The boys and I wanted to get in a camping trip before the end of summer. We went to Massacre State Park, which is only about 30 minutes away. We have gone there as a family for a day trip before, but this was our first time camping.
It was really beautiful weather. It had been really smoky all around the area, but we were lucky and it cleared up the day before we went.
We did some hiking and exploring around.
And playing by the dock.
We were also able to get in a few movies in the park in Chubbuck. The children loved it each time we went. It often led to rough days the next day though since we usually wouldn't get back until after 11pm.
Asher broke his leg. The boys were all on the trampoline together and just got a little too wild for what they should be doing while he is on there. It broke both of his leg bones. They put him in a wrap for a couple of days until we could see the specialist and then he got a cast for five weeks (really two - they took one off half way through and did x-rays and then put the next one on). Although he wasn't supposed to walk and they put the cast on in a way that would make it hard for him to walk, there was just no stopping him. He is now in a boot thing and still has one more week of that. He has been a good sport, but I think he is ready to be done with it all.
Sad guy! You could tell he was in a lot of pain.
Feeling much better once the cast was on.
Asher started nursery. He hasn't really liked going so far. In fact, I have been in with him every time. I don't know why he doesn't like it though, unlimited toys, good snacks, and his leaders always have fun activities. I think maybe it was a combination of breaking his leg and having female nurses do painful things to him just a couple days before his first day in nursery and adjusting to being back from Taiwan.
Here he is wearing a pioneer hat as they sang the song pioneer children sang as they walked.
They have these to put on as they sing Little Purple Pansies.
Agnes has been sneaking the iPod and doing the camera a lot. It is always fun to be surprised and see what pictures will show up from her. This is her looking in her new mirror.
Agnes snapped a picture of Talitha when she came to visit. We have had Tianna visit a few times too, but I guess Agnes didn't find the camera on those days.
Taking pictures of her brothers wrestling in mom and dads room.
I think she got Asher to take this one. I have seen her showing him how to do it and he now knows exactly what to do if someone will just open up the camera for him.
With starting Middle School, Julia decided that she was going to join the cross country team. Rebecca and I had been bringing it up to her as something that might be fun and prior to school starting she was considering it, but leaning toward the no option. But then on the first day of school she talked to one of her good friends who said she was going to do cross country. She came home that day and said she wanted to do it after all. Then came the first day of practice. We picked her up and she was in tears saying it was so hard and she didn't want to ever go again. We talked about it some and she ended up getting me to promise that I would do her dishes job on every day she had a practice (she told me she would need that time to do homework since she wouldn't be able to do it after school), she would get a bowl of ice cream or some other treat on race days, and we would take her out to eat (just her and Rebecca or I) once the season was over. After about a week she reported that the practices were not that bad any more. They had their first race two weeks in to the season. We could tell she was trying really hard, but she did end up walking about 1/2 of it. The second race she set a goal for herself to run the whole time. She did, but she had a "run" for parts where girls who were walking sometimes passed her. Also, she just never wanted to pass anyone and felt like she needed to save more of her energy. For the 2 mile races that they do, I think she was around 26 minutes both times. I knew she could go faster though and just felt like she needed to know what her abilities were. So I made her go with me to the course on a Saturday and I told her that she had to run at my speed while we ran it together for the whole way. I had in my mind pictured this positive father daughter bonding experience where we were running together and having a great time. That was not what it was like at all - she screamed and cried and told me how horrible I was the whole way. Rebecca said it reminded her of some of the tantrums Julia would throw when she was 4 or 5. We did it though and she survived all the way through. The next race she set a challenge of another girl on the team who she wanted to beat. And she beat that girl by a ton. She ended up doing the race in 21 minutes and 30 seconds - 4 or 5 minutes faster than her previous two races. Then they just had one last race that was for all of the middle schools together. She set a goal to try to beat her friend who she joined the team with in the first place. That friend is pretty fast and consistently got in the top 5 or 6 (out of 36) in her grade from her school. Julia did amazing! We saw her do a good start and then we ran off to about a third of the way through. We saw her friend come by and then just two seconds behind was Julia. She looked so tired, I really thought she was going to give up. But she kept it up the whole way. The friend did beat her by a little less than a minute, but that was way closer than Julia had ever been to her. And the end of Julia's race almost brought tears to my eyes. The end was a slight hill up for about a quarter of a mile and I knew that Julia had already given everything she had. There were two girls from another team who were right behind her. About 200 yards from the end, one of them passed Julia. Out of no where Julia found a burst of energy and kicked it in to catch back up to that girl. But that only encouraged that girl to go a little faster. But Julia wasn't going to let her win and so she pushed it even hard and ended up passing the girl and making it to the finish line before her. I am getting a little choked up just thinking about it now. I was just so impressed by seeing her push herself and try so hard to achieve something. Whatever place she got in, that was what I was hoping most she would get out of the season - a chance to push herself and see that she can do hard things. Her time for the final race was 16 minutes and 29 seconds. Isn't that amazing! About 10 minutes faster than where she started just a few weeks earlier. We asked her how she felt about cross country now that the season was over. She said she was glad that it was done, but she was also really glad that she did it and she would like to do it again.
A couple weekends ago I had a work conference at one of the ski resorts just outside of Salt Lake. I went down on a Thursday and came back late Saturday night. I stayed the nights with Nathanael and Mary-Anne, but I felt bad because I only ever got to their place pretty late and then had to leave pretty early each morning. I did get to play on Nathanael's softball team on night, which was really fun.
One night I also got to go out to eat at a super fancy french restaurant called - La Caille. If you are ever in that area and have some money to burn (or someone else is paying the bill) I would definitely recommend it. It is kind of off by itself and you drive up this private road for a little ways to get to it. This place is so fancy that I wasn't allowed to self-park - I had to do the valet. I thought it was pretty funny handing over the keys to our old 2002 Caravan that smells like kids inside and I was smelling the brakes from just coming down the mountain outside of it. And then looking over at all of the Mercedes and Corvettes and Porches and such that were over in the area where they parked the other cars.
It was this really cool building. It used to be a house before they converted it into this restaurant.
They started off with some fancy bread and butter with black sea salt on top.
Before they started with the food, they brought out an amuse bouche. I didn't get a good picture, but this was a shrimp wrapped in bacon with a fried basil flower.
The soup was delicious. I got a lobster bisque. They brought it out with just the lobster in the bowl and then poured the bisque over it at the table. On the side there was a cracker with some caviar.
Between the soup and the main dish that brought out some sorbet for me to "cleanse my palate."
I got the crusted rack of lamb for the main dish. It was so good. They said the lamb came from a farm just down the street and it was butchered this morning. When they told me that, part of me thought "yumm" and another part thought that was sad.
Dessert was a creme brulee.
Overall the food was amazing. It was the type of meal where you just want to take small bites and sit an enjoy every single bite in your mouth for as long as you can. I really like both the lobster bisque and the rack of lamb. There is this other French restaurant that I go to in DC every time I go there and I get those same things. I would say that this one is just as good as the DC one. However, the DC one is cheaper (probably about $60 for the whole meal plus tip, compared to this one which was $120 with tip) and a little less pretentious. The DC one seems to me like it tries to be an authentic French restaurant with its decor and atmosphere and this one just really tried to go over the top fancy with everything. It seemed a little too extravagant for me, but I guess a fun once in a lifetime experience. If I ever did go again (and someone else was paying) I would probably order the exact same thing except no dessert. And then maybe just go home and get some nice warm brownies or chocolate chip cookies or something.
While I was gone, the kids had fun with making slime. That was very kind of Rebecca to be patient enough to allow them to make that. I am sure it created a huge mess!
I now I am on another work trip. This time back to Taiwan for 2 weeks (really only 10 days with 3 days of travel time). I have two conferences that I am presenting at during back-to-back weekends.
1 comment:
Poor Asher!! :( That makes me so sad! Glad he's feeling better now. And way to go Julia! That's so awesome!
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