A few weeks ago Caroline sent a text out saying her family was going to "Bear World" for fall break and we were all invited if interested. I replied, "Sounds great! What is Bear World?" And so began this little adventure.
Brett & Tufa's family came (minus Ben and John), Ann-Marie and Ash-Anna, and our family with Mom (minus Matt). Bear World is near Rexburg, Idaho and approximately 3 hours and 51 minutes from Pleasant Grove. In order to enjoy as much time together and break up the drive we came up with a few stops along the way. The first one was the "UP!" house in Herriman, Utah. It was darling. We were quite impressed with the detail (even had a hose wound up on by the front porch) and quality of the materials. We took a few pictures and played in the park across the street and then we were off to SLC.
Caroline had heard of this little spot called "Gilgal Sculpture Garden." I'd seen pictures of it here and there and Caroline told me about a few of the pieces, like the Spinx with Joseph. A little odd. But then we read about the man who created it, Thomas Child. He was a stone mason and very active member of the church who expressed some of his testimony and thoughts through his art. The garden was originally part of his yard. I've since read several explanations of his pieces and found them quite interesting. We wanted to be respectful of the garden and had a little discussion about how sometimes we represent things with symbols and the Savior used parables to teach principles. So even though we might think some of the things in the garden were kind of strange, the man who created them hoped they would make us think and wonder.Daniel was not being especially reverent during our discussion (perhaps because he was being swung into the air by his cousins) so Uncle Brett helped out.
Team Johno: Tufa, Johno, John, Piper, and Sadie.
Team Joshia: Claire, Josiah, Vicki, Kate, Oliver, and Caroline (taking the picture)
And team Jess: Brett, Jess, Ash-Anna, Juliet, and Tasi
The rules were that each team had to take a picture with each item on the list and every person on the team had to be in the picture (except the one taking the picture). And we're off...
We all ran around frantically trying to find each item. It is a pretty small place (the size of a yard) so it was easy to see another group taking a picture so another group would run over and take a picture in the same place before we knew what it was. After a while there wasn't as much frantic running but a lot of meandering though the carved stones. We realized everyone had found everything on the list except one thing - the phrase "It was. That was. He was." carved on a stone. We gave up after several more minutes and Caroline handed out the prizes (TicTacs). In the process of handing out the goods John started trying to gather his team without being noticed. Quickly everyone realized he'd found the stone under a tree by the man with the brick pants and there was a mad dash to see which group could get all their members together for a photo op. It was pandemonium for a few minutes.
As Mom and I were driving to the Gilgal Garden I explained where we were going and some of the pieces in the garden. She said it
reminded her of a place she used to explore as a young girl when she was sent to the
"day old bread place" by her mom. She said she saw things through the
fence of the yard next door to the bread place and started peeking in to
see more. She eventually went inside the yard and looked around a few
times. Once we arrived at Gilgal Garden she said she thought this was the very yard and saw this next door...
The house Mom lived in the longest as a young girl was only a few blocks away, so of course we wanted to stop by 700 east and see if it was still there, which it was! She lived on the left side of the duplex and was so delighted that it was still there. She was full of stories like...
- Sleeping out on the lawn of the apartment complex next door all summer long with her friend, Sandra Porter, because it was so hot. The two girls would ride the bus to a barn near the zoo (she thinks) and pay a dollar to ride a horse for an hour in the mountains. They decided they didn't like boys, they just liked horses, so their theme song was "Ruben, Ruben, I've been thinking, what a fine world this would be, if the boys were all transported, far beyond the northern sea."
- The kindly black woman that lived in the tidy house further down the street. The woman attended a Baptist church near by that was "a sweet little white church with a steeple and a little porch out the front like in a 1940's movie." The congregation would open up their windows at night and sing out beautifully.
- I'd heard the story of Duckadoodle many a times and this is the house where he lived. It was at the end of the porch (left side) where there is a little step that she would sit and rib Duckadoodle's tummy until he'd fall asleep.
It was such a fun stop on our trip to see Mom's house and hear her stories. She chatted more about it throughout the trip and it was the first thing she mentioned to Dad when we got home. What a lady this Mom of mine is!
Our next stop was in Logan at the Gossner Dairy. We were going to stop by last December when our family was visiting Logan, but we didn't make it. It was another fun stop. They had samples of different kinds of milk - cookies and cream, rootbeer float, and banana, were among the favorites - and different cheeses. Johno and I both agreed that squeaky cheese just isn't right. They also had yummy ice cream which we enjoyed. Kate and Daniel think that any time they eat food it will change the color of their tongue to the color of the food. So here they are showing me their "pink" and "bown" (brown) tongues. They could not have enjoyed playing with their cousins more. While I was feeding Oliver in a little sitting area different cousins took turns taking them around the store and trying out different things. I got some of the milk to take home for Matt to try as well as some raspberry honey that I thought he'd like.
It was a little crazy trying to keep track of the Littles and keeping
them happy, but all in all I was very impressed with how the trip had
gone so far. We had a few bumps coming our way, but nothing a little
prayer and some wipes couldn't fix :)
The last stretch of driving, from Logan to Rexburg, was going to be the longest which mom and I unintentionally made even longer. From Logan Caroline and John's car wanted to go through Preston, Idaho where "Napoleon Dynamite" was filmed. Brett's family and ours headed toward Rexberg. We made it about an hour before we needed to stop for a potty break and some food for the natives who were getting restless. Brett's family was planning on meeting a friend from Samoa who had just started school at BYU-Idaho so they kept on going. I thought we'd be able to just pull off and and back onto the freeway pretty quick, but we ended up trying to feed and calm Oliver who was tired of sitting in his carseat, moving Danield's carseat in the very back with Kate so Mom could sit beside Oliver, calming Kate who apparently enjoyed the back of the van to herself and didn't want Daniel "in my space", and trying to eat. It took about 30 minutes. Then we missed the exit and wouldn't you know it, there wasn't another exit for 10 more miles. When we finally pulled off into the darkness of I-don't-know, Idaho, there was a lone store with a single light bulb outside as a sign of life. Mom went in to ask for directions and we eventually pulled into our hotel about 20 minutes later.
It was about 8:30pm when we arrived and we were tired, but Kate remembered that I'd told her we'd be able to go swimming when we arrived. Thankfully, Ann-Marie had offered to be dropped off (she'd been in Brett's car) and was waiting for us in the lobby to help with the Littles, bless her heart! Brett family then headed to BYU-Idaho. The pool closed at 9pm, so we had to hustle our bustle to get in before it closed. The next twenty minutes are a bit of a blur. Within that time frame we rushed to get kids into swimming suits and had one accident on the chair in the hotel room during the change from diaper to swimming suit, another accident on the bed with a diaper bursting at the seams, an overflowing toilet at first flush, trying to keep up with two toddlers in the pool, a mad dash out of the pool back to the room to avoid a super smelly disaster of significant proportions only to experience it in the still-not-functioning bathroom of the hotel room, and then removal of a very distraught toddler from the pool who felt she'd been robbed of appropriate swimming time and a quick clean up of the bathroom before the only employee at the hotel came back to check the toilet again. Somewhere in the middle of all that I snapped this picture of the three Littles in their swimming suits. And then it was 8:50pm.
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