The handywoman

I like to think that I can do anything. Even things that are mechanically challenging and not very ladylike. My friend Sallie is my hero, because she fixes all kinds of things. Since I have been married, I have mostly relegated these sorts of things to Jason and have become less motivated to try to figure them out. When our disposal stopped working right before our trip to Zions, I just told Jason about it and waited for him to fix it. I did scoop out the goo that was in the bottom and determine that the soil that Hallie had dumped in the sink while trying to water her bean seed, had rocks in it, and probably was to blame for the problem.

Well, by the following tuesday when the disposal was still broken, I realized that with Jason being gone so much right now, I probably ought to try and figure things out on my own again. I googled my problem and found that it was an easy fix. I took everything out from under the sink, used the little allen wrench and successfully fixed the disposal. I felt so good! I even cleaned out and rearranged all the junk that ends up under the kitchen sink. I decided that if I could fix the disposal then maybe I should move on to larger projects like tiling the laundry room or building a shelving system-think of all the power tools I could use! I continued thinking up projects that I could awe and surprise Jason with right up until the time that I went to put my wash in the dryer and found an inch of water on the laundry room floor. Crap!
A couple of weeks ago my washer started sounding like a rocketship trying to blast off, whenever it went into the spin cycle. At one point I had the repairman over, fixing a problem with my dryer (never buy a Frigidaire dryer )and he informed me that it was probably the drum bearing, which was a $600 repair. I looked it up online and was totally excited about ordering the parts and fixing it myself until I looked at the current part prices and realized I was still looking at at least $500 just for the part. Since this was the 2nd time this had happened (never buy a Frigidaire front loader) and the washer was 8 years old, I decided I would just replace it. However, I only expected it to grind to a halt-not empty its contents onto the floor. Thank goodness for wet vacs and friends.

My new washer promises to make me love doing laundry. I really don't mind doing laundry to start with but it is always exciting to get something new. I just hope I'm not replacing it's drum bearing 5 years after I buy it, right after the extended warranty runs out! I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Spring Break

We love to go to Zion's National Park for spring break. When we planned our vacations in January we decided to go back again this year. As the date approached, my sister in law Jana called to say they were going to go down also, as were my other sister's in law Sharleen and Michelle and their families. My inlaws were also going to be staying in St George. I was excited that we would get to share the fun with cousins. A couple of weeks before we were supposed to go, Jason realized that he probably would not be able to leave until saturday. The kids got out of school on wednesday and our original plan was to leave thursday and come back on monday. I still wanted to go down on thursday, so Jason arranged for my father in law to drive us down with our trailer and help us get set up. Jana and Michelle had sick kids, so they decided not to come down. We ended up with a spot right next to Sharleen and her family which was just perfect. Their oldest daughter is a few years younger than Baylie and then they have a daughter the same age as Lexie and one the same age as Kelsie.

I was a little nervous about taking 5 kids hiking by myself, but I decided it would be fine as long as we stuck to the shorter hikes. We decided to do Emerald pools on friday. I had planned on only doing the lower pools but we went the wrong way and ended up at the middle pools. it worked out ok, but there were a lot of high drop offs that made me nervous with Ashton. Basically, we all started out together but as Ashton noticed the rocks and the dirt and got progressively slower, the girls got farther ahead. They ended up getting there probably 15 minutes ahead of us. We had lunch at the pools and then headed back down to check out the horseback riding and get some ice cream at the lodge. The girls were disappointed that the minimum age for the horses was 7. I told them they either had to wait 4 more years for Ashton to be 7 or they had to wait until there was another parent available so that the younger kids would have someone to stay back with them. Kelsie offered to have the lady in charge of the horses watch Hallie and Ashton, but she politely declined. Baylie got a funny video of the girls imitating one of the horses.
Friday evening we hung out at the trailer, rode bikes and watched movies. We had a small campfire with Mike and Sharleen when they got back and then we all went to bed.
On saturday we went over to Bumbleberries for the annual easter egg hunt. It was freezing! The kids got way too much candy as usual, but they had a great time. We planned to do a short hike with Mike and Sharleen but when we got to the River Walk, it was pouring rain. We got off the bus and waited in the rain to see if it would stop and then decided we would just be miserable if we hiked in the rain. We headed back and stopped at the museum to watch a film about the park and hear a ranger talk. While we were waiting for the ranger talk we discovered that Lexie was running a fever. I ended up taking Lexie,Kelsie and Ashton back to the trailer and then Baylie and Hallie came back with Sharleen. Jason was flying in that afternoon, so we went to St George to pick him up. We stopped at In-N-Out for dinner and then came back to our trailer. We took the kids over to the Imax theater to see "Monsters vs Aliens" in 3D. It was a great movie and the 3D effects were really fun.

On sunday we went to church, took family pictures and then went to St George to have dinner with Jason's parents. It was a beautiful sunny day, and we enjoyed lounging in the sun. That night we had another campfire and roasted marshmallows and made banana boats.
We pulled out bright and early monday morning and headed home. Everyone had a great time and enjoyed the little bit of sunshine that we had. It was a good vacation.

Sunday afternoons

What a moment of payback to see your kids all getting along and playing a game together. I didn't even ask them to! I love how Baylie was helping Hallie and letting Ashton sit on her lap and help her play. I remember many sunday afternoons where I played games with my sisters and parents. It seemed like on sundays we either all got along great or we all wanted to kill each other. I'm glad I was able to capture this moment.