OOOoooooo!
Or that’s the sound that this made:
Eleanor and William (who were inside) told me that they were a “four-legged monster.” They drew about a dozen eyeballs on the outside of the box, and also informed me that the red scribbles signified “creepy blood.”
After tromping around the sunroom and moaning for a few minutes, I heard a little whimper, and Eleanor crawled out.
“Whoa,” she panted, “I think I kind of freaked myself out in there.”
As I mentioned before, we found Bryce Canyon National Park is kinda boring. But fortunately it is right next door to Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (henceforth referred to as GSENM), which is chock full of not-boring.
Before I continue, however, I must mention that the town of Tropic, Utah (pop 600) has incredibly tasty pizza. Really, you should try it, especially the Navajo Taco pizza. It totally blew away the pizza in Torrey, Utah (pop 200).
Now, on to Devil’s Garden!
Because GSENM is managed by the Bureau of Land Management instead of the Park Service, the rules are a bit more lax. So we got to run all over this set of hoodos and arches. Its entrance was marked by a sign that labeled it an “Outstanding Natural Area,” and it is outstandingly natural. The kids found it the best playground ever. I half expected to see Wile E. Coyote run through this landscape.
When we arrived, the crowds hadn’t hit yet. We had the place pretty much to ourselves.
It was almost worth the headache I got from driving 10 miles of washboarded dirt roads to get there! (Ugh. I hate washboarded roads.)
BUT mere headaches could not stop us from continuing another 6 miles down the washboarded road to hike a slot canyon! Heavens, no. The canyon is called the Dry Fork . . . or was it the Dry Wash? Eh, I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.
Lovely, isn’t it? I love slot canyons. Almost worth the horrid headache I got from driving the combined 16 more miles of washboarded roads to get back to the main road. I even agreed to try out a different slot canyon the next day. Which will be discussed in the next post.
The finale! El Fin! This past weekend, we headed down to Bryce Canyon National Park, the fifth and last of Utah’s national parks we’ve visited (and the fourth national park that Katie has visited in her short 9 months). Huzzah!
(Yes, we brought the stroller. In fact, I even said out loud, “I’m so glad I brought the stroller,” to which William replied, “I’m so glad I brought myself!”)
To celebrate, Brian and I put together this puzzle in our hotel room, which features photos of all five parks. In the grand tradition of jigsaw puzzles, one piece turned up missing.
We saw many, many views just like this:
Which got . . . kind of dull.
The kids began to tire of smiling in front of sweeping hoodoo vistas and tried to mix it up a bit.
And yes, we did hike down into one of the canyons. The best thing we saw there was this sorcerer tree:
Aannnnnnd yawn. Maybe we should have stayed away from a trail called “Swamp Canyon/Under the Rim.” (Although it gave us a great new code phrase for when Katie has a messy diaper.)
However, I did accomplish the monumental task of finding the most inane of all the sentences on the park’s many interpretive signs.
Tentacles of invisible streams, indeed.
I also appreciated the big ravens. They are massive and terrifying. No wonder Poe liked them so much. Quoth the raven: Shut the doooor.
We also took advantage of the astronomy programs offered by the — get this — Dark Ranger. Which would be a ranger specializing in astronomy and dark skies. But it really sounds like he needs a cape.
Despite all these delights, I was fine moving on after a few days and exploring a different part of the desert. Where to? Stay tuned!
Katie has started doing this thing where she squnches up her face and snuffles. It only happens when she’s excited about something, not upset or unhappy. Her face looks like this:
I even managed to get a squidgen of video showing Katie doing her snuffle thing. But it’s brief. I have many, many more videos of Katie surrounded by her siblings, all of whom are snuffling away, trying to get her to do it, too. In fact, in this clip, you even hear me snuffling behind the camera, trying to get a repeat performance.
My parents are charmed by the snuffle face. They say I used to do it, too, when I was a baby. This is kind of nice to know, since Katie doesn’t look much like me or Brian. It looks like she’s going to have gray eyes. Gray! Or maybe a gray-hazel . . . grazel?
When Eleanor was four, my mother-in-law took her in for a portrait sitting by with Lee Bennion Udall. She’s considered by many to be Utah’ss most accomplished female artist. I love her art; it has a vibrant folk-art quality that is poignant and appealing. We thought Eleanor matched her style of painting, so we just asked Lee to do the painting any way she wanted. Lee was so pleased with the results that when she was asked to submit a few paintings for an exhibit at the Springville Museum of Art, she chose the portrait of Eleanor!
We got to go see Eleanor in a museum!
WOW!
Ella’s been immortalized . . . as a four-year-old. Nice, eh? Randy and Kathryn own this painting, and it usually hangs in their kitchen/living room area. Katie is always excited to see it; she often spends long periods of time waving her arms and babbling at it. I can’t decide if she recognizes Eleanor, or just sees a human face and wants to interact.
Jeff’s current obsession is with Lego “Ninjago” toys. These are little ninja guys who battle each other by spinning around on tops. Regular whirling dervishes, they are.
Which of course led to Jeffrey wanting to have a ninja-themed birthday party. Gosh if I knew how to do that. But we improvised.
We made throwing stars out of cardboard and duct tape and threw them at targets in the yard (way harder than you think) (Jeff took it SERIOUSLY)
and had a relay race that involved chopsticks and marshmellows. We also played Blind Man’s Bluff, cleverly renamed as “Ninja Sneak.” This was followed up by a Speed Slice tournament on Wii Sports Resort. Even my parents played; they were really good at chopping up the giant bamboo.
I even went a little crazy at the Asian grocery store and served the kids gyoza and red bean ice cream. The ice cream went over fine, but the gyoza? Not so much.
~CAKE COMMENTARY~
So, a ninja cake. How is it done? Probably not like this:
IT’S A NINJA’S FACE, PEOPLE. USE THE IMAGINATION.
And with candles, this ninja is happy to see you!
Jeff turned 9, but we always put on an extra candle “to grow on.” Jeff was pretty thrilled. Who cares what anyone else thinks?
But Mr. Ninja didn’t fare so well with the candles removed. “He looks like Elmo!” is what all the children said. One of them even gave him a cookie nose. Sigh. Well, I’m just glad my sweet boy had a special day. Hi-YAH!
It’s finally finished!
I began this quilt almost exactly one year ago — a baby quilt for Katie. I remember spending most of last year’s LDS general conference piecing together the patchwork blocks. Then, a week later, my quilting book fell behind the dryer. (AKA the Impregnable Black Hole of the household. Go ahead, drop something not-too-necessary behind yours. See how long it takes you to fish it out.)
So my patchworks blocks may have languished in limbo, if not for my sister, who kidnapped them and gave then some lovely sashing and borders:
This picture is from her blog, The Stevie Times. Doesn’t Liz have an excellent eye for color? I, uh, don’t, as evidenced by the funky orange triangles. Next time I quilt, it will be from a kit. The fabric she used for the tiny corner squares came from a dress my mom made for me when I was eight. It was my favorite favorite as a little girl so it was fun to see it again.
Anyway, the top was then sent to a semi-professional quilter my mother knows, who layered and quilted little pink daisies all over it. Then my mother made the binding. I think it’s great that all three of us — me, my mom, and my sister — worked collaboratively on this project.
Hmm. I just noticed that my mom and I aren’t looking at the camera. That’s the mother-daughter bond for you.
I’ve been scrounging up little videos of the kids that we took over the summer. This one was filmed by Kathryn during our trip to Cedar City. While Brian and I went to see a production of “Noises Off,” the grandparents took the kidlets bowling. Or perhaps I should say (air quotes) “bowling” since they used bumpers and a little metal slide for the balls. The entire bowling experience was whittled down to pushing a ball down a slide, so I guess you can’t blame Eleanor for getting creative.
What’s really impressive, I guess, is that despite all this, she still gets a gutterball. Genius.
Did I mention that Eleanor is a Daisy Girl Scout?
Well, kind of. She’s troopless. I’ve tried for the past many, many months to start a troop, but I can’t find anybody to run it with me (you need two leaders to have a troop). Most of my good friends live too far away to make it practical, and those who live close by don’t have daughters Ellie’s age. So, she’s a “Juliette,” which is a class of rogue Girl Scout.
But she still gets to go to camp! Which is what she did with her grandma this past weekend. It was a one-night minicamp for kids with an adult. Very fun stuff.
They slept in the Trefoil Lodge, up Provo Canyon. Eleanor turned herself into a Sleeping Bag Monster . . .
. . . and got piggy-back rides from lots of new friends. The camp had a “cowgirl round-up theme, in case you’re wondering about the hats.
On the first day, the campers went hiking and found a nest of baby garter snakes. They cooked “brown bears” over a campfire (cinnamon-sugar-dipped biscuit dough toasted on a stick), sang silly camp songs, and looked at the stars with a local astronomer and her telescope.
The next morning they learned some country dance steps. I think Eleanor and her grandma performed particularly well:
And if that wasn’t exhausting-sounding enough, the girls then spent the rest of the day doing arts and crafts: dipping candles, painting picture frames, and tie-dyeing shirts. Eleanor’s candle is pleasingly funky:
And did I mention MORE brown bears before lunch? Taaaaasty. Kathryn was so impressed with the camp that she’s already asking to take Eleanor on the next one in January (they get to go snowshoeing!). If I didn’t have a little nursing one at home, I’d take Ellie myself. Thank goodness for grandmas who can stand in for me when duty calls!
Those of you long-time blog readers are aware that I’ve been trying to write a novel for the past 2 1/2 years. Nothing ambitious, more of a “let’s learn how to write a novel” project. I really love the story, so it gives me a lot of satisfaction when I’m able to get the revisions churned out.
When I can’t get the revisions churned out, life is very, very frustrating. Right now it is almost unbearably so. The big kids are back in school, and William’s in preschool every morning. I was under the impression that Back to School time would mean Back to Writing time for me. I had a mental goal of getting the book ready for test-readers sometime soon.
But — oh. What did I forget? That’s right, Katie. My big, delicious, very sweet yet very demanding eight-month-old. She especially likes smacking people in the face. See?
Before:
After:
William’s preschool is 3 hours long. That’s 3 hours of potential writing time.
Take away 20 minutes for walking back and forth to school: 2 hrs 40 minutes.
Katie needs a nurse right when we get home: 2 hrs. 10 minutes
Katie needs another nurse at the end of the three hour block: 1 hour 40 minutes.
That’s just the basic Katie requirements — and you’ll notice that my writing time is already halved. Add to this mix a few diaper changes (5 minutes each) a situation where Katie will only take a nap on my lap (20 minutes) a moment when Katie bumps her head and needs a cuddle to stop crying (10-15 minutes) or is simply bored and wants to be held (20 unbearably frustrating minutes) and the time is whittled down even more.
And heaven help us if I even need to do anything like answer the phone, change a load of laundry, or use the bathroom. Every morning I keep trying to get back to my Word files, like a dog tugging on a leash.
Every morning, I spend three hours doing 15 minutes of work.
(How was I able to write this blog post today? I’m typing while eating, that’s how. Really.)
I try to type one-handed when I’m nursing, but that’s really frustrating — especially considering that I’m doing heavy revisions, which requires a lot of juggling between different word files, dragging blocks of text here and there, and other tasks that are much easier with two hands. (One-armed novelists of the world, I salute you!)
The worst part of it all is when someone asks “What did you do today?” or “How did your day go?” Most young mothers agree: this is about the worst question in the world, because the answer is usually “What did I do? Nothing,” followed by a torrent of tears. (Mentally, anyway. I usually just say “Fine” and sigh.)
A better thing would be to ignore the unfolded laundry, dirty dishes, the scattered toys untouched since yesterday, and say, “Hey, I’m home! And the kids are safe and healthy, their homework is done, and the baby’s thriving! You must have had a very productive day! I am so impressed and proud of you! Did I also mention that you look fabulous?”
Casa Camisas 