Summer 2010 Adventure #1

So between my 45 voice and piano students and Ari's relentless days of running around and chasing the boys we embarked on our first summer journey. It was originally supposed to be the only adventure, but we recently decided to sneak in a quick NC beach trip at the end of July.

I scheduled a little break in my lesson calendar and we were off to Iowa to visit Nancy's family in Maquoketa. It was great cause we were able to fly from the Williams Field Air Port in Gilbert which is just down the road from Jim and Kim's. I had dramamine all set cut up in little bitty pieces so we could sneak it to them with a bunch of Nerds candy. The boys were actually pretty amazing on the flight. I loaded up the iPhone with a ton of Jaxon's favorite cartoons, and he was pretty much set the whole way. He was fascinated with looking out the window and pointing out the clouds. It was fun, because this is the first time he really paid attention to that kind of stuff. Kodee was also fascinated. A lot of times we think Jaxon and Kodee are kind of on the same level development wise.

We had to detour to Des Moines because the weather in Cedar Rapids was too bad for a landing. That was a bummer because by that time the boys had pretty much had it, but they made the 20 minute flight after that pretty easily. Nancy was there waiting for us, along with a humidity that immediately knocked my socks off. It was very sweltering and I felt soggy for a couple of days (and I'm not talking about my muscle tone:)

The best part about Iowa is how green it is. Nancy literally puts seeds in the ground, and doesn't have to worry about her garden growing. The soil is BLACK and rich. John built a pretty shnazzy playhouse/slide/swing set while we were there. Their kids are SO lucky to have such a crafty handy dad.

Among our many adventures while staying with them we had a cook out at a national park with lots of caves

we took the kids to an awesome water park in Debuque, we survived a major Tornado warning scare while we drove to Nauvoo, and we took a little detour into Wisconsin just to say that we'd been there.

Jaxon LOVED playing with his cousins. One of his new favorite people is Adam Pawlowski. He'd be his shadow if he could. He also loved playing with Luke and Bekah. He was so funny because every day he wanted to wear a hat, so Nance found him an old hat and it was stuck to his head like glue for the whole trip.

Kodee loved seeing his cousins as well and loved throwing things down Nancy's stairs. The poor kid got a little fever on the last day of our trip so the whole way home he was pretty out of it (which made for easy/chill traveling.)

The water park we went to was called Grand Harbor. It was an indoor park, with the majority of it resembling a huge Mississippi Steamroller that had all kinds of spickets and buckets dumping water all over the place. There were two ways to climb to the top- one was only by rope ladders. I tried this way first just to see if I could hold my own on Survivor, I regret to say the Survivor challenges would eat me alive. Maybe I should bury this dream. The second, much easier way was a bunch stairs, that I didn't see at the beginning. There were two twisty water slides on the top and Jaxon went down by himself a few times! Kodee loved them! On the very top was a huge 100 Gallon or so bucket of water that dumped about every 15 minutes. It was pretty torrential if you were standing underneath it.

Another slide on the other side of the building went outside for a little bit, and was a darkened tunnel. Jacob was really excited to go down this slide, so I went with him in the double tube. After going I decided Ariana and Nancy both needed turns going down this slide. It was pretty ferocious.

Nancy has an extreme fear of water slides because she was smothered by a large woman who came down on top of her when she was a little girl while visiting Sunsplash. I talked her into it and as we were making our way towards the top she kept saying the guard was going to say "um. . . excuse me ma'am, but the two of you together exceed the weight limit. . ." She didn't of course but this "excuse me ma'am" joke goes way back in our family, so we were dying laughing. The guard gave us a nice shove and Nancy's high pitched squeal could be heard all through the building. When the tube shot out of the slide, we glided MUCH FARTHER than the tubes were meant to go, and almost crashed into the deck on the side of the pool. Once again we were DYING laughing, and I flipped over backwards cause I was embarrassed how far we went. Nancy pitched forward- all of this was just HILARIOUS! When trying to recount the experience to John, it ended up with tears streaming down our faces and the highest pitch talking you've ever heard. Ari got a second of it on camera, but I swear we were going to pee our pants.

As we left for Nauvoo, we knew there were some dark clouds in the horizon, but while I pumped the gas and ran into pay, these dark clouds came at us at what seemed 200 MPH! People in the station were saying the toranado sirens were going off and garbage cans were being lifted off the street and slamming into the windows. I was pretty freaked out and the cashier offered to have me bring the wife and kids down to their basement to wait it out. Meanwhile Nancy was in Wal-Mart waiting for us to pick her up, and I just went out to the car and decided to brave the storm. It was pretty freaky, but we're still alive. We were driving John and Nancy's Kia, while her family was in their van.

While in Nauvoo, the weather was great- VERY heavy and humid, but the air was still as a statue. We hit up the Ropemaking station, the candle making station, the blacksmith shop, and we tried to go to the brickyard but they were closed. Since my birthday's coming up, I received the example horse shoe the black smith made. That was pretty exciting. It always reminds me why I love family vacations in the summer cause we were usually on them during my birthday, and ended up going to some pretty cool places where I got to be recognized because of my birthday. I remember going up on a stage in Okaboji, IA one day when an Elvis impersonator wanted me to join him in the "hound dog" dance. Anyway, I got the cool nauvoo horse shoe!






That night we went to the "Sunset on the Mississippi" concert. It was awesome because as the missionaries were finishing up their portion, I saw the Young Ambassadors and Randy Booth coming in to set up for their show immediately following. We were able to watch half of the YA show, when it was then cancelled due to an extreme weather warning for that area. It was hilarious because they pulled the plug right when one of the girls playing Elpheba from Wicked was perched up high singing the climax of "Defying Gravity". Right then a huge gust of cold wind blew into the audience and trees were shaking, and it was just as if the technicians planned the whole thing as part of the show. The Nauvoo President interrupted the singer and said "LEAVE NOW!" The girl was just laughing as all of us were. It was fun catching up with Randy and showing off my boys to him. It's pretty amazing that I'm doing my own little "mini YA's" here in Safford.

When we left Nauvoo the weather was HORRENDOUS! I swear we drove through, or at least grazed by a tornado. The windshield wipers couldn't work fast enough so I couldn't see the road. We stopped at Applebee's and had a nice dinner- at about 11 at night. The boys were exhausted. We ended up getting back to Nancy's around 2 that night, and flew out the next morning.

We loved our Iowa adventure! Thanks for inviting us Pawlowski's! We'll have to make this somewhat of a tradition! It's always fun having Iowa cousins.

Now here we are melting, and swimming away our summer. Jaxon's in swimming lessons right now and he's doing so well! He's started to dive for keys and hold his breath for long periods of time, and put his head all the way under the water. He even goes down the water slide at the Daley Estate's pool all by himself. Kodee is fearless in the water. He seems so annoyed that we have to hold on to him, and would much prefer to be let go and fend for himself. I really hope that by the end of the summer Jax will be able to jump off the side and swim back to the side. Here's hoping!

Last night we took the boys to a swim meet to watch Rylan swim. I'm trying to brainwash them into being Olympic swimmers! I wish I was coaching or managing a pool. I'm gonna have to work on that for next year!