As I was driving, I happened to look back at Ashton and there he was, just kicking it.
(His legs were crossed, also.)
Archives for May, 2008
So she’s chewing on the boogar sucker…my kids never let me use it on them so don’t be too grossed out.
But isn’t she a doll!?!?!
Since Josh and I sold our condo south of BYU campus, we haven’t driven near that part of town for a long, long time. Josh took me out for my birthday and we took the long way home, driving by our old make-out spots 
. The drive took us down 9th East in Provo and since it was dark and I wasn’t expecting it, I barely noticed that Deseret Towers were no longer there!!!! All that was left was my own U-Hall!!! I heard that they were going to tear them down but it was still shocking to actually see the rubble. The next day I hurried over to take pictures.
I lived in U-Hall when I was a freshman at BYU. It definitely wasn’t the best living condition, basically I was stuck in a closet with a girl I didn’t know and we shared a bathroom with half the girls on the floor. Referring back to my “PALS” post, when I first moved in, Rob and John would rescue me everyday until Rob left on his mission. After that I was stranded without a car and was forced to live the life of a BYU freshman. I really had a good time and met my great, great friend, Julie. That was the beginning of one completely fun, adventurous life as a single student (once we moved off campus, of course).
So I was kind of sad that the towers were gone. Now they have the challenge of replacing them with another TIMELESS architectural design.. (My Grandma Stewart was staying at DT during Women’s Conference when I was about 5. We picked her up and I remember thinkging they were the ugliest buildings ever!)
Since Sacrament Meeting starts at 9 AM and Josh had meetings before then, the Easter Bunny came while we were at church. I knew this was going to be bad, but I HOPED our very tired, hungry, grumpy kids would be cooperative when they saw the surprises. Ashton was alright, Emmy was NOT happy. We couldn’t get any good pictures of Emmy and hardly any of Ashton, so here you go……
Thank goodness our other two kids, Kris and Cari, were very cute and smiley for the camera.
Yep, it’s naptime.
Our friends, Jason and Caroline Turner, invited us to go to their cabin at Lake Tahoe. When Josh first told me about it, I said “Oh man, that would be so fun…if we didn’t have kids.” I didn’t even consider it a possibility. Then Josh told me he said we would go! I panicked a little at first, mostly because we had never been anywhere with both kids (except the St. George Marathon and that was a disaster), but then I was soooooo stinking excited! I didn’t realize how badly we needed a vacation until the opportunity was given! For real, besides driving to St. George a couple times for my grandpa’s funeral and the marathon, we hadn’t been out of Utah Valley since September 2006!!! Sick!!! (Josh has had business trips, but those definitely don’t count as vacations). Oh wait, and one weekend trip to Crested Butte for Angie’s baby blessing in Mach 2007. So we are inexpressibly grateful to Jason for this amazing offer and for thinking of us.
The day after we got home from the Canyonlands Marathon (doh, I guess that was the fourth time out of Utah Valley in a year and a half. Once again, though, definitely NOT a vacation), we packed up the car and took off for Lake Tahoe.
We were so excited to see the Salt Flats. It would be our first time and that is just crazy because we are so close. We drove out to where they are supposed to be and just found this shallow lake as far as the eye could see. I guess in the winter the water sits there and smooths out the salt. There was a little salty beach that Ashton was very excited to play in and eat!
(I know, Emmy is STILL in pajamas and it’s probably 3 PM. But hey, we were just going to be in the car all day. Now I wish she had some real clothes on. Oh well.)
This is Ashton being rebellious, not wanting to be a part of our family shadow picture. He was pretty grumpy by the time we got him back into the car.
This is Ashton TWO minutes after we started driving again. Poor little guy.
The rest of the drive was not that great. Emmy was pretty good but Ashton just wanted to be in his bed and was having fits here and there, it was weird. Our big adventure came when we were about 20 miles from Lake Tahoe. We were driving through a small town and we knew we were close so we weren’t too concerned about our gasoline being low. However, as we passed the last exit in the town, I was thinking “Get off! Get gas!” but I didn’t say anything. Immediately thereafter, the freeway became dark and we started heading uphill into the mountains with barriers on either side of us (no exits coming in the near future). It was about 11 PM, Ashton was crying and inconsolable and our gas light came on. Oh yeah, I was freaking out, literally shaking with fear and sick to my stomach. Josh and I were both in uncharted territory and had no idea when or where a gas station would be. Whenever we tell this story now, we are cracking up because our situation was so dire and we were not handling it well…I was not handling it well. To make a long, LONG story short, Josh did not have to leave me alone with the kids on the side of the dark, mountainous freeway, staggering for miles and miles (he just ran the half marathon the day before) finding a gas station. We made it to a gas station ONLY through divine intervention. Just like the loaves and fishes, our gasoline had increased. Not even kidding! I’m telling you, we put more gas into our tank than we knew it had capacity for.
