A New Page

I find that when I get really behind on this thing, that it becomes very difficult to catch back up.  However, I'm going to try and bring everything back up to speed in one post, and we'll take it from there, see how it goes.  We left off with our trip to Southern Utah.

Shortly thereafter we took a rather ill-advised, and somewhat ill-fated trip to Glacier National Park.  It was ill-advised because school had started again, and it was expensive, and we were poor.  However, we found some cabins that were reasonably priced, and the temptation to go was too much for us, so off we went. 

The interior of our cabin

Our newest sign picture

I say the trip was ill-fated since we spent a large portion of the first day in the park watching a forest fire break over the top of this mountain.  It was all very interesting, and in some ways a real win, but the air quality was awful, and the views that we've been reading about for years were pretty hazy.

Ivan was thrilled to be there regardless of the air quality

The next morning we had hoped that the air would be better, but it was actually worse.  All the same, we decided to go spend some time on the beach at Lake MacDonald and do some wading while we waited for our scheduled red bus tour of the Going to the Sun Road to start.

This is what I have in mind when I say "Let's go wading kids."

This is what happens when Vivian hears the words "Let's go wading kids."

I love her enthusiasm, and we have learned to always, ALWAYS have extra clothes along for these sorts of outings.  So eventually we made our way to our Red Bus tour, and it was pretty awesome.  We saw mountain goats.  They were far away, but we thought that was cool, but we were also a little disappointed since we couldn't see a whole lot of anything else.  So maybe next time. 

Even the kids loved the tour

Outside our red bus.  We will do this again some day, pricey, but totally worth it!

After that we left the park, and the next day it was evacuated and so we decided to cut our losses, check out of the cabin early and drive to Boise to surprise Justin's dad with a birthday visit. 

The sunset through the haze was very pretty.

We called it a win, even though the trip wasn't at all what we had in mind when we first planned it.  

So the next item that I really feel like should find it's way into my blog is a trip that the kids and I took with Justin's mom to Disneyland.  Justin was in school, so he couldn't come with us for this one.  I knew that Ivan and I wouldn't be able to ride much, but I thought that it would be a very fun opportunity for Vivian to spend some time with her Grandma, and who better to introduce her to the magic of Disneyland?  So off we went, and my only regret was that Justin wasn't there to see her exhaust herself with excitement and wonder every day that we were there. 

Some play area over in California Adventure that she loved

We're lucky that he was so easy going about just sitting in the stroller for hours on end.

This ride terrifies me.  She loved it.

Taking a little break in the mid-afternoon.  this picture makes me sad when I see how skinny my little Ivan has gotten since learning how to walk.  Those thighs aren't nearly as squishy now.

Some honorary citizen badge that a worker gave her.  She still talks about it.

This was them every night. Two out of the three nights there these two snoozed right through dinner and on into the morning.

She was unable to tear her eyes off of Moana, and completely unable to form words in her presence.

She's never seen Dumbo, but she still talks about flying on an elephant with Grandma Goodale

Another stroller day for Ivan.

I love this picture.  She was so excited about the bumper cars she just left her Grandma hanging out and joined the family behind them in line.

This next picture might seem a bit odd, but it's one of my favorites from the trip.  

Take note of how the straps on this guy's backpack are sort of soggy on the ends.

There we were, standing in line to the Casey Jr. train, minding our own business...well, I thought that we were minding our own business, until I looked down and saw Vivian chewing on the backpack straps of the guy in front of us.  I was kind of appalled, and told her to get it out of her mouth immediately, and then turned to Michelle to call her attention to what had just happened.  When we turned back around Vivian had the backpack strap back in her mouth again.  I laughed so hard that I cried.  The guy never had any idea what was going on behind him, which made it all the more amusing to me.  

All in all this was a great trip, and this was an exhausting trip.  I would do it again in a heartbeat, and I am so grateful for a mother-in-law who willingly put herself through the experience to build memories with her tiny granddaughter.  

After that our lives descended into the worst semester of Justin's undergraduate career.  He was actually home quite a bit, he was rarely free to do anything but sit in the corner doing homework.  The kids hated it, I hated it, and Justin hated it.  He was always busy, we took no trips, and we hated that part too.  It all sort of culminated in a horrible incident right before Thanksgiving.  I woke up one morning at 5 am to Justin shouting my name at full volume from the bathroom.  Clearly something was not right.  I got out of bed, and as my feet hit soggy carpet I instantly had the thought that Vivian had for some reason had an accident next to my bed, which seemed very weird.  Nothing was adding up.  When I arrived in the bathroom where water was standing an inch deep I was instantly more awake, and instantly wished to be able to go back to bed and sleep through what was happening.  The tank of the toilet had cracked and our toilet had run all night long.  The entire upstairs was flooded, and when Justin went downstairs he found water pouring through the ceiling.  The entire downstairs was flooded.  Miraculously nothing of value was permanently damaged.  However, we ended up sending Vivian off to Boise for a week in the aftermath since there was about 10 square feet of dry flooring in the entire apartment and she got pretty bored with standing in that after about 5 minutes.  Fortuitously we had a trip booked to Colorado Springs that weekend to house hunt for a new home since Justin had finally received his official job offer.  We found a home, we made an offer, our offer was accepted and we were back to our flooded apartment in Logan all within a matter of days.  Our landlord decided to just leave it in it's water damaged state since we were leaving soon anyway.  Our last month and a half in that apartment felt like a year.  At long last Justin finished finals, and on the 15th of December he was commissioned a second lieutenant.  

Receiving his saber for being a distinguished military grad, ranked 81 out of 6,000 nation wide.

His first salute, from his first platoon sgt back in Idaho guard.

His mom pinning his rank on, and Vivian insisted on joining her on stage.

I stole these photos from his dad.

So let me just take a minute to brag about my husband.  I am super proud of him.  He had one A- in a kind of nightmare Russian class that kept him from a straight 4.0.  He was distinguished military grad, and spent his last semester as cadet commander of his program.  He worked so hard for this, and it was more than a little gratifying to see him get some recognition for everything that he put himself through.  I say put himself through, because he was never content with just the minimum.  He was always trying to do just a little bit more and little bit better.  So, in short, I'm lucky that he chose me to be his Mrs.

So after that we went into a packing frenzy.  We loaded everything we owned into moving pods, had them shipped to Colorado Springs and after spending a few days in Orem with my family we went to McCall, Idaho for Christmas with his.  I was instantly struck with an illness that eventually resulted in pneumonia, but despite that, we thoroughly enjoyed celebrating Christmas in McCall.  

Justin and I trying to teach Vivian how to make a snow angel 

Moments before a crash turned her little smile to tears.  She's pretty tough though, she eventually returned to the sledding hill.

Snowmobiling, note the big red scab on her cheek from the sledding incident.

Ivan and I spent a lot of time just watching.

From the snowmobile outing.  It was so beautiful!

They loved the tubing outing. 

A sleigh ride out to an elk herd.  On this one the elk eat the hay that you're sitting on.  It gets you an up close...at times uncomfortably up close experience with the elk.  We loved it!

As with all vacations, they do eventually seem to end.  So off we went back to Orem to visit with my family again for a few days and then we made our way to Colorado Springs.  On January 2nd we became homeowners.  

Prior to this Vivian, in all seriousness, did not totally understand what the word "home" meant.

Since then Justin has started his new job, and we've been settling in here in the springs.  Our house is still pretty empty since we had very little in the way of furnishings having just emerged from living in tiny student apartments.  

We hadn't been here long when we received word that a close friend, Sharon Peterson had passed away in California.  I wasn't excited about taking a trip to California, and I wasn't at all excited about why we were making the trip, but with a little help from the Hexbergs, the kids and I made our way to California to say goodbye.  It was all going so well right up until her mom came over and thanked the Long Beach girls for being her friend.  I found myself sobbing on the freeway on the way back to the hotel telling Justin about it, because it was all so very backwards.  It was I who was lucky to have her as a friend, certainly not the other way around.  I look forward to seeing her again some day on the other side, and enjoying her company again.

Justin flew in after the funeral, from a business trip to DC and got us back to Colorado Springs in one piece, just in time for me to get grounded with pneumonia (turns out coughing non-stop for three weeks is a bad sign.)  Here we are now, healthy again, and looking forward to figuring out what little adventures we can create for ourselves locally since this homeowner thing is going to curb our travels for a bit.