Nana Time

Great Grandmothers are amazing. There's something magnetic about them. They exude unconditional love, wisdom and energy. I was lucky enough to have my great grandmother Howell in my life until I was 25. I'm so glad that my kids have two great grandmothers to enjoy.

Nana is my grandma on my mom's side and I adore her. So do my boys. In fact, Cal often asks if he can go to Nana's house. During our Utah visit, we were able to spend some quality time at her house.

Calvert and Klepko great-grandchildren

Cal thoroughly enjoying his cheese and crackers,
a signature snack at Nana's house

Crewe discovering this original Fisher Price Barn toy,
the same one I remember playing with as a little girl.

Lake Powell

If you know me well, then you know that I LOVE Lake Powell. It's one of my two most favorite places on earth. (Hawaii is my other most favorite). My love affair with Lake Powell started 30+ years ago when I first went with my Nana and Grandpa, sporting my big bird swimming suit and all.

Chris' family goes every summer and we hadn't been on the lake with them since Calahan was born so we were excited when we they announced they would be going Labor Day weekend and we could stop in for a couple of days on our way to the Utah weddings. It was an adventure filled 36 hours.

If you are not a regular Lake Powell go-er, you need to know there is an unwritten rule of the Lake: Something always goes wrong. You can never exactly predict what will go wrong, you just know that something will.

This trip, the rule was observed in the form of a part going bad on our SUV. The truck gradually began dumping coolant about 2 hours outside of Lake Powell and continued until a big deposit was made in the Bullfrog Marina parking lot.

A little bit about Bullfrog: the "town" consists mainly of a small motel, a gas station, and a few boat repair/storage places. It has no grocery store, no auto repair shop, no tow trucks and limited cell phone service.

To summarize, we were stuck in a remote area with a non-working car and no access to a repair shop or vehicle. I called the road side assistance number on our insurance card, and after contacting several towing companies they told us it would be a mere $5 per mile to tow the truck. With the nearest dealer 300 miles away, it would only be $1500 to get our non-working car there. All I could think of was a {long} list of other things I'd like to spend $1500 on.

Fortunately, I have a very handy husband. He's known as the "toolman" by his brothers for good reason. The Toolman took his tools and headed out in the scorching sun to see if he could make something work long enough to get us to civilization. The Toolman did not dissapoint. He managed to get the SUV safely running, and after just 24 hours on the lake, we loaded a bunch of water jugs with us "just in case" and headed for Farmington. We made it without incident.

A few shots for our 36 hours at lake Powell:

The Announcer and Trapeze Artist

There is one Sunday per year when I feel like the odds are pretty attractive for our kids behaving well during Sacrament Meeting -- the Sunday of the Primary Program (kids aged 4-12 do the whole meeting). Today was that lucky Sunday.

If you count having an announcer and trapeze artist as part of the program, well, our kids behaved just perfectly. Calahan (still in nursery until January) took it upon himself to {loudly} announce the name of each primary child he knew as the child approached the podium to do the assigned part. "There'ssssss Bennett!" The giggles from some in the congregation only provided further encouragement for his announcing.

Meanwhile, Crewe was enthralled with the darling family behind us and spent most of the meeting standing on the pew with his back to us, facing the family and playing with the dad. While exchanging smiles and giggles, Crewe lost his balance and took a dive face first over the back of the pew. His form was actually quite remarkable. Fortunately, the dad of the family is an athlete with quick reflexes and caught Crewe before he smashed into the ground. Crewe sat up afterwords with a look that said "that went exactly how I had hoped" and made himself comfortable on Mike's lap.

Maybe next year?

Road Tripping Again

Enough time had passed since our last road trip to dull our memories of how long it actually takes a family of four, including one potty trainee, to complete what should be a 10 hour drive. Apparently, we have short-term memories. And so we packed up our little family two weeks ago and hit the open road bound for two stops and three family events.

Stop #1: Lake Powell via Bullfrog
Stop #2: Farmington, Utah
Event #1: Todd & Allison's Wedding
Event #2: Quality Cousin and Grammy Time
Event #3: Brian (my baby brother) and Shawna's Wedding
We had plenty of sweet lollipop moments like Crewe's below and also a few sour moments that we will laugh about in the future. More on those in upcoming posts.
It's great to be home again.