A Geologist and a Hiker

We went on another family camping excursion this weekend to southern Washington area with our friends Ryan and Raelene Weeks and their family. While the weather was marginal, the company was excellent and the fun was diverse!
We went to a camping club/resort in the Mayfield Lake area with our trailer. They seemed extremely well-suited for weekenders like us, with pull-through sites, multiple swimming pools, basketball, tennis, mini-golf and a plethora of other things to keep us and our little ones occupied.

No campfire sites were provided and only elevated fires were allowed. On our first night, we couldn't rent one of the fireplace-on-wheels they offered, so we improvised by putting my dutch oven pan up on rocks to cook our hobo dinners (which are a real hit with my girls) and we then started a small fire on the coals. In subsequent days, we were able to secure one of the aforementioned fireplaces and enjoyed flames galore (which normally meant Enoch nodding off in front of the fire while everyone else enjoyed meaningful conversation). Love of fire is something I share with my son. We put Liam near the fire in his stroller and he was absolutely mesmerized by the hypnotic flickering and sputtering that slowly reduced itself to ashes. He kept reaching for the flame as if it were some new toy to be played with. Fortunately, he was well out of reach of any flames.

On Sunday, we decided it would be fun to go see Mt. St. Helens as we were in the area. It took some convincing to the women that packing the kids for a long road trip (more than hour) up the mountain would be fun. We finally did and off we went! I'm convinced that half the adventure in these type of trips is seeing the countryside and small towns as you pass through. There is an idyllic peace about these tiny communities in the shadow of the volcano.

At one point, on the way up, I turned to Seraya and asked what a volcano is. She explained that it is a "mountain that blows up and lava comes out." I was dang proud of her, because I swear we've never talked about volcanoes before (which means she probably picked it up from some cartoon)!

When we finally reached the Johnston Ridge Observation area, the clouds had descended and began dribbling rain all over us. We had lunch in the back of our vans and headed up to see the mountain. The weather prevented us from seeing much beyond the foot of the volcano and the volcanic plains below it. We did get to see a neat documentary about the eruption in 1980 (which scared the living daylights out of my daughter, Kaija).

We walked outside and I decided to take my girls on a little hike up the Johnston Ridge (Ryan had taken his two older boys and headed up already). As we climbed the paved trail out of the ravine wear the visitor's center was, the wind and weather came on us full force. My girls were motivated and Seraya in particular was soldiering on well in front of us. Shortly, I could see that Kaija was in distress and we needed to turn back. I had another proud daddy moment when it took some serious persuasion to get Seraya to turn back from the hike. She wanted to keep going to the end! I can't wait to get this girl on a real hike!

Kaija, ever our little geologist, loved looking at the volcanic rocks exhibit at the observation center. She kept turning them over and over to examine them. She was particularly smitten with the pumice and was even able to correctly identify it at camp later when she found a little piece at the mini-golf course. She held it up and wanted us to see the"bolcano rock". She, of course, also retrieved various other "specimens" for us to examine!

I am always amazed at the progress and learning that my babies make. I can't believe I'm sending Seraya to school this year. Pretty soon, she'll be telling me things that even I don't know!

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The Beauty of a Car Camp

I've decided there isn't much more life can offer than the glow of the dying embers of a campfire in its last throes. I love camping. I don't know what it is, whether its the escape from the humdrum and boiling life down to its necessities, or playing make-believe of times when life was simpler, but camping just relaxes me.

In recent years, I have not been able to spend nearly as much time as I would have wanted traipsing through the alpine highlands with a backpack full of freeze-dried food. I've come to a new and interesting phase in life where I can finally share these excursions with a coterie of the people who matter the most to me: my little family.

So, I moved from proving and testing my masculinity through grating tests of endurance in the backcountry to s'mores and ghost stories in a tent trailer. At one point in my life, I looked with great disdain on "car camping" and thought little of those who would not "earn" their place to sleep by wearing out the soles of their feet to get there. Now, with my children all asleep and worn out in their Bratz and princess sleeping bags, I have finally gained a love for the beauty of a car camp!

We've made our way to Sequim, WA to camp. We used our spot here at the KOA Kampground as a base camp to visit Sequim and Port Angeles and enjoy the simplicity of small town living. While just in this KOA, there is plenty to do with swimming, mini-golfing and relaxing, we ventured out and made our way to the Dungeness Wildlife Reserve to have a picnic. After a short walk down the easy trail, it started to drizzle. We stopped just short of the descent to the beach on Dungeness Spit at an observation point that was sheltered from the rain by trees. We had our trail lunch and waited out the gentle rain eating bagels and cheese and playing pirates.

When the rain quit, we made our way to the beach to play in the sand and enjoy the surf pounding in. There truly is nothing as beautiful as watching your kids enjoy the sand on a beach in the Pacific Northwest!

On the way back to the KOA, we decided to visit the Olympic Game Farm, which was quite the adventure. The kids loved having animals like yaks, buffalo and elk come right up to the car. They did not know what to think about those particularly pushy animals who put their snouts right through our open windows. At one point, there were simultaneously elk at my window, Kerri's window AND the back window of our van...each pushing their heads as far as they could into the car, trying to get some bread from us! It freaked the kids out a little, particularly Kaija! These were HUGE elk, whose LEGS were nearly as tall as our van!

Probably the funniest part was when Kerri allowed a big buffalo to get close enough to her window before giving him bread that he stuck his TONGUE through the crack in our window where she was! Who knew that buffaloes has such long tongues!?! I let an elk get close enough that I put bread right IN his mouth! Of course he wanted more and I had to roll the window up and almost got his lip in it! :)

The kids really loved the bears too. Each of the bears staked out their own little section of the paddock to sit by the roadside and beg for bread. Several of them even had little tricks that made them crowd favorites. One could actually request more food by waving at you! Another would sit back and "smile" at you. It made them seem so cute and cuddly. It's hard to believe they are really such dangerous creatures and the only thing between them and us was a short four foot fence and a few strands of electrified wire!

After this it was back to camp for a dinner of bratwurst and roasted marshmellows! Then, the girls actually put themselves to bed! This is a phenomena the we only see when camping. It is either really fun to them to sleep in the bags, or camping really tuckers them out. Either way, the net result was an evening where Kerri and I could peacefully gather our thoughts by the campfire without wondering which kid is going to trip and fall into it!

What a day!

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Liam's FIRST Birthday!

Happy Birthday to Liam...what a BIG BOY!
Well, we have this tradition to give our babies their first taste of REAL dairy on their first birthday.

Uhhhheeemmm, now that I think of it, I think Liam has had a taste or two of the forbidden substance courtesy of my dad, Grandpa Cook. For some reason he thinks babies are deprived and feels the need to give them tastes of all sorts of goodies including caramel, frosting, soda, etc. So I'm sure this is not Liams real first taste of ice cream, but it is the first cone he got all to himeslf and he knew just what to do with it!

There are some things in life where a lesson on "how to" is just not required. Eating an ice cream cone is one of them!

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Road Trip!

We did it, we broke down...every bit of COOLNESS Enoch and I had in our bones disappeared. We got a MINIVAN! The kids were so excited about it, I wasn't. Seraya was overheard "bragging" to the neighbor girl (who, by the way, has a Porsche, Escalade, Hummer, and Mercedes SUV) "Oh yeah, well, know what, we're getting a mini-van with sliding doors!"

I didn't have quite the enthusiasm, I loved my Lexus SUV and wanted to keep it, but it just didn't do the job with three little ones in car seats. I surrendered and now I love the ultimate "soccer mom" rig. With the push of a button the doors and hatch slide open and I can yell "get in and put your buckles on" and just like that the magic happens.

Anyhow, we thought there would be no better way to break the new van in than with a road trip to UTAH! What a trip it was!
Enoch and I spent days thinking about the best "plan of attack" for the road trip. How do we get three little kids to Utah with as little pain (for them and us) as possible? Do we leave in the morning while the kids are still sleeping? Or head out after work and stop somewhere on the way for a night? We decided on the latter and it was perfect! The kids were so entertained with their activity bags that I made them...they didn't even ask for a movie (or to get out of the car) until our last hour of the trip. Even little Liam was a trooper. I must say Enoch and I must have been expecting the worst because we kept on looking at each other...are they still alive? Should we stop? We just cranked up the tunes on the ipod and kept on cruisin'!

Our first point of interest was Woodruff, Utah. Never heard of it? I'm not surprised! What's there, you ask? Grandpa Arnold and Grandma Syd serving a mission! They are taking groups on Pioneer Treks where they load up handcarts and the whole bit. The girls were so excited to see grandma and grandpa! Liam was fascinated with grandpas stylin hat and the girls loved exploring and riding in the handcart.

Seraya wandered off through the fields picking all sorts of flowers and grandma Syd helped her make some pressed flower art projects. Kaija was loving playing with and collecting rocks. One of the best parts for the girls was sleeping in the bunk beds at the guest cabin called "Pappy's". At one point I went in there and they had their sleeping bags draped from the top bunk down, turning the bottom bunk into a secret play fort. I love their imaginations!

We also went into town (Evanston, WY) and met a mission friend of mine (Nate Conrad and his family), then went to a Relay for Life walk in support of finding a cure for cancer. We walked some laps and decorated a luminary in memory of Enoch's mom. That was so special!

Enoch loved spending some time with his dad, the rugged surroundings fit them both so well. Two peas in a pod, I'm beginning to realize more and more each day! Riding in the old truck around the property was especially nostalgic for Enoch and the girls loved the bouncy ride with grandpa, too.

Next point of interest was Dave and Amber's house. We celebrated Savannah's birthday with a pizza party at the park. The next day we went to the Seven Peaks Water Park and the kids loved it! I went down a ride on a tube holding Kaija and we went through a really dark tunnel and I kept on making whoooweee noises trying to convince her it was fun. Towards the end I tried to hold her up so she wouldn't go under the water...it didn't work, we BOTH went under. She didn't want to go on that ride again. The girls were so brave about going on the kiddie slides and couldn't get enough of it. We had a picnic there at the water park and went to the BYU Creamery afterwards for ice-cream! Yumm-o!

During our UTAH adventure we also took at trip to Temple Square where we met up with my awesome mission companion, Jane. I love her so much and haven't seen her for so long. Our kids became friends instantly and didn't want to leave. We had fun walking the Temple grounds. Kaija found a deep affection for a mini statue of Joseph Smith. She held his hand and pretended to dance with him. Probably a little irreverent, I know, but it was so darn cute. She said, "look mama, just my size".

I really enjoyed spending time with Jane, we had a few laughs about mission things and we caught up on about 8 years of stuff. I hope we see each other before the next 8 years comes and goes!

Jane and crew joined us for a meal at Rodisio, a Brazilian Grill Restaurant. We had been there once before and it was SO GOOD! Enoch has bee looking forward to returning ever since. They skewer meat and slow roast it and bring every kind of meat you can imagine by and slice some off on your plate. The tastes, and especially the guarana drink take Enoch back to his mission in Brazil years ago. The girls loved eating olives and quail eggs (they were tiny and cute) and little samples off dads plate. I'm still not a meat fan so it was salad bar for me, I enjoyed the variety of flavors.

We drove back through Draper where I was able to meet with two other friends I love, Aimee and Holly. I called Aimee to see if we could hook up for a visit and she said that she had just ran into my other friend at the store and got her number. It was such a blessing to be able to go to Aimee and Bruce's beautiful house and meet their babes and then have Holly come over, I got a double dose of friends. I felt so refreshed after talking with them about fun memories of college and catching up on all the kiddos and stuff. I think Heavenly Father just wanted to remind me that friendships like this don't fade and somehow you can just pick up where you left off and it's like the time never lapsed. Yay! That was so fun!

Another point of interest was a visit to "Aunt Em's". That's Emily, Enoch's sister. We got to meet her new husband, Brent and see their new home, and a special treat was that Kiley (Em's daughter) was there visiting for the summer so the girls were happy to play with their cousin. Emily cooked us a wonderful dinner and it was so fun to catch up and talk about their baby due in December, I believe.

What a trip! Even the ride home was fun. We reunited with family and friends and loved ones. We are sorry we don't get to Utah for a visit more often, but maybe with the new minivan, we'll be taking more road trips like this one!

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Graduation Day, Graduation Day, Graduation Day is FINALLY here!

Words from the song Seraya has been practicing to sing at Graduation to the tune of “Dina won’t you blow, Dina won't you blow, Diana won't you blow your Ho-r-n!"

My Seraya is an official preschool graduate! See, she has a graduation cap and diploma to prove it!

For the special occasion I thought it would be fun for her to pick out a new dress so I took her to the store and she got to pick out whatever dress she wanted. This is a special treat from the usual mom buys her something on sale and she better like it scenario. She said, “Mama, I’m going to pick the most beautifulest dress ever.”

All I can say is that girl knows what she likes. I must have shown her at least 30 dresses, how about this one, or this one…..no, no, no. She found a white and purple dress and her face lit up, “Oh, mama…I love this dress!” We narrowed it down to five dresses to try on and each one was a nope until she put this same purple one on and then it was “Oh, mama, I love the sleeves”, she twirled around the it was sold! On the way back out to the car she said, “Mom, I can’t believe I found my best dress ever!”

I’m glad she felt really special going to her graduation. She sat up front with her teacher and special friends, some of who she has been in school with for 2 years. They sang their “Graduation Day” song and then Seraya’s class sang “I’m Gonna Praise Him”. They did a fabulous job. We are so proud of Seraya! She has grown and has learned so much over the past two years of preschool.

Afterward, we gave Seraya some beautiful hot pink baby roses (her favorite color) that her daddy picked out for her. She took a picture with Ms.Corinne and got her Diploma and a gift of a Children’s Bible. Kaija was waiting so patiently hoping that she would get one too, and she was so sad to find out that only Seraya was graduating., afterall she has gone to preschool almost every day this year to drop Seraya off and pick her up and that should count for something!

We all went out to dinner afterwards and happened to meet one of Seraya’s classmates, Bryan, and his family there. We all ate together and celebrated the accomplishments of out little ones. They SO enjoyed being the center of attention… "Drink it all in, Seraya”, I said, and she giggled.

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My Have Poop

You SO don't want to be a mom of three kids four and under! I have one baby screaming from the high chair because I had to quit feeding him his rice-cereal mid-bite to rescue my other two daughters from floods of water. They tipped over my vase of Mother's Day tulips, which are now swimming on the hardwood floors. I didn't even know the vase could hold so much water, but I just kept hearing it drip and splash and drip and splash and with each drip I scurried faster and faster to try and find a towel...somewhere, anywhere....a towel, any towel.
So now, the wet is dried up and kids need to be changed because their pants (that they were ready to walk out the door in) are now ready for nothing.

I take a deep breath and calmly sit down to resume feeding the baby and I notice Kaija is missing. "Kaija!" I yell, "Come down and finish breakfast." Just then a completely naked Kaija peers around the corner, "My have poop" she says. "Where????" I say..."All over" she says.... Oh, and she meant it!

Freeze! Hands up! Don't move! I'm sure it sounded like I was about to arrest her, but I just needed to stop the mess while I ran for the wipes. With wipes in hand, I say lean over and spread em'! After she was cleaned up (the the droplets on the floor). Armed with wipes and a plastic bag, ready to face anything at this point I say, "Show mama where the poop is"... "Ok mama, come on!" At the bottom for the stairs I step over the diaper that was shed. Thisi s going to get worse before it gets better I say to myself. Seraya says I wanna see too! And I say, "I'll tell you ALL about it, you stay there and finish breakfast."

Kaija takes me up the stairs, my eyes are peeled looking for any clue as to where the mess may linger. Then she points into her room and there, I see the two logs I've been searching for. Oh my gosh, everyone stand back, "Seraya (who had followed us up the stairs so as to not miss it) get me more wipes, quick!" As I'm reaching with wipes to pick up the mess, Kaija says, "Mama, you still love me?" and with smile on face and poop in hand I say, "Yes Kaija, Mama loves you!" "Kank you, Mama", Kaija says with a smile melting my heart! And off they go like a couple of kids to play as I deal with the sanitizing and anti-bacterializing, un-fun stuff!

Meanwhile, Liam is still howling from his high chair, wondering why all of a sudden, mid morsel, his stream of food ceased and all his family has deserted!

Ha! If you like the sounds of my life, maybe you so DO want to be the mom of three kids four and under.

Time 8:38am, are we ready for bed yet? No, it's time to go to work!

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Holy Princesses!!

We had a royal day of princessing at Disneyland today, it's called a Magical Morning and with our tickets we could get into the park an hour before everyone else and enjoy an essentially empty park. What that meant was getting to the park at 7am dressed in royal princess attire with hair carefully done and crowns carefully placed by mama.



Mickey mouse was there to greet us when we entered the park and no matter how many times the kids saw Mickey, their faces lit up each time. AAaahhhh, the Magic! We were able to get a family photo without crowds and it was so special.

Then off we raced to Fantasy land to ride Pinocchio, Peter Pan, and Dumbo the flying elephant. Then we went on the storybook ride where you ride a boat and see little miniature lands where the storybook characters live. Seraya loved it so much she wanted to go on it again. Since there were no lines, it was as she wished!

We also went to the Royal Princess Walk where the girls met Jasmine, Mulan and Princess Minnie. The girls were in awe!


At the royal coronation, they girls were able to dance with the princesses. The whole room, adults and children alike, let out an audible gasp when Cinderella entered the room. The girls took an oath to be kind and princess-like at all times, then they were deemed princesses themselves. (We'll see how long that oath holds up!)

Afterwards I asked one of the ladies standing by if she knew if Cinderella would be on the Pricess walk later that day. She took one look at Kaija dressed in her princess gown and said, "I can guarantee you can meet Cinderella if you come back here at 10:55 am." So we got a royal invitation, a part of the year of a million dreams celebration, for a private reception with princess Cinderella for just our family! We told the girls they got a invitation, but they didn't know who it was from. When they were able to see Cinderella at her royal reception place all by themselves, they were star struck. I could see the sparkle in their eyes and it was enough to make any parent get choked up with Magic! Cinderella told Seraya she looked like her friend Princess Aurora (Sleeping Beauty) and she told Kaija, "You look like me when I was little!"

After the Cinderella encounter, it was story time with the princesses and royal craft time. By then the girls were wiped out! It was only about 11:30 am, but they were ready for lunch! We were amazed at how much we had already accomplished by that time of day with no lines around. Starting at 7am really payed off and who would have guessed they'd still be going strong at 11pm!

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