Aspen Grove

The last few days of our August Utah trip we spent at Aspen Grove, a family camp run by the BYU Alumni Association.  We'd never done it before, so we figured we'd give it a shot by attending their "mini-camp", which is just four days long, as opposed to the whole-week regular program.  We arrived Wednesday afternoon and stayed until Saturday morning, and it was awesome.  I hesitate to recommend something that always sounded so dorky to me, but Aspen Grove is almost the perfect vacation for families with little kids.  They provide classes for the kids from 9:15 to 12:00 and again from 1:30 to 4:30, including the babies.  I wasn't sure how well that was going to go, but Connor and Elise loved their groups.  
      

Connor's group (the "Kittens") met for pickup after each session at this bear statue.

      
The counselors are all super-sweet BYU students, and we couldn't have asked for better people to take care of Evan.  He basically had his pick of slaves to take him on walks, play with him, and put him down for naps the whole time he was there (he's still at the age where he has no problem with strangers.)  I'd stop in to check on him and nurse, but we were pretty much free to do things as a couple during the day.  We played badminton, tennis, racquetball, frisbee golf, did archery (at which Ryan excelled), rifle shooting (at which I excelled), and a bunch of other goofy stuff.  We even tried the climbing wall, and Ryan did the high ropes course.  I was pretty impressed.  There was no way I was going to do that.  
     

    

       
Meals were all served in the cafeteria, which was super kid-friendly.  The food wasn't great, but it was definitely low stress.  The evenings had surprisingly fun family activities, including contests (here we are trying to roll a giant ball around orange cones, and attempting to knock other cones over with frisbees.)  
       

        
They did a cool "Cowboy Village" night full of western stuff like tomahawk throwing (at which Ryan also excelled - must be the Indian blood), crafts, treats, and this sword-fighting game for the little boys.  Yeah, I know cowboys didn't have swords, but they didn't seem to care much. 
        

       
The final evening they held a little show where the kids presented songs they had been practicing in their group classes.  Elise's class dressed up as the seven fat cows and ears of corn from the "Pharaoh's Dream" song in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.  I expected her to be shy, but she marched up there and did her little dance with enthusiasm.  Connor's class didn't have costumes, but they sang and did actions to the "Benjamin" song from Dreamcoat.  It was super cute. 
         

Trompers, Trompers are the best, goooo Trompers!

It was raining like crazy that night, so everybody is bundled up

My favorite little fat cow

Watching the show with one of Connor's friends

After the show there was a family dance in the cafeteria.  The kids started out hyper, but quickly deteriorated to overtired, so we went to bed.  
    

   
We're definitely going to go back someday, although I'm not sure we could handle the full week.  Connor and Elise were exhausted by Saturday from the activities and the heat and the lack of naps. 
    

Chillin' in Juab County

My parents finally moved in to their new place in August, just in time for our end-of-summer trip!  I must say, that the guest quarters we were given up there were nicer than our actual house.  We had the run of the basement, with three bedrooms, a bathroom, and a living room equipped with satellite TV and every form of video game.  Of course, there was no kitchen downstairs, but I considered that a bonus.  My newly-retired mom pretty much slaved away upstairs making us gourmet meals the whole visit.  Yeah, it was nice.
  

The kids were able to ride their scooters around, play soccer, throw the ball for the dog -- everything we don't have room to do here in L.A.  Also, since Grandma Cloe was still recovering from her dizzy spell, we got to have her around more than usual.  It was lousy that she had been sick, of course, but we liked her company!  We were also able to spend a bunch of time with my brothers and sister in law.  
  

 Ryan joined us at the weekend, and discovered that we were only a short drive from Yuba Lake, so we went over on a Monday when the place was deserted and pretty much had the reservoir to ourselves.  This is the rented wave runner that I managed to fall from.  At about 3 miles per hour.  If I ever had any dignity, it was definitely lost that day.

  

Fun Summer Stuff

Okay, after multiple frustrating attempts to figure out Blogger's new editor, I finally figured out that it only lets you place pictures between paragraph blocks, not in the middle of chunks of text.  Go figure.  So, I'm now going to try to catch us up to the exciting present.  Or current season, at least!


Earlier this summer, the venerable Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey came to town.  I hadn't planned on actually watching the show.  We got me a ticket basically because I didn't want to send everybody to do something fun while I stayed home and cleaned, or something lame like that.  I was cool with walking the halls of the Staples center with a squirrely Evan.  But, you know what?  That little dumplin' was content for nearly the entire show, even when it got kinda loud. 

I have to say, Ringling Brothers has gotten pretty good at putting on a circus after all these years.  It's a little ADHD, in that there are a few too many acts going on at once, and everything is enhanced with sparkling lights and pyrotechnics, but we weren't complaining.  And I didn't see any blatant signs of elephant abuse, despite what the PETA guy out front said.  (To be honest, I wasn't in the mood to feel guilty, so I just sorta told myself that the most famous circus in the world would have been run out of town by now if it was doing anything too horrific.  Yeah, denial is handy!)  Anyway, it goes without saying that the kids had a blast.  I mean, it was a CIRCUS!  Oh, and although the lemonade was a very reasonable $12, we opted instead for the $8 cotton candy that came with its own wacky hat.  

Afterwards, when I asked the kids what they would like to do in a circus, Connor said he'd want to be the guy who walked on stilts, and Elise wanted to be a dancing girl.  I was expecting tiger tamer or trapeze guy, but whatever.  Oh, and Elise has a band-aid on her nose simply because she scratches it constantly while sucking her thumb.  She was wearing a big bloody hole in her nose, so we've been wrapping it up occasionally for the last few months to keep it safe.

A weekend or two later, we went over to Hansen Dam for a helicopter show.  It was free, so we didn't expect much, but it was kinda fun nonetheless.  The kids got to sit in about a dozen display choppers, and watched a few taking off.  

This guy who looked like a character from MASH was displaying antique army equipment, and was really patient to explain everything from landmines to flashlights to Connor.  I think the guy was talking for over 20 minutes, actually.

Ryan's favorite part of the helicopter show was when we came across this booth near the exit.  It's a company that sells "personal ultralight helecopters" to idiots.  I'm sorry, I mean aspiring pilots.  The bigger ones require a basic pilot's license, but the smaller ones require no training at all.  You're only allowed to fly them in unincorporated areas, though.  I guess that's so you'll kill fewer bystanders.  We went home with several brochures.

On July 27th, just a couple weeks shy of his 6 month birthday, Evan has his first taste of people food - baby sweet potatoes.  We fed it to him to the tune of "Thus Spake Zarathustra" playing on the laptop.  (In case you're not familiar with that piece, it's the opening music for 2001: Space Odyssey.  You know, with the monkeys.)  I'm not sure why it was on our computer, but it made an ideal background for Evan's discovery of strained vegetables.  His opinion of food hasn't improved much since then, either.  Maybe when he gets some teeth he'll find something he likes.

The Saturday following that was Ryan's office party at Long Beach.  For some reason, we didn't get any pictures of that, despite the fact that Connor won the kids' limbo contest, followed by Ryan winning the grown-up limbo.  I had no idea this was a family talent.  When the barbecue ended, we drove around Palos Verdes for awhile, just coveting stuff, and found a public beach access trail that wound down beneath a super-fancy resort, so we took an evening walk.  It was one of those really rocky beaches that you just don't see much here in SoCal, with a cool cave that was only accessible when the tide was out.  

The coolest part was the sound the waves made as they dragged the stones back towards the water.  We sat and listened to it, while the kids threw rocks.  Too bad the resort is like $500 a night.


So, in closing, here are a few more of Connor's photos.  I delete about 95% of them, but a handful always turn out pretty good.

Hayward 4th of July

I'm about to totally spaz out.  Has anyone else had this much trouble with Blogger lately?  It keeps left aligning my pictures and changing fonts for no reason, plus I can't move the pictures like I could before.  I've already been using the "new" composer, so this shouldn't be the issue.  Anyway, after two hours of increasing frustration, I'm ready to take a break.  Please excuse any weird issues I haven't been able to fix!

For the Independence Day weekend, we were able to do a quick trip up to Hayward to see Ryan's Dad and sister. And, as is the tradition in the East Bay, the kids started their days of hyperactivity in the best way possible: stuffing themselves with doughnuts at World's Fare! (Oh, they made those shirts with Aunt Helena the day before.  They were very proud.)

After the doughnuts, the kids, Ryan, and Granddad took a quick tour of the wrecking yard.

 On the 4th, we met Aunt Helena and her friend Ryan in San Francisco, with the intention of walking down the pier and seeing the tourist sites.  Unfortunately, it was crazy crowded due to the fireworks show that evening, so we decided instead to go to a different part of the city and eat Indian food, then head to the bridge.  We went to the north side of Golden Gate bridge, and bravely got out to walk around despite the hurricane-force winds!  Everybody had fun, even though our faces nearly froze off.

That night we went over to a neighborhood fireworks party at Justin and Tiffany's, and Elise learned how fun it is to put a sparkler in her face. (I think Ryan was able to protect her from herself before any harm was done.)  

While we were watching the screaming cats and green fountains, Elise pulled on my sleeve to ask me, "Mama, what are dose tings?"  She was pointing to the stars overhead.  I explained, "Those are stars!"  "Oh . . what are dey doing?" she wondered.  Seriously.  My kid didn't know what stars were.  This is the kind of underprivileged inner-city upbringing I'm offering my children!  When the fireworks were all used up, I kinda assumed we'd be heading home to get the kids to bed, but, somehow, we ended up at Justin and Tiffany's place hanging out as it got later and later, and my kids were watching video after video without falling asleep like their kids did.  I think we finally left around 5am!  It was daylight before Ryan and I got to sleep back at Granddad and Bomi's place.  So silly.  We haven't done anything that goofy since we became parents, it was kinda fun.  The next morning was time to leave, and it would have been just fine if poor, old, blind Portia hadn't decided to wander into some forbidden part of Dog's territory.  I was brushing my teeth inside, and suddenly heard screaming dog and yelling Ryan.  I guess Dog had decided to eat Portia's face, so Ryan had to rescue her.  It didn't look too bad - just a little blood and a smallish puncture wound next to her eye.  The vet wasn't concerned when we got home, but despite antibiotics it got infected and . . .well . . . exploded.  Yeah, it was gross.  I freaked out a little.  Luckily we have a great vet, who did surgery and patched her up good as new.  Sadly, we didn't learn from this experience that Portia doesn't travel well anymore, as you will see in a later post!