Winter has been brutally long; five solid months of terrible weather and an awful lot of snow. Last year, we took our first real campout to Goblin Valley near the end of March. The weather at home was pleasant, but the weather camping was perfect.
A few months back we planned another adventure to Goblin Valley in March yet again, but a few weeks earlier. When planning, we didn’t think it would be that big of a deal to be a few days early. Winter had another idea. It just kept on snowing. The week – heck, just a few days before leaving it was snowing! Always snowing! I probably should’ve cancelled the trip altogether, but I needed to get out of winter. I couldn’t stand it any longer.
So we left! A day later than planned (to avoid driving Hwy 6 in a snowstorm) but we left. About 2 hours in we stopped at a Rest Stop that’s a good halfway point. Everyone rushed to the bathroom… and then Emmett had to jump off the seat and throw up.
Sigh. We stayed at the Rest Stop for about an hour waiting for Emmett to feel better, or worse. Who wants to be sick and throwing up while camping? Ultimately, we decided to keep going, Emmett was feeling good enough to travel.
A few hours later we made it to Goblin Valley just a little bit before dark… and then Emmett threw up again. And again. And again. His stomach was determined to have nothing to do with food. Or water. Whatever went down came right back up. Poor guy. It was a rough night. While he laid out feeling pretty crummy, the girls and I played games and had some noisy fun in the camper. It was too dark and cold to be outside.
The next morning, we cautiously fed Emmett some breakfast and it stayed down! Whatever he had had run its’ course and we were back in business! The weather was mostly great; we hung out outside, played in the sand, and had a great time. It did end up sprinkling a few times, but all in all the weather was quite cooperative. I finally escaped winter. Take that, ya stupid season!
If you haven’t heard, Bluey is the new hot Kids show in town. But really it’s an Adults show. It’s just amazing. And it’s full of so many fun game ideas for Mom and Dad to play with their kids. I absolutely love it. Today I had the idea of playing Zoo with my girls since they have an incredible amount of Stuffed Animals. They loved it, and I loved it. 10/10 would absolutely do again.
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.
It’s kinda crazy just how empty this place was on a Saturday afternoon. Several stores were closed up that looked like they were still in business, but saving money because of low traffic. A week previous we were in SLC at the City Creek Mall and that place was as busy as can be.
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.
