Snow Strike

We had all these grand plans for Jeff's week off work after busy season. Paint the green wall in the kitchen blue, makeover our kitchen table, turn the basement living room into a playroom, clean the garage, finish the basement bathroom. See. Lots to do.

I love giving Jeff a welcome-home-from-busy-season-now-take-care-of-everything-that-broke-or-needed-to-be-made-over-while-you-were-gone list. I would say home improvement is one of our favorite hobbies. I tell Jeff what needs to be done. I convince him I'll help him with it. He does the whole thing himself because his muscles are bigger, and I squeal in delight as I sip lemonade and applaud him from the sidelines. This is why our marriage works, people.

Sooooooooo. I was SUPER excited to boss Jeff around all week. Then he called me on Monday. Tax day. Usually he calls me and says something like, "Heeeeyy! I'm on my way home. At 11:00 in the morning. Boom. Goodbye busy season!" But this time it was a little different.

"What do you think about going on vacation this week?" He cautiously questioned.
"Ha." I responded as I read over the to-do book I had created for our upcoming week.
"Have you checked the weather?"
"No." I replied, beginning to sense his determination.
"It's going to be snowing ALL week. Let's go to St. George."
"You're kidding."
"No. I'm serious. Think how fun it would be!"

The great debate began. Could I turn my back on the kitchen wall that was screaming at me to be painted blue? Could I wave goodbye to my dreams of an organized playroom gracing our un-utilized basement space? Could the garage go ANOTHER week dusted with the remnants of fall leaves, goldfish crumbs and stray french fries?

The answer was yes. When St. George is calling, the answer is always yes.

We arrived and cars were immediately strewn about the house.

Jeff and I snuck away every free minute we had alone to play Scrabble and devour Creamies. Heaven.

And then there were the sand dunes.

Do you see our shorts and bare feet and happy faces? Not a lick of snow in sight.

Jeff and I dug holes in the sand as we discussed our survival plan if we were dropped on an island to fend for ourselves (Lost style) in a similar climate. Carson must have thought we were digging the holes for him because he couldn't help himself from plopping down into them.

Meanwhile there was a 50-ish year-old lady doing cartwheels down one of the dunes. That was a little odd. We snapped self-ies to keep from staring.

Eli watched Jeff run down the sand hill, so he had to try his hand (feet?) at it.

Please enlarge these pictures as much as you can so that you can see the fear in Eli's eyes as he began to lose control of those little legs.

He could not stop. This was his second time down. We didn't realize he'd run so fast he wouldn't be able to stop on his first trip down. That trip didn't end so well. But he braved up, dusted the sand off his face, and tried again with Jeff ready to catch him in case of an emergency.

Next up -- Zion! I thought the boys would enjoy the bus ride more than they actually did.

I also thought Carson would enjoy the baby backpack more than he actually did. But he also looked way cuter propped up back there than I expected, so it made up for his moodiness.

Eli has had a defiant streak for the past couple of weeks. As in -- he runs in the opposite direction anytime I approach him. We did several laps around the church building last Sunday. He was having a let's-not-do-anything-mom-asks-me-to-do kinda day. So he spent the hike shuffling around bug hunting, kicking sand at caterpillars, back tracking and veering off course. Luckily it's what we expected from our curious little boy, so we were able to stay mostly patient with his explorations.

Hello my handsomes.

And then we ran into the first squirrel. And all hope of Eli ever following us along the path was shattered.

"CHICKMUNK!" He'd yell. I never could determine if it was a squirrel or a chipmunk. Anyway. Eli would stop to stare and yell at every little furry creature along the path, and fellow hikers would stop to stare at Eli. He was hilarious.

The only way we could distract Eli from one squirrel was to suggest other squirrels were further down the trail. "Eli! That squirrel needs to go to bed. Say goodnight to the squirrel. Let's go this way and find the squirrel's mommy!" After much resistance, he would tell one squirrel goodbye in search for the next.

"Oh!" He'd say at the next squirrel, "You find yours mommy?!?" And when the squirrel would jump up on the rocks he'd flip out and say, "CHICKMUNK! That's dangerous!" and then he would mumble more about chickmunk mommies.

Back to the bus.

On the way home from the trip the boys held hands in the car. I love to see them bonding and enjoying each other. This was quickly followed by a slapping/kicking battle, but we'll focus on the hand-holding.

Fun trip! Now time to chip away at that to-do list!