Ute Again to Me

It was with much hesitation and regret that we left the cool, mountain air to return to the desert heat. As soon as we were home and saw the week's weather forecast of consistent 110+ degree days, we were wondering why we hadn't stayed in Utah longer. We built a bike ramp to give ourselves a little boost as we returned to quarantine life. 

Our library opened back up for browsing. Much like a sassy first-grader, the library makes it very clear you look with your eyes and not with your hands. Anything you touch that you don't intend to take home with you must go immediately to an infectious shelf to be quarantined for three days before anyone else touches it. This proved to be a difficult concept for the five-and-under crowd. 

The heat became a lot easier to endure once the pools opened back up! We found a community pool that allows 50 people in for a 2-hour block of time. Plus, it's only $2.00 per person, so I pencil it into our schedules twice a week, call it swim lessons, and feel pretty accomplished by our afternoons splashing around. 

My boys have NOT been great swimmers. Last year they couldn't even tread water in the deep end. This year Eli made it a goal to jump off the diving board. I was super nervous by his ambition, but he was determined and spent the whole first session practicing to pass the swim test (swimming from wall to wall and back in the deep end) that would allow him to take his big jump. 

The mad man passed the swim test, but then I was nervous he wouldn't be able to figure out how to get himself to the top of the water after jumping off the board into deep water, because he wouldn't be able to push off the bottom of the pool to reemerge. As I explained this concept to Eli, I unintentionally psyched him out and got us both nervous about his goal. 

He kept going up to the diving board, and then turning around before stepping up onto it. Then he would step onto it and run back off of it. Then he'd walk to the edge, look down, and laugh and scurry back to safety. Before long the lifeguards were giving him pep talks, his brothers and I were cheering him on across the pool, and fellow swimmers were rooting for him. 

He finally did it! I was so proud of him for setting a goal and going after it even when it was scary. Now he's a diving board wizard! I can't keep him in shallow water anymore. His next goal is to actually dive off the diving board instead of just jump and I have full confidence he'll figure it out by the end of summer! (He's showing the sharpie they drew on his hand that shows he passed the swim test.)

Jonah is a wild man in the pool as well! He's surprisingly coordinated in the water and with his little puddle jumper, he...well...jumps! The first day of swimming we worked on going underwater and then we slowly worked up to him jumping into the pool. He loved it! He can now climb out of the pool and jump back in all by himself. It looks funny to see such a little guy uninterested in the kiddie area, but Jonah has always been one to keep up with his brothers, and he's done it again!

If you visit us in the summer, this is where we will go! 

We'd only been back in Vegas a couple of days before my brother Jacob began his persuasions to have us return. He'd decided to bring his family out to Utah and it's a lot easier for us to drive to Utah to see him than to Nebraska. We hadn't quite had our Utah fill yet, so we turned right back around to join in on the fun! Only trouble was I left Jeff behind this time as I road-tripped and adventured on my own with all four boys! 

Jacob did warn me that they basically wanted to do all the exact same things we had just done two weeks before, but we were down for some repeats! Deuel Creek Canyon (again).

Slurpees (new). 

We went to a park for an evening of kickball (new). 

Followed by a quick run through the sprinklers that eagerly cooled us down after we were done playing. 

If you didn't know Jeff wasn't with us before, you'd know it now by looking at Eli's hair for church. Jeff is the designated boy-cutener-upper, especially on Sunday mornings. 

Look, I did cuten up a couple of them. 

It's so fun to do church with my mom and have her use her old singing time props (again). 

On Monday we went to Bear Lake (again)! If I can make it to Bear Lake once in a summer, my summer wishes have all come true, twice in a summer = BEST SUMMER EVER!

Then we went on a new hike up Cottonwood Canyon to see wildflowers. Ideally, we would have made it to Cecret Lake as well, but the heat and the heated temperaments suggested we make it a shorter hike. 

"B-E-A-UTAH-Ful!" -Pinterest

If you sing "Make way for Prince Ali!" from Aladdin but substitute "King Jonah" for "Prince Ali," you will have recreated the soundtrack of our wildflower hike. Give Jonah a stick and he turns into King Jonah. Give him a flock of cousins bowing down to him as though he's really a king, and this three-year-old's happily on a high horse that he's never coming down from. 

You can feel his unauthorized power now that you know it's there. 

I loved this hike! The wildflowers were so pretty. It felt like we were at girls' camp. With family. And with showers. 

Something we did not have on our list the first time we went to Utah (and maybe shouldn't have been on the list the second time either) was a trip to Dugway, Utah to hunt geodes. Did I know what geodes were before my trip to Utah? No. Did I think I could travel 6-hours round trip by myself with four boys? Barely. Did I know I'd be driving a total of 100 miles on a dirt road? Yes. Was I up for the adventure? Absolutely...

Because I had a sneaking suspicion my boys would jump at the chance to swing a pickaxe. 

As it turns out, this day trip was Carson's favorite part of our Utah 2.0 vacation. So was the Dugway excursion worth it? 100%. 

Would I do it again? Definitely not in the summer. Highly recommend this outing in the spring or fall for those brave enough to do it.

Becky threw shade at me the whole day. And by that I mean it was her idea to bring the canopy. Prayer hands to Becky.

You know we had to do a Mueller Park Cookout again! But what we didn't know at the time of this picture was that Lincoln would fall off of that log Becky's perched on.

Dallas actually happened to get a picture of The Log of Doom. While we took the above picture, I saw the log and I was like, "That log is really high. It would be bad if somebody fell off of that with the jagged rocks underneath and everything." Becky agreed. Then we were like, "Okay kids, have fun! See you later! We're going to go eat Starbursts and marshmallows. Live your lives. Peace!" 

And we ate. And we chatted. And we had a merry old time. Until we heard a shriek coming from the direction of the log. As the shriek persisted, I realized it was Lincoln's shriek. My motherly instincts reminded me kids overreact and he was probably fine. But then I remembered The Log of Doom and I was sure we were headed to the hospital.

 Jacob was the first to arrive to the scene where kids were yelling, "He's bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeding!" Lincoln hobbled over towards us with blood running down the front of his face. I picked him up and was too scared to look at him. Jacob, Becky, and Haley all tended to his injuries. There was a lot of blood, but once we got him wiped up it seemed like he just got a bloody nose and maybe bit his cheek and had blood coming from his mouth from that. It looked really bad at first but he was back to his normal? self in no time. :)

We realized Lincoln wasn't wet after he fell, and Eli confirmed that Lincoln hadn't fallen off the highest part of the log, he had fallen right at the beginning onto the dirt and not onto the rocks. Thank goodness for that! I'm so grateful that didn't turn out to be a scarier situation, and I maybe should have paid attention to those initial concerns I had about the log when we first saw it. 

After another fun week in Utah, it was time to go (again). The boys started their road trip back home early while I cleaned up the basement. They were "in a Jeep driving to California." They played like this for two hours that morning and upon reflecting on our week, Lincoln announced the Jeep as his favorite part. Ha! 

We came back to Vegas to learn our school had announced all distance learning for at least the first quarter of the school year...which kind of made us want to turn right back around to escape Coronavirus reality one more time.