Back at home, and back to school

Our girls were so excited to start a new year of school. I'm still coming to terms with the fact that this is their last year all together in one school. Em, our big sixth grader, moves on to (gulp!) junior high next year (Grace is in third grade and Kate in second), and everything gets much more complicated! But for now, at the start of this year, don't they look beautiful?



Max loves these floor panels; we keep them in his room and he and his friends (and sisters, like Grace above) use them to make buildings.


Max made himself a "couch" (his word) with some of his other blocks. It doesn't look too comfortable to me, but he liked it!


This is a horrifying spider we discovered above our back door. I still get heebee jeebies thinking of walking under it without realizing for days or weeks. I put that rotini noodle in with it for scale. Maybe it's not big for other places, but it was one of the biggest spiders I've seen in Utah. YUCK!

Max and Daddy take an all-American rest in our bedroom. He's such a great little snuggler (I'm talking about Max here, though Greg is good for a cuddle now and again, as well!).

When the Youngs and Johnsons gather ...

The lodge pic above is, pathetically enough, one of the only non-talent show pictures we took of the Young-Johnson reunion! We stayed at Hidden Springs Ranch, a fabulous lodge with tons of activities. There was swimming, canoeing, a rec center with a climbing wall and basketball, lots of pickup football games and lots of other activities and fun. We loved being together and spending time getting re-acquainted.


Not possessing many of the type of talents you can exhibit (for example, it's not like we could edit copy in front of people), Greg and I exploited our children for the talent show, where Emma reenacted the "Vote for Pedro" dance from "Napoleon Dynamite" with a little help from Greg, me, Grace and Kate (very little in the case of Grace and Kate, who stood around self-consciously as E danced). She did a totally SWEET dance and a great Napoleon imitation!



Then came Cass and Jason providing backup dancing and DRAMA for Zach's karaoke rendition of "Beat It." Super awesome!




Then came the Thomases doing their version (with great homemade puppets) of "The Mysterious Ticking Sound" by the Potter Puppet Pals. Greg and Ba provided curtain duties.



I'm not going to dwell on the next day, because that's when we said goodbye after seeing each other so much during the past several months. We had the consolation of Cass and Jason for one more night, but still: it was NOT fun. But it does make me look forward even more to the next time we're together!

A houseful (of fun, not just people!)

The Texas cavalry arrived! We were all excited to welcome Grammy, Ba, Z and the Thomas family. I love the Emma and DeDee "two-headed cousin" pic above, but that's just one of the interesting sights during our visit!


As part of our long tradition of exploiting our family members' skills and abilities for our own purposes (especially when we possess none of those skills), we spent part of one day keeping the kids away so that Ba, Uncle John Cluff, Grandpa Orson Johnson and Uncle Brad could break up the cracked portion of our driveway, clear it out and put in a new section. They had to dig out this huge, nasty root before they could do anything else. They did a great job; I'm still not quite used to the nice, smooth passage into my driveway rather than that big, jarring bump, and my neighbors are pretty complimentary about it, too. You may ask yourself, "Wait: where was Greg when all of this was going on?" Well, he had to go to work, having spent nearly all of his days off on this long, trippy summer, so he was sitting at his desk making lists on his computer during the driveway project. He's not sure if he should feel like a big wimp or like a genius.



To give Brad a chance to see some of the Utah sights, we spent a day driving up to Bear Lake (that's the scenic view, above, and it's pretty stunning, especially in person) to visit Minnetonka Cave. I'd never heard of it before, but it was a really interesting visit — especially towing nine kids along with us!


Aunt Jen with most of the girl contingent checking out the Bear Lake overlook.


Jen and Brad enjoying the Utah wilderness.


One of the cave formations in Minnetonka Cave. Gracie's favorite was all the "cave bacon," formations that, when a light was shone through them, looked amazingly like real bacon — except that some of them were 10 feet long. A dream come true for our bacon lover!


The kiddies and me at the turnaround point in the cave.


This is the rock formation that looks like a fairy-tale castle; obviously it was a favorite with the kids.


The walkway to the cave is built off the side of a very sheer mountain face and is not a comfortable traverse for anyone with a fear of heights. The kids all did fine, though, and Max had a tantrum and practically rolled off the side. Jebby rescued him, though, so all was well!


The walkway was just to picturesque not to spend a few minutes doing a little photo shoot there, like the one above of Jeb and the little girls ...


... this one of Jen and Brad ...


... and these two of all the Johnson grandkids.



Another major attraction at Minnetonka Cave was the old-style water fountain, at which Bella got totally soaked and all the kids had a good time with some super-cold, refreshing water.


DeDee learned how to make a fire pit at camp this past summer, and she made us a great one in our back yard so that the kids could roast marshmallows during their campout in the tent. We filled this one in, but I'd love to have her make one we could keep next time she's here.


We kind of did things backward on this cookout: we had the s'mores first and THEN decided to bring out some hot dogs to roast. Oh, well — everything got eaten, and everybody had a good time!




In the three pics below, I took the girls (minus Bella) to So Cupcake, a great bakery up in Holladay, for some awesome cupcakes. I'm not going to call them gourmet, because they're way more fun than that. But they're super delicious: before I could get to DeDee and Emma to take a pic of them enjoying their treats, Deeds had finished hers. That's why she's licking the wrapper in the last pic!

The teeniest "home" window of all

After the South Dakota trip, we had just a few days until the Johnsons started arriving. But we squeezed in some homestyle fun between unpacking, cleaning, figuring out where to "put" 16 (and, for a night, 18) people and repacking for the Young-Johnson reunion. Above and below, Max and Kate spent a good hour and a half playing with Lincoln Logs in our bedroom. Here's just one of their creations. I particularly love the super-long front "walkway." It goes about a foot past the frame of the picture.



Here's one way to combine cleaning and a good time. Max was completely filthy from playing outside AND had peed in his pants. I was doing laundry, so I stripped off his clothes, stuck them in the washer for a soak cycle and stuck HIM in, just for fun (and just for a minute!). He loved it ... and then we went upstairs and had a proper bath.

SoDaKoTa, part 1

Boy, this view is pretty familiar by now! The kids in their usual spots as we head for South Dakota, stopping one night in Cheyenne, Wyo.

The kids enjoying beverages and the hits of yesteryear at the Open Door Café in Menno, South Dakota. One of Marilyn's cousins runs this fun little restaurant; if you're ever in the area, try it! Be sure and have one of their chocolate-chip cookies and the kuchen, which is just about the best I've ever had.


Max and Aunt Lisa toast their good fortune at being related to each other!


The kiddies at the kiddie table. They adored that jukebox, especially because it was free, which meant they could play "Purple People Eater" about a dozen times. Yay, I guess.


Above and below, the family plays basketball at the half-underground court at Bud's old school in Olivet (he did high school in Menno). It's a charming old building now used for group retreats, reunions, etc. We had a good time looking at the really old school books in what used to be the library/principal's office. We also found a painted curtain used at a local theater, and discovered that the artist was one C.R. Kratz, an ancestor of Grandpa Kratz (and all the little Kratzes!).


Em makes a basket.


Grace and Kate doing some kind of precision digging routine at Westside Park in Yankton.


Our darling kiddies at the little stone gazebo at the park.


We got a little taste of South Dakota weather at our Kratz family reunion dinner at Lewis and Clark Lake that evening. It was one of those absolute deluges, curtains and sheets of rain, that we rarely get in Utah, which naturally meant that the kids sought out the showers rather than avoiding them — having a great time in the process!


Everybody else, of course, huddled under the picnic shelter with blankets and jackets!


Melanie and her apparent clone, Emma! We find the resemblance amazing and — considering what a wonderful person Melanie is — very encouraging!


Clark shows Emma images of the nest of baby birds we discovered under the roof of the picnic shelter.