spring break '09.

i'm starting from the end and rewinding. we left for home sunday morning at about 4:30am. the kids didn't miss a beat. they just kept right on sleeping. mw had some trauma when his bladder reached its proverbial limit and he was forced to relieve himself in an empty 44 cup. i wonder why on earth he had to go so badly? after the sprite incident i decided to put a lid on the cup and then stuff the straw inside. i just didn't want to go down that road again. the ride home was as uneventful as the drive west. we stopped in topeka and swam in the world's smallest indoor pool. we woke monday morning to gale force winds and determined that we would never again stay in kansas. we arrived home after 22 hours in the car together. i honestly think that i could do it again next month. the kids were phenomenal and mw wasn't bad either. gw was a champ. he ate, slept, and pooed through onesies. this is exactly what he does at home.

saturday we woke up and started getting ready for my little sister's baby shower. and i forgot to take pictures. luckily my sister-in-law took pictures with her great new camera and i am just waiting for her to email me the pictures. hint, hint. we got a call from mw's sister telling us that her 18month old son was being taken by ambulance to primary children's. to make a very long story kind of short, he contracted a bacterial infection from grain. bacillus cerreus. definitely spelled incorrectly. it basically just meant that his intestines were totally jacked up. the team of 2o doctors likened his intestines to a slip and slide. anything that went in came out shortly after in the exact same form. the amount someone poos is measured per kilo of weight. apparently the average person poos 20-40 kilos per day. someone with bad diarears poos 50-60 kilos per day. poor sammy pooed 500 kilos one day. which is, like, 5 liters of poo in 24 hours. they cranked him up on antibiotics, took massive amounts of blood, took ct scans and abdominal xrays, and after nearly a week, he was able to go home. thank heavens. so mw's mom left for the hospital before the shower started. and we missed her but we had a lot of fun with the crowd that was left. it was good to see a couple of her friends from the y and spend the morning eating yummy food with my sister, sisters-in-law, and mor's aunt. later that day we shopped and ate too much steak while the kids watched tinkerbell out back. mw's brother set up his projection-thingy and the kids bundled up and watched a movie on the brick wall behind his parents' house while we roasted marshmallows and ate smores. then we cried a lot about leaving and took pictures. which we later determined we should have done before we cried.

friday we went to the bean museum on campus and were totally disgusted by all of the stuffed animals. we forgot our camera. it was really cool taking all of the kids together. eight grandkids and seven adults. we traveled to the creamery on 9th for lunch and i had an amazing deep fried oreo ice cream sundae. my heart ached when i discovered that the creamery by dt was bulldozed when the dorms went down. they had the best sour joo-joo balls. thursday we took cw up to sundance to ski for the first time. brit watched aw and bw and aunt v went with us to watch gw in the lodge. the weather was perfect. the sun was shining and there was no wind, nor any kind of precipitation. we thought about taking him to the tow rope hill. and then decided against it when we realized that we would have to hike 50 yards in our skis just to get there. so we tossed him on a lift with uncle morgan and the adventure began. let me start out by saying that mw is wonderful. he is patient and kind and very even keel with the kids. most of the time. but he struggles a little in high stress situations. and this was a high stress situation. i had not been skiing since 2001. the guy at the lift station was right. it is just like riding a bike. so instead of mw and uncle mor helping cw down the mountain, i got to do it. the first runs were a little tricky. he weighs almost 60 pounds and could not keep his skis from crossing behind him. we were able to strip down to our ski pants and tshirts after the first run and so i had him stand beside me with his ski right up against mine and i held onto the back of his ski bibs. it was great. after he saw that we weren't going to let anything happen to him and that falling wasn't horribly painful or cold, he became uncharacteristically daring. mw and mor would ski about 50-75 yards ahead of us and he would tuck into a ball and cruise down to them. my blood pressure went through the roof a couple of times when he started to veer off towards a grove of trees. mor literally had to dive after him and knock him to the ground just to get him to stop. he and i headed into the lodge to hang out with aunt v and gw while mw and mor headed to the other side of the mountain. it was great. i can't wait to go again. maybe aw will be up for it too. later that night we went over to ben and brit's for our nephew's bday party. the kids had a blast playing baseball with the guys. it's so nice to have so many kids the same age.

bw played so hard on wednesday that he crashed on the couch. this NEVER happens. he always has enough energy to keep going. but apparently he just couldn't go anymore. he also gave up the bob while we were on vacation. hank is still a vital necessity, as is pacy. but bob, he has left us for good. mw and his brothers went up to brighton to go night skiing on wednesday. so the kids and i went to my sister's house to hang out for a while. the kids played with penny, a fluffy, white dog with behavioral issues that can only be likened to adhd. the weather was incredible. the temperature was in the seventies almost the entire week. which was wonderful, but would have been more wonderful had i packed appropriately. having left cold weather i assumed it would be cold there too. wrong.

mw had somewhat grandiose illusions of hiking the y with cw. he was a little concerned about the prospect of having to carry a sixty pound child, but they packed their bag with water and snacks and hooded sweatshirts and headed out. they triumphantly returned home a few hours later. mw said cw walked the entire way and never complained. a little out of the ordinary, but wonderful, nonetheless. he said cw talked the whole way up and the whole way down. they broke off four small pieces of the white rock to bring home. maybe mw will have someone to hike with him after all. i am definitely not volunteering to do it. we ate lunch at taco amigo, a utah favorite, and let the kids play outside for most of the day. gw's little face got the first of what i'm sure will be many sunburns. aw fell out of a trampoline that had a safety net around it. leave it to her. bw starting clubbing people with his cast when he got irritated. mean, but funny.

we took the kids on a drive through the canyon to see bridal veil falls, but because of the time of year we couldn't get very close. we drove up to sundance to drool over the homes and cw was good enough to take a very bad picture of mw and i.

the kids loved hanging out with aunt shell. eli and aw had their toenails painted a lovely shade of shimmery pink. we went up to campus on monday. we had to pick up some goodies at the bookstore. i was reminded again of how greatful i am to be done with school. it was great while we were there, but i am so glad to be away from the byu/provo bubble. i'm sure lots of people got a kick out of us. four small kids. i felt like i needed a sign that said, "we are not students here. i graduated almost six years ago. i had no children at the time. we've been very busy since then. my husband has been in graduate school for six years and we are almost done." it probably would have taken a posterboard. anyway. we ate at rio. mw's favorite. not mine. but we did see a friend from our byu years. apparently, he has no intentions of ever leaving provo.

for the first time since i was pregnant with bw we decided to make the drive to utah for spring break. i know what you're all thinking. way bad idea. not so. we packed everything friday night, woke the kids at 5am saturday morning, and headed out. they slept for the first two hours and so did i. mw was a champ. he drove 12 of the 15 hours to denver. we got there early enough to grab a pizza and some qdoba and swim in the pool. many thanks to greenwood orthopedics for suggesting the waterproof cast. we got up the next morning around 8am and drove the final 6.5 hours to springville, ut. mw's parents are renting a home there while his dad works in the education department at byu. again, the kids were great. the last 2o minutes were rough. you know how excited you get when you know you're just a few minutes from your destination? the kids were nuts. coming out of the canyon, i wanted to scream. luckily, their home was just a few minutes from the mouth of the canyon and those huge new windmills. mw's parents were waiting for us. i have to admit that the one really great thing about living far away from family is that they are so insanely excited to see you when you visit. this is especially true of aunt v. and we are always just as excited to see her. within one hour of arriving, mw's two sisters and two brothers, their families, and my sister and her husband had all converged on gma and gpa's house. it was loud and crazy and we loved it. it felt just like our house feels here in indy.

it seriously felt like 14 of the 15 hours we drove in the car on saturday were in kansas. we took a picture to help us remember how wonderful kansas was and why we would never, ever, in a billion years ever consider living there.