Three funny things

When Landon was learning to read last year, we had a book out. He came to the word "pony" and paused. He looked up at the picture of the pony and said, "horse." I told him to try and sound it out. He looked at the first letter and said, "puh...puh......porse!"

I still laugh about that one.

On Friday Samantha came home having learned several new songs. She sang this one to us at dinner:

Scotland's burning, Scotland's burning
Look out! Look out!
Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!
Boron Wandering, Boron Wandering.

Confused?

We were, too. I asked Samantha if the last line was possibly "pour on water?"

Yeah...that DOES make more sense. We had (and continue to have) a good laugh over that.



Finally, Julie opened the cabinet under the sink and said, " Wow! Mom, you are the best mom ever!!!"

(Statements like that always revolve around food. If she likes it, I'm the best mom. If she doesn't, I'm the worst mom.)

So I took a look myself.
A giant Fruit by the Foot, anyone?

first day of school and other things

My kids started school on Tuesday. We all walked together to make sure they got to their right classes and everything. It was hard to leave this year. Both Samantha and Landon were nervous...new school and no friends is hard. But they came home happy, which was nice.

Julie was sad to say goodbye. I remember that feeling. It is no fun being left behind. :(

The next day, my kids started walking to and from school together. So far it works great. We will see how much they like walking in the snow. Samantha's homework is noticeably lighter, but we haven't even had a full week yet. Landon has yet to bring homework home....it is coming soon.

Brian's work is going well. He likes what he is doing (for the most part), and he also has had a first. The fellows are the team doctors for some local high school teams, so he had his first football game on Friday. He had to wear his polo from the U.

He really likes it.

He likes it so much, I had to beg him to let me post a picture on my blog.

He said, "No way! I don't want any documentation of my mug in this shirt."

But I begged...and he agreed.

Go Cougars!

Look who lost a tooth!

It has been a wiggly little tooth for a while...He took a bite of dinner, said his wiggly tooth hurt, and then one tug later out it came! (the tug was performed by the boy himself)

He is excited for the tooth fairy to come.

Almost there...

The next morning, we woke up around 8am. Brian left with the truck at 8:30, and I went with my sister and her family to their ward pancake breakfast (it was Pioneer Day, after all...apparently they actually celebrate that day in Utah. ;)

Brian had about a quarter of a tank of gas left in the truck. No problem. Springville to Salt Lake City...he should be fine. As he was headed down from the point of the mountain, he noticed the gas tank was dangerously low. At the 215, it was on empty.

He got off the exit and was making his way towards the house. Traffic was terrible. It took about 20 minutes to get past two lights...there was a Chevron station but it was so tiny and there was no way he could pull the truck into that space. You remember the incident in Vegas, right? We need big spaces for the big truck. :)

At this point, Brian is freaking out. He is running on fumes, traffic is stop and go because of a marathon being run right in our neighborhood. So, he comes across another gas station, is sure he can fit, but he needs to turn left into the station, crossing the two closed lanes the marathoners are running on. He is sitting with the truck on, cars honking angrily behind him, and there is no opening. What to do?

So Brian turns off the truck, gets out, and tried to flag down a police officer. All the while, the cars stuck behind him are furious, honking and zipping around him whenever there is no traffic coming the other way. Finally he gets the police, and apprises them of the situation. "I need to get into that gas station."

"No way! There is a marathon going on. You cannot block traffic like this."

Brian says, "then call me a tow truck, because I have only enough gas to turn it on and get into that station."

After some discussion, the police decide to temporarily stop the runners. They wait for a sparse section, stop the runners, and Brian pulls in and gets gas. By the way, it is not a quick turn. Turn, back up, crank it more, NOW he can get in. Oops. Sorry.

Brian gets to the house about 10:15 am. We had some help waiting there for us at 9:30. Sorry again. When he arrived, this nice backhoe is parked directly in front of the house, so he has to park the truck in the middle of the street. At this point, who cares?!

I arrived later...much later since I got lost. But I did get there, and we got unpacked thanks to some awesome familyand friends, and we are finally getting settled.

Good times.

We miss California. Especially since is has rained MANY of the days since we have arrived. As you can imagine, Brian is REALLY happy.

An Epic Journey (hee hee)

Here it is. The story of our move to Utah.

Packing was going well. We only had a few more things to pack, or so I thought. We had good help from some dear friends, and the odds and ends were all that was left. Two of the kids crashed pretty hard. Moving is tough.

SO...those odds and ends took us until 2:30 am. Gross. We got up at 4 and were on the road at 4:30. Brian was driving the truck pulling our Civic, and I was driving the van with the kids. The truck was big. Really big. And Brian was driving SLOW. At one point on the freeway I called to ask, "is this the plan? To go 45 the entire way?" A few sarcastic remarks later, he sped up to 55. :)

Anyway, an hour or so into the journey, the back tire of the trailer blows...Brian and I pull over, and immediately notice the trailer is on fire. HELLO!! On fire, I say. I am freaking out. Brian calls U-Haul for road assistance as I am trying to flag someone down for help. All the while I keep thinking of 24(the t.v. show) and how a fire is probably going to get to my car on top and ignite the whole thing, blowing us all to pieces! Why isn't anyone stopping?

Thankfully, I notice the fire has died down and looks completely out. Seconds later, new flames burst open, bigger and stronger than before. This time, I remember that we brought lots of water in the van, so I run get them out and pour them on the fire. After 7 bottles were emptied, the fire was out. During this time, Brian had called 911, so the police and fire truck came...to a fire we had already put out. Oops. But you never know, right?

The police officer wants to get us off the side of the road, so I take all the kids and drive to the McDonalds about 8 miles up the road. I leave Brian there to wait for help from Uhaul. To give you a time reference, the tire blew about 5:30 am, and the Uhaul repair guy came about 8:30 am. He tried to fix the tire, but couldn't get it to work properly, so he needed to replace the entire trailer. Brian then unloaded the trailer, the guy left to get a new trailer, and came back about 10:30. Brian reloaded the Civic onto the trailer, checked it out, and we got back onto the road at 11 am.

Meanwhile, a McDonalds without a playplace for about 4 hours is not as much fun as you would think. We ordered food and ate, went to the bathroom, and then tried to occupy ourselves. The kids started playing with the automatic doors (running out one and into the other). At one point, a worker told them to stop playing with the doors. Seriously? I let them keep playing.

Ok. So we finally pull into Las Vegas at 3 pm. 3 PM!!! We stopped to get lunch at In-n-Out, where some basketball tournament was happening and also eating. It took us an hour to eat. It was the kind of crowd where I was stalking a table so we could sit..."are you leaving? No, don't worry about the mess, we love to eat with a mess! We just want your table!!"

We ate and got back on the road. We stopped at the Pilot gas station a few miles down the road to get gas. I stopped and pulled in. Where was Brian? First of all, he turned the wrong way off the exit. He had to find a place to turn our Amazon truck and trailer around, then get to the gas station. At that point, there was a sign for trucks to gas up. He went there. Wrong again. Only diesel. It was pull through only, and there was a truck in front and behind him. He waited a good 20 minutes, when the front truck pulled up just enough for him to start gassing up. There was a sliver of a space to try a squeeze by, which Brian did. Well, he got the trailer stuck against the concrete slab. Unbelievable.

I haven't seen Brian now for a while. He calls and asks for my help. I drive over and see the mess. What do I know about trailers? Anyway, we try this and that, and seem to be making NO progress. Finally, a trucker who has taken sympathy on us (or just wants to make fun of us, which he does often) starts giving Brian directions. It is working! But not quickly enough. The guy signals for Brian to get out and he gets us out of there eventually.

We pull out of Vegas at 5 pm. The rest of the trip is really quite boring. We were guzzling caffinated sodas, chewing bubble gum, stopping to pee (frequently from all that soda), and washing faces often. Anything we could do to stay awake.

I called my sister in Springville and asked if we could stay with her. We were dead tired and I could barely keep my eyes open as it was. We pulled the truck in at about 11:30pm and just crashed in her house.

I'll have to continue the rest tomorrow. I still cannot believe it happened, even as I write this.