Missing: Mairyn's front tooth

Mairyn is a tooth losing machine. She lost her first tooth (her bottom left) back in March. Then last Thursday night, she comes to me and says,

"Mommy, I think this tooth is a little loose."

Pointing to the right bottom tooth, she grabs my hand with the other and shows me. It's barely hanging on. Yeah, I think it's loose Mairyn. That one practically falls out in my hand and we put it out in a cup for the Tooth Fairy. **

Then Saturday afternoon, Mairyn says again that she thinks another tooth is loose. The top tooth is quite wiggly. So we give it a couple wiggles and out comes the other one. She is now left with three holes in her mouth and a pronounced lisp. It's very cute! We kept asking her to say, "Sister Susie sitting on a thistle." She didn't get that it sounded different. Thoe thoe adorable! She has discovered that she can clench her teeth AND drink through a straw in her spaces!

**Our Method for the Tooth Fairy**
We put our teeth in a cup of water. It came from my dad. I'm still not completely sure why, but I like it. You ALWAYS have change to plunk in the glass.

Yellowstone

Firehole Falls in Yellowstone

This is just an intro to Yellowstone. After we went to my brother-in-law's wedding, Spencer and I ditched the kids and escaped to Yellowstone. It's about an hour and a half drive from where we were "based" in Idaho. It was a wonderful 3 day getaway. But I've got the summertime blahs right now and my writing is what you would call "blocked". I'm just not feeling inspired. Also, if by blocked I mean that I'm cooped up in a little 2 room hotel quarters with 4 squirrelly kids and an internet connection that has the bandwidth of a silly straw. Seriously, it's making Egypt look good. That's bad. Now if the internet goes out for no reason and I call to ask when it will be back up and the lady says, "Tomorrow, insha'allah." I may run screaming down the street and never look back.

I'm enjoying the summertime schedule; i.e. no lunches to make, buses to catch, homework to help with, club kits to put together, etc. I do like not having to wake up to an alarm and have a schedule, so in that aspect, it's nice. But keeping the kids busy, not that easy. We've got workbooks to exercise the brains, playgrounds to exercise the bodies, cartoons to give Mommy a break, but it's still hectic. So I'm going to rely heavily on the pictures I am so fond of snapping and maybe some inspiration will leak back into my dehydrated brain. How's that for a mental image! ;)


Firehole Falls

Aquarium Antics

If I could use one word to describe the National Aquarium at Baltimore, it would be: awesomeness. And a quick piece of advice, if you do go, and are in the area for long enough, just buy a membership. Because of our family's sheer numbers, we have a membership paid for in 2 visits. And, members get to show their card and walk right in. Those that just buy tickets sometimes have a 2-4 hour wait for entrance. Your ticket is stamped with an entrance time and there is no going in until that time. Also, we get to go to the dolphin show for free whenever we go. Yeah, the dolphin show. It was quite the experience. Between the sting rays, sharks, jellies and tropical fish, we were adequately overwhelmed.

We also decided to see the 4D show. What? 4D? Aren't we 3D beings? Well, with my curiosity piqued, we snagged tickets and got in line. There was this warning at the cashier and the door saying that if you or your children are startled easily or have back problems, you should not go to the movie. Wha . . ? Are we going to be doing spontaneous yoga or something? So we sat down and I noted that the upholstery of the seats was interesting, just one black button a little off center and in the lower back area. Hmmm. A foreboding of things to come? We were handed the little red 3D glasses and then the show began. 3D is very awesome. This film (about 20 minutes long) was titled "Planet Earth". And they weren't kidding when it says, "The film encompasses all of the senses." You feel the thunder roll (and the lightning strike), the wind blowing and the scent of fresh ocean. You also get sprayed in the face when a humpback whale surfaces, get poked in the back when an eel shoots out of the coral, get the backs of your legs tickled by scuttling starfish and bubbles filling the theater from a shoal of mackerel swimming at you. Plenty of screaming, squealing, laughing and "Wow, can we do that again, Mommy?" was heard. Yes, yes we can kids.

We're done

So, even though this post is late in coming, I'll do it anyway. If you didn't figure it out already, we got to D.C., stumbled through the past few days. A quick recap of the rest of our trip is as follows: Day 5 --> We drove from Columbus, OH to Linthicum, MD. As we learned previously, Gina said it would take about 6 hours and 45 minutes, we added two hours and arrived right when we were supposed to! We got in a little after 4:30 pm and just crashed. We were able to crawl back to the van for a quick jaunt out to IHOP for dinner. Btw, their strawberry crepes are to DIE for. Right as we were being seated, the clouds opened up and began dumping rain. Whew, we made it inside just in time. And right when we were paying the bill, the clouds parted and the rain ceased. Just long enough for us to get home, get inside and have the showers commence again! It kept raining the next day (Thursday) and the next (Friday) and then was a clear morning on Saturday. We took advantage of the fine weather (although it was indoors, so weather wasn't an issue) and frolicked at the Aquarium in Baltimore. ;) Pictures will follow, just not right now. A relaxing dinner (yes, you can have that with 4 kids) at Macaroni Grill rounded things out. The cross country trip is over! For now. Oh yeah, I do have to drive back. Let's just not think about that right now. Forgive me, we didn't take any exciting pictures of the trip on Wednesday. We did get one of the clouds parting after dinner. Cue the heavenly chorus! Ahhhhhhh. And the pictures from the aquarium are on the camera, which is in the car and I'm too lazy to go downstairs and get it. So, you'll have to wait!

Day . . . forget it.

I've been traveling too long. I just couldn't do it anymore (blog daily updates) after being on the road for 3 days with 4 kids through 5 states. And, ahem, those are mid-western states, not east coast teeny, tiny states. After we finished up with Nauvoo, the next morning we were on the road again. (and if anyone starts singing Willie Nelson, I. will. scream. Nothing against Willie, I just don't even want to THINK about being on the road.)

*Sidenote* before we could get "on the road" that 4th day, we made a small detour to Custom Auto Glass. I had to get the chip in my windshield fixed. Badda-bing, badda-boom, 30 minutes later, we're on our way. And then about 30 miles after beginning, we were able to stop at Carthage jail. That was not an inconvenience, it was an unexpected rest stop. I've been many times before, but the kids hadn't been.

The 4th day leg was from Keokuk, IA to Columbus, OH. That. Day. Was. Long. And it shouldn't have been. But there was road construction and a wonderful thunderstorm that followed us from about an hour outside of Indianapolis, through rush hour in the heart of the city (joy) and about 45 minutes past it. If it wasn't for Gina, the GPS, we would have been up a creek without a paddle. Literally!

We finally arrived in at Columbus, 12 hours after having left Keokuk. A trip that Mapquest, Google and Gina said would take 8 hours and 22 minutes. Now, none of them knew about the rock chip, Carthage, the insane rain, and the 4 bazillion potty stops that kids need. But in the future, I'm just going to add an extra 2 hours on top of any time travel estimation. Wait, strike that, reverse it. Travel time estimation. That would be great, time travel. Yee-haw.

Kids at Joseph & Hyrum statue, Carthage Jail in background

Raining sideways in Indianapolis traffic. At one point, wind was blowing the rain horizontally so that it was raining on the back window of the van and not even touching the windshield.

Day Three: Nauvoo

We slept in a little this morning. 7:30 am. Whoop-de-doo. Had a great nights sleep, though. For once. The breakfast was amazing, biscuits and gravy, bacon, scrambled eggs, the works. Jacqueline wasn't too excited about it all, she was fascinated by the adjacent arcade in the lobby. So I opened the door to let her in, went to grab a cinnamon bun for Grant and came back to the door to find it locked. Yep, Jacqui locked herself in the arcade. The maintenance guy wasn't in for the day yet, so the front desk ladies had a huge ring of keys and started trying each . . . individual . . . key. After about 20 minutes, we located the right one.

After that excitement, we started the day. We drove to Nauvoo , Illinois and began at the Red Brick Store. Then to Blacksmith's shop where they made a little mini horseshoe and since it was Grant's birthday, he got it!! The tinsmith's, post office, Brigham Young's house, John Taylor's house and everything in between. I took the kids to Pioneer Pastimes, a place with all sorts of period games, toys, dress-up and a little cabin to play pioneer in. They dressed up and played all afternoon.

As we drove back into Keokuk, the town we're staying in that's about 20 miles from Nauvoo, we noticed some impressive thunderheads hovering over our area. As we crossed the bridge over the Mississippi from Illinois to Iowa; big, fat drops of rain started falling. We pulled into the hotel parking lot and it really started pouring. Then, it turned into hail the size of large TicTacs. Yuck. Oh, did I mention that yesterday I got a chip in my windshield? Yeah, not fun. I was calling around to try and get it fixed, but apparently, you need sunshine to cure the resin that fills the chip. Huh?

We decided to go down to WalMart and pick up a small birthday present for Grant (since it IS his birthday today.) The rain went from pouring to sheeting. Thunder, lightning, winds and rain as heavy as if you were standing in a shower. We made a mad dash into the Wendy's to eat and we looked like drowned cats. Our clothes were as wet as if we had just pulled them out of the washer. Actually, it was probably wetter because the washer wrings most of the water out so that it's not dripping. We ate and then the thunderstorm subsided. Whew. We made it through the storm. So, it's on to Columbus, Ohio tomorrow morning. And to find somewhere to fix my rock chip.

Day Two

Has it only been two days? We got up with the sun (well, maybe a little after it) and were on the road from North Platte by 7:15 am. I forgot to mention yesterday that as we drove over the freeway, an innovative farmer had made a tunnel UNDER the freeway for his cows to wander between pastures. We plowed on through to make some time for Winter Quarters. We went through the visitors center and then walked around the cemetery and near the temple grounds. The Winter Quarters temple is located right next to the cemetery. After this excursion & a yummy lunch together at KFC, we headed back out on the road. About 20 minutes later, I glanced at the gas gauge and notice it was kissing the E line. Great. How did this happen? I had made a mental note of 3 things: Winter Quarters, Eat, Get gas. I somehow overlooked the gas part. We did find a station and filled 'er up. 16.55 gallons worth. I thought we had a 15 gallon tank. Maybe we have a 17 or 18 one? Back on the road to be buffeted by winds, weave in and out of semi-trucks, but by 7:00pm, we arrived at Keokuk, IA. (just down the river from Nauvoo) We swam in the pool and are now crashing. City of Joseph, city beautiful, Nauvoo tomorrow!