Fall Is Here Again

Well I know fall is here because school and football are ruling our lives again. My kids are trying to wear BYU colors to school everyday and they are careful not to wear orange on BSU game days. Natali and Mack are so excited to be back in school. Natali is thrilled to be in the special third grade 'loft' classroom that has two classes together with two teachers. She is reading like crazy and has started piano lessons. Each day, as soon as she gets home from school, she runs in and practises piano. I hope her enthusiasm sticks. Mack is enjoying his first grade teacher, Mrs. Renfrow. He has already read 5 Magic Tree House books and is proving to me that he didn't forget how to read over summer break. His two best friends are in his class again this year and he is loving all the basketball they play at recess. Last week soccer started with Greg as his coach - he is very excited.

Andrew is in Kindergarten this year and they are trying out a new schedule. He goes all day Tuesday, Thursday and every other Friday. Well, I think the all day thing is a bit of an adjustment. His first day of hot lunch he took some plums. He sat down to eat and realized his plums were hard as rocks so he didn't want to eat them. The teacher on duty told him he had to eat them. I don't know what all happened, but he has no interest in eating hot lunch ever again. He thinks it is brutal that they can only go to the drinking fountain at certain times of the day and tells me that his class only has one good animal book - poor kid. After his first day he asked if he had to go back. Most days he has done fine, but Tuesday he refused to get out of the car. I took him home and put him to work. After a lot of moaning he decided it would be better at school than working at home. So back to school he went (with his blanket this time - I did compromise a little). Since then he has seamed fine - we hope it lasts.

Kate and I are enjoying our days together. We do a little bit of school every day where I have learned that my poor little girl's basic knowledge has been sadly neglected. But don't worry - she can count to twelve now without skipping three - most of the time. I have discovered that I am way less productive now because I am Kate's sole form of entertainment. I pretend to be a princess or a mean witch most of the day, but I think it is good for both of us, just not so good for my messy house.

However, our days with Andrew home are a bit of a challenge. He follows me around saying, "What can I do? What can I do?". If he isn't driving me crazy then it is too quite and I have to assume that something like this is going on.

Yes, Andrew painted poor Kate's face. She thought it was funny at the time, but once she was trying to wash it off she had a different sentiment.

Emily just watches all the craziness and keeps us all entertained with her smiles and giggles.

On To Canada

We said goodbye to all the family and added a few more miles onto our journey to drive up to Banff National Park in Canada. My one request was no more camping; our three nights in Glacier were alright but I was ready for a shower and bed. So we got a deal on a little condo. We were twenty minuets out of the park but had plenty of space. The kids loved the hot tub although Natali kept calling it a hot spa- yea no clue where that came from.

Canadian National Parks are way more commercialized that American ones, for example- in the town of Banff, right in the middle of the National Park, there is a Louis Vuitton store - can't get that in Glacier! There is a major Highway right through the park as well. All that aside, I can' t even express how beautiful it was. The glaciers- well lets just say when we left Glacier Natali still had no clue what a glacier looked like, but in Banff she had no problem recognizing glaciers. I loved it.

This is Crow Foot Glacier. The bottom toe has melted away but it still wasn't too hard to explain to the kids how this glacier got it's name.

Our first night we put the kids in PJ's and went for a drive. Here they are in front of Lake Louise with the amazing Victoria Glacier behind them. The lake was such a cool milky color from the glacial flour. The next day we rode a gondola up the ski hill and looked down on Lake Louis again. It was so incredible but also kind of rainy so the pictures from the top weren't great but the view was unbelievable. There were also some trails closed because of bears in the area - so Greg really wanted to go exploring (he bought bear spray before the trip just in case - I'm not kidding), but the kids weren't in the mood to hike. They loved the ride up and just wanted to go back down - I think they would have joyfully gone up and down multiple times but I was only paying for once. Natali even picked out which gondola she wanted ride and patiently waited till it was avalable. On our ride down she asked Greg, in the chair in front of us, to take our picture. He took the picture, but while taking care of the kids riding with him he forgot to zip the camera back in it's case. So when he got off the chair the camera crashed into the pavement. He picked it up to take another picture of Natali and I getting off and that's when Natali said, "Hey Dad your camera is all broken." So this picture is a little weird because it was taken through the broken glass. The filter was shattered but miraculously the lens only has a little chip. It still seams to work alright but it's hard to tell if the image is as good as before - all things considered we were very lucky.

Of course we spent a lot of time looking for animals and were rewarded with 5 more bears, elk, deer, big horn sheep, and a porcupine.We think this one might have been our only grizzly.My favorite part of the trip was our hike to Moraine Lake. It was a simple little hike from the shore of a seaming uninteresting lake up a terminal moraine. Yet, when you look down on the lake from up high you suddenly see the spectacular color of the water. I have never seen anything so beautiful. I love this picture of the kayak down below because the color contrast is so stark. The next day we drove up into Jasper National Park in order to see the Columbia Ice Field. Waters from this ice field drain to the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic Ocean. The drive up there was spectacular- right up next to the Rockies. Once we got there we rode on what they call an Ice Explorer.This machine drove right onto the Athabasca Glacier. It was markedly cooler up there but the kids loved having their coats on and throwing ice at each other. They climbed all over the designated area and loved the ice explorer. It was amazing to see how thick the ice was and to learn more about glaciers. However, one of my favorite parts had nothing to do with glaciers. We were the only Americans in our group and at least half of our group were Asian. Well a family with 5 kids draws attention almost anywhere you go - but throw in the fact that most of the kids are blondies, and one less than 4 months old, and you are a magnet for Asian tourists. Every time I got on and off everyone pointed, smiled, touched, gawked at my baby and while on the glacier some people were taking pictures of our kids rather than the glacier. We even had one man ask to pose with our kids. It made me laugh. Natali thought it was so weird.

Everyone loved the ice explorer ride, and more than one kid came back with cold, wet feet from jumping in cold pools of melting glacier.

Well that day got a little crazy when Greg decided that since we'd already gone that far we might as well check out a little more of what Jasper National Park has to offer. Let's just say we put a lot of extra miles on the trip that day and didn't get to our condo till 12:30am.

The next morning the kids took one last dip in the "hot spa" while we loaded up our stuff. We headed home by way of Kootenai National Park where we stopped to see the paint pots. We were expecting bubbling pools of odd colored water like in Yellowstone - not quite. This area is covered in streams that leave behind minerals that make the soil a deep orange color. Apparently, the Native Americans used to come here and use the soil to make paint. Early English settlers also used this soil to produce paint. The bottom of our shoes were totally orange along with any pants, hands or knees that touched the ground.

It took us two days to get home but the kids were great in the car. I have to thank Barbie's Princess and the Pauper movie and the singalong extras on the Anastasia DVD - the trip wouldn't have been as smooth without these tools.

At summers end we have seen 48 of the 50 licence plates plus 9 Canadian Provinces, been through 7 states and 2 provinces, seen 14 bears, and spent too many hours in the car to count and we'd all do it again, but maybe not for a few years.

Another 2300 Miles - Part One

That's right, we love the van. This time we were headed to Glacier National Park in Montana. We started out the trip with a beautiful drive right down the winding Clearwater River. Sadly, I didn't see most of it because I was curled up in a ball with my jacket over my head trying to sleep off the car sickness. I was very grateful when we reached Missoula for the night.

While we were eating that night Mack was acting kind of odd. After a while he looked at me and said, "Can you just pull these teeth out." That night in the hotel room Greg plucked out both of Mack's extremely loose front teeth. We are still getting used to his new look.

The next afternoon we met up with Grandma Nani, Papa, and a bunch of Easton cousins. Kate, Marley, Mack, Andrew on a hike through a cedar forest.Most of the kids stayed and enjoyed swimming in Lake McDonald. Kate also enjoyed a nice nap on Papa's lap. Meanwhile, Greg, Mack, Beth, babies Emily and Piper and I went for a drive and hike. Greg offered Mack a dollar if he could sing the whole state song without help. Well much to Greg and my surprise Mack sung it all without a hitch and was thrilled to get another dollar to add the two the tooth fairy brought.

Glacier was gorgeous. We didn't see much wildlife but the scenery was incredible. The Going-to-the-Sun Road lived up to it's name. You drive right along the edge of the mountain up and up. I was glad I wasn't driving. At the top there is a place called Logan Pass. It is the starting point for a number of great hikes - but I have never seen a less effective parking lot. Basically, the lot was full so you have dozens of cars driving, fighting, glaring, honking, trying to get the next available spot. We drove around for about 25 minutes (Greg's sister was waiting even longer). We eventually got a spot because Greg got out of the van and walked around talking to people who were leaving - then using our walkie talkies he directed me to spot. It was exasperating.

Eventually, we got on our hike and it was so worth it. The three mile round trip hike went through a lot of snow, which thrilled the kids. Andrew discovered that there were ground squirrels running around everywhere. Every time he saw one he would yell, "Ground Squirrel!", like it was the most exciting thing he had seen all day. It reminded me of the dogs in the movie Up. It was pretty funny and it lasted our whole week long trip. The hike felt longer than it was and the kids started getting worn out but we were so near the top so we convinced them to press on - it was so amazing. There was this pristine lake in a gorgeous valley. In addition, there was a group of mountain goats right at the top. We got pretty close up. I could have just stayed there all day - but the baby was ready to keep moving so we headed back.
After a restful night refilling our air mattress only two times :) Greg woke up early and went on a long hike with Beth, Derrick, and Piper. I let the kids sleep in and play with cousins till it started pouring rain. So we loaded up and drove over to Many Glacier where Greg was hiking now in the pouring rain. The kids and I went into the beautiful lodge there and ate our lunch out on the balcony over looking the lake. This was the view.
It was so peaceful and beautiful. I loved the Many Glacier area and wished we would have camped over here -next time! Everyone eventually met up at the lodge and rented row boats. The kids loved the boat ride but I think Greg's arms got a little tired.
Kate refused to go one the boat -she is not a lover of boats - so she, Emily, and I sat at the lodge. There was a man playing a violin inside and Kate was mesmerised. She just danced, watched, jumped, and enjoyed the music. She and Emily received a lot of attention and comment. I loved just sitting in this beautiful place, with beautiful music, enjoying my little girls.

We managed to see 2 bears, went on some nice hikes, played with cousins, swam, row boated, and had snowball fights. We loved glacier.

3300 Miles Later

3276 miles to be exact - That's right I am slightly crazy. Since last summer my kids have been begging to go to Iowa to visit their cousins. They had never been to their house and wanted to see where they "really live". So I started planning. As the plans progressed Greg told me I couldn't go that far alone with 5 kids (probably wise council) so he agreed to go with us. I gave him control of which route to take and we were off.

7 States - Idaho, Utah, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, Wyoming, Montana

29 Different mammals (4 only as roadkill)

41 of the 50 state licence plates

11 days - 6 driving

I thought about typing up my entire list of animal sightings, dead and alive, but figured not even my own kids would care about that in 10 years - although, honestly, Greg still would.

Warning - this is a very long blog post. I know it is long, but I want my kids to remember this trip.

Our first major stop was Dinosaur National Monument. They are redoing the visitors center there so there is not much to see. In fact they don't even charge you to get in, but we did get to see some dinosaur bones and go for a little hike. Then we were back on the road.

Natali and Andrew next to Sauropod leg bone.

Mack by another bone - see the white arrow pointing at the bone?

We went to a State Park in Colorado famous for it's moose concentration. Greg took the boys for a walk while I nursed the baby and while we were in the park we saw three moose - not bad. We have no pictures of the moose which I see as a huge accomplishment. Why you ask? All of the kids saw the Moose! Greg dragged them each out into the rain and patiently pointed and directed until each of them saw the moose. By the time he was done the moose had moved without the camera even coming out of its case. Greg put the kids first. I loved it.

Then after a beautiful drive down the Poudre River we stopped in Fort Collins to visit some old friends from our Oklahoma days. Sadly, I forgot to take any pictures. When we first met The Delormes Natali was only a month old and they were newlyweds. Now 8 years later we both have 5 kids. It was so fun to visit with them. We had to drag the kids back in the car to drive until 1:00 in the morning to get into Nebraska.

The next morning we caught an hour of church and then got back on the road. We finally arrived at my sister's house that evening. The kids really did so well in the car. Emily slept most of the way. While the rest of the kids played games, learned the State Song, watched movies, and played with leapsters. They were always looking for licence plates and we did homework sheets, bingo and scavenger hunts. They loved staying in a different hotel every night but were always disappointed to leave the next morning before exploring the whole place.

Well my sister's house was so fun. For five days the kids just played. We only left the house with all of them once. They didn't need us to provide entertainment - they just loved being together.

Each day the three oldest girls went to a 2 hour session of arts in the parks. They loved it. One of the days they were going to have a talent show. Natali taught Myra the State Song. They sang it together and won the talent show. (For those who don't know the State Song sings all 50 states in alphabetical order - a handy song to know.) Natali and Myra had such fun together singing, painting, wearing matching clothes, and knitting. Myra was thrilled that I taught her how to knit - I never would have guessed that my knitting skills would make me a cool Aunt...

James and Mack were also inseparable. I wondered how long it would last that 9 year old James would want to hang out with 6 year old Mack. But they had a great time all week. Mack even went to a friends house with James. They mostly played Bakugan, but they also played in the forest, on the tramp, in the water, and kicked the ball around. Mack even picked up some vocab words; 'seriously' is now a common word used to show frustration or excitement.

Andrew loved looking for hawks, eagles, deer, snakes or anything else considered as wildlife. He played with anyone who was willing and loved it.

The boys had seen a snake and were showing me where he disappeared (no clue what Andrew is doing with his belly button)

Kate's favorite toy was Jonas's red car. Somehow the fights over this were kept to a minimum. Amazingly, the kids hardly fought at all.

And Emily - well she liked the swing.

I loved watching the kids play together and seeing the home, forest, and town I had heard so much about. But the best part was the late night talks with Laura and Aaron. I am so blessed to have such a wonderful sister. I have always been able to look up to her and learn from her example. I love her so much.

The Bernard's tree house was finished while we were there. I wish I had this tree house!

Kate loved opening and shutting the door. This picture was taken our last morning there and her obsessive control of the door had caused more than one breakdown. We were sad to go but everyone was running on very little sleep. We left before any major drama broke out, thus no bad memories. I think we'd all sign up to come back next summer.

Did I mention Greg flew off for a business trip soon after we arrived at the Bernards. We picked him up in Omaha on the way home then drove right along the Mormon trail all the way to Scotts Bluff. We got to see Chimney Rock and an amazing lightning storm.

Greg planed our route home so we could spend out last day of driving in Yellowstone. We were in Yellowstone for less than 24 hours but we managed to see 7 bears and tried to save the life of a baby river otter. He was stuck on the opposite side of the road from the river and the bloodstain in the middle of the road-- well lets just say we didn't think his mother would be back for him. We flagged down a ranger and let him use our peed on blanket (we love our deep sleeping Andrew) to pick up the snarling baby and take him to the river. We got back in the car and the kids said, "We were animal rescuers, like Diego." But sadly, we probably just saved him from getting hit by a car, to die of starvation or predation. It was sad but cool to see a river otter so close up. We all loved Yellowstone; no one even asked to watch a movie the whole time we were there. After we left the park Andrew engaged Greg and I in thirty minutes of 20 questions where every time he picked an animal, and 90% of the time that animal lived in Yellowstone. Sometimes it wouldn't live in North America, just "Lellowstone". It was so funny, for the first 20 minutes...

Now that I am home I wish I would have taken pictures of the BBQ sauce spilled in the back seat without getting any on the floor because the floor was so covered with garbage, Emily sleeping in hotel closets and bathrooms, all the kids playing together, The Delormes, or 7 people in one hotel room with only a small bed and a pull out couch. But lets be honest - it never even crossed my mind at the time. I just enjoyed the madness. We are already planning our route for next time - if Laura will take us.

Baptism and Blessing

Well the first weekend of June was a big one for the Easton's. On Saturday, the 5th, Natali was baptized into of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is hard for me to believe that my Natali is already 8. We are so proud of her for making this choice to follow the example of her Savior.

Then on Sunday she was confirmed and Emily was blessed. That morning I went to put on Emily's blessing dress - I was expecting it to be a little small but was shocked to find that I couldn't do up any of the buttons. My mom bought the dress when Natali was born and it fit my tiny Natali perfectly. When Kate was blessed in it I could only do one of the buttons. But Emily wasn't that lucky, so I got some ribbon and kind of laced the back of the dress together. Only the mother of 5 kids would forget to make sure the dress fit - right?

Grandma Nani and Papa Randy visiting made the weekend extra special. The kids loved the one on one time. They hadn't seen them for quite a while so it was wonderful. We also had my sister Sharee and her three youngest kids, the Wilfords, Grandma and Grandpa Dame, and the Mark Dame family. We loved being surrounded by family as we witnessed these special moments for our family.