Back to our vacation though. Chris decided he wanted to take a longer more scenic route through Steamboat Springs in Colorado toward Vernal, Utah. Sadly it took an extra 4 hours, and an eight-hour trip ended up taking twelve hours. The girls were pretty good and watched movies a good part of the way. We stopped for our regular potty stops and food breaks. We finally arrived at Brad’s house around 9:30 pm and quickly got the girls into bed and off to sleep.
Thursday we planned to spend in Provo visiting friends and Chris’ sisters and Mitch. My mom and dad had planned that we would spend the day with them. Oh well, they should have mentioned it to us. We drove to BYU campus to have lunch with Julie, the summer IBM intern. The girls were excited to see her since she was their favorite babysitter. This was also a trip for announcing my pregnancy. I thought by now, after keeping the secret for so many weeks, Amy would be just popping with the news. We had to drag it our of her and finally gave up on that. After walking Julie over to her class, we headed back toward the law school where Mitch, Jenni, and Lori work hoping to catch them there. We happened to be trying to move across campus during a class break and decided to sit it out and wait for the masses to get to where they were going.
All three of them were working as we walked into the computer lab area. We saw Mitch first and stopped to talk for a bit. Then Chris wanted to go surprise his sisters. It was his first time seeing Lori since before her mission. They were surprised, but not necessarily overly excited to see us. They stood around talking for a couple minutes and then went back to work. Chris talked to some of his old employers and I went back out to talk with Mitch in between his helping people.
The girls were pretty tired by this time, so I called Susan to see if we could come visit. She said sure, but that she was having a birthday party for Kaden and then had piano lessons from three to six. Not much time really. So we hung out there for awhile and then headed back to campus to pick up Chris and Mitch. The girls and I hung out at Mitch’s apartment for the next couple of hours watching “The Little Mermaid” (lucky him) and Chris went to see some friends at Novell.
After returning, we headed off to Spanish Fork to have dinner with those same friends and their families. The girls were exhausted and finally fell asleep five minutes before we got to the restaurant. Amy wasn’t very happy to be woken up. We had dinner at Mexican fast food place but it was quite delicious. So that the kids wouldn’t be so bored, we moved next to a park to let them play while the adults talked.
The girls fell asleep on the way back to Brad’s and we happily plopped them in bed without a fuss. Rather nice.
Our original plan was to spend part of Friday with my mom and dad at Temple Square, but they had already planned to spend the day with Susan and her family. Chris had told the girls on Thursday that we were going to take Fasttracks to downtown and they were quite excited by the prospects of riding the train. It was actually quite fun and a nice way to avoid a lot of traffic. We headed first to Temple Square and up to the Christus. The girls were somewhat impressed, but both really just wanted to be outside running around. We made them suffer through more of the Visitor Center and then watched the newest video presentation of “The First Vision”. It was a nice updated version.
Growling stomachs seemed to take over, so we headed over to the food court at the mall across the street to eat. As we were on our way out, we happened to walk by Jeff and Jo Isom eating there as well. What a surprise! Jeff is an old mission buddy of Chris’. They were married a year before us and up til now have not been able to have children. They had a stroller next to their table with an adorable little baby girl. They had adopted her a week previous and were thrilled to be parents finally. Their daughter is a cute little black baby with curly black hair-her name is Ella Kiara. AND...they are six weeks pregnant. Amazing how that all works out. Their lives will certainly be busy within the next year, but they are thrilled and we were so happy for them.
The girls had eye appointments with Brad, so we needed to get back on the train. As we were trying to do so, the conductor closed the doors and I was left behind. I was pretty frustrated because I had pushed the “open door” button at least a dozen times to no avail. I hoped that Chris would get off at the next stop and it was a good thing that he did, because they train I got on would have taken me up to the University of Utah. By now we had missed our 2:30 appointments and had called Brad to tell him that we would be late.
Amy had her appointment first. She did really well though hardly enjoyed the dialation of her eyes. Chris had driven around with Misha to let her sleep a little longer as she had fallen asleep on the way. While we waited for Misha, Amy got to try on glasses and was thrilled. Sadly she wasn’t getting any.
Misha arrived but wasn’t quite as cooperative in her exam, especially since we had to wake her up. I was rather disheartened to learn that she has vision problems somewhat similar to Chris’, though not near as bad. She is farsighted and Brad recommended that we get her glasses for when she has close up work to do on the computer, with reading, coloring, or even watching tv. The glasses look pretty cute on her, and she is getting better about wearing them and forgetting that they are there.
Amy was pretty mad that she didn’t get glasses too. Since her eyes were dialated, she wasn’t seeing wonderfully, and stomped around saying she needed them too. One set of glasses is enough for me to worry about and to keep track of. I felt badly that Misha had to wear them at all, but Chris came from a different perspective. He’s had to wear them since he was younger than Misha and they make a huge difference in his life and his ability to see.
We spent the evening at Brad’s house. With both girls having their eyes dialated, we figured it would be a lot easier on them. I left the practice early with the girls and Chris stayed and helped to work on computers. He and Brad came later with pizzas and cookies and ice cream.
Saturday we planned to spend most of the day with Chris’ Mom and sisters. They are not early risers, so we weren’t in any rush to get down to Provo. I think we got there sometime between 10:30 and 11, and Lori still wasn’t out of bed. Oh well. So we just hung around and talked for awhile waiting for her highness to rise and shine and grace us with her presence. She’s not a morning person or lunch-time person for that matter when she wakes up.
We gave Chris’ Mom an anniversary gift that also doubled as an announcement for our baby. She almost skipped over the “announcement” part but Chris told her she would want to read it all. She was excited. We didn’t leave until after lunch, so Linda made sandwiches for us and then took the girls down to the park where we would then meet them. Chris helped Jenni move back into the apartment from an apartment around back, so that took some extra time.
Finally we were on our way to play miniature golf at Trafalga. The girls had a great time and Grandma even bought them tokens to play some of the games after ward. Linda wanted to buy Jenni a computer desk, so that was our next stop–Staples--and from there we had an early dinner at Sizzler.
Chris was going to the football game with his mom (as well as my dad, Dallin, and Shane) so we dropped them back at Jenni and Lori’s apartment and said goodbye for the evening. From there I drove with the girls to Thanksgiving Point to spend some time at Donna’s. Mom was there as well, but it gave the girls a chance to play with their cousins. By about 9 pm I was getting more and more tired and still had to drive to Brad’s house. I had the girls get into their jammies and loaded them into the van. Thankfully they were both asleep by the time I arrived, but I had to carry both of them in myself. I took Amy first, locked the van doors and then came back for Misha. After getting them settled I watched tv for awhile and fell asleep on the couch. Brad came home from a date around 11:30 and got me going to bed. (The date wasn’t all that much fun sadly).
Chris didn’t get home til after midnight if I remember correctly. We had decided that we would go to Dallin’s church so Chris wouldn’t have to get up quite so early for Brad’s 9 am church. Now that Dallin is the bishop of his ward, it was interesting to be in his ward and watch him on the stand. His emotions are so close to the surface that I imagine it is difficult for him to make it through a meeting without wiping tears away.
We drove to back their house after church to change and get a snack, but our girls were tired and I could tell that Donna was getting frazzled, so we decided to drive around with the girls and let them sleep awhile before going to dinner at Susan’s at 5:00. Our plan worked even though Amy was adamant that she wasn’t going to sleep. She was the first to fall asleep, as usual. We headed down to Provo so that Chris could say goodbye to his mom before her flight. The girls slept most of that time in the car, but they just put Chris to work moving stuff and hooking up computers anyway. After a teary farewell from his mom, we headed over to Susan’s for dinner.
My whole family was there plus Maureen and Gayle. It was a bit of a scrunch to fit us all in, but Susan had the kids start eating first to free up some table space. We had invited Julie Stringer to come for dinner so that she could meet my “three single brothers”. Chris and I were amazed that she would come-certainly wouldn’t be the most comfortable experience-but she fit in very well. Both Shane and Mitch were completely impressed–and Mom too!
We finally left around bed time. I can’t remember if the girls fell asleep or not, since they had had late naps. We were planning on leaving in the morning and were watching the weather reports since there was snow in the forecast. Fortunately, it wasn’t too bad. There was a skiff of snow in Park City, but the rest of the way was smooth sailing. When I watched the weather reports the next morning, they showed pictures of at least 6 inches of snow in Park City. I am glad that we missed it.
We stopped at Sam’s in Loveland to get milk and yogurt and then decided to stop for dinner at IHOP. I wasn’t in the mood to start making dinner as soon as we got home and Amy was requesting pancakes and eggs. It was a short and sweet trip, but nice to see everybody.
