Seasons Change

We went from this...

   

to this—in a week!

Leah is Two!

Leah turned two last week.  I can hardly believe it.  It was so fun to celebrate her birthday for the first time ever.  I couldn't help but think about what a contrast this must have been with her birthday last year in China.  I remember wondering about her and feeling pretty down.  I'm so grateful she's home now where she belongs.  Luke and Seth were almost as excited as they get for their own birthdays.  I have run into tons of people this week who've been around my kids at school, neighbors, etc. and they all heard about Leah having her birthday from them.  What good brothers.

Leah's birthday was on November 6th.  The day of the presidential election.  I knew between young mens for Jer and watching the returns (that was deflating to say the least) it wouldn't be a great day for a party.  We did have balloons and donuts though and then held off to the weekend for her party.  I wanted to take a few pictures of Leah on her birthday.  On a cooperativity scale of 1-10 I'd say we were heading into negative territory.

 

This is not the most flattering pic of Leah, but I love that it shows her double chin.  This girl has some for real chub on her.  I can hardly recognize the skeletal Leah in the pics we got from China.

Don't let those few pics fool you.  Apparently Leah hates balloons.  She wants nothing to do with them.

Ian was all too happy to play with them.

 

 I took Leah to vote with me.  I'm still baffled by the election results.  I truly don't get the liberal ideology, but I am so grateful Leah's a US citizen.  I don't think I ever took being an American for granted, but if I did my visit to China reminded me how awesome it is to live here.  America is truly exceptional.

 And then Leah's polka dot party on Saturday.  It was fun and she got lots of cute, girly stuff.  She loved it!

 

 

Leah got this little mini me baby doll.  We found her downstairs feeding the baby a bottle.  I think she saw that a time or two in the orphanage.  She looked like a pro.

Happy Birthday baby girl!

Cousins

I offered to try and get some shots of the kids together for Cindy, so we took a few pictures up at her house a few weeks ago before the snow started to fly. It was a real struggle to get a group shot of 7 kids. I've since learned how to swap heads so next time I'm going to make sure I have tons of shots and try that if all else fails! Some of the smaller group shots and individuals of the kids I took along the way turned out cute. They could all still be sharper and need some work, but it was fun and I learned a lot. Blogger also distorts the pictures which is annoying, so I need to fiddle more with resizing them for the web. Anyway, I love all these kiddos and I'm so glad they're such great friends.

UEA Misadventure

I'm way behind on posting this one since it's been almost a month, but this trip really should be documented.  This trip was a series of mishaps that all came out well in the end, and we even managed to have a little fun.  We decided to make UEA a yurtcation for the third year running.  We've had beautiful locations and tons of fun on our past two yurt trips.  This time not so much.  The location was about 25 air miles outside of Vernal, enough said right, and just about every little problem that could arise did!

So here's the mishap list followed by some pictures:

• We (or should I say Jer) decides we should take the four wheeler along in case we need it, want to ride it, etc.  We have never done that before, so now we have to pull a trailer.
• We are also taking bikes but the trailer is occupying the hitch for the bike rack, so the bike rack is attached to the four-wheeler hitch on the trailer.
• We set off on the long drive sandwiched into every seat of our truck.  Yes, I'm riding right next to Jer being his "truck chick" as he calls it with not even a DVD player along for the ride.  Believe it or not the kids were actually amazing, and we had fun on the ride.  
• About 30 minutes in we realize the bikes cannot ride in the up position so we lower the bike rack down so it's resting on the trailer.  We get the worst gas mileage known to man the entire trip.
• We eat at McDonald's twice in one day.
• We start the off road part of our journey and realize although it is only 2.5 miles it is a crazy, rough road and trying to go gently to preserve the bikes could take us the rest of our lives.
• We eventually take the bikes and four wheeler off the trailer.  Some bikes are thrown on top of the rest of our crap in the back of truck and two are just loosey goosey on the trailer.  I get to drive said four wheeler behind.  
• Bikes are bouncing everywhere including off of the trailer.
• We take a wrong turn and do some backtracking.
• We eventually unhitch and leave trailer behind.  Jer puts the trailer pin on the truck bumper and then we drive off and leave it.  I am driving the four wheeler, with the bike rack on, which is being bounced off of every rock in site.
• We finally get there.  It is a beautiful night with lots of stars and a nearly full moon.  We don't have a lot of time before dark, so we end up eating cold cereal and french bread for dinner.
• We realize this yurt is not as well furnished as most.  It has a rickety card table covered in duct tape and two folding chairs.  
• We finally get all crazy children to bed.
• The next morning Jer and I see signs of mouse activity.  These signs include mouse droppings here and there including in the nasty cookware they provide.  Luckily we brought our own although I forgot the skillet for pancakes, so we use a tiny frying pan.  I get concerned we may all contract hanta virus so we send everyone outside and make plan B which is go back to Vernal for the night.
• We decide to spend the day playing outside and then head.  Kids bike, we eat lunch, explore, everyone has fun.  Jer and Luke drive back to the trailer looking for the pin.  No such luck.  Jer informs me that he forgot to fill the four wheeler with gas, so we can't actually drive it much anyway.  I'm pretty puzzled at this point.
• Jer does take the kids on a few little rides around the yurt.  We realize we forgot the actual motorcycling helmets but due to the gas situation it doesn't seem like a big deal.  
• Luke wants to learn to drive the four wheeler.  He putts all around with Jer having a blast.  Then it happens.  We depart from our normally cautious, responsible selves.  We become those parents.  You know the ones you see on the news and wonder what they were thinking.  Jer has taken his hands off for a second and in an instant Luke gases it, turns the wheel sharp, and drives the powerful, heavy four wheeler up a tree to the point it rolls to the side.  
• Jer is launched a long ways and jumps up just in time to try and stop the four wheeler as it rolls over the top of Luke.  That's right.  It rolled over him.  Not on its wheels but the hard parts right over the top of him.  Luckily Jer tweaked the handlebars, Luke was kind of down in the rut in the trail, and he was being watched over.  
• I come out to find Luke laying in the trail with his glasses off and broken kind of crying and Jer bent down over him looking as concerned as I've ever seen him.  I try to wrap my mind around what just happened (I didn't see it), we evaluate Luke, and go to plan C which is get to town as quick as possible.
• Jer and I are constantly checking Luke (who seems totally fine), saying prayers of thanks that even stupid people receive blessings, and literally running around packing everything up.
• We start our long, bumpy ride out.  Recollect the trailer.  Use zip ties in place of the safety pin.  You get the idea.  It was not a quick process. 
• We finally get to Vernal and decide that Luke does not seem to need any medical attention.  We make the decision to watch him carefully and look for a hotel.  
• We consult Jer's phone for directions to the Marriott because Jer is definitely anti-dump at this point.  It sends us off in the totally wrong direction to a big scary looking Super Six.  We eventually find the correct hotel and check in.
• Leah immediately falls down and bumps her face and bleeds all over the carpet.
• We eat pizza.  I quarantine everyone's clothes and bedding, and we all shower.
• Jer wasn't planning on being in town so his two shirt choices are one that says "I'm kind of a big deal" and one about how people hunt because it's not fun to shoot broccoli.  Then again we are in Vernal.
• We stop at Kmart to get some super glue for Luke's glasses which he has been without since the incident.
• We go to the Dinosaur National Monument and can now say we've been there and done that.  No trips to this neck of the woods planned ever again.
• The kids are actually sad to leave and somehow we have had quite a bit of fun, but we hit the road.  
• Out of desperation we stop at Wendy's in Evanston (no offense but what an armpit).  Seth and Ian get cool toys in their meals and Luke gets this little house cat.  He joked that he got run over by a four wheeler and then got a house cat.  It gave us all a good laugh, and he gave it to Leah.
• In Sardine Canyon I comment to Jer that we're low on gas.  He agrees but based on the miles to drive thing we're fine. We watch said miles to drive gauge go down and down.  On the highway near Wellsville we run out of gas.  Yep.  We have never, ever run out of gas but on this trip we did.  We sit there in the dark with cars whizzing past us, laughing about our series of unfortunate events (except that one which is not funny), waiting for our friend Steve to bring us some gas.
• We finally get home.  Luke is fine which I'm thankful for each day.  We have passed incubation period for hantavirus with no symptoms.  We got a refund on the yurt, and we lived to tell!  This one will go down in the record books.

So here are some pics of our wild and crazy weekend.  Strangely we did have a lot of fun just hanging out together and everyone kept their cool despite crazy circumstances so there are some good memories!