Weekend Trip Part 2: Escalante

My grandma's funeral was in Escalante Friday morning. There was a lot of family there to say their last goodbyes.

There were many nice things said at the funeral and I even learned some things about my grandma. Growing up, I would often visit my grandparents farm with my dad. But while we were there, I was usually following my dad around, so I really didn't get to know my grandma very well. But I know that she was an amazing woman and possessed so many admirable qualities.

When we went up to the cemetery after the funeral, they allowed those who wished to say some words into the microphone and share memories. Many people told stories of my grandma and remembered all of the wonderful things about her. It was really nice and I liked hearing everyone's memories of her.

A big lunch was provided for the family, then we went to the farm one last time. There were so many people out there, and Will was extremely tired and fussy so we didn't stay long. We still had a 3 hour drive to the lake, and I was hoping that he would sleep for a good portion of the way.

About 15-20 minutes outside of Escalante, our car started making ticking noises. Then we noticed a good trail of smoke following behind us. We pulled over on the side of the road and got out to see what was going on. As I got out of the car, I was engulfed in smoke. Our engine was smoking way bad. Luckily, we were the first to leave, so I knew that my family would be shortly behind us.

My sister found us first. Her husband is a mechanic so he began to look over our car. When we tried to start it, it would shake and rattle the entire engine, then die. Definitely not looking good.

Slowly, the rest of my family started showing up. My dad, who is also a mechanic stopped to take a look. It must have been quite the scene because we had about 5-6 cars pulled off of the road trying to help us out.

As they continued to look at it, it was quickly becoming apparent that our car was toast. And not just needs a small fix toast, I mean completely toast. Lance and I were pretty stressed and freaking out about this point.

And look what we found right outside my door:

Looks like we weren't the first ones to break down in that spot!

Things continued to get worse. Suddenly something (maybe oil?) was spewing from the front of the car and liquid was draining everywhere.

In the end, we decided to tow the car to Panguitch and decide what to do from there. When we got there, the shop said it would be about $1200 minimum to fix, plus it would take them a month! Definitely wasn't going to do that. By this point, everyone was anxious to get to the lake. Not having many options, we left our car in Panguitch, piled all of our stuff into another car, and made our way to the lake. My brother-in-law has family in Panguitch so we were able to leave the car at their place until we decide what to do with it.

Needless to say, it put a real damper on our vacation. It was bad enough that the car died, but to have it happen right after putting so much money into it was just frustrating. Besides the $130 we'd put into the the day before, we just registered it a few weeks before, plus we had another $100 repair about a month ago.

And for some reason, the day before we left, I started looking online for a car to buy. I just felt like we would need to buy a new car within the next year. Little did I know that it would be much sooner.

Weekend Trip Part 1: Cedar City

Every year around the 24th of July, my family does a trip down to Lake Powell. Due to different reasons, Lance and I have never gone before. This year, we decided that we would try to make it. Then on July 14, 2012 my Grandma Woolsey passed away.

Several months ago, we discovered that she has a brain tumor and that she wasn't going to be around for very long. Fortunately, she passed painlessly in her sleep and is back with her sweetheart.

We were originally planning on going to Lake Powell either Thursday night or early Friday morning, but with my Grandma leaving, a few things changed. Her funeral was going to be in Escalante on Friday morning. My dad thought it would be good for everyone to still go to the lake afterwards, so we would just go from Escalante.

So last Thursday (the 19th) Lance and I packed up all of our stuff and started making our way to Cedar City. We would stay the night there, then get up early the next morning to go to the funeral. We took Lance's Chevy Cavalier because mine doesn't have air conditioning. We stopped at my brother Jim's work in Bountiful to get the oil changed, as well as a few other little things fixed.

Will was out before we even got out of Logan. He had snuggled up with his dog and was fast asleep.

While we were waiting for the car, we went and got some lunch and went bowling. (Cheap way to pass the time instead of just sitting around.)

The car ended up costing around $130 to fix everything.

The trip to Cedar City was...in a word...a NIGHTMARE. Remember how peaceful he was leaving Logan? Well that didn't last long. Will screamed bloody murder for a good 2-3 hours or our remaining 3.5 hours. I was about ready to pull my hair out and thought one of us wouldn't make it there alive. Yet somehow we did and the three of us had never been so happy to get out of a car.

We spent the evening hanging out, eating food, and getting ready for our premiere of The Dark Knight Rises. We prepared with masks and capes then booked it to the theater.

 We were some of the last ones there and we didn't get the best seats. Then luckily, some workers came and said they were opening another theater and that we could move if we wanted. Score! So we got great seats without having to wait hours beforehand

The movie was AWESOME!  Lance talked of nothing else the nitrite weekend.. But it really was that good. We got home exhausted after 3am and had to wake up by 6:30am to get on the road to Escalante.

Bear Lake

It's so easy as a couple and a family to get caught doing the same routine, the same things over and over again. Lance and I are big victims of this. Often it seems like each day is the same and things just sort of blend together. Now, I'm not saying there isn't anything wrong with routine, but I think it's important to mix it up every once in a while and try breaking the routines to do something new.

A lot of people thrive on set routines and love to have each day organized as such. I am not one of those people. I can't do the exact same thing every day at the same time...I just get super bored. Lately I kind of felt like that was happening with me, so I knew it was time to plan something exciting to do.

Bear Lake.

Once Lance was done with his obligations on campus yesterday, we headed to Bear Lake. We found a nice beach and spent some time in the water. My camera was low on battery so I only got a few pictures.

Will was very hesitant at first and wasn't too thrilled about being in the water.

 Typical Will face 

 But eventually he really started warming up to it and quite enjoying it.

 The three of us just sat there with the waves washing over us forever. I don't think I've ever seen him sit in one place for so long.

Afterwards, he decided he was more content to sit in our of our laps.

Then he found some people's floatie chairs. After getting permission from them, Will was happy to bounce on it, sit on it, throw mud on it, etc. He especially loved the mud. He would grab two handfuls and wind up to throw them. In doing so, mud would splatter in his hair and he was soon covered head to toe in mud. Unfortunately at this point, my camera was completely dead. :(

Finally, we decided to blow up our lounge chair and see if Will would sit it in while we went out to deeper water. He sat back with his head on the pillow and relaxed while we dragged him around the lake.

He looked so comfortable and completely relaxed.

At one point he was trying to sit up and move and he ended up falling off of the raft head first into the lake. He was sputtering a bit, but otherwise seemed ok.

It was really hot and the water was a lot warmer than I was expecting. Bear Lake is known to be freezing, but it really wasn't bad at all, especially in the shallow parts.

We stayed at the lake as long as my stomach would allow, but then I was starving and needed food fast. We decided to stop and get some fries and a shake to hold us over until we were back in Logan. Lance surprised me and tried the famous raspberry shake, and I got a cake batter shake. If you know Lance, that is surprising because any ice cream he eats usually has mint, oreos, chocolate chips, cookie dough, or combination of those.

When we got back to Logan, we stopped at KFC and got some food for us to take home. They we had a little picnic in our backyard. Overall it was a good day. It was nice to just get out of the house for a change and do something different. And Will was really good and seemed to enjoy himself.

Jealousy

Taking a little toddler places can be very difficult. Running errands takes twice as long and can be downright miserable sometimes. Fortunately for me, however, Will is adorable and I have yet to take him someplace without someone commenting to me on what a cute baby he is. Now, I'm not trying to brag or anything, but I can't take him anywhere without someone complimenting him. And you know what...it's kind of nice. Kind of brightens my step when those errands aren't going so well.

The two things that people comment on the most are definitely his hair and his eyelashes. Will has SO MUCH hair and it's such a beautiful color, has some curl to it, grows SUPER fast, and seems to be perfect. I'll admit, I'm a bit jealous. I wish mine was that thick or that it grew that fast. He definitely got those genes from Lance's side and I'm so grateful. And his eyelashes...wow they are long. No guy should be blessed with such long eyelashes. Guys could care less about their eyelashes, but isn't that what most girls would love? Again, jealous. I just hope that when I have a little girl that she has these same traits as Will.

Will's hair has lightened up considerably with the sun. But it was also getting long and I felt he would keep much cooler if I kept it short for the summer. So I decided to cut Will's hair myself.

Here are a few before pictures:

It was really hard to get him to sit still while I was cutting it and he was trying to crawl all over the counter and was getting into everything. As I was trying to finish up, I noticed he had found all of my necklaces and was proceeding to put as many of them on as possible. Of course I had to take a quick break for some pictures.

And here are some of the after product:

Yes those are Santa PJ's. It was definitely time to do some laundry.

The next day we decided to try spiking it. I think I like it better just down.