what I did on my vacation

I can't believe March is over!  I guess I'd better post January before it gets too far in the past.

In January my parents were planning a trip to visit my youngest brother in North Dakota.  The plan was for them to take along four additional chairs that he purchased from a local store now that he has a kitchen/dining area big enough for the complete set.  Additionally, the plan was to conserve gas by driving the car, not the truck.  When my brother invited me to come too, I asked if there would be room, and the parents said, no, sorry.  So I told my brother that there wasn't room for both me and the chairs and so I wouldn't be coming.  Apparently he really wanted me to come, because not long afterwards, my parents said they had decided they could put two of the chairs on top and leave me a place to sit.  I assume that my brother talked them into it.

So in the middle of January I took two weeks off work to drive to North Dakota with my parents.

What is there to do in North Dakota in January, you ask?  Who cares?  I typically go on vacation to see people, not do things.  I spent quality time with my bro and sis-in-law, read books to the niece and nephews, helped design a project, went to the fabric store, sewed, read books to myself, sewed, played with the wooden train set (under duress), sewed, tweaked the project design, sewed, went to the fabric store again, sewed, went to the grocery store, sewed, babysat, sewed, went to the library, sewed, read more books to the niece and nephews, sewed, tweaked the project design again, and sewed.

Sewed - that word sure looks strange, doesn't it?

My brother and I really feed off of each other when it comes to creativity, and I was super excited about the finished project - this indoor playhouse in the form of a teepee:

Summer Plans

My brother is moving to Minot, North Dakota this summer.  He's been in Texas for a year, and I never did get around to visiting him there.  I've been trying to figure out if I can afford to buy plane tickets and see them before they move, but I don't think it's going to happen.  I've been saving my money for something else this year.  Luckily for me, they're planning to visit my neck of the woods in August.

Another thing in August is that I'm going to have a new boss.  The library director is retiring after 30 years.  It's going to be interesting, I'm sure, to see what changes a new director wants to implement.

What else... oh, I may or may not go to my 20 year high school reunion in August.  I never heard anything about my 10 year reunion until after it was over, but the wonders of Facebook put me back in the loop in time to find out about this one.  I still haven't decided if I'm going or not.

That's the plan for August.

Did I mention that last fall I was called to be one of the Stake Young Women's camp directors?  If I didn't mention it, well, I was.  It was right about the time I was trying to decide whether to switch my membership records to the local 30-45 singles ward.  That answered that question for me - I was NOT going to give up the opportunity of being a stake camp director.

Anyhow, camp is in two weeks!  We've been working steadily to get everything ready, and I think we're just about there.  We'd better be, because I won't be around for the next two weeks.  For the first time in my life, I'm going to go... wait for it...

TO DISNEYLAND!!!!!

Yes, that's what I said.  Disneyland.  (That's what I've been saving my money for.)  I extracted a promise from my aunt and uncle that they would invite me to go along next time they went, and we're going this week.  When they started talking about the plans I was worried that camp would be the same time, but we just squeaked by.  So, I have today to finish all my laundry and house-cleaning and last-minute camp stuff, then two days at work; and then I'm gone for a week and a half.  I'll be home next Friday, and camp starts the following Monday.

That's the plan for June.

I've been filling several callings in my ward - I've been primary Activity Days leader for about three years, and I was ward camp director last year and the year before, and until last fall I was a relief society teacher.  They have trickled off gradually, and I was beginning to think again about switching to the singles ward after camp this year, but, once again, the Lord has other plans for me.  My ward just got a new Relief Society presidency - no, I'm not in that, but my cousin is one of the counselors.  I was called to be the provident living specialist, which is what the new RS president used to do.

That's the plan for at least the rest of the year.  It may change then, or not.  My cousin/landlord/upstairs neighbor, will probably be selling the house and moving at the end of the year, and so I may be looking for another place to live, unless I can buy the house.  I don't know if I can afford it, but it's something to think about.

this and that...

Ever obedient to my youngest brother's commands, I am updating my blog.  So, let's see.  What have I been doing since the last time I updated?

In April

Here's a picture I planned to blog but didn't get around to doing.  This was taken at the end of April in my front yard.  I love the weather in Logan, don't you?

In May

I went with my parents to see said youngest brother graduate from Dental School in Wisconsin.  He went the Air Force route to help pay for school, and became a Captain on the same day he became a Doctor.  We were teasing my niece and telling her she had to call him "Doctor Captain Daddy Sir" from now on.  The graduation ceremonies were, well, boring for the most part, but there were some fun parts.  On the first evening the college of dentistry had a graduation/awards ceremony where the graduates all became officially dentists (but not doctors yet.)  The program listed all of the students by their first and last names.  (Bear with me, this has significance.)  The next morning was the university commencement ceremony where they were presented to the university president for receiving their doctorate degrees.  After that, the college of dentistry had a luncheon and presented the graduates with their diplomas.  The printed program for this looked nearly identical to the program from the first ceremony, with one important difference.  The list of names now included "Dr." in front of each one.  I thought that was cool.  My brother was the only student in his class who was in the Air Force, and the ceremony at he luncheon started out with him taking his oath of office in front of all his classmates and their families.  It was really neat.

My brother told us that the college of dentistry and the college of law had a traditional rivalry when it came to the commencement ceremony, and to expect quite a ruckus when they were presented to the university president.  Each college filed into the stadium and sat in groups, and then one by one their college department heads handed a scroll to the university president saying something to the effect that the students listed on the scroll had completed the requirements and should be considered for graduation, yada yada.  The president then waved the scroll at the students (almost with a Harry-Potterish 'swish and flick') and graduated them.  The law students were earlier in the program, and they had lots of cheering and silly string flying, and a beach ball being batted around.  I thought they did a decent job, until the dental students had their turn.  Ho-ly Cow!  Silly string and shouting, sure, and a large blow-up monkey instead of a small beach ball, but they also had some type of pressurized containers that shot strings of metallic streamers into the air with a loud bang, and from where I was sitting in the stands, it looked like fireworks going off above their section.  It went on and on, and then on and on even longer.  It lasted so long that the university president said, "Wow."  All throughout the rest of the commencement ceremony the occasional 'firework' would go off above the dental students as someone found an unexploded canister.

In June

Umm, not much, just work mostly.  I did take a few days off to go hiking/camping with some of my uncles and cousins.  We were going to hike Tablerock - in the Tetons - but there was too much snow.  So we did a smaller hike instead and then went to Moose Lake, a small lake in Yellowstone near where my grandfather grew up.  It was fun, but the mosquitoes were insane!  We think they've learned to follow vehicles.  When we first got there, they swarmed us as soon as we got out of the van.  They petered off a bit after a while, but not ever enough that we didn't notice them.  The next morning was pouring rain for a couple of hours in the morning, and after it let up, some of the group drove out to hike Union Falls.  The mosquitoes were not too bad most of that day, but they were bad enough that I spent the day in my tent.  As the hikers drove back into camp, the mosquito menace increased exponentially!

For July and August

My stake is going on 'Trek' this week for youth conference.  I'll write more about that after it happens.  In August, we'll have girl's camp.  Again, more after it happens.

A rocky start...

Vacation day 1 - Friday - Grandpa and I go from Logan to Laketown.

I had (still have) every intention of using my phone camera to keep a good record of this vacation so I'd have something to blog about. So of course, the first thing I do? Break my phone. I mean really broken. I'll be looking for an AT&T store as soon as we get to Colorado Springs. I was shutting the back door of my car, standing too close to get good leverage, so I was pushing really hard to make sure it closed. My phone, which I usually wear on a lanyard around my neck, swung into the gap at just the wrong time and got shut in the door. Oh well, at least it wasn't someone's hand, right?

Vacation day 2 - Saturday - Mom and Dad and Grandpa and I head for Colorado.

The plan was to stop in Lakewood and leave Grandpa with uncle Alma while Mom and Dad and I continue down to Colorado Springs to stay with Heather's family for a few days before heading to Wisconsin to see Dennis' family. Well, we made it as far as Rawlins and hit a slippery spot on the freeway. Lots of fishtailing and almost going off one way and then almost going off the other way, then clipping the safety rail with the right back bumper and straightening out again... for about 2 seconds, then the fishtailing began again. No other traffic where we were, so it really could have been a lot worse. As it was, we eventually ended up off the road, and missed hitting a substantial sign post by about an inch as far as I could tell. And the snow was covering mud - so slick we couldn't get back up. We were only about 150 yards from the freeway exit to Rawlins, so we called for a tow to get us back on the road. Then the tow truck got too far off the road and was having the same problem we were... trying to go forward and ending up sliding sideways down the hill. He had one of those trucks with a bed that slants down to the street so cars can be winched right up onto the truck. It was interesting to watch how he used the bed to lever his truck back up to the road. I expressed my disappointment at not having my phone to take pictures with, and Dad pulled out his camera - hooray!

Here's the sign that we almost hit:

This shows the holes where our front tires ended up before the tow truck winched us forward a bit:

In this shot you can see how close we were to the freeway exit... made it easy for the tow truck to find us:

And here's the tow truck driver manipulating his truck bed to get himself unstuck:

One bonus about having to be towed back onto the road is that the tow truck driver told us the freeway was closed, and that if we told the folks at the motel - Quality Inn - that we were sent by his company, we'd get a discount. We would have had to stop in any case, and this way we got a great price for the night!

Vacation day 3 - Sunday - Mom and Dad and Grandpa and I head for Colorado (again).

Well, we left the motel at 7:00 this morning, and traveled on the freeway for a few miles, and then waited in line for 3 hours until they opened the gates. We pulled off side of the road behind the people in front of us, and waited... and waited.

And then the travel lanes started to fill up... and then get empty and we were still just sitting there.

Turns out that the folks who were trying to line up in the lanes were being sent back to to the back of the line because they're not allowed to park in the travel lanes.

Of course we didn't know that until we pulled out into a gap and moved up to the front of the line. Luckily there was another spot on the side of the road we were able to squeeze into and we didn't get sent back to the end. When they did finally open the gates, there was a state trooper in each lane leading the way - and they stayed at the front of the line most of the way from Rawlins to Cheyenne, keeping the traffic to a safe speed on the still quite slippery roads. So - no broken phones or off-road adventures today. It was a pretty uneventful drive to Uncle Alma's house, where we had dinner and left Grandpa, and now we're finally in Colorado Springs.

(Upon telling these adventures to my sister and saying how thankful we are that nobody else was on the road while we were fishtailing she said, "Yeah, only the idiots were on the road!") ;-)


disclaimer:What I MEANT was, only fools would be on the road in that weather! I can say that because I got stuck in a similar storm on the way to Laketown for Christmas in 2007. I'm not trying to be a brat, really I'm not, really! :-P
--Heather