Wally World it up

And, we finally did it. We took the kids on a theme park, amusement ride, good ol' American summer vacation last weekend. We didn't end up at Disneyland like I've been trying to get in the works for over a year now, but we had a great little tour of northern New Hampshire and all it has to offer in the way of kiddie fun.
We also checked off 2 other things from our "need to do" list. 1 - take the kids camping on the East Coast (take them camping at all - Hattie has never been.) 2 - Grace has been lamenting that she has never stayed in a real hotel. Oh, poor thing, she's stayed in ski condo's, beach houses, and the sort, but never in a regular hotel room. I'm playing a tiny violin for her sad story.

For amusement park fun, NH has a couple of REALLY nice places for the 2-12 year-old crowd. Storyland and Santa's Village were both super fun, nice, and relaxed, and perfect for our kids and their interests. I think I liked Santa's Village the most. Who can resist Christmas everywhere you look on a nice day in July? Christmas music playing, a barn filled with Santa's reindeer, and even the Jolly Old Elf, himself made for a pretty fun day.

Camping around here is, well, not like the camping David and I really like to do in Utah where you can get away from everything and everyone up in the mountains. But, we found a campground right next to Storyland complete with flushing toilets, showers, and a swimming pool. I decided trading peace and quiet for a flusher was worth it - especially with 2 girls, one newly potty trained! It was actually pretty nice when we pulled in and seemed very clean. Not too shabby. So, we pitched our tent, hooked up the camping stove, and settled in for a night under the stars (well, under the tree canopy anyway.)

(Day 1 - dry tent, happy girls)

THEN, came the second night. We came back from a day of fun at Storyland and pulled into the campground to find a complete assortment of New Hampshire's "finest", um, red-necks (what's the politically correct term here?) The once really clean bathrooms and showers were now, well, disgusting, after the volume of new people using them. The crowd that had gathered in the neighboring tent site was delightful fun, full of Metallica blaring, beer drinking, kids. Sweet. Nice place to put your little girls to sleep.(Day 2 - roasting weinies in the rain)

It started raining too, rained all night. We woke up in a very moist tent full of water, and wet towels and swimming suits that we had hoped would dry hanging up in the tent. Ya right. Still, we pressed on.

Grace wouldn't get out of bed all morning. We thought she was pouting. She was homesick and not happy with the tent situation anymore. We finally rolled her out of bed and threw her in the car to head to Santa's Village. On the way out of the tent site, she said "mom, I need to vomit." Lovely. We got out of the car quick and sure enough... It didn't end there. She was sick ALL day at Santa's Village, ran a 103 fever. We pushed her around in the stroller all day, but she basically missed everything. I felt so bad. She LOVES Christmas and everything that goes with it. She would have had such a great time there.

What to do? Pack up and go home? Sleep in a wet tent with a vomiting child next to the party crowd? I didn't actually say anything about it, not wanting to crush David's camping spirit. On his own, he said "why don't you call the Attitash ski resort and see if we can stay there tonight." Are you kidding? Did he really say that? YES! He CAN read my mind after nearly 12 years of marriage. AND, he agreed with me! I didn't waste any time calling and quickly made the reservation before he could change his mind.

So, we doubled the total cost of the trip and checked into civilization. As we pulled up to the pretty yuppie place, WE felt like the red-necks with our packed-to-the-gills subaru station wagon, mismatched duffle bags, camping gear, stuff strapped to the top of the car, grocery sacs full of wet crap, and sporting our classy camping fashion. Good thing we were still in New England where no one really cares what you look like 99% of the time.

We prayed that Grace only had a 24 hour bug and would be healthy the next day. David even gave her a blessing. In good faith, we bought tickets to do the alpine slide at Attitash for the next day. Little did we know that we had actually bought day passes to their entire resort which also included a water park, ski lift rides, and bungy trampoline.

(Hattie and I don't look too happy here because for the 1/2 hour ride up the lift, I spent the whole time trying to keep her from dropping something or squirming out of the chair. It was torture!)

Miraculously, Grace DID wake up the next morning feeling 100% better and we were all able to have a blast for the rest of our salvaged trip. And, Grace got her hotel wish!

I do feel bad that David didn't get to camp the whole time and he missed out on driving to the top of Mount Washington, but we did see it from our view at the top of Mount Attitash :-) I'm so grateful to have such a nice hubby and super dad that he let us wimpy girls crash in a hotel when the camping got iffy. I would have been fine if all the days were like the first day, but seriously.

Our list of favorite things:

1- Bamboo Chutes (log flume ride) at Storyland
2- Yule Log (log flume ride) at Santa's Village
(can I just say that Hattie went on these over and over and over and finally asked if we could just put one in our back-yard! the kid LOVED it!)
3- beautiful flower gardens at both parks
4- super darling themes for the rides and attractions at both parks

(Grace and Hattie in the 3 bears' house. I always call them my Goldilocks!)

(Princess Hattie and her Prince Charming sitting in Cinderella's Pumpkin Coach)

5- getting to meet all of Santa's reindeer
6- riding the longest Alpine slide in North America. I didn't know it was the longest one, but when we got off, I said "wow, that was a really long Alpine slide" and David said "duh."
7- the circus at Storyland, cool magic tricks and performing house cats!

A strange trip to SLC.

I just got back from a short, 3 day trip to Salt Lake. I feel super lucky that I got to go. I didn't have any Utah trips planned for the summer and was starting to feel really itchy to go back. The reason for the trip, was unfortunately, a sad one. As you can tell from my last post, my Grandpa died last week and I miraculously made the trip for the funeral. I did not take very many pictures, so I don't have lots to share that way. I wish I had taken more.

The spectrum of strange started with buying a single ticket for me to go. David really wanted to go, and I would have loved to have taken my girls, but last minute flights over the 4th of July weekend were just too outrageous to buy one of them, let alone 4. David was extremely generous and still urged me to buy a ticket for myself and took time off work to stay home with the kids while I went. That was strange number two (for all of us!) I have NEVER left Hattie overnight before, and the only time I've ever left Grace was when we came to Boston to look for houses and I left her with my mom for a week when she was two. I vowed that I would never travel without them until they were more grown up, but there I was with one plane ticket.

Strange number three: going into the airport alone, not checking any bags, going through security without 4 carry-ons, liquid to declare, a stroller, and 3 pairs of shoes to get off and on, sitting in the airport terminal by myself. CRAZY! I was so bored and lonely. I had no one to take potty, no one to chase, no one to beg me to buy expensive stuff in lame shops, and expensive food that wouldn't get eaten. WEIRD.

Strange number four: you can see where this is going! Being on an airplane by myself with no spilled juice, lost crayons under the seat, fighting over the movie for the DVD player, kicking each other, fighting for the window seat. Well, it was just a bit too much! I watched MTV (and Michael Jackson stuff on CNN) for hours straight thanks to the cool tv's on jetblue (not sure if that is good or not.) Haven't done that since high school.

Strange number five: staying with my sister, Melissa (and not my mom like I always do) and getting to spend quality time with my niece and nephew. I have never really gotten to know them well because I already had my own kids to chase by the time they came along and I had already moved to Boston too. I loved spending time with those little stinkers! I hope they know their Aunt Shell better now too. I was especially happy to see little Kate. She broke her leg a couple of weeks ago and I had wished I could go and hold her and help Melissa a bit. I didn't go anywhere much except Melissa's house and it felt great to just hang with her for a few days.The funeral: It was strangely good too. I haven't been to tons of funerals, but I've been to my share. It was really nice to sit and listen to stories of my Grandpa that I had never heard. (He has been my Grandpa since I was about 6 years old. My Dad's dad died when I was only 3 and I am the oldest grand-child, so no one really remembers anyone in the Grandpa spot except Grandpa Hal.) His sons and 2 of my cousins did an amazing job of speaking and singing. Luckily, I got out of speaking at the last minute and only had to say one of the prayers. Strange number five: sitting in church with my ENTIRE family. All of my sisters, my parents, most of my cousins, all of my uncles. That has probably never happened before, and may never happen again. I joked a few times that I have reached the point in my life where I am unlikely to see all my family except at weddings and funerals and since I haven't made it to the last 3 weddings, I really need to go to the funerals.

Everyone keeps asking if this was an unexpected death and if we are all doing ok. I should say that Grandpa was 92 and had cancer here and there for a couple of years. So, unexpected, really isn't the right word. He did go kind of suddenly. We thought he would last a few months longer and he was only really super sick for a couple of days. I do feel really badly for Grandma. She's not taking it well and has been left with quite a few details to take care of with his cable supply business and his sheep farm. He worked until the week he died. He lived a really healthy, productive, full life, so there isn't much tragedy to it. Except, again, Grandma, who has now buried two husbands and has quite a bit of time left alone in her life thanks to her younger age, good health, and lots of longevity in her genes. I also feel bad for my dad and his brothers who are again left without any sort of father.

Well, it isn't strange to be home, that's for sure. All the normalcy you could want is here. Plenty of chores, work, refereeing, and all the usual things were here and waiting for me. David will have to blog about what he did with the girls while I was gone. Apparently, he gets the award for super dad this week!

Grandpa Hal

no time for blogging today, but I want to at least post this:

Harold Schofield "Hal" Coleman
Harold "Hal" Schofield Coleman 1917 ~ 2009 Harold Schofield Coleman passed away peacefully June 29, 2009 surrounded by his wife and family who dearly loved him. Hal was born March 24, 1917 to Irene Schofield and Charles W. Coleman. He graduated from the University of Utah in 1940 as an Electrical Engineer. In 1940, married in the Salt Lake Temple to Rose Kathleen Halling, who preceded him in death in 1946. Married Amy Tift in 1953, later divorced. Hal married Pearlie Mitchell in 1982 and they shared 27 wonderful years together. Hal worked for General Cable back East for many years before returning to Salt Lake City to open his own business, Coleman's, in 1976. Hal loved his sheep farm in Fillmore and was a gardener extraordinaire. An active member of the LDS Church, he served many positions including a service mission with Pearlie. Survived by his wife Pearlie; sister Gloria Baker; sons Steve (Kathleen), Brian, Mark and Tom (Stephanie); step-sons Louis (Cece), Lyle (Debbie), Kurtis (JoAnn) and Randy; 15 grandchildren; and 11 great-grand-children. Funeral services will be held Monday, July 6 at noon at the East Millcreek 2nd Ward, 3750 S. Hillside Lane, Salt Lake City, UT. A viewing will be held at Wasatch Lawn Mortuary, 3401 S. Highland Drive, on Sunday, July 5 from 5:00-7:00 p.m. and also on Monday prior to the services at the church at 10:45 a.m. Interment at Wasatch Lawn Cemetery.

I'm headed to the Salt Lake for the funeral this weekend. More later. Love to Grandma Pearlie.