The end of an era

I think the Bryce-man is no longer a napper.

This makes me so sad.  A) because I love having "quiet time" everyday--my only chance to get phone calls, projects, an occasional nap, or lazy computer time in everyday.  And B) because Bryce becomes a tired little monster from about 4:00 until bedtime.

Every day this week, I have put him in bed as per our usual routine.  He usually plays with his cars for a bit then all goes quiet while he takes a two-hour snoozer.  But lately there is no quiet.  All week there have been calls of: "Ninjagooooo!" followed by jumping and spinning sounds.  This goes on for a solid hour before he asks to get out.

But yesterday after some jumping and spinning, I heard:

"MOM!  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  ARE YOU KIDDING MEEEEE?"

(Sigh)  I'm not kidding.  Naps are a thing of the past.

Talking Bryce

My little Bryce isn't so little anymore.  It kinda breaks my heart to see him be all big and, well, not my baby anymore.  He's talking so much more lately.  I wish I could bottle up his little voice and his way of pronouncing things.  Be still my heart!  Here are a few recent favorites:

Bennett was bouncing a ball near Bryce.
Bryce: Top it! Top it Bennett!  It's annoying!  (Best use of a big word to date)

Bryce loves to say prayers.  They have become so sweet and sincere and it turns out, he likes to pray all the time.  This week he's been praying every time I give him a snack or a cup of juice.
Recently I gave him a cup of milk and he asked to say a prayer.  "Heavenly Father, bless this food. (then he opened his eyes halfway and corrected himself) Bless this cup.  Amen."

Bryce loves to sneak into the stash of helmets during Bennett's karate class.

And this was Bryce at the dentist today.  Look at him all big and being so good!  

Stop growing up little man!  

The Vansion

And now, the long awaited Vansion:

Keith has wanted this van for YEARS.  And since we have been a one car family for quite some some in anticipation of the Vansion, it was finally time.  Keith spent countless hours researching every knob and feature that the van had to offer.  And when we found out that the price was going up for the 2013 model, we pulled the trigger.  We custom ordered it so it took five months to finally get to us.  The van was built in Germany, then as a way to avoid a luxury tax since it's a Mercedes (diesel engine! it will last forEVER), it was then disassembled, shipped to the US and reassembled, then sent to our dealer in California.  It was then sent straight to another factory, Sportsmobile, so it could be converted as our home away from home.  The top pops up to make a super comfy bed for two (patterned after the original VW camper vans).  And there's still plenty of room for bikes AND three kids to sleep comfortably.

There's also an awning that pulls out on the side so we can party in the shade wherever we go.

Party in the penthouse!

There are plans in Keith's head for a mobile kitchen, a shower, and even a TV set up with a Wii.  You can't even imagine how many trips are planned for this bad boy.

And there you have it.  We may never own a house again but at least we have a Vansion.

Halloween

We had a busy day on Halloween.  We had to squeeze in time to pick up the vansion but the kiddos still had plenty of time to get lots of loot.  We had a college grad, fighter pilot, and a mermaid.

This year I decided I didn't want to be the candy police.  I figure if they want candy, they earned it.  So I let them hang onto their sweets and have it whenever they wanted.

It was gone in three days.  SUGAR OVERLOAD.  Maybe I should reconsider that strategy next year?

Fall Family Vacation--Getting there

We went on an amazing trip in October.  This trip was supposed to be the inaugural run of the vansion but at the last minute, our delivery date changed.

We started our trip by heading south to Death Valley.  When we got there, we ran around in the sand dunes for a while and got stopped by a little road construction on our way out.  The guy running the stop sign wanted to chat and insisted that we get out and take pictures with his sign.  Because how many times are you the one right there at the front of the line?

Thanks road construction guy.  That really is a special sign you have.

Then we worked our way over to Red Rocks and spent the night there.

After Red Rocks, we made our way to Bryce Canyon and ran around there for a few hours.

The whole purpose of this trip took us to Kanab, Utah--the starting point of our long planned adventure....

Fall Family Vacation--Paria Canyon

Our long planned adventure involved a trek down Paria Canyon.  Kanab, UT was the closest starting point and we were going to hike 38 miles to where the Paria River meets the Grand Canyon in Arizona.  This little junction is also known as Lee's Ferry--a place steeped in history for Keith's family. More on that later.

We met Keith's parent's in Kanab as well as Keith's longtime friend and favorite mission companion, Jordon Roberts.  Keith's parents generously offered to watch our kids and run our shuttle to pick us up on the other side.

We got up early to start our hike.  I didn't realize that 3:30 am actually existed anymore but apparently it does.  We left our kids sleeping in warm beds in a motel room and walked out into a cold, dark night.  It was a little tricky finding the trail head in the dark but we managed to find it and be geared up and ready to start hiking at 4:30.

One word about this hike:  it's long.  And not only that, it's hard terrain.  Much of the hike is through water and a lot of the rest involves rocky terrain.  It's not a clear cut, wide, well traveled path.  And once again, it's long.  Once you get into the canyon, there's nowhere to bail out and give up.  You are committed to the end.   The guidebooks all recommend doing the hike in 3-5 days.  One guidebook even indicated that a fast hiker could do it in 2 days.  Well......we were going to do it in one.  You would have needed a permit for overnighting in the canyon and you have to apply for those (and possibly not get one) well in advance.  And who has that much time off work anyway?

But Keith told me it would be all downhill since we are following a river.  And since I had just done a triathlon, how bad could it be?  **Note to readers: consider how many times this blog has mentioned Keith's ridiculously long hikes.  Also consider that there were many, many other long hikes that were not documented.  He does this kind of stuff for fun.  A lot.

About 100 yards from where we parked at the trail head, we came to the river.  It was wide.  And we had no idea how deep it was.  We did not have a guidebook with us but from our best recollections of the bad trail advice we (Keith) had studied, we weren't planning to see water yet.  And especially not this much, this soon.  We considered our options.

1) We keep going.  If we get into the canyon where it becomes very narrow, the water could become very deep.  If it becomes so deep that it is impassible, we would have to make it back to the car before Keith's parents came to shuttle our car away.  We calculated the time frame in which we would be at the point of no return.  It was a risky scenario.

2)  We get back in the still-warm car and go back to our warm beds and consider it a bust.  We could possibly find another, drier hike to do once it got light enough to figure out another alternative.  Or we could just go find a donut shop and tell stories of the old days.

We shivered in the cold as we considered the possibilities.  Both Jordon and I were willing to give the donut shop a chance.  Keith was less quick to back away from a cold river on a cold morning.

Keith decided we needed to explore a little more before giving up and pushed past the bush next to us to follow the bank of the river.  None of us wanted to get wet at 4:30 in the morning when we were already cold.  But I guess the donut shop wouldn't have been open so early anyway.

We were able to hug the bank for a little while to avoid getting wet but it wasn't long before we were up against a cliff.  Time to poop or get off the pot.  Or in this case, cross the river or get a donut.  Darn Keith for being so determined!  He took a deep breath and hoped the water wasn't too deep.

Turns out, the river was about mid-calf.  And it was so bloody cold.  But once you are wet, you're wet so we kept going.  After that we criss-crossed the river every few minutes.

I lost feeling in my feet after a while so it wasn't quite so bad (and that's actually a bad thing).

We hiked for a couple of hours in the dark and cold.  I'm sure our surroundings were stunning but it was too dark to see anything beyond the dim glow of our headlamps.

And then the sun came up.  Hallelujah to the sun!!!  Being deep down in the slot canyon, it didn't make it any warmer.  But at least we could see where we were.

 Our risky decision ended up working out for us.  Only a few times did we get into water that was thigh high.  Mostly it stayed calf to knee deep.  Other than the aforementioned occasional loss of feeling in my feet, this hike was turning out to be awesome.  Well played on the decision to press forward, Card.

Loving that sunshine!  And we even had hats off and t-shirts for part of the afternoon.  It was an absolutely gorgeous day.

There was a big panel of rock art along the way.  There were apparently other panels in the canyon that we missed seeing.  Doing the entire 38 miles in one day means you hustle past the scenic detours.

This was one bit of rock art/graffiti that we definitely took note of.  This carving is from Keith's great uncle, carved 100 years ago.  We are likely to be the first random hikers to have passed by this name and known who FT Johnson was.  We know this because Keith's great-grandma was born at the end of Paria Canyon and her dad ran Lee's Ferry for many years.  We showed this picture to Keith's mom and she was able to track down exactly who FT Johnson was and how old he was on May 30, 1912.  Considering how far up the canyon we were at this point is proof that Keith comes from a long line of mountain goats.

 That's pretty stinking cool.

See how it's starting to get dark?  We figured we had to get about as far as you can see in this picture--to the end of the rocks on the right.  Our best guess indicated that we had about 6 miles to go.  This would have meant that we had already traveled 32 miles that day.  We had told our rescue party that we were going to be off the trail between 6 and 8 pm and by our estimation, we were going to make it on time--although a little closer to 8pm--if we hustled.

We were finally away from the river so we weren't going to be crossing it anymore.  We stopped to put on our long awaited dry pair of socks and we put the camera away and ran for awhile.  "Running" is a strange way to classify our movement after that much distance and that much cold water.  It wasn't pretty but it was faster.

Just as the last bit of daylight slipped away, we came upon a hiker who was zipping into her tent for the night.  Why on earth would a hiker have set up camp right here when we were so obviously close to the parking lot??

We then found out what true idiots we really are.  Turns out we had EIGHT miles left to go.  And many more river crossings.  At the point that I thought we only had 6 miles left to go...we actually had 14.  Had I known that then, I would have laid down next to FT Johnson's rock and let my bones become one with his long forgotten footsteps.

Those last 8 miles were excruciating.  Route finding became particularly difficult after the sun went down.  There was a full moon that night but it took uncomfortably long for it to raise above the rock walls to shed any bit of light.  My feet were feeling all messed up now that we were back in and out of the water again.  I tried to walk as fast as I could but they just. couldn't. go. faster.

Finally we started to see signs of life.  Remnants of an abandoned farmhouse.  A rock wall.  And finally a fence and a dirt road.  The dirt road led us past the graveyard of Keith's ancestors and the fruit orchard they had planted.  We hobbled passed the old cabin where Keith's great-grandma was born and across the water flume his great-great-grandpa built to get water for his garden.

And finally.  Finally, we got to a car.  Waiting there was Keith's dad, Jordon's girlfriend, and our two big kids that tried so hard to stay away for our welcoming party.

We made it.

Fall Family Vacation - Hobbling home

Jordon, Keith, and I were so happy to have a bed to lay down in.  But the fact is, our muscles were pretty freaked out by what we had just done that I don't think any of us slept all that well.

The next morning, each of us were hobbling around like 90-year olds.  Strangely, the pain wasn't because of tight muscles (although, tight they were) but because the bottoms of our feet felt so tender and bruised.  They were so sensitive that it was difficult to even stand and each step/shuffle only got us forward a couple of inches.  Our bodies were screaming.

But the hike was AWESOME!  Glad it was over though.  In the daylight, we went back to see some of the family sites but we almost needed a wheelchair to do it.

The family homestead is now a national historical monument.  This is the cabin where great-grandma was born.  We found a park ranger poking around and made him open it up.  We're family so we could make such demands!  :)

Inside the cabin--that's great-grandma's picture on the right.

There were also a couple of things she apparently left behind when they moved to Wyoming.  One thing was an old sewing machine--legend says it was too big to fit in the wagon.

Keith's parent's and our kids had done a more thorough tour of the homestead the day before when they were waiting for us to finish our hike.  Too bad we couldn't have seen any more ourselves but our feet were seriously messed up.

We said our goodbye's and parted ways with Jordon and Keith's parents then headed home.  We would have stopped a bit more to enjoy the scenery but it was easier to keep everyone buckled in the car so we didn't have to walk.  We were in no shape to chase our two-year old.  There was no way we could keep up!  We drove all the way home in the middle of the night and spent the next day wondering if we had done permanent damage to our feet.  Even Keith--the professional foot doctor--was concerned.  He figures we got some mild frostbite--not quite enough to kill the tissue but enough to cause swelling and some weird nerve pain.

Two weeks later I was still hobbling around and ended up getting a kitchen table diagnosis of a stress fracture.  I guess being in shape for a triathlon wasn't enough for that crazy hike!  I ended up wearing a big cam walker boot for a couple of weeks to finish healing.

Was a month of pain and recovery worth one day of a seriously cool, seriously long hike?

Since I'm no longer limping or wearing a boot...I will say yes.  Yes it was.

Pumpkin patch

We went to a fun pumpkin patch with some friends.  In addition to the corn maze, hay ride, and pumpkin picking, here are a few other highlights:

The Triathlon

My sister and I had planned almost all year to do a triathlon.  She had done one sprint distance tri a couple years prior and I had never done a triathlon at all.  Our 4 brothers have all done at least one Ironman so we figured that since we have the same DNA as them, we could for sure do an Olympic distance tri.

Olympic distance= 1500 meter swim, 40 bike, 10k run

All summer I went to Lake Tahoe to swim.  Never once did I dip a toe in a lane of a pool.  I'm a terrible swimmer but at least I was going to be used to swimming in cold, deep water.  Only difference is, our race would in the ocean.

The ocean freaks me out.  Big time.  It starts with the fact that I was once stung by a sting-ray on a surfing trip in Ecuador.  But also, the ocean tastes nasty, seaweed grosses me out, and there are people that have literally had their arms chewed off by sea life.  Why did I agree to this??

But I pushed that to the back of my mind and swam, biked, and ran all summer.  And let me also clarify that--I ran on a treadmill and biked in a spin class all summer.  How else can I get in a workout without using the kids club at the gym?

Shannon and I drove to the ocean to check out the site of our swim the night before.  Oh, the jitters that were going through my stomach right then.

The morning of, setting up our gear in the transition:

Ready to roll!  Our last pic before we headed to the starting line.

And we did it!

This race was so. much. fun!!!!  Shannon and I are totally hooked and planning our next race already.

A couple lessons learned:  Seawater is just as nasty as I expected it to be.  I had to stop swimming so I could dry heave a couple of times.  So absolutely disgusting.  I barf a little bit just thinking about it.  The bike was so fun.  Especially since it was on a course that overlooked the ocean for most of it.  And even though I didn't get to ride outside much (or at all) I was really happy with the outcome.  And final observation:  I am a really slow dresser and my transitions were awful.  I guess my mom wasn't just irritated when she would always get mad at me for being so slow during dance competitions when I was a kid.  Huh.  Kinda silly to spend all summer running/biking/swimming and kill my time putting my shoes on.  Who knew?

Family celebration

For our anniversary this year, we had a family celebration complete with dinner out and a trip to the movies to watch Finding Nemo in 3D.  Almost any amount of money would have been worth the entertainment value of the glasses.  Loved. Them.