Mormon Culture

What's as big a deal as Independence Day in July to Utahns? Pioneer Day!  Well, we Mormons don't do it as big in Texas (which nullifies that "everything's bigger in Texas") but we still have fun every now and then honoring our pioneer heritage and paying mind to others with a pioneer spirit.

Saturday morning we gathered for a pancake breakfast, in which Neal got to exercise his excellent flipping skills. 

Sophie followed through with her intentions when she stated a week earlier that she would be participating in the pancake eating contest. After two full plates, Sophie did just that.  I was so proud of my little girl seated between three other boys, two a bit older.  With her hands behind her back, as instructed, she put in a really good effort, even after they called the winner. 

Everything was followed up by a kiddie bike parade, because that's the way we roll.

Our 11th Annivesary Rescheduled

So the night before our 11th anniversary of blissful marriage we began squabbling over what to do and the details of it because neither of us had taken any time to actually plan and communicate our thoughts with the other.  Perfect way to honor our marriage, I know, but this is real life people!  So the next morning we woke to a little boy with a high fever and all our unplanned plans were off!  I proposed instead of being unhappy with our marital communication skills and present circumstances, that we just move our anniversary out a week.  Neal readily agreed.  Good for us!

A week later we dropped the kids off at Oma and Opa's house and we were off to Paris!  Paris, TX that is!  A couple hours east was our destination but we took roads less traveled and made stops at historical markers along the way.  We had a great time!  Talked about painting the bedroom, future travel plans, where to live when we retire someday, and just had fun planning and dreaming together.

Upon arriving at Paris we headed straight for the petite replica of the Eiffel Tower topped with a red, 10 gallon cowboy hat! The Tower was made by metal workers using scrapes for fun and the hat was added later for some sort of advertisement or event, but never removed.  This from a local school board member and 18 year resident of Paris, Charles Osborne. 

We met him just a few feet from the tower at the adjacent Veteran's Memorial, which was still under construction.  It was huge, beautiful, and thought provoking and only half of it was laid out and completed.  Charles was taking to a friend near three paver stones honoring his family members and himself.  I asked if he was Charles and then shook his hand and thanked him.  We enjoyed a long conversation about his experience coming home from Vietnam and how just recently in the past few years he had felt gratitude from his fellow countrymen.  It was interesting to hear his perspective and personal account--one of the highlights of the trip.

Following this stop, we headed out to the local cemetery and viewed another quirky attraction, a statue of Jesus wearing cowboy boots!  This is what people say it is but I don't think it is a statue of Christ but a maiden leaning on a cross.  Anyhow it was still fun.

Next we had lunch at a good burger joint called Jaxx and toured some antique stores. We took less traveled route home and enjoyed a lighting storm, mostly in the distance on our way.  Thanks to Oma and Opa for loving on our babies while we celebrated our marriage.

Play Ball!

Just to keep the momentum going, we headed out to family night to cheer on our local minor league baseball team, the Frisco RoughRiders.  Hats were included with our bargain tickets and even though the team lost we still got a second evening of fireworks!

Independence Day

After arriving home from our family vacation one day prior, everyone went to bed at a good decent hour which was good because we wanted to hit the McKinney 4th of July Parade.  It has great small town charm and it's a great way to kick-off the day.

We spent most the day doing grocery shopping and trying to get our heads on straight again. For dinner the kids helped create our patriotic skewered fruit flag (say that 5 times fast!). By evening we were off to the fireworks in Plano to celebrate as our founding fathers intended--with lots of pyrotechnics!

Washington, Here We Come!

All of Keri's family, her parents and big sister, moved out to Washington state about two years ago.  We made our big summer family vacation out there to see them and enjoy the area.  We flew and got crazy flight plans to save money, which we did! With our 4 hour lay over in Salt Lake City, Utah, we jumped on a shuttle for a free tour of Temple Square.  Yes, we are Mormons but Keri only spent a few hours in Salt Lake City Temple when she was 14 as part of a youth conference doing baptisms.  Neal had actually been in the Conference Center and toured the area back in 2001, when he was a new convert.  It was a great way to spend a few hours.  Wish we had more time.

 One of the coolest things was as we were enjoying this statue in the visitor's center, a gentleman approached our family asking, "Neal?"  It was Scott O., a young man that was also baptized a week or so around the same time Neal was back in 2001 in Huntington Beach, California.  That was awesome and a great, yet short reunion. He was there with a family of his own.

 These doorknobs are one of the few snapshot memories that Keri had stuck in her head from 25 years ago.  They are beautifully crafted and commemorate the 40 years it took to construct the temple.

We stayed with Keri's sister, Jolene, and her husband, Pat, and their kids, Shawn and Autumn.  They have 10 chickens, one dog, two cats, and several wild deer that come to visit. That was so cool.  They feed them apples.  They get pretty close.

 

Yes, that is my sister's driveway.  They come up to the porch even.

 

We stayed a week and a half and had busy days and a few laid back days.  Our first outing was the Point Defiance Zoo. We were greeted by this peacock in the walkway between the parking lot and the entrance.

All the cousins! Shawn, Rhys, Autumn, and Sophie.

 

And a video clip of a sea lion acknowledging the kids in his own special way:

 After parting ways with the rest of the family, we explored Fort Nisqually, a living history museum, with employees dressed in period clothes and teaching us all sorts of cool things. 

Following this we headed to a local mall and had each of our kids create their own stuffed animal at Build a Bear for their birthdays.  We plan on taking them to ours near home to dress and accessorize their toys on special parent/child dates.

 

The next day at Grandma and Grandpa's house, there was a large piece of undeveloped land with several miles of trails.  It is referred to as "Grandma's forest" and we spent some time hiking around in there.  We spotted salmonberries for the first time there.  There were raspberries as well, and loads of blackberry blooms but no berries yet.

Another time we headed out to Snoqualmie Falls which was really impressive and home of the world's first completely underground power plant which was built in 1898. The second plant was added in 1910.  They are both providing energy to the area today.

To our children, why walk when you can expel extra energy on all fours?

In the same town was a collection of old train engines and cars primarily from the early 1900s.  Keri has seen a lot of trains in her life because of her father was a civil engineer that worked largely on railroad tracks.  She remembers stopping in the middle of nowhere on family road trips to walk old tracks and pull date nails out of the ties.  To this day, she plays a game of "My Train" while on long distances of road.  Whoever in the family spots a moving train and calls "my train" first gets to lay claim to it. The winner at the end of the trip/day with the most trains wins.  Having said all that, there were some really awesome, decrepit engines and cars there.  The fact that the town was flooded and the trains were half way under water a few years back probably didn't help.

Crane used to clean up train wrecks which were much more frequent back then.

Rhys hollering, "Yeehaw! Yeehaw!"

Snapshot by Sophie

One of the highlights of our trip was the fun and laughs we got out of a trip up north to Sequim where we visited an animal park with retired animals from the movie industry.  We bought 6 loaves of bread at the entrance and feed them with screeches and squeals (us, not the animals).

Sophie wins "Best Look of Terror"

Those antlers are SO soft! Velvety!

Pretty sure 1/2 a loaf was ingested by our kids alone, maybe more.

Twins!

 

And even though they say "a picture is worth a thousand words", we would like to personally note what pictures cannot communicate, namely the stench of buffalo breath and the quantity and slime factor of their saliva (think thin, stringy cheese on a hot pizza!). My gosh!  Our car front and back doors and mirrors were covered in a smelly slime layer.  Also, the length of their tongues is astonishing, especially when it is inches from your grimacing face or licking your hands.  There was a moment when Sophie started gagging and Neal subsequently. This is the stuff memories are made of.

I love this shot!

 How could something that starts out so cute become so slobbery?!

After that we headed along some scenic driving (if you like low, view-impeding clouds) and hiked a bit to some falls while in the Olympic Mountains.

Autumn putting a daisy in Sophie's hair. How sweet!

That is a banana slug and that is our cool smashed penny from Snoqualmie Falls.

 The kids just had to touch the banana slug.  Below they are demonstrating the nasty, sticky scum that took some rubbing to get off as a result.  Thicker than buffalo drool, thicker than snot...when you have a cold.  Sort of like when you used white Elmer's glue as a kid and glued your fingers together for fun, let it dry, and then tried to pull them apart.  Sort of like that.  Ewwww!

Rhys trying to find every puddle along the muddy trail and doing a great job of splashing Grandma.

Of these three homogeneous shots, I think Autumn's takes the cake!

"Strike a pose, there's nothing to it. Vogue."

 This is the tops of the Olympic mountains.  Being fogged in for the greater part of our time there, we did get a peak at the end.

 Also on the way down, the clouds thinned just enough to reveal Canada at one viewpoint.

The next day was Sophie's birthday so we celebrated by going to get pizza, an easy favorite.  Her aunt and uncle and grandparents gave her a cool present to play games on.  Thanks everyone!

Love Sophie's face!

Then we were off to the tide pools to explore.  We had to tread lightly as we were in the midst of large beds of sand dollars.  We saw sea stars, crabs, anemones, sand dollars, sea snails, and so on.

Baby sand dollars.

We were off to Mount Saint Helen the next day.  It was a beautiful day.  No rain. A bit warm. Clear. We go to the first visitor's center and watched a short movie on the eruption.  That was impressive.  To see that much land moved in seconds and the resulting land changes was crazy.  Then we were off to all the viewpoints.

Ah, siblings!

 At one of the stops, a helicopter was coming and going for tours. Neal got Sophie close to right under it for one take off.  She is standing on the bench and Neal is blocking her.  She was there, really.

Also while there Neal noted a little spot of sun resting on a sole toadstool.  Picture one below is Neal's and picture 2 is Keri's.  What's a little friendly competition?  Picture preference?

Okay, picture 3 it is! With our kooky Sophie getting in the shot.

One of my favorite shots. The wildflowers were amazing that day. So many varieties.

On the way home we stopped in funky part of Olympia and ate at Darby's Café which was spotlighted on Drive-ins, Diners, and Dives on the Food Network.  Based on the menu this was a must stop.  It had a quirky atmosphere and odd but friendly gender bending employees. 

 

I had an amazing vegan fennel and sage sausage burger topped with red cabbage and beet slaw (which contained sweet golden raisins), mustard, and Swiss cheese. It was weird and messy and really good. Neal had sort of a fancy southwestern burger, and the kids had grilled cheese with thin apple slices in it and a horseradish mayo.  We topped off our meal with an apple crisp roller and blueberry crunch roller-fruit, granola, fried goodness with ice cream.

 

We celebrated Neal's birthday on the next day with sushi for lunch.  This was a low key day but a welcomed one.  We spent some time with Judy and Dennis and tried staying cool.  Mt. Rainer finally revealed itself after a whole week of vacationing.  The photo of it was taken on the bridge connecting Fox Island to Gig Harbor and the rest of the main land.  Sophie explained that if we want to leave "Aunt Jolene Land" we have to take the bridge to "Grandma Land".

After the weekend we headed into Seattle with Grandma to enjoy the big city.  We hit Pikes Place Market first and enjoyed the vendors.  Unable to stop herself, Keri chose a tie-dye for her birthday gift from her mom and then bought one each for the kids.  Neal did not give into peer pressure, nor does he get the "happy" Keri does by seeing tie-dye.  We also bought spices and ate yummy foods.  We also saw the fish market where the vendors throw fish to each other as they fill the customers' orders. Seriously fun morning!

Giant vegan snickerdoodle? Yes, please.

Then we were off to The Locks and Fish Ladder.  It was cool to see the boats line up, the water levels changed, and their passage through.  We felt exhausted for the salmon who had to climb the ladder.  We've all felt like fish swimming up stream at least once in our lives but having to jump up waterfalls too.  Glad I'm not a salmon.

We were running into the late afternoon but took a speed tour of the Museum of Flight before they closed in 30 minutes. Neal covered the museum so fast, we thought we heard a sonic boom! Keri enjoyed can attest to their nice restrooms as she spent 15 of those 30 minutes tending to the kids' bathroom needs.  This was really Neal's kind of thing so that was no big deal to her.

WWI plane kept indoors for 80 years, even in a monastery, which is why this one remained in such good shape.

After leaving (well, getting kicked out really) we just sat outside for a good long while watching planes of all sizes land at what I would consider a fairly small airport that was adjacent to the museum.  Pretty cool.

 

Given the opportunity to return to this museum for a longer viewing the next day, Neal decided to move forward and visit a naval ship, Turner Joy, in Bremerton.  Upon entering the marina to board her, we saw hundreds of jellyfish in the water.  I have never seen that many except in the tanks of an aquarium.  We suppose they are quite popular their because the gift shop had plenty of jellyfish knickknacks. 

Neal attempts to through Rhys overboard! Okay, they were just looking at the jellyfish.

Took the rest of the day easy and packed up for a flight we had to wake up at 2:30 a.m. for!  But we stopped to look at Mt. Rainer again and witnessed Rhys' awesome rock toss.

Doesn't even stop to see where it lands. Yep, that's the way he rolls.

Keri's sister's family took off that morning for their July 4th getaway so we had to deal with some really cute beggars at her front door.  Also Keri got to hold some adorable chickens and collect eggs for the first time.  That was cool.

Thanks to Jolene and Pat for opening up their home to us, playing with us, and feeding us!  Thanks to Autumn for sacrificing her room for our family's comfort and being a great cousin.  Thanks to Mom and Dad for the fun times and treating us.  We loved our visit and we love you!