me a pin so I could come join them if I got my car put together in time. Which I did! So off I went this afternoon.
Google lied to me. Or something. I knew the route my neighbors had taken, but Google suggested an alternate that would save 30 minutes of driving so I opted for that route. I’ll tell you right now that had I been in a sedan or mini-van I would have been very upset at Google. Most of the way there was paved, but the last handful of miles were off-roading. I loved it! Unfortunately, I never ended up finding my neighbors. But I did enjoy the scenery, especially a quaking aspen grove that was being layered with light in the evening sun. It was beautiful.
Time seems to be going quickly, and is not remotely interested in slowing down. It feels like just a short time ago that the school year was ending, and now we’re just a week away from it kicking off again. As a child it sure felt like summer lasted forever, and each new school year was a long battle to get through. As an adult–as a parent–this is most definitely no longer the case. Well, homework is still a battle. I wish it would just go away. Nobody wants it, and children don’t need it.
We’ve been camping. A lot. We’ve had lazy days at home. We’ve stayed up way past bedtime and woke up without enough sleep. We’ve made a lot of messes and only cleaned up a few. There was a few holidays scattered around. New toys showed up, old toys broke. Not near enough bike rides, and never enough time to do it all.
Emmett turned 9. We had his party at the local LEGO store and it was a blast. We built race cars and sent them down a track as often as we could to see who was fastest. Half the time the cars broke apart before the finish line. It was a blast.
The weather forecast was great…four hours south of me. I had a holiday weekend coming up and thought to myself that–although I was just there two weeks ago–it was time to head back to St. George for the weekend where it would be 60º outside instead of 40º. Plus, I had some work to do on my car and my brother Kurt offered up his garage to me.
And I’m very glad he did. My project of replacing the upper and lower control arms in my Lexus GX470 went from a 2-4 hour job to a 2+ day job. The most difficult and pain in the butt car repair I’ve ever undertaken. I will never do that again.
The YouTube videos made it all look so easy. Just undo some nuts, pop out some bolts, and with just a little shimmy effort the old ones will fall out and the new ones will slide in. Well, none of those videos had cars from rusty land like I did. There was no popping out bolts for me. They had rusted so much that they had fuzed to the car, and the only way to remove was with a saw. To add insult to injury, there are also 4 castle nut & cotter pin combos to undo, and those were equally as stubborn to work with. My whole Saturday was gone. My whole Sunday was gone. My weekend in warm weather was spent in a garage getting covered in grime, wearing out my back and getting all sweaty.
I did get it done, though. Just in time for an alignment Monday morning, a quick trip to the St. George train park, followed by a late lunch, packing, and a drive home.
My weekend did not go as planned, but, it went as it needed to. I could not have done this at home by myself. Lucky coincidence? No. A little heavenly push from Mom inspired me to make the 4 hour drive because she knew what it would take, and there were some tools and help down there that I would need. Thank you, Mom. I hated every minute of it, but I chose to do this repair on my own and you made sure I could pull it off.
