The longest previous vacation we ever took as a family was about 10 days, and that is a long time. When we got here last year, there were no kids around, very few wives, and the church was empty. We soon learned that once the American School gets out, the families bolt. Sometimes the dads take their time off at the beginning, and sometimes at the end, but it almost always with the family spending a good 6-7 weeks in the States, while the dads take about 3 weeks. We weren't sure if that's what we were going to do, but several months ago we figured that "when in BA...."
So in early June, the family departed. You'll remember the blog about the delayed trip due to the volcano. I joined the family in early July after another four-day delay to the volcano (and I went via Chile). We only returned on 1 August, two days before school started. We had a great time! It worked out perfectly for Candace and the kids to spend the first three weeks at her mom's house so she could see all of her friends and do what she wanted to do. Then when I joined the group, we took off.
Our first week was spent up in Bear Lake. It was my family reunion. We rented a few townhouses and partied every day. We took out some waverunners one day, with Claire screaming, "Faster, faster," and Sam screaming, "Slower, slower." There was golfing, raspberry shakes, walks, playing on rocks, playing at North Beach in Idaho, visiting Bennington, Idaho cemetery where some ancestors are buried, golf, Boggle, Agricola, chocolate cake, and an all around good time. Since we came from four countries (Argentina, Germany, Mexico and the USA), we spent a lot of time visiting. We are looking forward to the next opportunity.
After Bear Lake, we spent two days in West Valley, Utah visiting my mom. We spent an afternoon at the Days of '47 children's fair which was a week before the 24th of July. We also spent a day doing some cousin olympics at a park with some good food. It's funny how some kids' games get taken over by the adults who are much more competitive.
A fews after relaxing back at the in-laws, we boarded an airplane to the Chicago area to visit Candace's brother. I was able to visit our house (that we still own) and visit with the renters. In Chicago, we hit the Magic Waters Waterpark (97 degrees with 110 heat index), Bob Chinn's Crabhouse (Alaskan King... mmmm -- And we met Bob there.. ha ha), played some Settler's of Catan (we got shut out... too much time away from Catan), ate at Sweet Tomatoes, the kids saw Kung Fu Panda 2, and generally enjoyed the time with Candace's brother.
We had two funny airplane stories from our SLC and Chicago departures. When we left the gate at SLC, a lady on the plane began having a panic attack. They stopped the plane, took us back to the gate, and took her off the plane. The delay was a little bit over an hour. While it doesn't sound like a lot, when you program yourself and kids for a determined amount of time, any delay is big. Then when we were leaving Chicago to San Francisco (en route to North Bend, Oregon), we were trying to beat a thunderstorm. We lost the race and spent 1 hour 45 minutes on the plane but at the gate waiting for the lightning to subside. So the 4 hour 15 minute flight ended up being 6 hours on the plane. NO THANK YOU!
Finally to Oregon, we were jampacked with activities thanks to my brother and his family. We went on an end of Science Camp nature hike, golfed, went to the beach (a few times), visited a train museum, visited Cranberry Sweets for their chocolate, ate lots of Breyer's Ice Cream, went to the Coos County Fair, visited the local Coast Guard Station to play on the helicopters, went to a berry patch to pick strawberries and raspberries, and watched the kids have a blast playing with their girl cousins.
Back in Utah, I made it to the dentist, Candace hit the eye doctor, and we wrapped up our shopping for U.S. goods to fill our eventual 8 suitcases. We made it to the temple (BA temple still closed), Sam's Club, Wal-Mart and Cafe Rio. We visited the Provo Cemetery and finally said goodbye to a great trip.
In total, the family had 9 airplane rides (add four for Dave for dropping off the family), saw all Mouritsen aunts and uncles, saw all Mouritsen cousins, 7 Johnson cousins, 2 Johnson aunts and uncles, most grandparents, 2 rental cars, 6 states (including those with layovers), tons of smiles, and we're still trying to determine the damage to the checking account.
The kids traveled great most of the time. On the last airplane ride, Sam coughed and threw up at the same time. Candace and I had been switching off sitting by Caroline (our not-so-good traveler) and she was 10 rows in front of us with Caroline. So I cleaned up Sam, got his clothes changed (we learned our lesson with unreliable diapers on a different flight so we were prepared this time) and we were moving along. Then 45 minutes later, he threw up several more times... on his change of clothes. Luckily, another family we knew was on the flight and they had an extra T-shirt (girly). So Sam was pantless (for the second time.. different story) upon arrival.
The lowlight of the trip was that the Friday before we were coming back, we got a call from my office saying that our house had been broken into while we were away. So we had two days and an overnight flight to look forward to coming home to a broken into home. Finally home, we spent a few days finding things that were missing. It could have been a lot worse, but some important things were missing. While it didn't ruin our vacation, the return was not what we expected it to be.
While in the States, we were able to pitch the idea of visiting Argentina to all of our friends and family.... so we hope it pays off. And I will admit that each story above could be amplified considerably, I don't have the energy to spend the rest of my day typing. Lazy me.
