Memory Lane

Monday, the 6th, we drove to Sacramento and dropped Bill off at the airport and then continued our drive down to Elk Grove to stay the night with dear friends. The drive was bitter sweet and difficult for me to deal with. I heard on the radio the traffic report and started to cry over the mention of all the busy streets I used to call home. I didn't know that "a disabled car on the Capital City Freeway" could bring tears to ones eyes. It was a blatant reminder of how much I missed Sacramento and the life we had there. Our children were born there, we bought our first home and condo there. We started our marriage there. We both started, what I thought to be our careers, there. We had made lasting friendships there, and probably more telling, it's the last place I was with my mother. Where she played with my children and taught me how to be a mom. When I got to Jennifer's house I offloaded my emotions. 

I met Jen Dresser at California Family Fitness the week Bill was accepted into the USSS academy and after a few brief conversations we forged a wonderful friendship. Her youngest was the same age as Livi. Juliana was one of Livi's first friends and it's always fun to get together with the whole Dresser family. Jeff (husband), is very caring towards me and actually helped a lot mentally when Bill was in training. And their boys, Jeffrey and Jordan are sweethearts. I tease Jen that one day I could definitely see our families joining through Jeffrey and Livi. He's 10 and just as into Livi as she is in him. Jen is pregnant now and due the end of August, so it was fun to see her and her belly. 

We spent the night and went to a water park to play. Most of all just hung out at the house and had great conversation. Visiting with them is a homecoming of sorts. When I met her and her family was when my family had turned down a very different path than ever expected. My mom had just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and Bill was leaving for 7 months. I spent many nights with Jeff and Jen. I remember one particular night... I had just made a humongous apple pie. Bill was gone and I had no one to share the pie with except me and two little ones. (At the time Livi was 3 and Aaron 1.) Jen had called or maybe I called her. I was not feeling very peppy and Jen is never anything but. I think she could tell that I started to cry. I explained my self pity of not having anyone to share my pie with. She did what any good friend would do. "Bring the pie over here, we'll share it with you!" The kids and I ended up spending the night and most of the entire next day with them. This visit, like the ones of the past, was wonderful.

The kids and I took the time to go to my favorite deli, "Mr. Pickles". YUM! We drove to a park that I would take the kids to, ate our sandwiches on the beautiful lush grass and played on the wooden structures there. The kids didn't remember the park in it's entirety but it was good for me. 

Afterwards we went to our house. We still own it but are trying to do a short sale on it. We had had good renters in it since we left Sacramento but the mortgage wasn't being met in full so we had to let them go and put it for sale. It's been 2 months since someone had lived there but 

what I saw was more than I could deal with. I started crying the second I pulled in front of the house. It looked like it was just another abandoned house that plagues cities around the country. We used to pride ourselves that our little house was the best looking on the block. Great landscaping front and back and clean exterior. Not the case anymore. 

The neighbors gave me a hug and said the tenant had done a great job keeping it up... it's amazing what can happen in two months. The inside of the house had a few things happen as a result of renters, nothing too bad. She had left the fridge and other appliances very clean. I was very saddened by the state of our once luscious backyard where Bill and I spent hours working on the esthetics, where both our babies used to run around in their diapers and swing on the swing set.  Later in the week we were able to hire a landscaper to give it a once over, with plans to have a friends kid do low maintenance up keep. I drove back down to leave the payment with our neighbor who had set it up for us. My mind and heart had changed. The landscaper had done a great job. Besides the brown grass it looked pretty normal. 
It's a beautiful house, but it wasn't mine anymore. I had felt sad that Bill and I were never able to really say goodbye together in our home, I had really been struggling with leaving Sacramento. Not anymore. I still miss the friends we have there but something's changed. I'm glad I saw the house in the state that it was. I learned, again, that it's not the house that makes the family or the memories, it's the home and the people that live there. My home, our home is in Las Vegas. This is where our memories now lie; old ones from Sacramento, and the new ones we make everyday.

Fun in the Sun

Sunday, the 5th, we had a scrumptious breakfast with Mom and Tiger, Sam and Nikki and their boys were all there as well and then we headed down to Bill's dad's house in Red Bluff. It was a beautiful day so we enjoyed the pool and a fun BBQ. The kids had fun visiting with Grandpa and Nana, playing cards and chasing the cats.

Ignore the white, focus on the muscles!

Aaron couldn't get enough.

Cody (16 months) and Nikki

YEA Josh! Good catch Sam

Livi getting ready to "surf".

4th of July

I decided to start my day off with a bike ride. Since we were going to have breakfast at my older sister, Gretchen's house, I decided to ride there. It's about 12 miles, and it was fun. I never thought, growing up, that one day I would bike clear across town. (Bill didn't believe me when I told him. Not the 12 miles, my rides at home are longer, the fact that it was across town. My route was... interesting to avoid freeways.) When I showed up at the Reasbeck's, Ryan looked at me like I was absolutely insane, "Did you run here?" "No I biked." "Oh." The kids thought it was pretty cool that one could actually ride their bike to Papa's. Breakfast was fun. Yummie waffles with great trimmings and everything to make breakfast fantastic. The kids had fun playing and Aaron and Ethan enjoyed the slip'n'slide outside. (Hard to tell apart at times, Aaron's on the right.)

Bill was reunited with us, after a fun trip with his "cousins", for dinner with Dad and Angie and then we all headed to the "Claycamp" spot to watch the fireworks. (On just south of the Market street bridge. Between a giant oak and a motel, it really is a perfect view with not so much traffic.) We joined up with Gretchen's family and her husband's parents as well. (Garrett was working and his family had traveled out of town after Logan's party.) The fireworks were as AWESOME as they've always been. Livi loved the slight thud in her chest and Aaron was proud of himself that he "didn't get scared!". 

Dad bought giant pixie stix and Gee made yummie "puppy chow".

Dad, Angie, Aaron and I

Gretchen with her boys, Ethan (4) and Evan (almost 9)

3 weeks in 3 days

Bill called me Monday, June 29th, from work. The conversation went something like this...

Bill: you know the hiking trip that my cousins are doing in Redding, well, I really want to go. Will you drive with me?

Me: Oh, you mean the trip I told you to buy a plane ticket for 2 months ago...well, I'll have to drive back up in 2 weeks for the Claycamp campout.

BIll: (pause)

Me: I guess, (sigh) the kids and I (sigh) could just... stay up there for the...3 WEEKS! I don't know, that's a long time.

(Let me clarify, it was 1 cousin and 1 brother and 1 uncle... "cousinS" did sound better.)

I had 3 days, more like 2 1/4 days to pack for 3 weeks when I initially thought I had 2 weeks to pack for 1! Talk about crazy. But then again, I'm getting really good at crazy. And truth be told, I think I like it.

I made plans to stay with loved ones for the next 2 weeks with the 3rd week being my family's campout on the coast. We left Thursday afternoon at 3 after Aaron nearly drowned in a friend's pool. (Little boys who can take off their floaties, and who are daring to a fault, cannot be out of your site at the pool for even a second! That's all I'm gonna say about that. He was attempting to do the same thing the very next day!!! ARGH!) Bill dropped his car off at the airport where he'd be flying home to on Monday the 6th (thanks to "flex" days), and we picked him up there.

Bill drove the entire 12 hours except for when we dropped him off at his dad's house, for the hike with the "cousins" and I drove the extra 45 min. to my dad's at 3 in the morning. Bill told the kids to keep me awake...after 20 min, I told the kids, "Okay, I think that's enough, thank you." 

The kids were fantastic. We could not have asked for better travelers. Not ONE SINGLE COMPLAINT THE ENTIRE TIME IN THE CAR! (And no Papa T., not even an "are we there yet?") Considering the time of day we chose to travel you'd think they slept alot, not really. But whenever they saw a bunch of trees Aaron would yell out, "We're at Papa's house!", even if it was only 2 hours into the trip. Aaron continues to amaze us with his ability to pee every hour if not 2 or 3 times per hour. We got so good at roadside pee breaks that nobody was even getting out of the car, not even Aaron. (Let your imagination work on that one.)

I was thrilled to have good timing, if nothing else. My brother, Garrett's son, Logan was having his 5th birthday party at Chuck E Cheese's Friday morning. We surprised him with our arrival. (I had called Kristi, his mom, Wednesday, to RSVP to the invite she had sent just for fun. She thought I was being a smart alec, but was excited when I explained what was going on and that we would actually be in attendance.)

Logan the Birthday boy and Livi.

We had dinner with the Michiels (Bill's mom) Friday night. Luckily Tiger's family was visiting from out of town due to the 4th. My kids adore their 2nd cousins. We went swimming in Grandpa Bob's pool and had great conversation, along with a meal from Mom that didn't disappoint.

Bill's cousin Katherine, Aaron and  our nephew Josh

Bill's cousins Charles and Mary Katherine. 

Livi and Charles really had a thing going. After dinner and dessert, Livi, Aaron and Josh put on a magic show for the older "kids" and Great Grandpa Bob, Tiger's dad, complete with 

"number guessing". It was GREAT! Grandpa was smiling and laughing. Something he hasn't done very much of lately.

Joy in Jackson

Bill and I left Sunday, June 15th for a week long trip with yes, just the two of us! We felt so blessed to be able to take this trip to Jackson, Wyoming. We decided to split the 11 hr drive in 2 so Sunday night, after dinner with my brother, Adam, in Provo, UT, we stayed with our friends, the Williams, in Pleasant Grove. It was nice on the drive to not have to entertain or help the kids. When we wanted to stop, we did, and got Blizzards at DQ... YUMM-O! The next morning, because no kiddies were tugging at our toes, we woke around 8:30 or so and headed up north to finish the trek. We drove up by way of Pocatello, ID and even stopped for a late breakfast there. It was absolutely beautiful. We pulled into the parking lot saying to each other that we should maybe come back through here if we ever go to Jackson again, the kids would love it. We stepped out of the car to run in to the restaurant, it was raining, and we both started laughing... it smelled like we were back at the pig farm in North Las Vegas. After talking to the restaurant manager, who hadn't seen it so pretty there in the 30 years he'd been there, we decided maybe it wasn't the destination to seek out. And so started our trip. We won't know until next time how jaded we were this time by all the beautiful green scenery that quenched our desert dehydrated eyes. Everywhere we drove we were amazed at how beautiful and green everything was. I'm glad for the unseasonable amount of rain.

On to the trip. The whole trip was made possible by Katherine, Bill's aunt on Tiger's side. She has a condo in Teton Village which is the ski resort at the base of Jackson Hole ski park. We finally go there and to say it was beautiful would be a huge understatement. To me, it was an outdoor paradise waiting to be explored. We found the condo, with some help, we honestly don't know how we didn't see it???!, and got unpacked, showered and dressed. We needed dinner. The interesting thing about the village is that it comes pretty close to shutting down

around spring and was just starting to pick back up when we got there. We walked around the village, decided that we didn't want to spend $30/entree and drove towards town. We ended up at "Q" a BBQ place on the side of the road that was really quite good. Bill's burger was the most perfect burger in existence. Unfortunately the yummy fries didn't find there way into the doggie bag. We spent the evening working on a puzzle that we had brought with us... 2000 pieces was not my idea!

Tuesday morning I woke to Bill doing his workout routine, I walked over did my pull ups, joined him for the abs and called it good. I went outside to only have to pick my jaw up off the floor. Paragliders were landing in the field behind the condo! I wanted to do it so badly but it was $250 so next time we'll save accordingly. (Oh yeah, the second we got our of the car we were already talking about when we were going to come back.) We had borrowed our friends' mountain bikes, so we jumped on and hit the road. It wasn't anything to make extremists turn their heads, but we were having fun just being Bill and Rachel, not Mom and Dad. Bill admitted that he was quite impressed with my biking ability/endurance, he said this as he walked up the hill behind me. I explained that biking and running are two completely different animals. Later that day we headed to town, Jackson and walked through all the shops. Not before getting me my birthday present though. I've been really eyeing the sandal Keens for hiking. I love them. Thank you honey!!! The town was fantastic and the shops were fun. We did some grocery shopping at Albertson's, rented a movie, Taken, and mailed postcards to the kids. With some more work on the puzzle our day was spent.

Wednesday was a much anticipated day. We went horseback riding in the mountains with a guide from the local saddle company in Teton Village. They told me that they had been seeing wildlife on all the morning rides so I booked the first one out, 8am. Bill on Trojan and Me on Redman. Bill did great. Redman, well he was definitely getting his digestive system working. He did not want to keep up with Bill and the guide, but I suppose it was a good thing we brought up the end because he was farting the entire time! I couldn't help but laugh. One time I could swear that he even burped. I don't think horses burp, but Bill said his horse didn't fart and it came from in front of me. It was fun, but after an hour we were glad to give our kiesters a rest. We tried to get some rest for the next part of the day, water rafting.

I had told Bill that I don't so much care what we do as long as we get to go rafting. Before we took our trip we searched online for rafting companies and could only find one that did trips so early in the season. We booked it in early May. When we got to the shop, it was very cool and we were very nervous as to how cold we were going to be. (The whole week we were there it didn't get above 70, and usually hovered in the mid-60's.) The rafting was SOOO AWESOME! They had given us splash suits and Bill and I got to sit up front. We were drenched head to toe and at the end our fingers and toes were numb. My fingers were so numb I couldn't even get my splash guard off. Just before getting off the river it started raining, and got to pouring very quickly. We followed the van driver to the top of a hill running as much as we could to get out of the rain. One of the rapids that we had gone over was called "lunch counter". The guide had been talking ths series up pretty good and preparing us for quite the thrill. We were hoping so badly to not be disappointed... and we were not. It was such a thrill. We got so much air on one of the rapids, I was screaming and Bill's face was... indescribalble. He was having the time of his life, as was I. We definately need to start doing more of this stuff.

Thursday we decided to make the drive up to Yellowstone National Park to see the sights and to experience Old Faithful. What an incredible place, all made possible because of Old Faithful! When the geyser was discovered the government agreed to make it and the surrounding area a National Park. Did you know that the water that shoots up out of Old Faithful is 500 years old?! The water in this picture has been sitting under ground for 500 years waiting for it's turn to marvel the onlookers. (Talk about patience.) I was so amazed at the knowledge that was shared with us by the park ranger, I wondered why I never had wanted to be one myself. (It's incredible what you find to be interestng when you're older.) Like the actual "hole" in Old Faithful is 18 feet down and is a circle 4 inches in diameter. That is why the blast is so powerful. Also, that all of Yellowstone is the inside of a volcano! That blew my mind. The whole park is the inside of a once active volcano and the ridge line is ancient lava flow! WOW, so incredble! The picture of Bill and I was in front of a hot spring. It was next to the largest in the world, but this picture caught the incredible color a bit better. These pools of water were a magnificent blue outlined with awesome colors of rust and teale. The depth was amazing and if one could get directly over, it seemed as if you'd be looking to the center of the earth. We took a hike back to Fairy Falls and of course it started raining about 1/2 mile into our what we thought was a one mile hike. I wanted to go back, Bill convinced me that the rain would stop. I gave in and we started to run. The elevation must be so much higher than we're used to 'cause we tired out much sooner than we would've expected. Or at least I did. (Even if the elevation isn't a reason, it's a good excuse.) The trail was actually 2.5 miles and well worth it. I was so thankful for Bill's seemingly infinite knowledge of meteorology. He was right more than once about the rain and cloud cover. And really, when you don't have kids, who cares if you get rained on. It did make it that much more enjoyable knowing that it just didn't matter. I will admit that a couple of times I looked up, while running, fretting the idea of a torrential down pour. The falls were very beautiful and the 2.5 miles back was an enjoyable hike. Aside from the beautiful scenery we were also blessed to be able to see all the big game that I was looking forward to. These bison were simply on the other side of the road as I timidly yet determinedly clmbed out of the car to get a better picture. Beautiful. Driving to the park we went through the Tetons Park and saw a prong horned antelope, elk, and moose. The moose were great. We saw a young bull one day and a momma and her baby two days in a row. (The baby was hiding the frst day, but in clear site day two.

Friday was our trip to Jenny Lake. What a great place. Such a beautiful piece of nature. Once again we hiked back to some falls, Hidden Falls. AMAZING! 5 mles round trip much more "hikish" than the "walk/run" we had the day before. Up and down hills around the coastline of the lake. Every step made a perfect pictue(unfortunately this was the time I was able to stop Bill with his quick hike pace and take a picture of the beautiful lake with a dead tree.) Bill's pace is insatiable. The man does not slow down. His hiking is much like his driving. He keeps going faster and harder until he finds someone to pass. Slows down long enough to figure out how to get around them and then off we go again 'til the next hiker. We did stop one other time on the trail to the falls to watch a grizzly bear trounce through the field across the gorge. This hike definitely left us more winded and tired. But the falls were ten thousand times better than Fairy Falls. Massive amounts of water gushing over the jagged cliffs thrusting down into the river below. I could've watched them all day long.

I could write words like amazing, awesome, beautiful, and incredible but none of them seem to do our experiences justice. It was so great to be with my husband in such a great place doing such great things. We love to be outside and we love to be active and feel and to be young. Everything we did, down to the 2000 piece puzzle was great. If only we had an extra hour to finish...maybe next time.

We left Saturday, my 30th birthday after a relaxing morning. We stopped by my brother's place in Provo where we were both treated to a fantastic birthday dinner of Chicken cordon bleu with a family favorite, Frogeye Salad, and "don't forget the peas", says Adam. It was decicious. Adam, I felt so spoiled. Great job! We stayed the night with my Aunt Yvonne and her family in Orem and then headed home Sunday in time to meet up with the kids and Gee for Sacrament meeting on Father's day. What a sweet reunion that was.