Uncle Jay

Uncle Jay arrived Saturday evening in his big yellow truck. Everyone was excited to see him (and Blane stared at the yellow truck for a while from his window-perch). All weekend I found the guys snuggled up next to him, showing him things (Seth was especially insistant on showing him his Linerider game online--that's where you draw all kinds of nonsense on the screen and watch a little guy in a scarf and a sled slide helplessly down your creation) and just hanging out with him. They all watched a classic football 2003 divisional playoff or something on the NFL network. Just like old times! Except poor Jay was sleepy by 8:30 and had to go to bed.

After church on Sunday, we had some family over for pulled pork sandwiches and limeade pie. The boys ate chips only as their palates were too refined for BBQ pork, coleslaw, honeydew melon, deviled eggs and pie filling (all GF, delicious and available for the eating). I continued to refer Seth to the bounty of food sitting on our kitchen island every time he said he was hungry and wanted more to eat.

Later the guys, Scott and Jay went down to the pool and played a little tennis. Sunday night was low-key (no Life-group this week) and Jay went out to visit Ty and one of his med-school friends. This morning, he pulled out at about 8:45 am, bound for the West in his Penske truck. I can't say I wasn't a little wistful, having been in Jay's shoes at least twice over the last 13 years, but I can't be truly envious. We're all excited for Jay's new job in SLC and are praying for safe passage.

Fundah-stohms

We were talking about thunderstorms at the table this weekend and I repeated Seth's pronunciation of "Fun-duh" (thunder) at the table.

"No, Mom," he corrected, "it's not fun-dah, it's FUN-dah!"

Glad he cleared that up!

Hot Rods and Birthday Cars

Friday the Harndens arrived for a quick stay-over before getting on a plane to Denver Saturday morning. They were going to visit friends and family for a few days before meeting Jay in Salt Lake and helping him move into his new apartment there.

Papa drove up in his black BMW this time (usually they bring Susie's Accord). Blane's face was a mix of puzzlement, mild disapproval and suspicion when they drove up--they weren't in the right car! He had to digest the car change for a little while but soon stood in awe of Papa's "hot rod". Even better was the fact that Papa's hot rod was going to stay in our garage for a week. After we got back from the airport on Saturday, he sat in it for a few moments along with the other boys. He really wanted to ride in it, but will probably have to wait until Papa gets back next weekend.

Later, Nana gave Blane his birthday present (one month early). Seth had been stoking Blane up about his birthday present, and of course, Blane has been openly campaigning for cars for his birthday. Naturally, he expected a bevy of brightly colored "Sallies" (VW beetles), but instead got clothes, a CD Rom Game and a Tonka Truck movie. His lack of enthusiasm was obvious, though he didn't complain. Even the fact that Lightning McQueen was on one of his shirts wasn't quite enough to staunch the disappointment. He said the requisite thank you and ran off to play. We all got a good laugh.

The Tonka Truck movie went over well on Sunday when he actually watched it. I guess his car dreams will have to wait until August 24th.

Game Night with Zac

Thursday night, the Zanders' called with 2 extra tickets to the Royals game. It was Seth's turn to go, so we got him gussied up with a backpack for all his necessities (apple juice in a cooler bag and a transformer in case he got bored).

After Seth and Scott left, I marveled in how quiet the house was. I had promised some Noggin to Blane, so he lost himself in Diego, or the Backyardigans or Wubsy--I can't remember--while Zac and I decided to play Last Word. Zac won and asked if he could stay up until Seth got home. Why not, I thought.

Blane wanted to stay up too, but of course, I said no. He cried about the fact that Seth was not going to be in the upper bunk. "I won't have anyone to play wiiiithhh..." he wailed. I pointed out that he wouldn't actually be able to play with anyone when he was in bed, but that didn't help. Zac and I tucked him in with his cars anyway, left the light on at his request and went downstairs.

We decided to play Life. We started off on our paths, and I went from being a police officer, to a salesman to a vet (the vet school must have been vo-tech, because it took me about 2 rolls to go through it and only cost 50K--what a deal!) Zac ended up as an accountant, but got his pants sued off by his mom (let the record show that this was in retaliation for Zac bankrupting his mother WITHOUT MERCY in Monopoly and leaving her only a cardboard box to live in near Baltic Ave). I beat him in the end with 1.4 mil--lucky me this time.

Zac is such a pleasant companion. I love playing games with him and seeing him deliberate and think things through. We talk and joke and have a great time together. These are the evenings that I will remember--just the intense pleasure and satisfaction of seeing your son growing, a little glimpse of the man he will become. What a treat for me!

Firemen in Westcliffe

Patty sent us a clipping from the local Westcliffe paper. Two of the firemen had minor injuries from the fireworks accident, but no one was seriously hurt, thankfully. Good news!

Card

Last night, when we got home from church, Scott told me something funny. On Wednesday nights this summer, they've had "Family Nights" where families have bonding activities like a scavenger hunt, science night, ice cream night etc. Last night they did a service project, which involved "tying a bunch of knots in blankets for girls" per Seth. They also made cards, and Scott told me that Seth made the following card.

Front: Seth McCord Harnden

Hello, ladies!

Inside: I love you.

Should we be worried?

Day 4

Now Blane is sticking his face in the water for his swimming teacher. Seth says he's doing better than he ever has before with his swimming (which is true). He's now jumping in and going all the way under. Both the boys are doing great, and if you add in Zac's diving board jumps, it's been a swimming milestone week at our house!

Diving Board

Yesterday Seth and Blane (!) started swimming lessons (second session for Seth). We lucked out that the boys are the only two kids in the class! Seth is definitely feeling more comfortable in the water--he jumped in several times and went all the way under. He even told Scott later that going underwater wasn't so bad "as long as you know about it". As opposed to going under against your will or accidentally, I guess.

Blane did great and charmed his teacher. I don't think she usually has students that young. He told her about every bug in the pool, which she had to remove so he would pay attention to her. He kicked and blew bubbles and halfway put his face in the water. Not too bad for his first time.

Zac sat out and watched the whole thing. The pool opened right after their lesson and I told the boys we could stay. Zac took off as usual. I generally glimpse him every few minutes somewhere towards the deeper end of the pool (don't worry, there are lifeguards there). He's really been self-motivated to try some new things, and yesterday he decided that he wanted to go off the diving board.

"Zac," I said, "you know you're going to go pretty deep when you jump off the board. Maybe you should practice going deep."

He pushed down from the side of the pool to the bottom and swam back up several times. Then he decided to jump from the side. After a couple of wet runs (wow, I was trying to be cute but that sounds really bad!), it was board time. He got up there, contemplated his decision, and went off the side of the board. After he got comfortable with that, he went off the front of the board (which is really the same as the side of the board, but somehow seems more scary, of course). Then he started doing cannonballs. Seth was quite impressed (so was I). So now, he's added one more skill to his repertoire.

"You're getting huuuungrrryyyy......"

On Sunday after we got home from church, Seth came into the kitchen.

"Mom, can I have one of those 'hypnotizers'?"

I was stumped by that one. "A what?"

"You know," he said, "the thing you eat before lunch so you won't be as hungry."

"Oh..." I replied, "you mean an 'appetizer.'"

"Yes, that's it."

As I didn't have any crudites on hand, he had to just suffer until I got lunch on the table 20 minutes later.

Ahem.

I don't mean to have a run on Seth stories--but lately, he's the one who's been giving me the most material.

This morning, Seth had a tiny notepad and a pencil. He asked me how to spell several words. When I asked him if I could see what he was writing, he grinned and said, "Mom! You can't read my diarrhea!"

He did relent after a few minutes and proudly showed me what he wrote:

"15-2008 (I explained it was the 17th, but he left it as is)

Zac fd (found) Blane plane (playing) with my cars."

"SETH!"

I've decided I need a bullhorn that bellows,"SEEEETHHHHHHHH!" We went to the grocery store today, and I can't count how many times I said his name.

"Seth, don't climb on that."
"Seth, get down."
"No, Seth."
"Seth!"
"Seth, put that back."
"Seth, leave your brother alone."
"Seth, come stand by me."
"Seth...Seth!...SETH!"

Maybe I need a cattle prod instead.

I'm Melting! I'm Mellltiiiiingggg......!

We got back from the pool yesterday and I HAD to cut the boys' hair because it was getting too long and shaggy. Consequently, we ended up watching "Spy Kids" movie on TV. I got everyone shaved up and they continued their glassy-eyed viewing.

But...it was about five, and we had to shut it off at 5:30 because the house was a disaster. I thought it would be over, but I was wrong.

"Sorry, boys, we have to turn it off," I said. Seth did not take it well. He got stiff and screamed like a 2 year old. I sent him to his room to calm down. He stopped screaming pretty fast, but he was far from done.

I told everyone it was cleaning time. Mt. Penatubo sent up an indignant plume of lava because I had made a "HUGE MESS!" on his floor from the books. Most of them were already in the shelf, but ancient junk from underneath and behind his shelf had been pulled out. I told him I would put up the books, but the junk was his and he needed to trash it. More ash and smoke followed.

I heard the eruptions from downstairs. Unsurprisingly, he yelled, "MOM, I HAVE A HEADACHE!!" As upset as he was, I have no doubt that he really did. He had worked himself up big time by now as we were going on 20 minutes of venting. I told him he could lie down, but he still had to finish the room.

He rested and then came downstairs and took some Tylenol. Things weren't much better down here, AND his two brothers were around. He lamented having to pick up all his Legos, got into a fight with Zac over some disputed pieces which ended up with both boys crying and screaming. More yelling by me followed.

That was about it--Daddy came home and everyone eventually calmed down (including me). Daddies are marvelous things sometimes for the peace of the household.

Library Fuss

I had promised the boys we would swim yesterday, so I had set aside the afternoon in anticipation of this very exciting event. However, we had library books due yesterday. Everyone was ready: swimsuits on, towels at the ready, sunblock thickly applied. But...oh no! Two of the library books were nowhere to be found.

"We have to find them, guys," I sighed. We looked under beds and couches--no luck. I quickly rifled through some bookshelves. Nope, not there.

"Okay guys, we have to find these. We need to deep-clean the bonus room," I said firmly.

Zac was crushed and cried softly as he poked around the bonus room. He was too upset to be effective. I told him nicely to buck up (am I mean?). Seth said, "Can't we just re-check them out?" I refused, stating that we would be in the same pickle in two weeks if we did that. Blane toodled around and was oblivious, but out of the way.

I finally ended up pulling out all the books in Seth and Blane's disaster of a bookshelf and put them in one by one. The first book we found was crammed behind the bookshelf and I found the last one after I had replaced almost all the books.

Everyone was relieved. We got in the car and had a short talk about responsibility and how it sometimes cuts into our fun, but ultimately makes us feel the best.

Got to the pool, and everyone had a great time as usual!

Stickers

I was pulling weeds yesterday as I am woefully behind and the frequent rains have made the job approach a crisis point. I came upon stickers (!), the bane of barefoot children. I had almost forgotten about since living in Texas. After I pulled them, it occured to me that I probably should have shown the boys what they were, if only for nostalgia's (and their poor feet's) sake.

One of the funny things about spending the boys' early childhood in a region of the country that was entirely different than the one I grew up: my kids don't know about stickers. When we moved here, my boys were boys of the West. Their familiarity lay with irrigation canals (don't jump in 'em!), dry air, open space, mountains, blazing sun with few trees, cloudless summers and long dank winters.

So we've had to educate them on the things I always took for granted. How to identify poison ivy. Lightning bugs. June bugs. Why you sweat within 2 minutes of going outside in the summer. Thunderstorms (we really never had many!). Tornados. Green--growing out of every crevice. Non-wildfires--last year when that baseball player's plane hit a Manhatten skyrise and went ablaze, Zac asked me how many acres the fire was. Why you stay out of a drainage ditch, especially in the days after a storm. Chick-fil-A. Copperheads (we'll get to that one eventually).

Yes, I know we are in the Midwest and not Texas, but it is much more a piece with the South than Idaho was (after all, we are only a little over 3 hours north of the Arkansas border). Now the boys are getting really acclimated and familiarity is more Kansas City than Boise. But I still find occasional reminders that the boys (for now) are transplants and need to know what stickers, and other little Southern/Midwestern things are.

De Lorean

I forgot to mention: we saw a De Lorean in Ellis, KS! Blane and I were walking out of the gas station and it was right there, wings up, with the people inside. Talk about 80's flashback! No flux capacitator inside though (sheepish admission: I had to look that up.)

Blane was fascinated, but wanted to watch it from inside the gas station instead of standing right there. I think he was freaked out by the doors. I made him walk past it to the van and he watched it drive away.

Then again, I didn't see where it went...Hmmmm, maybe 1985?

Home Again

The drive home was thankfully uneventful. We drove around the Castle Rock on our way out of town and showed Blane, then he asked where the Castle Rock was when we drove into KC.

It was great to come home to our little house, our life and all things familiar again.

So there you have it: the Harnden Family Summer Vacation 08! We didn't run from attraction to attraction, but thoroughly enjoyed our days there.

Six weeks and counting until school starts!

Back on the Front Range

We said goodbye to the cabin on Monday and headed down to the Front Range. We had an 11:30 lunch meeting set with Rich and Volyn York, our good friends from Boise, who were passing through Castle Rock.

It was wonderful to see their kids, Georgie and Clint, who are getting so big! We all went back to their hotel after lunch and the kids swam while we all visited.

We then went to the Malotte's house in Sedalia (west of Castle Rock). They live on 5acres of high live oak groves overlooking a valley towards the foothills. The boys had a great time messing around in the yard with Molly, the golden retriever, and swinging on the hammock. Zac tossed his flip flop into a grove of trees as he got on the hammock. Seth worriedly exclaimed,"Mom! Zac threw his shoe into the WILDERNESS! What are we going to do?"

We found the flip flop and didn't have to break out the emergency pack of matches and the lean-to.

After dinner, the boys went out with Cousin Ben and his remote control truck, which he graciously let them play with (supervised!) for a while.

After the boys went to bed, the five adults sat out on the deck with the chimnea, visitng and enjoying the incomparable night air of Colorado.

Rest and Reflection

We spent Sunday in the cabin and went nowhere at all. Where was there to go? We had all the food we needed, more reading material than we could ever go through, the boys had games, books, movies and toys and everyone was completely contented. We had our family church out on the deck facing the mountains. We ate, we read, we played Life and Scrabble, we took a walk and saw a rainbow, we listened to the rain drum softly on the metal roof. I think I'll add "Patty's cabin" to the Wikipedia entry for "vacation".

A relaxing setting with no pressures offered a great opportunity for thought, prayer and renewal. Scott and I spent not a small amount of thought about the West that we left behind--we couldn't help it, of course; the reminders were everywhere.

I loved Colorado and I loved Idaho--the open, open space, the sunlight and shadows on the mountains, the dry air, the smell of sagebrush, the rocks and the sand and fabulous, far-flung sky. Romance about it all is easy to come by in my mind. But, you get older, you have kids, you make choices about what's important and what matters. In the end, Boise was a just a place. And the place wasn't good for us. Five years ago, it would have been devastating to me to move away. But now...well, life's pretty good in Overland Park. And to us, family proximity is worth more than a great view outside your window.

A Castle and a Picnic

We awoke to sunlight streaming in our windows at 5:45—it was just like camping, only much more luxurious and with less dirt. Patty fixed us a scrumptious breakfast of hot spiced fruit, toasted sourdough (the boys had their cereal, declining their own toast), peppered bacon and scrambled eggs and we ate until we were stuffed.

We decided our plans for the morning—a driving trip over the Wet Mountains to a local attraction called Bishop’s Castle, and a picnic in the High Country on the way back. We drove on those Colorado gravel road for an hour, taking in the scenery. Eventually we met up with a highway, and drove along for about 20 minutes when we pulled off at the crest of a hill where many other cars were parked.

I could not have been more astonished at the scene.



Patty had told us the story—an eccentric anti-government hermit has spent his life completing a huge Gothic castle he started in the sixties. Along the way, the oddity began attracting visitors, and now is even listed in some local tour guides. Patty described it as a “Dr. Seuss” kind of house—which is a perfect description.

First of all, as you can see, it is really a castle—flying buttresses, arched windows, towers, masthead dragon, Russian dome and all. The alarming and charming thing about it is, this man built the castle with no attention to building codes (or safety). The risk you take (and of which he assumes no liability) is clearly spelled out on a big plywood sign he set out in front of the castle, along with some other various anti-government screeds if you care to read his opinion.



Stairs are built way too steep with puny handrails, dozens of walkways make of welded together thick metal screens wind precariously around the towers and extend as walkways 100 feet off the ground. It is fantastic and absolutely terrifiying.

We all went to the second level--there were open areas to the floor below blocked only by sawhorses. Multiple staircases wound up, and Patty and I left the kids with Scott and decided to go up one of the towers (primarily because it was enclosed and we wouldn't kill ourselves if we fell. The stairs were ridiculous and there were only metal loops occasionally imbedded in the wall for handrails.




We went up forever it seemed and ended up on a tiny landing right above the main gable with the dragon. I had to sit down before I threw up.



Well, I got my pictures and we made it back down. I looked up at where we had been and felt like a wimp--the landing was only halfway up the tower! I couldn't believe some of the folks that were walking on those rickety metal walkways high above where we had been. Amazingly, no one has yet died in the castle.

The guy was working on his Bobcat building a moat while we were there. He has plans for an enormous castle wall with turrets around the place. As he appears in his sixties, I'm not sure if he'll finish.

We escaped Bishop's Castle with all of our kids and limbs intact and took a side drive over the Wet Mountains to Patty's cabin. After we topped the last ridge and the Sangre de Cristos came into view, we stopped for a picnic lunch. The grade was pretty steep, but we all found a place to sit and admire the beautiful view. Unfortunately, our picnic got cut a bit short by thunder, and as we were sitting ducks up there, we scrambled for the car pretty fast!

Patty left us that afternoon to go back to Sedalia, and we had a quiet dinner and evening just hanging out in that marvelous place.

Fireworks

Fireworks were scheduled at the lake outside Westcliffe at sunset. After cleanup, we packed the kids in the car and took a leisurely drive down to Westcliffe, with Patty as our guide. The Sangres are dramatic mountains, primarily because their eastern front has no foothills to speak of. Facing us at this point in the valley were three Fourteeners: Humboldt Peak , Crestone Peak and Crestone Needle. Farther to the south was Blanca Peak, and the Collegiate Peaks, so familiar from Trek, were visible to the north. The interplay of light, rain and clouds on the peaks changes by the minute, and did not disappoint as we drove down from the cabin and along the valley. Patty pointed out several ranches as we drove.

We joined the line of cars on the road leading to the lake, and eventually parked at a good vantage point. The older two boys were excited and bounced in and out of our opened hatch, waving the little American flag Patty had given them.

Blane, on the other hand, was huddled in his carseat. You may remember the trauma he sustained last year at the Memorial Day fireworks show and on the last Fourth (“It’s not gonna kill me! It’s not gonna kill me!”). Scott had had him watch YouTube videos of fireworks the night before we left and he watched without any problem. But now it was dark, and reality was setting in. He refused to sit with anyone, and preferred to sit facing the opposite direction in his little seat.

We were somewhat early, and it was a good 20 minutes to a half hour before the show started. In the meantime, even Blane’s anxiety could not overcome the late hour, and he was slumped over in his seat before the fireworks started.

It was an impressive show for such a small town—big, dramatic and as long as I remember in any big city production I’ve seen. The boys picked their favorite explosions (“Stampeding Stars!”) About midway through, we were admiring a particularly big display when we heard a very clear “Oooooo!” from the middle seat. It was Mr. B, who had woken up without a fret and was now peeking over the seat, watching the show!

The fireworks had been humming along for about 15 or 20 minutes when one of the rockets discharged at ground level. We could see the shadows of the firemen huddling together, one yelling, “Out of my way! Out of my way!” The show stopped and within minutes we heard the ambulance. We all prayed that the fireman/men would be okay.

As it seemed to be the end of the show, we packed up, along with many others around us, and headed out soberly. We don’t know what happened, but hope that the injuries were not serious.

Cabin Fever

Patty (and the fabulous smell of tacos) met us at the door. The windows were open with the mountain breezes blowing in, soft music was playing and we were in awe —the full sweep of the Sangre de Cristos was in view from the back wall of windows and the deck.

The cabin was a perfect getaway—modern accommodations, full of windows, completely stocked with food and toiletries, running water and electricity (always a plus). I’m generally not a fan of the “lodge” look, but it worked perfectly in the Malottes’ cabin. Patty had done a fabulous job of giving the cabin a rustic look without making it feel heavy and dark.

Even better, she had brought oodles of kid games for the boys! They started on checkers while we finished the meal. Before long, we had pulled our chairs up around the table, mountains surrounding us, and were eating tacos that tasted ten times at altitude than at our house.

Destination: Westcliffe

I failed to mention where in Colorado we were actually headed (in case you didn’t already know). Scott’s uncle and aunt, Don and Patty Malotte, live in Sedalia, CO, just west of Castle Rock. They own a cabin in Westcliffe, a small town fronting the Sangre de Cristo range, west of Pueblo. They had invited us around the first of the year, and we took them up on the offer for the weekend of the Fourth.

In the three years we lived in Colorado, I never got tired of traveling those mountain highways. Trips along I-70 west of Denver were anything but boring—there was always something to see, and the hours would fly by. In the same way, the trip climbing from Colorado Springs to Westcliffe was fascinating—even more so, that none of us had traveled that particular way before. Some of it was beautiful, and frankly, some places were downright ugly. That’s the thing about the West: without the dramatic backdrop, much of it is unattractive, arid wasteland. The little towns are often run-down, sad and shabby, in the shadow of splendor though they may be. They are usually not promising places for young people—as evidenced by a crisis pregnancy clinic in one of the tiny towns.

All of us gaped at the federal prison outside of Canon City where many terrorists are living out their lives. Seems to me that plopping a max security prison in the mountains where hiding places abound might not be the best idea. Then again, would we want it in downtown Manhattan? My vote would be in the middle of Death Valley where exposure would kill you fast and the only thing you could hide under would be the bones of your fellow escapees.

After winding over the Wet Mountain Range, we dropped into the valley and into the town of Westcliffe. The cabin was nine miles south of the town and a welcome sight after driving all day.

Conestoga Woes and Mercies in Limon

July 4th started out as a glorious day in the heartland of America. We had the patriotic marches belting out from the CD player, while we talked about the founding of our country with the kids. Everyone was in high spirits—it was our Family Vacation---woo hah! Birds in the fields were singing the national anthem and the fruited plains were bobbing along in rhythm.

All was well till we hit Stratton, Colorado (a town smack-dab in the middle of the eastern plains). We had stopped for a pee n’go (a very nice benefit to having three boys), when Scott noticed a release of pink fluid from under the right front bumper of the van. “Hope it’s not yer transmission,” said a local guy passing by in his truck. We crossed over the interstate bridge to the first available service station. I took the boys in for a while while Scott examined the situation. After about 30 minutes we were back on the road again, Scott having determined that the problem was an overflow valve for the radiator coolant. We stopped again in about 10 minutes to check things out, but there continued to be unexplained leakage problems. Scott had been calling back and forth to Greg, who then (thankfully!) found us a mechanic open in Limon, about 20 minutes away.

We made it fine to Limon. The boys were starving by this point, so while Scott went into the mechanic I was frantically putting together lunch. I had to get the food together pronto or we would be stranded for who knows how long with our gigantic laundry basket of food and cooler in this shop (we have to travel well-stocked because GF food that the boys will actually eat can be hard to come by on the road). Just in time, I finished up the plates as the mechanic rounded the corner to drive the van into the shop. There we were in the blazing sun at 7000 feet above sea level—3 little boys with their plates and only a curb to eat on.

I can think of sob stories that are much worse, but at the time, it was a bit discouraging—and the day had started so well! Just then the attendant at the shop desk came out. “We have an air conditioned lounge upstairs, if you’d like to eat your lunch there,” she graciously said. Little mercies.

The lounge was just what we needed, and even more, to Blane’s delight, provided a bird’s eye view of the entire garage. The boys were about halfway through their lunches when the mechanic called up to Scott that our van was ready. Apparently, the altitude climb commonly causes overflow of the coolant, and when checking the fluids, Scott had not screwed the radiator cap on tightly enough, which caused the second overflow. We were good to go.

The shop exit was actually the exit we needed to take to cut down to Colorado Springs and within minutes we had sighted Pike’s Peak. Back to excitement….

Your Dream Hometown

Hays was Hays as we drove into town. They had made some definite improvements since we last visited a few years ago—nice landscaping in the medians along the main drag, a new Home Depot, some better restaurants, etc.

We drove by our old rental house—it has been bought now and improved, though we were not particularly impressed overall. Maybe we’re just Johnson County snobs now. We showed the boys the bisons they keep in a field along the bypass and drove by the church—looks the same, with bigger bushes in front.

We checked into the Holiday Inn. I had never been inside the hotel, though I’d eaten at their restaurant. The boys couldn’t wait to get at the waterslide, which was indoors in a large central courtyard which housed the pool. We got to our room, got everyone in their swimming trunks and were about to slip on our fiip-flops, when the electricity in the entire hotel went out (it was sunny and beautiful outside). Mind you, we were in an interior room that faced the courtyard with no windows. I groped over to the table and grabbed Scott’s cell phone, and we found everything by its light. Within a minute, power was restored, but we soon discovered that the power outage had disrupted the water flow on the slide, and since it was within 30 minutes of closing the slide for the night, they decided to just shut it down. Bummer. Additionally, the water in the pool felt more like a skinnydip in mid-winter Fargo because they were having “temperature problems”. Double bummer. Zac tried it but couldn’t take it. We all ended up in the very roomy and nice hot tub for about 15 minutes.

Ah well, I guess hotels are, at their core, just places to stay for the night. Our hotel fulfilled its basic functions, and we were on the road bright and early just after 8 am.

Watertower Thunder

Somewhere deep in Post Rock Country, Blane spotted a watertower.

“Mom, what is that?” he asked.

“That’s a watertower, Blane. They keep water there.”

Silence and thought. “Does it have a lid on it?”

“Well…,” I hesitated, “yes, kind of.”

More silence and thought. “Is that the box where God keeps His thunder and lightening? Does he take the lid off and let it out?”

Cute.

Vacation, All I Ever Wanted....

Thursday, July 3rd, marked a milestone for our family. For the first time since having kids, we were taking an authentic Family Vacation, the kind where we were NOT driving somewhere with the specific purpose of visiting immediate family around a major holiday (hey, don’t get me wrong…we love you all, but, well, there are other places we want to see prehumeously besides Dallas and Searcy). A real, pack-the-car, see-Rock-City, snap-pictures-like-a-Japanese-tourist, VACATION. Where, you may ask? Drivable, scenic, and memorable—Colorado of course, the de facto driving-distance vacation land of all Kansas Citians.

Remember, of course, that we had Sports Life Camp from 9-12 M-Th. I won’t say it didn’t cause stress as I sat there eight or nine miles from my house every morning without being able to go home and pack. Not to mention the car seemed to be running rough on Wednesday, to my horror. But, without giving you a bunch of boring details, it all worked out, and by 3:30 pm on Thursday afternoon, everyone was pumped up and belted in the car. We pointed the van’s nose towards the setting sun and drove our silver Conestoga down the road along with everybody else leaving town. Surprisingly, the traffic wasn’t too bad. We blew through Lawrence (torched by John Brown and home of the championship Jayhawks!) and Topeka (our friendly state capital—hey, is that a metal Indian on top of the Statehouse?), Abilene (beef from the trail, anyone?) and Salina (hmm…don’t really have anything to say about that). After Salina, we begin the long slow climb through the High Plains—though wave after wave of prairie hills and treeless horizons. Our destination was Hays, where we were staying in a REAL hotel with a waterslide. It brought back a flood of memories for me, as that stretch of road is one the Harnden family had traveled quite often in our near decade in the West. And, of course, we can’t forget that two year interlude in Hays itself!

As we topped a prairie swell, we saw a new sight: windmills covering the hillsides as far as the eyes could see (and let me tell you, that’s a long way in Kansas). These aren’t your little farm-dealies either—these were positively enormous, a hundred to a hundred and fifty feet high. They were clean and modern, three-bladed, and really quite beautiful to watch in motion. I don’t know how much energy they were providing—some of those gigantic blades were motionless, and others were only spinning rather reluctantly. But hey, worth a try, I suppose.

Crazy Week

Last week, the older boys attended Sports Life Camp, a day camp at our church that was in lieu of VBS this year. The kids run around and participate in lots of active play—street hockey was the main event the boys chose. We also invited Ben and Lilli Caplan, friends/classmates of the guys. On the Sunday before, they were still looking for some volunteers. I figured it would be ridiculous for me to go all the way home for three hours with the price of a gallon of gas around $4, so I volunteered to organize/serve snacks.

You can imagine what driving five kids in a minivan to church back and forth for four days was like. Yee haw. My friend Amy, who has the three most darling little girls you’ve ever seen (two red headed beauties, ages 7 and 5, plus a little golden, curly-headed angel who is 2), volunteered for snacks too. Anyway, we had to entertain everyone five and under who belonged to us while we were popping popcorn, pouring drinks, setting out baskets of fruit roll-ups, etc. Needless to say, we spent significant amounts of time playing out on the church property (they have more undeveloped acreage in the middle of town than any church I’ve ever seen), or playing upstairs in the preschool classrooms. The guys three had a great time and Amy and I treated each other on successive days to coffee from McDonald’s and discussing deep topics.

Between getting up early on four summer mornings, carting a vanfull of kids twenty minutes times eight trips, popping about a million bags of popcorn, running around with hockey sticks, and killing time with our preschoolers for hours, the boys, Amy and I had a fun week!