In Which Jake Tries to Earn a Little Extra Cash

The big thing with the sixth grade boys this summer has been starting mini businesses. Lawn mowing, weeding, pet sitting, etc…  Jake came to me a few weeks ago wanting to start a business like this and wanting to advertise around the neighborhood. He suggested lawn mowing. However, since he is not an expert yet (he just started doing ours a few months ago) and also since lugging a lawn mower across town does not sound like fun, I encouraged him to think of other ideas. When stumped I asked him to tell me what he likes to do. He said sports. I also asked him what he feels he is good at. He said entertaining little kids. Bam. He had a business idea. Within an hour or two he had typed up this flyer advertising JakeZ SportZ SkillZ for KidZ.  He paid me to run copies for him and he started delivering them to folks throughout the neighborhood. He put one up in the Merc and one up in the local library, then he asked me to post it on the neighborhood Facebook page.  He had his first client last week and it went really well. He got a rave review on FB stating that “it was the best $7.00 spent all summer”.  He is taking it very seriously and is learning so much about running a business. I love it. 

Chicago, Seattle, and Horsethief… oh my!

We returned from our Utah trip and a day later I left for Chicago for 8 days. We flew Mary out to help Brian with the kids and I think everyone had a really good time. There were many games of Old Maid and War and Phase 10, puzzle making, cupcake baking, trips to the pool, and other grandma related activities. I don’t think they really missed me despite the fact it was the longest I have ever been away from the family!  THANKS, MARY!! 

While I was gone Brian started his summer NBLL season with his team, The Bombers, and Jake continued his AAU Summer Ball. They each have 1-2 practices a week with 1-2 games per week, too.  Faith and Jake also decided to play parts in the community production of Peter Pan that a few teenage girls are directing this summer as a benefit for the Hidden Springs Library. Those practices started while I was in Chicago, too. Faith is a mermaid and Jake is Captain Hook. So far they are having a lot of fun with it. The production will be put on in the barn on August 17^th. 

By the time I got back Sheila and Wayne had arrived for the summer and we started things off right with a really fun night out to see Matt Nathanson. It was the third year in a row that we have seen him at the Knitting Factory.  

We also, finally, got Faith on her bike. After countless attempts (usually with tears) over the last year, we decided enough is enough. OK. So I bribed her. I took her out and told her if she could ride her bike on her own by the end of the day I’d take her out to buy her a new bike helmet of her choice and a Littlest Pet Shop guy for her collection. Apparently that did it. Brian and I took turns running behind her and beside her, on the grassy hills and on the streets around our house and the Merc. While she is certainly no expert (stopping continues to be an issue) she made a lot of progress and ended up riding around the block by herself (with one of us jogging next to her).

Both Brian and I took a day off in late June so we could go to Roaring Springs. They kids earned a free ticket there by doing a reading program thru the library this spring. We spent an afternoon there and Jake hung out with one of his friends that happened to go on the same day as we did. We barely saw him between the hours of 11-3. He rode most of the slides and, being the preteen that he is, hardly deigned to say hello to us. We rode several slides with Tanner and Faith stayed in the wave pool mostly. It was a chilly day (well.. it was 70 degrees but cold for a waterslide park) so we didn’t do too much overall. 

 We celebrated the 4^th of July with the annual parade, concert on the green, a BBQ at a friend’s house, and fireworks at the Hawks game with mom and Sheila and Wayne. It was a hot day but a perfect night for a baseball game.  They lost (I think they have lost every game we have ever seen) but the fireworks show was amazing. It was really long and way better than last year’s show. 

Evenings have been spent at the pool mostly, or in the backyard with the sprinklers on the trampoline. In the few weekends we have actually been home, Brian and I have finished the backyard. Only thing left to do now is build furniture for around the fire pit. We want to make some benches or seats out of pallets eventually.  We’ve got a pretty good yard for both adults and kids: the patio with table and chairs for entertaining or eating, fire pit area, the hammock area, a basketball hoop, and the trampoline.  I’m so glad to be almost done with it. Now if we could just manage to keep the plants and trees alive. Our thumbs are much more black than green unfortunately!

Brian had to travel to Seattle for work this past week and Tanner had his week at YMCA camp. Mom, Faith, Jake and I drove him up to Horsethief Resevoir on Monday morning. It was so hard to drop him off. He was so excited to go and only seemed a little nervous when we said goodbye. I, however, was near tears, and mom had to remind me not to cry. He just seemed so young to be leaving for 6 days! But I managed to depart without tears and we spent the rest of the day in McCall just bumming around, getting ice cream and coffee, shopping a little, and enjoying the day. We didn’t get back until 730 that night. With Brian and Tanner gone it was only the three of us for the next 3 days. My work was crazy busy but the evenings were really fun and we had a double sleepover one night, went to a movie together, and took several late evening trips to the pool. All the while I missed Tanner but also realized that sadly, one of the children will have to be sold. Or given away. Wow. Two kids is SO MUCH EASIER than three! We still haven’t decided which one we will have to say goodbye to. The threat is out there, though, so they all better be on their best behavior.

I got the news on Thursday that they needed me back in Chicago this week so I am typing this from 30,000 feet up. When we were there in June we launched TTM in 96 Chicago public schools and they need some last minute additional support so I’m on my way back to help out. I’ll be gone Sun through mid afternoon on Thursday.  It’s been a bit of scramble to get things set up that quickly- both for travel purposes and for the kids while I am gone. 

The hardest part about leaving on business again so soon though was that after missing Tanner all last week, I just got him back yesterday. It was just Brian and I driving up to Cascade this time. Jake and Faith had play practice so we left them at home. We listened to great music all the way and eagerly anticipated Tanner’s reaction to seeing us and to his first sleep away camp experience. We guessed, in true Tanner fashion, that he would run and hide when we arrived. Nope. He saw me and came running full speed into my arms and gave me the biggest, tightest, longest hug ever. And, yes, I ate it up. He took us on a tour of camp and tried to answer all our questions (although the answer to many was “I don’t know”). He looked exhausted and was filthy but he had a great time and is already looking forward to next year. He fell asleep in the car on the way home and was ready for bed by about 6PM last night. It’s going to take him a few days to fully recuperate, I think.  

The summer is going by far too quickly. By the time I return home it will officially be “mid-July” and before we know it the days of baseball and bball will be over and it will be time to return to the football field.  But, seriously, all the ads for “Back to School” are really, really premature. There’s still a lot of fun summer adventures to be had. 

Park City – Day 9 (and some of 10) - Fathers Day

Neither of us had ever been to Park City and had no idea what to expect other than a hotel, NOT a tent, NOT a lodge, NOT a camp, a HYATT. This part excited me to no end and I headed straight to the gym as soon as the car was unloaded to blow off some excess steam that driving 5 hours in the car with the kids always seems to cause. Marisa took the kids to the pool and even though we experienced a 40 degree temperature change in 24 hours (it as 55 in Park City), the kids jumped right in. Marisa sat in the hot tub while I finished up my workout.

After we all got back into the room, we went into Park City to explore. Having never been here, we were amazed how much of it reminded us of Squaw Valley, Truckee and Tahoe.  There is a lot to do for kids and adults alike and next time we come we will stay for more than the 18 hours we have this trip and do the alpine slide, hikes, zipline, challenge courses, fishing, biking, etc... We definitely plan to come back sometime in the next year. There were a ton of great vacation homes to look at, great restaurants and shopping. 

We could have walked around for hours, but it was dinnertime and as always on vacation, we’re doomed if we wait too long to eat, so we set out for food. Eating has been a major event on this trip. The kids want kid food, ALWAYS, and Marisa and I can only eat so much pub food.  So we have tried feeding them PB and Nutella and then eating where we want with limited success; we have tried taking them someplace quick (and cheap) and then eating what we want, and we have sometimes just given up. Tonight was a combination of the three. We took Jake and Faith to a Brazilian place (don’t ask me why), where Faith got a bagel with cream cheese and Jake got noodles with butter and parmesan. We got some beer and a shrimp appetizer to tide us over until our “good meal”, and Tanner decided he wasn’t hungry and would eat wherever we ate and watched some World Cup.

We wandered around and got shorter and shorter tempered as we tried to find something to eat that wasn’t going to cost a truck payment and finally ended up giving up.  That meant that we had to feed Tanner, so we stopped at a Burger King and got him a burger and the other kids got icees for desert. So that just left us. We stopped and got sushi and cheesecake from Whole Foods.  The whole process took about two plus hours. Not our best idea or parenting moment. We tried to prepare better for breakfast tomorrow morning. As we are beyond caring what they eat at this point we stopped at the 7-11 and picked up bananas, cheese sticks and pop tarts. We’re getting a good breakfast at the hotel, a workout and heading out on our last leg home tomorrow.  I am planning on a good night sleep tonight and the lights are going out as soon as I am done typing.

PS - After a good night's sleep, I got my Father's Day - workout as long as you want - present in and am posting this on our way out the door for our drive home. The only Father's Day present I asked for is that nobody touch anybody else in the car the whole way home. Wish us luck!

Utah Day 8 - Moab

The tent was pretty comfortable- even with the three cots jammed in with us. We foolishly set an alarm for 8AM, because we had to be in Moab for our Hummer Safari at 945 and wanted to get breakfast first. This was foolish because we had forgotten that at the end of the day, canvas castle or not, we were still camping and the sun comes up EARLY. Brian and I were awake by 615. Once the kids were up, dressed, and sunscreened we headed into town for breakfast at the Moab Diner. For Brian and Jake it was the best breakfast of the trip: bacon, eggs, hashbrowns, biscuits and gravy. I got to stop at Moab Roasting Company for an iced espresso, and we set off to the Moab Adventure Center with full, happy stomachs ready for an adventure.

The Hummer Safari was great. I’ve never been off roading before and it was so much fun. Our guide, Molly, was friendly and kind (Faith started the tour sobbing that she didn’t want to go too fast…) and full of good stories about the area and information about the ecology. We even saw dinosaur footprints! We drove straight up the sides of boulders all the way to the top of the famous Slick Rock bike trail. It was a really cool way to experience the scenery.

After the tour we headed straight to Milt’s for milkshakes and French fries.  I know I have been to Milts as a child but had no recollection of it. Even when I walked inside and looked through their old memorabilia none of it rang a bell.  Still, I was glad we went. The French fries were delicious and it was fun to see the place that my mom talks about with such fondness. Tanner was pretty tired at that point and not feeling great (he wouldn’t even drink his milkshake so we knew he wasn’t anywhere near normal!) so after lunch we went back to the tent for an afternoon nap.

Later that afternoon we headed into Arches National Park and walked a few easy trails. The kids loved climbing on the rocks and tried to climb as high as they could as we viewed The Windows area and the Turret Arch.  Next we drove to the viewing point of the Delicate Arch. I know I saw it as a child and I think I was equally disappointed when I saw it then that it was so far away!!  I guess you get so used to seeing pictures of it that when you see it in person, from way far off, it is way less majestic than all the postcards you’ve seen. We could have taken a hike into see it, but at that point it was 98 degrees and the hike was listed as “strenuous” so we didn’t even discuss it as an option. On the way back down we stopped to view Balanced Rock and had some “fun with perspective” with the iphone camera.

 

We headed back in to down town for some final souvenir shopping, dinner (where our waiter sounded EXACTLY like Lemony Snickett playing Count Olaf in Book 3 of the Series of Unfortunate Events. We had endless fun imagining that every phrase he uttered ended with "ORPHANS" in his scary voice!) and a shave ice for the kids then home to our canvas castle for our second night. We slept with the windows and door open (except for the screen) and listened to the high wind shake our tent and blow cool air into the rather warm campsite. It was a great night, but not a great night’s sleep for Brian and I.  The kids slept like rocks but the wind kept Brian and I awake – but it was really pleasant and I didn’t mind not sleeping. Brian was up with the sunrise and had started loading the car by the time the kids and I were stirring.

We woke up, had homemade granola and cinnamon rolls at the local coffee place and set out our way back to Boise -with a planned stop in Park City to break up the 10 hour drive. 

Spontaneity Pays Off - Day 6.5

We got back to our tent camp after dinner, planning on relaxing outside for the rest of the evening until bedtime, but at about 745 I realized that we were really close to Dead Horse Point. I remembered going there as a child- probably Faith’s age- with my Grampy and Grammy and on one particular picnic my Grampy carved Kim’s and my initials into a tree there. I didn’t think we’d actually find that tree, but it was so close to sunset and we were just hanging out so…. Yep, we jumped back in the car (my wonderful husband barely complained) and we headed up to Dead Horse Point just in time to watch the sun going down on one side of the canyon and the full moon rise on the other side. The kids scrambled over boulders, chased lizards,  and tried to throw rocks into the Colorado River below. It was pretty close to perfect.

Making the Best of a Bad Situation (Day 6)

The kids were sad to leave Zion Ponderosa. Jake had a great time hanging out on his own last night (he even met a girl... haha.... of course he met a girl...) and had made new friends there. Tanner and Faith had been loving the time with Brian learning how to play pool and pingpong and also having the freedom to be in the resort on their own. Brian and I were ready to move on, though, to second to last stop on the trip: Moab. Moab is where my mom grew up so I had some ghosts to chase (as my mom would say) and wanted to see the house where my Grammy and Grampy had lived- which I had last seen when I was 11 years old. I wanted to go to Milts- the diner my mom worked at in high school and where we used to go get milkshakes when we visited Moab as children. We also wanted to get to the last two national parks on our agenda: Canyonlands and Arches. The kids had a day and a half to recoup and prepare for some more hiking and we were all looking forward to the Hummer tour the next morning.

If you read the last post you know that Brian already had concerns about the place I booked. But when we got there it was beautiful with amazing views and the tents were very upscale. However...

As mentioned earlier in this blog, Faith seems to be going though some anxiety lately. She is afraid to do things (really almost anything that is slightly scary or something she hasn't done before) and she is also become deathly afraid of storms. She freaks out if there is high wind or thunder, or (god forbid) lightening. It has become worrisome in the last few months and is fairly reminiscent of our eldest child's foray into anxiety (which started right around age 7.5).  So, given this recent weather anxiety, it may not have been the best idea to book a canvas tent "glamping" site that had Brian and I in one large canvas tent with a king size bed and bathroom and the kids in a canvas teepee right next to us. To be honest, I'm not sure what I was thinking because, of course, as we drove into the Moab Under Canvas site it began to rain and then the thunder began and within second Faith was completely freaking out and crying and screaming and begging to go home and saying that she wished we had never come to Utah. Right away we realized that the idea of them sleeping in a tent that was not connected to ours, with the threat of the storm continuing through the night, was not going to happen. So much for Plan A. Time to think of a Plan B. Plan B either had to be completely forgoing the reserved tents and trying to get a motel in town or moving the kids bunks into our tent, completely forgoing any idea of romantic vacation or even comfortable sleeping arrangements.

After 30 minutes of tense decision making negotiations (while Faith continued to freak out) and a quick look on the internet for other Moab motels nearby with vacancies (0) we decided to move the furniture around inside our tent to make room for the three kids cots. It was probably really, really silly (and an unrealistic expectation) that we could have any sort of romantic moment while traveling with three children. So now we are full to the brim and ready for a good nights sleep in our safari tent. 

Once that was settled we head into Moab to check it out, get a good dinner, and try to see some of the old places mentioned above. We were successful on all three counts (and even got some homemade tiramisu to take back to the tent for later). Oh, yeah... and a bottle opener. We've been traveling with four beers on ice for days but don't have a bottle opener to actually make them drinkable. In half an hour or so I fully intend to be relaxing on the front porch of our tent sipping a nice cool beer, admiring the 360 degree view of the redrocks, and putting the weather freak out behind me. It's early to bed tonight for all (for one thing, we have no electricity...) since we have to be up early for our Hummer tour of Canyonlands. 

A Paralyzing Case of Cabin Fever (or Utah Day 5)

So after the 'Peterson Death March" -y-ness of yesterday, Marisa had declared today to be a catch up day and said that we weren't going to leave the resort and the kids could just hang out and take part in the activities, which was necessary. It was also false. 

Anyone who knows my lovely wife knows that she can't stay in one place for a full day. Be it this resort, or a five star resort in Mexico. An excuse must be made to leave or she gets at loose ends about mid way thru the day. Even at home, if there is a full day where she doesn't leave the house, she'll make a drive down the hill just to "get a coffee" to get out of the house. I don't know why she gets that way, I just know she does. So it was no surprise that midway thru the morning she was on the internet in the lodge trying to find something, anything remotely interesting in the vicinity to go and do. 

We put the kids into the kids camp here for the morning (9-1) while we relaxed and got some laundry done. I got a workout in, Marisa surfed the internet for an excuse, we went to the pool and read and relaxed. The kids had a blast at kids camp, going on the bungie trampoline, making clay sculptures, building a fort, playing four square and having lunch. After we picked them up we finished up our activites, Tanner and Faith going for a trail ride, Jake riding the ATV's and everyone jumping on the bungie trampoline again. After a quick folding of the laundry and clean up, we were back in the car and out to dinner/the store. 

To be fair, the food here is awful. We have been at highs and lows for food on this trip, but this resort has been the low at every meal we have had to eat here. So Marisa kind of seized on that to get a trip into town for an early dinner (combined with a side trip to a town of movie settings advertised online and in the Kanab Times newspaper). Again, to be fair, it might have been the best Mexican food I have ever eaten. It was easily the best refried beans that I have ever had and it was all uphill from there. We hit the grocery store for some supplies as things are looking like they might get dicey in our next stop (side note - the details of this next stop have been leaked out to me little-by-little for the last few months, things like; "we have to share a bathroom", I was told last month. "There might not be wi-fi" came a little bit later. Today over a lovely Mexican dinner I was told, "there's not any electricity"). 

Plus the excuse for a drive got us further into "A Series of Unfortunate Events" Book 2. I have forgotten how much I enjoyed reading these books a few years ago and I am REALLY enjoying listening to Tim Curry read them as the desert landscape rolls by out the window. We are trying to get the next two books in some audible format as we have gone thru the first two WAY faster than we had intended. We tried Audible (too expensive), tried the library free loan of audio books (they have it but Marisa's library card isn't set up to check them out), and even looked into getting it on kindle and having it read in the monotone compu-voice (but quickly decided against that idea). Marisa is going to try to sign up for a free trial on Audible.com using Jake's name after I type this. 

We were all full and happy after dinner and, her need to escape satiated, we didn't even try to find the "movie town", we just headed back to the lodge. We went back to the pool with the little kids while Jake was off to the rec barn again to pretend to be an orphan and hang out with anyone but his own family. He has been going there every spare minute that we let him, to hang out with teenagers. Anytime we walk in he pretends he doesn't know us. He won't play anything in there with his brother or sister in case anyone were to see him, so I have played both pool and ping-pong with Tanner and Faith. It's like he's 15 already and it's driving me crazy.  Is this what our future holds???

Reality Bites (Day 4)

Today we woke up, ate breakfast and left the camp to drive into Zion National Park. It started off a little rocky. The kids were obviously tired, Faith was already complaining about EVERYTHING and the drive took a lot longer than we had expected. Plus  it was really hot and my unrealistic expectations (that three tired kids ages 7, 8, and 11 would be wowed and excited to view more red rocks and red mountains and would be excited to take 3 hikes in 100 degree weather) didn't meet the reality (three tired kids asking, "do we have to hike" and "why can't we just stay at the resort and go to the pool" and "we better be at this waterfall soon!" and "it's hot and my legs hurt and I'm hungry and I'm thirsty and can't we do something else????).  

Zion is huge and, as it turns out, is only accessible by shuttle. By the time we got to the park all parking at the visitor center was full so we had to go into Springdale and park and then take a shuttle into Zion and then take the actual Zion shuttle to anywhere we wanted to go in the park. By that time it was already noon and everyone was hungry but the lodge was busy and expensive and my high expectations had us doing several hikes today and not stopping for lunch until we got back to Springdale. (I already admitted these were unrealistic expectations, right?) and I wasn't ready yet to give up on those expectations.

Anyway, we got off shuttle number 2 and started a very short hike to Emerald Falls. By very short I mean VERY short. Hardly can call it a hike. It was 1.2 miles round trip. The park was busy and the trail was crowded and I remembered why national parks are so challenging- oh yeah... the crowds. And although I appreciate that the parks are made accessible to everyone, it is annoying to be stuck behind a slow moving group of very old people or very out of shape people or a 30 person tour group from China or a big family holding up everyone else on the beautiful bridge because they wanted to get a photo shot without others in the frame.  Remember, I already said I was cranky. I know this feeling I was having wasn't nice and wasn't PC and wasn't pleasant but I wasn't feeling pleasant or pc or nice during this short walk. The kids didn't really want to be there and although it was absolutely stunning to look at, the crowd and heat were kind of unappealing to me, too, but being stubborn I was determined to get to the damn waterfall. We got there. We stopped for about 5 minutes, debated going further, and then turned around and walked back down. 


This is where I got even crankier and stalked ahead of everyone else, wondering quietly and angrily to myself why my children weren't more excited to be there (while, in reality even I wasn't really excited to be there...) and Brian walked behind with the kids, holding Faith's hand and quietly singing old favorites like "The Alligator King", "Stewball", and "Puff the Magic Dragon". He knew I needed my space and knew I needed to work out the discrepancy between my unrealistic expectations and my current reality. Listening to them sing and turning around occasionally to watch as he and Faith walked hand in hand down the trail, my mind calmed and my heart got lighter and I made an important decision: As soon as we reached the lodge there would be ice cream for everyone. As the saying goes, "money can't buy happiness, but it can buy ice cream, and that's pretty close".  

Seriously, even though I did decide the ice cream thing in this moment, I also decided that if what we all really wanted to do was go hang at the resort and be at the pool and do the resort activities, then that was what we were going to do. I wasn't going to force "The Peterson Death March" to all points in Zion. We got that ice cream, took the 2 shuttle trips backs to where our car was parked in Springdale, got a quick lunch, and headed back out of the park. 

The best thing about our trip in to Zion was probably the car ride. The views were beautiful and awe inspiring and the 1.1 mile tunnel through a red rock mountain was pretty unbelievable. There were even huge lookout windows carved into it.  And we got to drive through it twice. The kids loved that. We listened to more of the poor Baudelaire orphans' fate and arrived back at our camp in time for a late afternoon nap, a turn on the mini ATV's,  a brief billiards lesson from Brian for Tanner and Faith, a walk to see the horses, and some time at the pool. 

Tonight the boys are back in the Rec Barn playing ping pong and making new friends. Brian and I are reading our books and Faith is watching a movie on the iPad. Nope. It's not what I envisioned for my time at Zion National Park.... but I got to see what I wanted (even if most of it was out of the car or shuttle windows) and everyone ended up happier and better rested.