2011 Library Picnic (Wednesday, June 15th)

Mere hours after arriving home, we loaded the girls back into the car (and to my great surprise, Miriam clapped her hands and say, "Yay! Ride!") to attend the annual HBLL picnic. This year it was pioneer themed and Rachel was so excited to dress up. Costumes weren't going to be judged until the end of the night, though, so Rachel shed about half her costume so that she could play games.

She ran a three-legged race with Daddy, and they won.

And that's a wrap

Is anyone else overjoyed that I've finally finished writing about our road trip? Good.

Unfortunately, it's already July tomorrow and I still have two weeks of June that are completely MIA.

I'm really excited because tomorrow one of my best buddies is moving into town from California. You might remember her from our days in Egypt. I certainly do. Rachel was good friends with her son, Sam, and we just about died when they moved away. But then we didn't.

Anyway, whenever Sam didn't want something he'd say, "No, not!"

"Sam, it's time to brush your teeth."

"No, not!"

"Sam, come and eat your snack."

"No, not!"

"Sam, be nice to Rachel."

"No, not!"

One day Sara asked him what the opposite of "No, not!" was and he said, "Yes, do!" Only he lisps so it came out "Yestha do!"

The reason this is pertinent to our life now is that Miriam has created a contraction of sorts. Instead of saying, "No, not!" she simply says, "Non't!" (rhymes with "don't").

"Miriam, let's brush your teeth."

"Non't!"

"Miriam, that's Rachel's doll."

"Non't!"

"Miriam, it's time to go potty."

"Non't!"

It's hilarious. I'm not quite sure how she came up with it—it's like she merged don't and no and not and won't. Its meaning is all encompassing and it's quite an ingenious coinage, I think.

Yellowstone (Tuesday, June 14th)

I spent a quarter of a century without ever having been to Yellowstone. That's a long time because a quarter of a century is equal to my entire life. I almost feel like Yellowstone is Disneyland or something because when people would say, "So, in Yellowstone blah, blah, blah..." and I'd say, "Oh, really. I've never actually been to Yellowstone. Everything I know about Yellowstone I learned from Yogi Bear," then people would gasp at me, audibly.

It's like being ten and telling people you've never been to Disneyland.

"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

"Don't your parents love you?"

"I think so, yes. What does Disneyland have to do with love?"

"Everything."

"Wow."

Ten-year-olds are pretty dumb. And I've since been to Disneyland (and it was fun). I went the summer my family moved to Utah; I was fifteen and, if I recall, paid my own way into the park. My parents paid to get me and my brother to California but I'm pretty sure we had to pay for admission for everything. At least, that's how I remember it.

Anyway, ten years later and I finally made it to Yellowstone! After being cut off at the pass, literally, we took a different route to Yellowstone, which was really quite snowy. We were seriously driving through a tunnel of snow—there were walls of snow on either side of us that were taller than our car. And it's June for crying out loud! 

Once we got into Yellowstone we drove to Old Faithful right off (well, it took us hours upon hours to get there and Miriam soiled the first diaper she'd soiled in days and I very nearly wet my pants as well) and then sat and watched her fizzle for about half an hour.

Devil's Tower (Monday, June 13th)

The last stop of the day—before getting to our relatively creepy hotel in Gillette, WY—was Devil's Tower. You might recognize it from such films as Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

The Black Hills of Mount Rushmore (Monday, June 13th)

Pretty much the whole time we were in South Dakota, I had a song from Calamity Jane stuck in my head—watching Calamity Jane is how I learned most of my "Western" history as a child. In the movie, Doris Day, who plays Calamity, sings The Black Hills of Dakota. Unfortunately I only know the first few lines so every now and then I kept belting out, "Take me back to the Black Hills, the Black Hills of Dakota, to that beautiful Indian country that I love!"

This was my second time in the Black Hills, so the song was fitting since, there I was, back in the Black Hills of Dakota—I visited Mount Rushmore once before with my mom and Josie in 2004, I believe, though I'm not sure that I have any pictures to prove it. 

Spelunking (Monday, June 13th)

Driving out to Mount Rushmore is kind of humorous. There are loads of random things to do, just off the side of the highway to lure tourists in. We fell for a couple of them: Bear Country and Sitting Bull Crystal Caverns. We ignored Reptile World, and some eerie gravitational/magnetic spot, among other things.

Going down inside the cave was neat. I haven't been that deep inside a cave in years...or ever. I'm not sure. I know that when I was really little—not much older than Rachel—my family went to Timpanogos Caves and I cried because I didn't get dripped on, which our guide then said was good luck. Our guide through Crystal Caverns called them a "cave kiss." I'm sure Rachel will remember the cave—she thought it looked like it was covered in diamonds and wondered if she could move in and have it be her castle (in the two minutes that she decided to be brave instead of clingy and terrified).

Rachel did much better than when we went through Hezekiah's Tunnel, that's for sure! She only screamed a few times instead of continuously wailing. She must be growing up.

There wasn't much in the way of stalactite and stalagmite, but there was a whole lot of dogtooth spar, which is what brings the Crystal Caverns both their name and fame.

Bear Country, South Dakota (Monday, June 13th)

Our first stop of the day was Bear Country. Rachel was pretty excited about this; she still remembers the trip we took to Bear World last year (most importantly that she got to kneel on her car seat instead of sitting down, buckled up) and she was excited to see the animals again (and most importantly to kneel on her chair so that she can see out the window—we live life on the edge...when we're going 2 miles per hour).

I was quite impressed with Bear Country. We saw many, much elk up close and personal.

Des Moines to Rapid City (Sunday, June 12th)

Rachel loves playing with Steve and Jodie's kids, though I think Adam is a little too rambunctious for her at times. They were eating together at the kids' table and Adam was doing something (I don't know what) and Rachel turned on him like a mother bear and said, "Look, Adam! Just put it there and stay it there, okay?"

It was pretty funny; and they really did get along well for most of the time. We went to church with them in the morning. Rachel was excited to get to sit with Adam.

She even held his hand as they walked into the church building, though Adam doesn't look quite as invested in the hand-holding as Rachel does. In fact, he looks like he's trying to squirm his way out of her clutches. 

It was fun to get to visit with Steve and Jodie, even if it was only for a little while. We left after sacrament meeting and drove all day until we got to Rapid City, South Dakota. It's actually only a ten hour drive from Des Moines, Iowa, to Rapid City but we were lucky to be able to take the route we did. Because of flooding along the Missouri River, the east bound traffic on I-90 was rerouted. We were heading west, though, and our side of the freeway was open. We saw a whole lot of flooding, though!

Our last day in Nauvoo (Saturday, June 11th)

One of these days I need to blog about the present instead of the past because we keep doing stuff. Like Rachel had her last day of school (a long while ago), we went to a picnic where Rachel won $15 for having the best pioneer costume, I just had my birthday, and we went to a Princess Festival yesterday, and my cousin Jimmy got married today. See? Exciting stuff. But I can't justify writing about those things when we still have so much of our Nauvoo trip undocumented. Actually, we only have one more day of actual Nauvoo stuff and we just went around seeing things and then hightailed it out of there. So there isn't much left from Nauvoo.

We knew we had to visit Grandma's cousins—Marie and Monte. The problem was that we had been planning on taking Monte's carriage ride the day before but just couldn't squeeze it in. Instead we did a carriage ride this morning. While we were waiting for the ride to start, people were talking and somehow it came out that we were from Orem, but our baby was born in Egypt.

This woman across the way got excited and said, "I know you! You're Heissatopia! That's Miriam and this is Rachel!" Then she got a little embarrassed and admitted, "I read your blog. I'm Doug's mom...Geneen linked to it and I just started reading it one day and..."

Gassy Tales

For the longest time, whenever Rachel has passed gas, she's said, "Oh! I gassed!" It is now officially a family term.

We have a few gassy stories to share and, I suppose as some sort of an odd birthday present to me, Andrew gave permission for me to (and even suggested that I) share them on the blog.

The first happened a few months ago. Auntie Sarah was over and Rachel gassed.

"Who did that?" Auntie Sarah asked.

"I did," Rachel offered honestly. "But do you know what?"

"What?" asked Sarah.

"Sometimes in the morning when my daddy's still under the covers..." Rachel began. Then she brought her voice down to a whisper and finished, "...he gasses in the bed!"

This elicited uproarious laughter from Auntie Sarah.

It's true. He does gas in the bed. But who doesn't?