Oh Maggie My & Caroline Pie: 2015

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Friday, July 10, 2015

I love Utah summers. When I come to Utah I tend to book myself, and my poor girls, to the max. We run around trying to fit all the visits and obligations and never have much time to just enjoy. This trip we did try to fit in a bit of fun.

We spent a much too brief afternoon at Bridal Veil Falls in Provo Canyon with Karla and her family. We hiked around the falls, something I would never allow my girls to do as I'm a giant worrier and am always convinced everything is too scary and dangerous. This is probably the genesis of "Karla is the fun mom" sentiment my kids now have. I try to tell them that Karla being the "fun one" is the exact reason I was her friend. I agree--Karla IS fun!

Caroline had already climbed to the top and had come back. This was Maggie's first time. Her look is exactly how I felt inside letting them be kids and climb up. I followed behind this time and Caroline spent the entire climb complaining and whining about how she wanted to be ahead of Maggie. She was so mad about a 3 foot distance between her and Maggie that she pouted to the point where Karla offered to piggy-back her down the mountain. The special treatment was right up Caroline's alley so she was pleased.

We visited the Bean Life Science Museum:

The girls seemed a little stumped by the taxidermy. Caroline asked "Mommy, are they advertising the monkey or the hyena?":

We also hit the Museum of Natural Curiosity at Thanksgiving Point:

Caroline, who is usually not scared of much, really did not like this bridge. Her dad had to really help her though it:

And finally we did the traditional family July 4th picnic and games:

Karla's parents live right next to the park we have our family picnic so we got to nose in on her homemade slip and slide. It was awesome! Well, it was awesome until my sister Julie broke her toe! Poor thing. This was not her first broken toe so she knew when it happened that it was broken.

Summer in Utah is fun. Amazing. Truly the best. But it's also exhausting!:

Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Feeding the Buffalo with Grampy

My dad decided he simply must show my girls "the buffalo". I have no idea how he knows of these buffalo, who they belong to, or if we were even allowed to be on this property. But, in typical Larry form, he insisted we meet him to feed the buffalo. We arrived on time. My dad was nowhere in sight. It was HOT! Utah in the summer can get blazing--it had to have been in the 90's. I insisted the girls sit outside on the sidewalk like I did at their age rather than a comfy air conditioned car. I guess being in Utah made me think my kids needed some flavor of what Utah meant to me? So there we sat, waiting for Grampy. Grumbling and sweating:

And Grampy arrived in style. I could see a car coming from far off. Way down the road came an old, beat up Honda Civic hatch back, ever so slowly coasting from some distance away. It took a good long while for it to come to a crawling, grinding, painful stop. Was he out of gas? Was the car stuck in neutral? Break pads long gone? Could be. This would not be my first time seeing my dad operate his vehicle in such a way giving all the afore mentioned reasons for it.

Grampy opened his car door with a creak, and slowly stood from the drivers seat. Reaching back into the car, he pulled out some old jeans and a button down work shirt. Right there, with cover only from the still open drivers side door, my father strips down to HIS GARMENTS to put on his work clothes. Mind you, this field sits in the middle of an upscale neighborhood in Alpine, Utah and an older gentleman stripping down to his holy underwear on the street using only a junk heap of a car door for cover is not exactly acceptable. It's not even explainable. And then...he pulls out his hat.

Grampy and the girls trying to spot the buffalo:

Grampy showing them how to feed the buffalo:

The girls attempted to feed them but were timid. They were scared to pull any grass or weeds so only one tiny shred of dried grass at a time was going through the fence. My dad kept trying to explain how to do it "right". He was getting impatient:

This is my dad. My childhood. Why we were in this random field, I have no idea. I don't know how he knew of it. For all I know we could have been trespassing. That would not surprise me. It was fun. And it was odd. And it ended abruptly when he had had enough of my sweet girls' timidity and started to scold and snap at them. This was the first time in many years that I'd seen this side of my father. His short temper. His cutting words. This was also my dad, my childhood.

This is the rub, isn't it? That no relationship holds only good or only negative memories. We are far too complicated for that. Each relationship, maybe especially a parent-child relationship, is unique and complicated. Multi-faceted, intricate webs of every single emotion, spinning and twisting together. It's damn near impossible to pull out a single thread, one solid unsoiled blissful memory from the thicket of memories and experiences that shape us, become our world. We are flawed and we are perfect. This is what it means to exist in relation to those around us.

But I am my father's daughter, which means I flare easily as well. I snapped back in the protection of my kids and the afternoon shifted. He suggested that we follow him to another inexplicable property where he "has rabbits". Those were his words. He "has rabbits". We agreed to follow him down to Provo, to another random field, to see the rabbits.

He did indeed have rabbits. Several long rows of rabbit cages in fact. They all were a little worse for the wear, definitely lethargic and worn looking. Grampy ran around madly filling up empty (and I mean bone dry) water bowls from a tiny stream at the edge of the property. How long had they been without food or water? My dad has a way of moving swiftly, almost frenetic and jerking when he's set about a task. He had a purpose, he likes to have a purpose. He also likes people to join in his purpose so he barked some orders and the kids and I ran buckets and watering cans to and from the little stream with fresh water to what we could only interpret as a rescue mission for these poor thirsty bunnies.

Eventually the girls got too tired and hot for any more rabbit fun and we left Grampy there to finish caring for the animals. I wish there was a better explanation as to why he was caring for a bunch of rabbits in a random field in Provo. I could ask. But I know there would be no clear or straight forward answer. It likely would go something like "well...rabbits are good to have!" (with an incredulous expression on his face). So we just go along and appreciate the experience for what it is. Explanation kind of unnecessary.

Tuesday, June 30, 2015

June 2015 Part 2

My mom gave us a bunch of books from her childhood collection. Maggie took an immediate interest. I've tried to get her started in all the cute, popular little chapter books for her age group with no success. Apparently she likes nonfiction:

We celebrated Fathers Day:

We definitely love the new cowboy boots we picked up in Steamboat. Grandma lamented they didn't have this fancy style in her size:

Colorado Rockies game. The players would roll balls across the dugout for the girls. Each girl left with a baseball in each hand. As we were leaving, the police officer manning the crowds told us to put them away (hide them) til we get to our car.

Absorbed in tech with Grandpa:

We took a quick trip to Estes Park and wandered around the Stanley Hotel:

Hanging around our neighborhood park, Stephen Day Park.

Heading out for the wild drive through Wyoming for Utah. We always stop at the McDonalds in Laramie, Wyoming for breakfast. When we went to leave an elderly woman came up to me to say how polite and well mannered my girls are. They had apparently held the door for her.