In case you were wondering what would happen if I spent 3 nights not getting nearly enough sleep, and 2 days driving across the country, and 1 morning getting new brakes, and another day driving across the country, and I arrived at my brother’s house at 1AM, the answer is
a coma.
I slept from 2AM until noon,
and again from 2PM until 5.
When my brother woke me up so that I could eat dinner.
And now I’m ready for bed again!
(I am normally more fun than this; sorry Val & Jeannie!!)
I am waiting while the kids all take showers and re-pack their clothes, then we are going to load the van one last time and head east.
I am ready. I miss my sweet husband and it will still be days before we are together again. But I am leaving with a heart that is full to overflowing, filled with beautiful memories of the last three and a half weeks.
As I start the long drive home, I’ll be smiling and remembering it all; brothers, sisters, and cousins, crazy family parties, hikes, playing in the river, wildflowers, family reunion fun, fireworks and friends, smores, temples, picnics, happy kids, games, singing, late night conversations, early morning adventures, and almost more happiness and love than could possibly be stuffed into 26 days.
Thank you all.
We love you!
This was from earlier today.
I’m still smiling…
If I was blogging instead of vacationing, I would have so much to tell you about in addition to Moab and the 4th:
This has been a most excellent trip and we still have a weekend in Logan to look forward to as well as one last Watson family party, and then three days at my brother’s in Kentucky next week.
I think by the time it’s all over we’ll all be asleep at the table!
Yesterday morning I did something pretty unusual for me. I got up at 5:15 (after going to bed at 1AM) and got dressed, then woke my family and made them get dressed too. So that we could drive into Provo for the annual balloon festival.
Sunday evening we ended up being up much later than expected and I reconsidered and told the kids that they didn’t have to get up and go with us, but they all said that they still wanted to go. By 6:05 AM we were out the door, and by the time we were in Provo we could see that many MANY other families had had the same idea. It was a lovely but slightly crazy way to start our 4th of July celebration.
We learned that the balloons are truly enormous, very loud, and beautiful on the inside.
The highlight of the balloon festival was the Darth Vadar balloon, all the way from Belgium. Jared and his cousin Carter were pretty excited to see it.
Unfortunately we didn’t get to see it for long, because just as it was turning around towards us a few gusts of wind blew. Turns out that hot air balloons and wing gusts aren’t compatible—all of the balloons collapsed within just a few minutes. My brother said it was the most exciting ending to a balloon festival that he’s ever seen!
When we realized that the balloons were all done we joined the mob of thousands and walked back to our car. We thought about going out to breakfast but so did all of the other balloon observers, so we ended up going back to Jeff’s where he made us a delicious breakfast.
Then the rest of our day started. (with no more pictures.)
At 9 we left Jeff’s. We left Jared behind to play with his cousin, brought cousin Elaina, and drove to Genola.
At 10 we dropped Elaina and the girls off at my sister Andra’s house to play, dropped Jason off to pack, and picked up cousins John and Leigh Ann to drive to Ephraim for EFY.
At 11:15 we dropped Josh, John, and Leigh Ann off at EFY, then turned around and drove back to Genola.
At 12:30 we picked Jason and the girls up from Genola.
At 1:30 we dropped Elaina off at her house and picked up Jared and all of our luggage, then drove to the Salt Lake Airport.
At 2:30 we dropped Russ off at the airport for his trip home (sniff, sniff—we like it better when he’s here!) and drove to my sister Laila’s house.
At 3:00 we got to Laila’s and all of us took a nap. Mine lasted an hour, but the little kids slept for over 2 hours and Jason was still awake when I woke him up to leave at 5:45!
At 5:45 we packed back up and drove north to Idaho Falls, stopping only in Brigham City for some dinner.
At 9:00 we got to our friends’ house in Idaho Falls and hung out for a while watching their neighbors shoot off fireworks and eating homemade ice cream.
At 9:45 we drove over by the river and found a nice place to watch fireworks. In Idaho Falls the fireworks are set to music, and it is the largest fireworks display west of the Mississippi. It was 30 minutes long, and so many beautiful fireworks. We’d gone to a location that was supposed to keep us away from the bulk of the traffic, but that didn’t work very well once we started towards Cindy Lynn’s apartment in Rexburg. It took us over 20 minutes to get the last few blocks out of town, and over an hour to get from Idaho Falls to Cindy Lynn’s apartment. It was a very long drive and I was SO tired!
At 12:05 we arrived here. I told the little kids to just sleep in their clothes, and I think I was in bed by 12:15.
At 11:00 this morning I woke up—that’s how tired was was from such a long day!!!
When I think about taking a trip with my kids, especially as they’ve gotten older, I tend to have rosy ideals of what our time together will be like. In my mind it looks a lot like this. (videos work better if you let them load a bit first…)
While we do have those moments, they are frequently punctuated by this.
I’m still not sure how to reconcile myself to reality…
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