Fun in Grace

To unwind after what happened in Utah, we visited Jerry's parents in Grace, Idaho so that Jerry could attend the funeral of a close friend of his grandfather's (relaxing, yes?). Jerry had spent countless hours playing gopher for the two men in their dutch oven business years ago, so he simply had to attend the funeral. Then, just for old times' sake, that night his grandpa was cooincidentally having a dutch oven party at his house... so Jerry was recruited to help out again.
While Jerry went to the funeral, though, the rest of us hung out at the local reservoir with Jerry's dad's canoe.

First, Jerry's dad, Jerry Sr. (hereinafter "grandpa") and Jerry's mom, Yvette ("grandma") took David and Connor out for a short ride. They had some troubles when both boys would lunge to the same side of the boat at the same time, but made it back in safely enough.



Then grandpa and I went out with Brennen, who had lots of fun dragging his hand in the water (that particular picture is quite unflattering for mommy and got cencored) and looking at the ducks. Grandpa had a migraine wearing at him, but was still strong and valiant, making up for my inexperience and general wimpiness.


After lunch, David and Connor wanted to learn to paddle the canoe, so grandpa went out again with David first, taking Brennen as a ride-a-long.



Brennen sat still for awhile, but then, just as David was leaning out to paddle on the left, Brennen decided to change sides of the boat and practically dove to the left to plant his hands in the water. The result is predictable:



Grandma and I had been walking along behind the canoe with Connor and, after a moment of shock, we ran toward the boat until we were stopped by a barbed wire fence surrounding a farmer's field. Since I had nothing helpful to do, I took pictures.



Grandpa (hereinafter Super Grandpa) was a true hero. Though he couldn't stop the canoe from capsizing, he had both boys back in the swamped metal tub before mommy and grandma could panic too much on the bank (though not before the two drowned rats could get the fright of their lives). He even saved all the paddles, hats, and glasses. Super Grandpa pulled his knee swimming the canoe to shore, but still got both scared and wet boys to the bank safely. Grandma, Connor, and I climbed past the barbed wire to meet him and collect the tiny swimmers, then Connor actually decided to help Super Grandpa paddle the canoe back to the dock while grandma and I walked his traumatized and shivering brothers back by land.


Alas, I took no pictures of Connor's uneventful journey, being finally able to do something helpful: drag two small soaked boys across the field, through the fence, and into the truck, where we could get them into something dry.
David has declared that he will never, never, never get into a canoe again, but daddy and Super Grandpa have told him that he most certainly will, too! When queried, Brennen responded in the negative about his own prospects of ever canoeing again--but we think he'll forget all this ever happened. (He won't be able to read this blog post for years.)


Oh, and we have a new rule: when canoeing, a 50/50 adult/child ratio (or better) is an absolute requirement!

Problems in Provo, Satisfied in SLC

Many of you know about Jerry's knee injury of 6 years ago? Well the trial was June 24-26 in Provo, Utah, and it didn't go well (to say the least). We got 1/10 of what we asked for. The jury decided that Jerry should have been able to get a job even while his knee was hurting (so the defendant didn't have to pay for wages he was "voluntarily" foregoing) and that his knee had been bumped so many times during the year we waited for surgery that they weren't convinced that the surgery wasn't needed to fix a secondary injury. The fact that there was no pain -> accident -> pain -> surgery -> (then, miraculously) no pain was utterly lost on them. We ended up at the Timpanogus Temple the night after the verdict came in (when you can't think something nice...) and we're working to forgive and move on. Our attorney is going to contact the medical providers (whose combined bills are quite a bit more than the verdict amount) to see if they'll reduce the bills to match the recovery. Otherwise, we'll be paying them off the slow way, like we're already doing with all the student loans we had to take out to live.

The day before the verdict, though, we took the boys and went with Jerry's mom on Trax to see temple square. We toured the conference center and finally got to see the roof! As most of you know, the roof of the conference center is like a garden--it even has a 4-acre meadow with 2 acres of wildflowers!
Then there are waterfalls, trees, a sandblasted marble picture of church members from all different times all grouped together, benches, paths, etc.

I'd wanted to go up there since it was built, but it was always closed when I tried. Then, since 9-11, safety concerns dictate that no one gets to wander the conference center without a guide.
The elevator even has a special pad to detect the special badge our guide was wearing before it would take us to the roof. So sad. The roof was beautiful, though, and we had a great time both there and riding trax there and back.

Brennen is Three!

Okay, so it was on June 22, but I've been busy. I'm actually trying to do a few blog entries today....

Funny story about the new bike: we went out of town for a week the next day, so he only got to ride it inside for a bit, then it went in the garage until we got home. Last night, he came and grabbed me off the couch and dragged me into the garage, where he pointed at the bike and said "maa baak?" (Yeah, still not talking so well.) So we went outside, got the bike out, and put him on it, whereupon he said "puu mee?" so I nudged him forward with my toe, he coasted all of three feet, hit the fence, got off the bike and begged, cried, and pleaded until I got out his old, pedal-free, scoot around on four wheels bike. Wouldn't even try the new one again. Gave me permission to take it back to the store. Silly baby. His brothers enjoyed it, at least!