We love Logan!

We loved staying in Logan for a week.  It was especially fun to stay on campus at the hotel.  We basically took over the student center ever night and played games there.  We also loved eating in the cafeteria!  Good food, and Aggie Ice Cream every night.

One day we decided to head up to Preson, Idaho to track down Napoleon.  The kids thought it was the best adventure ever.

 My very smart children decided that Kneaders was the best place in the world to eat lunch.  We are so glad that Mark had his camera with us one day and took these very flattering shots of us eating...

 Zack was so happy to lose two teeth on our trip.  Both of them from corn on the cob!

 The kids loved ice blocking on Old Main.  We got 2 blocks of ice, and they spent the next hour sliding down the hill and them climbing back up.  Over and over and over.

We visited the Logan temple grounds.  It is such a beautiful building.  It always amazes me to see what beautiful buildings the pioneers were able to construct using such primitive tools!

 I love my Savvy.

 Savvy splashed Zack with some water from the fountain, and I love Zack's expression in this picture.

It was so strange to have only 4 kids with us as we went around town.  Jacob stayed home to work, and so once Aubrey moved into her dorm, it was just 6 of us!

 As we were staying 9 nights in the hotel, Savanna unpacked and moved right in.

 Noah is pretty dang cute.

 Sav and Joel found a chess game at the local mall.

 Hotel living is pretty fun.

 The bookstore has enough ipad minis for everyone to enjoy.

 We took a trip to Lagoon one day, and Zack was a trooper.  He went on every ride and loved it.  It was a completely empty day at Lagoon, and so the kids went on soooo many rides.  Finally, around 6:00, one last trip on Colossus was one ride too many.  I saw the look on his face (above) and rushed over to the shrub bed.  He puked.  And puked.  And puked.  And then he puked 4 more times before we got in the car.  And once in the car.  And twice while we were stopped at Kneaders in Layton for dinner.  He slept the whole way to Logan after that, and when we got back to the hotel, he was as good as new.

 Zack is always interested in the leaves and plants.

 The kids liked playing in this fountain/waterfall on campus.

 It was sad to leave Aubrey, but really not too sad.  She is at an awesome university, and she loves it.  We miss her terribly, but she is just a phone call or text away.  I am thrilled that she is away at college and doing just what she should be doing with her life!

A true hero

Last April, just a few days after the Boston Marathon bombings, Mark took this picture of me on the boat out to see the Statue of Liberty.

Luckily, I was sitting a row behind Mark and the kids.  I was sobbing.  I always get emotional when I see the Statue of Liberty, but I was a mess this particular day as the emotions of the terror attack combined with my love for the Statue and all she stands for turned me into one big crying mess.

The reason I love the Statue so much is because of my grandpa.  We have always loved to listen to his stories from WWII.  He was a decorated war hero.  And not the kind of hero who gets awards from calling the shots off far from combat.  He was right in the mess of everything--the Normandy invasion, the Battle of the Bulge, and his Hellcats was involved in the liberation of Buchenwald.  He told most of those stories without much emotion.  But one of the stories that always brought him to tears was the story of coming into NY harbor.

Here is a one-minute clip from a documentary my grandpa was interviewed for.  You can see where I learned to love the Statue of Liberty.

My Grandpa

My grandpa passed away yesterday morning at age 95 after a long and full life.  He was such an inspiration of faith and courage.  He and my grandma were married just days after Pearl Harbor, knowing full well that he would be drafted and sent off to war.  While my grandpa was in Europe for the war, my grandma stayed with her parents and raised the son they had together before Grandpa was sent overseas.  My grandpa commanded a squadron of M-18s across Europe, starting at Omaha Beach and ending on the east side of Germany 18 months later. Eventually they were reunited after the war's end and had 9 more children! The oldest of those 9 was my dad--the original baby boomer.

My friend sent me a message this morning about my grandpa that said, "What a sweet man who raised an even sweeter son."  That summed it up perfectly.  And it brought to mind a story.

My kids have a long list of stories my dad used to tell them.  These stories came to be known as "Bad Robert" stories about some of the mischief my dad got into as a kid.  Nothing major, just shooting windows out of a fish hatchery, installing a secret second phone through the basement ceiling, inadvertently causing a multi-car accident on 7th East when he was about 8, setting firecrackers up in the folding chairs of his sunday school class, and so on.  Just the kind of monkey business a child of the 50s could get into without getting caught.

My favorite story is about strawberries.

My dad was about 5, and by that time my grandma had a house full of four little boys.  My dad and his younger brother shared a bedroom just off of the kitchen.  Grandma sent the boys into their bedroom to take a nap one day, but she forgot about several cases of strawberries she had just purchased that she had left on the dresser in that room.  She was planning to make jam later that afternoon.  Well, a bunch of strawberries and 2 small boys in a closed room was a recipe for disaster.  First my dad and his brother started to eat the strawberries.  Soon my dad picked up a strawberry that was what he described as "Squooshy."  The squooshy-ness surprised him, and he flung the strawberry against the newly-wallpapered wall.  He was astounded by the awesome shape the strawberry made as it splattered against the wall.  He and his brother looked at each other, and they both knew what they had to do.  The rest of those strawberries were soon catapulted against the wall.  My dad said that if the berries were too firm, they would "pre-squoosh" them in their hands and then throw them at the wall--otherwise the berries just bounced off.  They loved watching all the shapes the berries made as they hit the wall and splattered all over.   Soon, Grandma could hear the commotion and laughter coming from the bedroom.  She opened the door and could not believe what she saw.  She started crying and scolded those boys.  She was so upset about the wasted berries, the jam that wouldn't be, and also the incredible mess that she now had to clean up.  She didn't know what to do with the boys, so in exasperation she said, "You just wait until your father gets home and see what he does with you."

Grandpa was a bricklayer, and arrived home at the end of a long day of physical labor.  He was dirty, sweaty and tired.  Grandma told him what mischief the boys had gotten into that day.  Grandpa marched the boys into the bedroom to see the damage.  The boys were expecting the worst, but my grandpa surprised everyone.  He started laughing.  Hysterically laughing at what his sons had thought up to do with those berries.  He laughed at the mess.  He laughed at the patterns the berries had made on the wall.  He laughed at the trouble the boys had caused their mother.  Through his laughter, he said, "I wish I had done something like that when I was a boy."  What an example of love.  He knew that the mess was temporary, that there would be another day for strawberry jam, but that his reaction to the situation would leave an everlasting imprint in the minds and hearts of his boys.   To him, life was about much more than strawberries smashed on a wall.  It was about family, forever, true love, and fun.

Aubrey's blog

Aubrey made a blog ( dearsavvy.blogspot.com ) so we can see all the fun adventures she will have this year at college.  She and Savvy are the best sisters ever, and it is going to be sad to not have them together anymore.  Her first post is for Savanna, but it is so cute I had to share it here.

College adventure

We are in Logan this week taking Aubrey to USU.  It has been a fun adventure so far.

On our first morning at the hotel, Savanna lost her brand new retainer in the trash.  She and Aubrey did a little dumpster diving and saved the day when they found it at the absolute bottom of the trash.

Later that day at lunch, Zachary was complaining about how he couldn't eat his corn on the cob because his loose tooth was causing him pain.  Mark reached over and in about 1/10 of a second, twisted the tooth right out.  No blood, no pain.  Zack was one happy dude.

We all made it safe and sound, and a little squished.  In order to not drive two cars to Utah, we shipped Aubrey's stuff via UPS, and then everybody got one small bag and we drove my car.  It was very cozy, especially because Aubrey couldn't live without her guitar, which took up almost all the cargo room behind the back seat.   But we survived.

 We all survived the journey, but Aubrey's boxes didn't do as well.  I bought moving boxes at Home Depot.  That was not the best idea.  Aubrey's boxes all did make it to our hotel, but they were absolutely destroyed.  I don't blame UPS at all, because one of the 4 boxes was a Nordstrom box, which was just as packed full and just as heavy, but it arrived without a scratch.  Miraculously, all of Aubrey's things made it.... at least she hasn't noticed anything missing yet.  The lesson is that Home Depot boxes may be inexpensive, but they are garbage and nobody should ever use them for shipping anything.

Savanna helped Aubrey get all moved into her room and to get things organized.  If anyone ever needs help organizing, just talk to Savvy.

We got Aubrey all moved in on Saturday just in time to attend Cache Valley's annual cultural event, The Cache Bash.  I had not ever been to a demolition derby before.  It was fun, but very, very loud.  It was incredible how absolutely crammed the stands were.  Everyone in town was there!

I admit that it was hard for me to watch the crashes.  It just hurt my tummy to see people racing toward each other on purpose.  Eventually I got more comfortable watching, and by the final round I was cheering for a black Impala.  One thing we learned is that old station wagons are pretty tough, and so is an old Impala.

 Coming from Nike Town, and the land of Pre, we decided to go check out the university track.  It wasn't very easy.  The track is crammed somewhere between the football training field, a giant parking lot for the football stadium, and a soccer field.  There was one tiny set of bleachers.  It was no Hayward Field.  But it was a nice track!  The kids took a lap and practiced their high jumps.

 Mark is loving the trees on campus.  So much variety.  He taught the kids how to tell a juniper tree from a cypress tree by looking at their berries.  They thought it was pretty cool.

 Then the kids climbed the pine trees.  Yes, they are pine trees, and not fir, hemlock or spruce trees.  The kids can tell you all about why pine trees are the best for climbing.

Today we had some fun, played UNO, ate waaaaay too much food at the cafeteria.  That Aggie Ice Cream is just so good you keep going back for me.

 Noah got a haircut at the official campus barber shop.

 Aubrey has met new friends, and is having lots of fun being a college student.  She met us for lunch today, but is pretty much into her groove and doing her thing.  Which is awesome, because that's what we came here for.  It will be sad to say goodbye, but we are so happy that she is here and learning what college is all about.