Month: July 2015

This morning we had leftovers for breakfast. Leftover hashed brown casserole, and french toast….I actually ate the rest of my ice cream from last night. Then it was time to start packing up our stuff and loading it in the van. Before loading anything though, I made sure the van was cleaned up and free of trash.

Jeremy was being a good cousin and played with Brooklyn for the morning:

When Jeff came home for lunch we took advantage of having him there and got some pictures with him:

We tried to get some pictures of just Brooklyn after he left, but she was just not cooperating. So Debby fed her and when she was asleep we tried again, and got some beautiful pictures.

Right before leaving we got some pictures with all of the cousins (well the ones that were there).

Seth was pretty close to being done with pictures by this point. 😛

Then we loaded up all of the kids and drove to the Dr Pepper museum in Waco. According to their website they should have been open for another hour by the time we got there. But they apparently close their doors early so everyone is OUT by closing time. That information wasn’t on their website. So we didn’t get to see anything aside from the gift shop and the soda fountain. We got some Dr Pepper floats, and made sure everyone used the bathroom. The employees at the museum were trying to kick us out the whole time the kids were in the bathroom. I had to flat out say that we are NOT leaving until all of my children finish in the bathroom. Then we left. Debby went back home and we worked our way north to spend the night in Fort Worth.

For breakfast this morning we had the baked french toast and hashed brown casserole that I helped prep yesterday. The baked french toast came out a little over done, and the brown sugar was kind of crunchy instead of gooey. 🙁

We got to church about half an hour early for Jeff’s ordination to the office of Elder. And just being ordained an Elder, he was able to bless Rexton and then Brooklyn during sacrament meeting. Debby got to sit in the circle to hold Rexton on her lap since he is so much older than most babies typically are when they are blessed. Jeff’s family wanted to take pictures immediately following sacrament, but Kyle and I both had sleeping kids on us so we asked if we could do them back at the house later….Debby and Jeff were fine with that but still had to take pictures with Jeffs family because they insisted (they weren’t staying for the rest of church, but Debby & Jeff and the rest of us were). After church Debby did ask someone to take a picture of the rest of us at the church before going back to their house.

Back at Debby and Jeff’s place we got out the food and fed everyone. I got the ice cream maker going to make a second batch so there would be enough ice cream for both sides of the family. The main meal was completely consumed then Jeff and his family left to go to some museum. They told us before they left, that they would have ice cream when they got back. We were also waiting for them to come back so we could actually take the pictures that we said we would take with everyone at the house. They were gone so long that Grandpa and Grandma gave up on waiting for them and they left to go back to their hotel so they could get enough rest before their flight the next day. The rest of us eventually gave up waiting for them to return and we just had ice cream without them so we could put the kids to bed. We were actually getting the kids ready for bed when they finally made their re-appearance.

I tried taking some pictures of Brooklyn before getting her ready for bed, but she was pretty much done with the day. So we’ll have to try for some pictures tomorrow.

This morning Kyle and I finished unloading our luggage, so that we could get ourselves and the kids dressed in our patriotic clothes, while Debby made pancakes and bacon for breakfast. Some of the pancakes she actually fried in the bacon fat and they weren’t bad.

After breakfast, I went with Dad and Debby to do some shopping. Debby needed to refill her water jugs, and get a few supplies for food for the weekend. Debby had asked Kyle and I to bring our ice cream maker, but we thought that we would just buy one for her when we got here. Then we got in so late we didn’t have a chance to buy one before meeting up with them. So we got an ice cream maker and a hat for Kyle. Kyle had asked me to pick up a hat for him since he forgot to bring his, and he needs it to keep his head from getting sunburned. We went to get the ice cream ingredients and the employees were stocking lots of EMPTY refrigerator shelves. There were NO refrigerated or frozen items for sale. The employee explained that there had been a power outage yesterday and everything in the fridges and freezers had to be thrown out and restocked. So Debby directed Dad to a different store, the HEB. There we got the ice cream ingredients and all of the rest of Debby’s refrigerated needs. They had samples of some watermelon soda. It was good, so we got some.

After we got back to Debby’s house, I helped Debby in the kitchen with preparing food for tomorrow, and Kyle and Jeff headed to the stadium to stake out a spot for watching the fireworks. While they were gone, I made the hashed brown casserole (which included shredded hashed browns, browned sausage, onions, peppers, cheese and eggs), and the baked french toast for breakfast. And I made up a batch of ice cream.

Then it was time to head to the stadium. There were lots of vendors just outside with food for sale. The HEB store actually had several booths, passing out free stuff. First the kids got free hats, bandanas, paper fans, and rubber bracelets. Then everyone got a free soda or water bottle, and then everyone got to choose a free chocolate or vanilla ice cream cup. Now that the kids were loaded down with all kinds of spoils we took them to the blankets that Kyle and Jeff had laid out for our group earlier.

Dad took mom and I back to go get some food for dinner, while Kyle stayed to watch all the kids. Dad gave me the assignment of getting the corn dogs. They didn’t have any regular sized corn dogs left by the time it was my turn to order, they only had foot long corn dogs for $6 each! I had to go get some more money from Dad and get back in line in order to get enough corn dogs for those that had asked for them. Dad got some tacos, and mom got a pizza, and I think Jeff joined up and was the one that stood in line to get the funnel cakes covered in fruit toppings.

We got back to the group and got dinner served. Then I went to pull the bottle out of the diaper bag for Seth. But it wasn’t in there! Turns out mom had taken it out and set it on the counter at the house, thinking that she would make it visible to remind me to grab it. But I had asked someone else to take the bag to the van because that was where I had put it. So the bottle didn’t make it to the stadium with us, and I had NOTHING to feed Seth. 🙁 I did give him some of the ice cream, thank goodness for those. And we tried to give him some of the other stuff, but it just wasn’t dinner to him. Needless to say, he was quite cranky for most of the evening.

There was a band that played music, and when it got dark the fireworks started. Eventually Chloe and Lydia announced that they needed to go potty so Kyle took them to find a bathroom and ended up missing the band playing the 1812 overture, complete with cannons that some army member shot off to the music. That was really awesome. Dad told some of the kids that the last time he hear the 1812 overture with cannons was before I was born.

When the music and fireworks were all done, we went back to Debby’s house. We got back way faster than Debby and Jeff did. That may have had something to do with the fact that we were parked in the handicap section, and were therefore a lot closer to the stadium. So we got back to the van faster and therefore got out of the parking lot sooner. While we sat in their driveway, we played some Weird Al songs for Grandpa and Grandma. Grandma liked Tacky, and I thought they would enjoy Skipper Dan being from Anaheim and being well acquainted with the Jungle Cruise ride, and Ethan really wanted to share Jurassic Park with them. Grandpa definitely recognized that tune!

Debby and Jeff finally made it home and Grandpa and Grandma went back to their hotel for the night, and we are so ready for bed too. It has been such a long day, and somehow I didn’t take any pictures! Just goes to tell you just how crazy busy the day was!

We left home yesterday afternoon to start our journey to Texas. I really wanted to leave Wednesday afternoon after Jeremy got home from day camp but we were not prepared to go. In addition to finishing the packing we were still trying to find an animal sitter. Everyone we asked wasn’t going to be home either. We spent Thursday morning still looking for an animal sitter, and we left as soon as we left the key with the sitter we finally found.

On the drive as we headed south in Utah I saw this awesome cloud, and it looked like it had a smiley face. So I had to get a picture.

We drove all afternoon and into the night. We drove east into Colorado, and continued on a south eastern route. I remember an attendant at a gas station in Montrose, Colorado warning us when we stopped about 10 pm to fill up that the next big town, Gunnison, was about an hour away and that after that there would be NOWHERE to stop for a very long time. Well he wasn’t kidding. We got to the next big town around 11pm and Kyle felt like we should push on just a bit further before stopping for rest. We ended up driving several more hours. It was about 2am when we finally drove through a very small town with two hotels. Kyle ran into one of them to find out how much they charge and came back saying “$200 for one room”. Ugh! I refused to pay $200 just to take a nap! So we kept driving. We passed through the northeast corner of New Mexico in the early morning hours, and we crossed the northwest Texas border about breakfast time. We stopped to get gas again, but there was nowhere to get some breakfast. I had lunch meat and other sandwich stuff packed, but that wasn’t breakfast. I ended up passing out some dried fruit (blueberries, cherries, apricots) for a breakfast snack to hold everyone over till we could find a place to get some food.

Later on we stopped at a dairy queen and let the kids pick out an ice cream treat. I had an pina colada julius and Kyle had a shake. Then we swung by a McDonalds to get some nuggets for lunch. Then we got back to driving.

We got to Cheddar’s, the restaurant Debby chose for dinner, about 6pm. I honestly don’t remember if that was Texas time or the time in the van (which would be Utah time). We were so exhausted and out of it by this point. We unloaded all the kids at the restaurant and Grandma and Grandpa offered to watch them there, while Kyle and I got back in the car to go to the office to get a pass to get onto the base. We got that all taken care of and went back to the restaurant and were seated shortly after we got back. Dinner took awhile to come out, and by the time it did I was just too exhausted to think about eating. We finished up and the restaurant and followed Debby to her house, we unloaded only the necessaries and went to bed.