We drove to Castle Rock, arriving around 7:15 to test drive the van. I learned that the Goodwin’s were LDS from talking to Betsy, who was teaching at Enrichment Night when we arrived. Her son, Mike, showed us the car and gave us keys to take a test drive. Chris and I both loved the van, and when Amy sat in it, she kept saying, “Amy’s car. Amy’s car.” As we were test driving the van, I had the strong feeling that this was to be our van. I was concerned about how we would take care of the financing and paying off a loan but got the distinct feeling that “the money will take care of itself”. We drove to a secluded parking lot and said a prayer and both felt good about making an offer. Since it was late, and we had at least an hour’s drive home, we left a message with the son that we were interested in buying the car and would call his mom when we got home.
We weren’t home five minutes when Betsy called. Chris made an offer of $23,000 (they were asking $23,900). She needed to talk to her husband and called us back about 20 minutes later with a counter offer of $23,450. They figured since it had only been in the paper one day, they didn’t want to go quite so low. We accepted. The husband, Kelley Goodwin, is a service rep for Honda and has taken great care of the car. It has rather high miles for it’s age because he drives to dealerships in Colorado and Utah, but it is in great condition. It is under warranty for a short time still so we weren’t too concerned about having a diagnostic check done on it.
We made arrangements to pick up the car on Friday, but because of the distance to Castle Rock and rush hour traffic we weren’t able to get back to Weld County to register the vehicle. We got a $2 temporary tag in Castle Rock that is good for two months. Chris spent much of Friday evening cleaning and detailing both Hondas, and Saturday morning we were on way to Utah in our van. That is, I was in the van with the girls. Chris drove the Accord out as a surprise for Shane. Chris set up his lap top for Amy to watch DVDs on the way and she sat mesmerized for most of the trip.
Brad was the only one who knew we were coming out early in our family. We decided to leave Friday so that Chris’ Mom could see the girls for about an hour before she had to leave to go back home. She had been in Utah for the previous week with her exchange student, Caroline from Belgium. Brad, Dad, Dallin, and Shane had tickets for attending the Priesthood session in the Conference Center, and we missed seeing them by about five minutes. Mom was still at Brad’s though and was fairly surprised to see us. Even more surprise to see our new van and the Accord sitting right next to it.
Grandma Ball stopped at Brad’s to visit about 15 minutes after we arrived. Amy was excited to see her two grandmas especially since they both had presents for her and Alicia. The visit for Grandma Ball was short, but she was thrilled that we made the effort for her to see the girls, even if it was just for a short time.
Aunt Donna brought Angela and Wade to Brad’s to visit, thinking she would spend time with “Grandma Canada” (as Angie calls her) and was surprised when I opened the door. Her kids had been sleeping in the car, but it didn’t take them long to wake up and enjoy their cousins. Angie and Amy had a great time playing together. They left around eight before the guys got back from Priesthood sessions so that Donna could get things ready at her house for Mom and Dad to come and stay–they hadn’t planned on staying there until Sunday night. I put Alicia down for the night, but Amy was still up (Daylight Saving Time took effect that night). We were watching out the window when the guys drove up and they couldn’t tell that it was us and thought I was Donna. Dad got right up to the window and took a moment for him to even realize that it was me.
We showed them our exciting new purchase and when Shane came out to look he also saw the Accord. He was pretty thrilled that we had brought it with us. He wasn’t able to take it back to Rexburg though because our insurance on it expired on Sunday and he didn’t have any registration information. He was pretty disappointed not to be able to take it with him, but excited that he could come back the next week and pick it up.
The girls had a pretty rough night sleeping. Amy woke up around 1:30 am crying. When I tried to find out what was wrong, she wouldn’t tell me. I tried laying down with her but nothing. We were all in the same room–Amy on the floor and Alicia in a play pen. Finally she woke up Alicia who started to cry quite loudly. I fed Alicia, but she wouldn’t go back to sleep. Chris got tired of being kept up by crying babies and finally took Alicia for a drive in the car. Amy fell asleep after a bit and Alicia too was asleep when Chris brought her home. What a night!
On Sunday, everybody but Susan and her family came to Brad’s for dinner, including Grandma Great, Gayle and Maureen. I called Susan to let her know that we had come early and she was kind of disappointed that she hadn’t known we were coming or they would have maybe changed their Sunday afternoon plans. Before we had dinner though, Chris and I drove to Thanksgiving Point to pick up Grandpa Kline who had stayed at Kevin’s overnight. We drove him to the airport to drop him off; he was anxious to see our new van–and us. What a weekend for seeing Grandmas and Grandpas!
After dinner, Chris took Amy out to play on the playground toys at Brad’s complex. A short time later Chris carried her into the house and placed her in my lap. She was whimpering and crying some and her face grew more and more pale as I held her. I became more and more concerned and when I finally laid her out flat on the bed, she started crying in agony. I don’t think she has ever been hurt so badly. There were no visible signs but she was obviously in a lot of pain. I slept in the bed with her that night and Chris slept in the other room with Alicia (hoping that someone would get a good night’s rest since they were both awake the night before). She moaned throughout the night and would reach over to make sure that I was still by her side. Poor thing.
Chris had permission to work remotely while in Utah and set up shop at Brad’s house Monday morning. I stuck around because I knew the girls would need naps in the morning. Since we were in Salt Lake, it wasn’t as easy to take off. I am not as familiar with Salt Lake, and I would have had to come back and get Chris if I went to Provo. He finished working around three and we all drove up to Provo together. We went to the mall and then drove around a bit, looking at our old house and feeling a little homesick for the greenness and beautiful flowers. We had dinner at Donna’s that evening with everyone–Kings included. Amy had a fabulous time playing with her cousins. She was asleep by the time we got back to Brad’s house and slept in his twin bed in another room ALL NIGHT LONG. Alicia woke up, but this time she fell asleep as I nursed her.
On Tuesday, we drove to Susan’s house for Chris to work and use their fast internet connection for downloading stuff. Amy loved playing in the back yard on the swings and slides and toys and quickly dubbed it “the park”. She will certainly need a park in her own back yard soon. She played with Nathan and Grandma all morning and then with Kaden when he got home from school. She was so tuckered out by the end of the day that she fell asleep after dinner while watching tv at 6:45 pm. She stayed asleep as we drove back to Brad’s and even when we put her to bed. And she slept until 8:15 am. She needs to play hard more often!
On Wednesday, Chris worked for a short time while I cleaned Brad’s kitchen and the shower in the bathroom. It took me a couple of hours to do it all. He has been so busy lately that he doesn’t have time for cleaning. I cleaned stuff with November and December expirations out of his fridge. We went out to dinner with our friends from Novell and with Uncle Kevin (Candace was in Washington visiting her family all week so he was getting pretty lonely) so Brad was pretty surprised when he got home to smell Pine Sol. He said, “I didn’t even know I had Pine Sol.”
Thursday, Chris went to Brad’s practice to try and get all of the computer problems taken care of there. That took him most of the day which wasn’t so fun for me. Mom and Dad picked him up around 3:30 and all of us went to Temple Square. I had reserved tickets at the Legacy Theater to see “The Testament: One Fold and One Shepherd”. This was Alicia’s first movie in a theater and Amy’s first since she was about five months old. Amy walked into the theater “all by herself” (which seems to be her motto lately) and tried to seat herself. She pulled a seat down to sit on it and it was heavier than she realized. It slipped out of her fingers and popped back up in her face. She bit into her lip quite badly and the whole theater heard her cry.
Amy was good for about half the movie and then wanted to be up and wandering, but Alicia only made it about 10 to 15 minutes. I tried to stand up with her in the aisle, I even went to the back row of the theater (it wasn’t very full) to feed her, but she was pretty restless most of the time. The movie was great, but I would love to be able to see it next time without children to interrupt the mood.
We walked around Temple Square a bit and took some pictures of the girls in the beautiful flowers. They weren’t smiling too much, but were cute nonetheless. We visited the Christus and then went to the Conference Center to take a look. I love Utah in Spring. It is about three to four weeks ahead of Colorado, and I miss it. Unfortunately, Alicia was hit hard with allergies and was sneezing, stuffed up, and teary eyed until we got some allergy medicine into her. From Temple Square, we went to Donna’s for dinner again. We had originally planned to take Brad out to dinner, but we thought that Amy would have a lot more fun playing with her cousins and doesn’t get to many opportunities to do so.
On Friday, we stopped by Brad’s work, and he gave Chris an eye exam and tried to give one to Amy. She wasn’t cooperating much and was too shy. From there, we dropped the girls off at Susan’s while Chris and I went to the temple. It was our first time in too long of a time (since before Alicia was born). It was wonderful to be there, and I know that I need to go more often. I would like to try and go monthly. We met everyone at Golden Corral for dinner to celebrate Donna’s birthday. It was fairly crowded and the wait just to get in was about 20 minutes. Shane was down from Rexburg again as he had a meeting in Provo on Saturday morning. After dinner, we said our goodbyes and went to Kevin and Candace’s to spend the night. Candace had just flown back in earlier in the evening. Amy and Alicia were so tired they fell right to sleep. Amy cried again in the middle of the night and was pretty disoriented without any nightlights. I found her trying to find her way around in the dark. I lay down with her for awhile until she fell back to sleep. Both she and Alicia slept until 8 am. (We have decided that they need curtains on their windows to darken their rooms. The sun comes up so early here and they like to wake up with it.
We had breakfast with Kevin, Candace, and Jonathan, Becky, Kyle and Andrew, and Lori on Saturday morning. We tried to visit with Becky earlier in the week, but she was gone when we stopped by her house. After that, we packed up to leave. We realized that we had left toys at Susan’s house and Shane was bringing Amy’s “baby” to Susan’s since we had forgotten it at Brad’s. That’s one of those things you just don’t want to lose. We finally left Provo about 11:45 am and began our journey home.
The girls were much crabbier this time around. It worked much better traveling earlier in the day with them. What would normally be an eight hour drive took ten hours with all of the stops. We were glad to be home though as we had originally planned to come back on Sunday. I had had enough by Tuesday and we felt as though we had done everything we needed to do.
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