Spring Break

Don was up to his neck in work this week, but I was happy with the surprising amounts of times he was able to make room for us! In an attempt to go to the Copper Mines with the girls in South Jordan we got side-tracked by heavy winds which would have made for a miserable trip. So we headed to Don’s work which was nearby for a quick “Hi!” before seeing if the Mayan Restaurant was open for an alternate plan. While I waited for Don to come down from his office I sent the girls off with the camera to take pictures of the “infamous” pasture (Don can’t talk a lot about work, for legal reasons, so he tells us all about the local habitants of the pasture land outside his window. We’ve heard tells of a fox and the untimely death of a negligent goose, the birthing of a calf – which had Don determining at what point he would need to get some baling twine to help pull the calf out – that would have been a sight for his co-workers to see…). Well, they got pictures and videos of ALL the animals they could find…too many to show here, but here is my favorite video (it’s quick, to the point, and adds the charm of oblivious comments about cows giving “piggy-back” rides…):

Don surprised us when he came down by joining us for a “quick” lunch…which turned out to be not so quick. The Mayan was closed so we drove around Salt Lake looking for the Chuck-a-Rama we ate at when Sarah came to visit. I’m glad we found it because it led to another adventure – The Gilgal Gardens.

It is right behind the Chuck-A-Rama in SLC, tucked away among neighborhood houses and for a little adventure we decided to stroll through it. It is an LDS-themed rock sculpture garden, done many years ago in a very modern style, the girls had a lot of fun trying to figure out what they were looking at, and I was constantly looking at the explanatory pamphlet trying to understand what I was looking at too:)  Amazingly, Bizzie couldn’t stop talking about it days later, “Mom? When can we go back to the ‘dead-heads’ garden?”

 

Huge rocks were everywhere and Autumn kept looking for the perfect “sitting/relaxing” rock. this was her favorite:

Liberty was more content to explore and Bizzie loved pouncing on un-suspecting prey (usually me…need to work on being more alert for blue tigers…):

Many of the sculptures are meant to be looked at – with clearly marked “No climbing or touching” signs, which I was proud of my family for respecting. And you can see the beginnings of a beautiful rambling garden sprouting forth with weaving paths to admire the blooms from. It was a nice, quick, cultural exploration trip! Here is my favorite “Don Photo” (he is an excellent photographer and is constantly looking for interesting shots):

Our big outing for Spring Break occurred at the end of the week when Don was unexpectedly able to pull off getting all of Friday off! We have been wanting to revisit the Lehman Caves on the border of Nevada and Utah in the Great Basin National Park, so we packed the girls in with lots of treats and surprises and headed off! (I love our spur of the moment trips!) The drive took us out to Delta where we stopped at the cheese factory and a little park while Don filled the car with more gas and brought back lunch. The girls and I enjoyed the sunshine and chance to wiggle and play. Don captured this moment at the end of our little lunch-break:

One of the many things I love about Don is his desire to encourage the girls imaginations and sense of wonder, it’s no surprise that they cling to their childhood make-believe worlds, ‘cuz Dad makes it so real and fun! Liberty had no interest in her McDonald toy, and it’s hilarious watching Don trying to peak her interest in this video:

Another stop along the way was at Fort Deseret, which has a fascinating history. It was amazing to see some of the remains of the walls and talk about what that would have been like to be there in those walls at that time. Right after explaining how brave and resourceful these settlers would have to be I got this shot of the family…even Liberty was feeling the “pioneering spirit”!:

We had paid for advance tickets at the Lehman Caves and had to be there at a specified time, which gave Don only 30 minutes to find the last detour he wanted to take – the Great Stone Face, dun, dun, dun! Every now and then Don becomes fixated on seeing or doing something that I can’t match his enthusiasm for…and for whatever reason it tickles my funny bone watching his excitement pursuing it, this was one of those times. He was determined to find – in 30 minutes – petro glyphs, but more importantly a rock that supposingly looked like the silhouette of Joseph Smith…yeah, I know, you're asking “Rachel! Come-on, a rock that looks like Joseph Smith! How can you not get excited?!” I admit that I’m missing some crucial matter in my cultural make-up, but in my defense, I found great “joy” (humor is a form of joy, isn’t it?) in Don’s excitement! And with 6 minutes to spare he found it!! I was impressed – my pregnant bladder was getting a bit full so I let the kids get out and do the whirlwind hike to “the rock”:

Can you see it? I couldn’t, though I pretended to – not wanting to dampen Don’s hard-work and enthusiasm. If you are like me, this site helps you see it more clearly with these pictures:

Okay. At long last we were on our way to Lehman Caves! To get there you had to drive this…

The “Loneliest Highway in America” (seriously, that is it’s name) and Don got a big kick out of filming me saying that every 15 minutes for an hour and a half. Which is what makes this sign so funny, it is at the end of a long, turn-off from that highway, just over the Nevada Border. Placed there to stop hypnotized, dreary-eyed travelers I’m sure:)

But it was worth it! We made it:

Here is an interesting, little known, Olsen Factoid. Each of our children has had the prenatal experience of visiting a National Park!  We didn’t realize it ourselves until we remembered past trips to the Lehman Caves… (Autumn, Bizzie and Elias have visited the Great National Park and Liberty has visited Zion’s National Park – weird).

The tours can be done in 60 minutes or 90 minutes, since Liberty would be walking on her own we chose the 60 minute walk, which was perfect. The ranger was funny and made it interesting for the kids. Getting the camera to cooperate in the darkness was a little difficult but Don was able to get a few that worked:

Trying to get everyone to look at the camera at the same time has always been the bane of Olsen Family photos…but usually it’s the kids that are the tricky subjects…

The tour ended with the Ranger turning out all the lights and giving us a taste of what an earthquake would sound like in the caves – amazing!!! He also assured us that it is very unlikely that harm would come to us if an earthquake were to occur which I thought was interesting but made sense, considering the formations have been there for hundreds of years without breaking.

True to Don’s parenting-style he did a video of each child afterward to get their take on the experience. If you are interested in their responses, watch the following videos (Liberty didn’t go into any depth on her experience but seemed to enjoy the rock walls and was very brave in the caves.)

 

What a fun trip! On our way back out and home, we got a good glimpse of Don’s favorite spot. Doesn’t look like much but contains beautiful oasis's and rock formations within it, along with wonderful experiences for Don and our family:

2 0r 3 movies later we were grateful to be home but equally grateful for the memories we were able to create. Thanks for sharing them with us! And good job hanging in there to the end of an incredibly long post!

Beware: If You Are Pregnant Don’t Watch This…

On Saturday, in-between Conferences, we went down to the farm with a cake to wish Don’s brother, Kip, a happy birthday. He and his daughter, Kelly, have sheep down there that they raise and Kelly cares for and shows at livestock shows. They were busy feeding and caring for the sheep so we waited on the warm and blustery day under the shed until he could come in out of the wind for a bit to eat cake. As we waited we saw him hurry by and then walk back with an ewe to the stable. Kip explained quickly that this ewe was a first time mom and was about to give birth and he needed to supervise to make sure she and the lamb(s) didn’t struggle. Don saw a great learning opportunity, asked the girls if they wanted to see a lamb born (of course they did), thrust the camera at me, and went to help Kip!

I was impressed at how calm, attentive and efficient Kip was during the whole process. He explained when it’s a first time mom it was safer to help the process along to make sure,  the lamb(s) didn’t linger too long in the birth canal killing them and possibly the mother. I have given birth 3 times, but have only actually watched the process once…I don’t know if it’s because I’m pregnant and I will soon be in that ewe’s position or if I’m just squeamish…but, I had to turn away quite a bit and suppress the gag reflex…that being said, it was still an amazing process to watch! Straw was everywhere and as the lambs came out wet they got covered in the stuff, after a good shake to get them breathing Kip had the girls rub them to get them warm & their blood flowing - in the process, the girls fell in love with these twin brothers! Then it was time to get the mom to become familiar with the scent of her new baby so she would bond with and recognize them.

Don is really good about helping the girls process what they’ve experienced by asking them questions right after (it stays with them longer that way) so he got our take on the whole process and while Mommy Ewe was bonding with her lambs…

…we walked the few steps over to the shed and sang “Happy Birthday” and ate cake. I am VERY grateful I had the foresight to bring the baby wipes, otherwise Kip would have had no problem eating with lingering traces of afterbirth on his wrists – I would have lost the battle with the gag-reflex for sure.

And of course, their was the typical “jokes” played by Uncle Kip! The wiping of icing on the nose and then encouraging Liberty to rub it in is always fun……..

It was a very unique way to spend  a birthday, and the girls still talk about “their” lambs with motherly love:)

So Many Interesting Things…

General Conference was WONDERFUL! And each of my girls did a fantastic job for their respective ages paying attention. FHE on the topic paid off, I was very proud of them!! (Don and I too – we stayed awake for all 4 sessions!) As I listened to the various topics discussed pertaining to things I was worrying about I was grateful for a Father who is mindful of me. I was humbled by the many obstacles others face and realize how simple mine are in comparison, so when I came across this…

 

It was good food for thought, especially if you are battling a cold, pink eye, pregnancy acne and get lost in thinking you have it pretty bad. Anyway, I wanted to play catch-up and hit on some of our favorite happenings.

#1: Liberty Turns 2!!!!

On March 25th my baby turned two…I hadn’t realized how much she had grown until I took her to the doctor today for her immunization shots and saw how she could no longer fit on the baby scale and had to be weighed like a big girl… We had a lot of fun celebrating her birthday – it was an interesting mixture of Cinderella and Caillou, her favorite things but she loved it!

This next picture was slightly scary…she had just finished eating Caillou and was very messy and proud of herself. Don and I had contemplated making a pinata of Caillou’s head but (as wonderful as it would be to vent some of our grownup frustration of hearing Caillou so frequently in our house – felt the same way about Barney with Autumn and Einstein Babies with Bizzie) – it still seemed a little morbid to beat up a head…yet, we made a cake with him on it and ate it?! Hmmm…

#2: Autumn’s 4th Grade “Utah” Program

She did a great job! She had her part memorized and recited it with poise and confidence, “The largest salt lake in the Western Hemisphere, The Great Salt Lake, is what remains of the ancient Lake Bonneville.” I attended the day performances and Don attended the night time one with the camera. He came home proud of Autumn’s performing but chuckling, joking we should put all 11 videos up on the TV and do a chocolate milk drinking game for every time she  fidgeted with her costume! I watched them later and we would have drank A LOT of chocolate milk! She chose to represent her Indian heritage and wore an Indian costume ( a slightly ironic look on a blond, welsh looking girl…) but she had  a lot of fun being with her friends:

In case you are interested, grab some chocolate milk and watch ONE of Autumn’s “costume fidgeting” clips. When we teased her about it she said that her top had got twisted around and she HAD to fix it! In her defense, I was pretty impressed how she was able to put equal focus into the song and costume fixing!:

And finally, #3: Creative Dancing

I grew up learning and loving the structure of ballet and was looking forward to sharing that with my girls. But I found that I was more than happy to give up that dream when I saw how happy they were creating more free-spirited moves (if you need a memory-jog on some of those moves look at these two posts: BYU Dancing and Breaking Loose at Disneyland – June Post). I was excited when I found a Community Class taught by modern dance instructors at BYU and enrolled the girls in it – they LOVED it! They were allowed to dance the way they wanted while learning body control at the same time. They had  a closing Spring Performance and were excited to show us what they learned.

Bizzie was a fairy in her dance and of course we had to take a picture of her in the proper setting, this smile always make me laugh, it’s her “I-feel-so-pretty” smile:

Autumn was a retro-dancer in her performance, hence the hip hand poses:

And Liberty just wanted to join in on the picture taking:

They did a fantastic job and where it was a community class there were only two performances and our children were in both of them which made for the fun-packed but short recitals we parents love.

Waiting to perform:

Finished and Proud:

That catches us up – kind of, we had one more interesting event that happened during General Conference that deserves a post all of its own…be watching for that one – I’ll dub it “The Miracle of Creation” or “The Facts of Life” or “Beware: If You Are Pregnant Don’t Watch This…”

Learning From Experience

Last Saturday we were down at the farm preparing Bizzie to show a lamb in the upcoming Benjamin Stock Show and when our work was done, Don took the girls for a drive on the 4-wheeler down to the lower pasture. I watched them drive off…

Then about 40 minutes later they came back…along with an inch layering of mud…particularly on Autumn.

She looked so forlorn and…muddy, I couldn’t help but burst into laughter! Between tears I’m looking at Don trying to get a read on what happened, I thought originally she had become the mud-flap of the 4-wheeler because she was hanging on to the back, but – as to be expected on an Olsen Excursion – there was a slight mishap:

Yep, stuck… I guess the weight of the fat dog and 4 people was enough to sink that little 4-wheeler in a lot of mud. So when Don told Autumn to hop off and lighten the load so he could have another go he thought she would stand to the side out of the way, instead she took 4 steps back directly behind the 4-wheeler and got the full blast of mud and spinning wheels…hmmm, I guess she won’t do that again….

Anyway, thankfully the 4-wheeler was equipped with a winch and once out of the first pit they still had one more obstacle to go:

Again, thanks to Don’s perseverance and supreme 4-wheeler skills they were out once again and finally ready to head back…

My reaction?

It wasn’t anything compared to the calm, but exasperated sigh from Poppa Olsen as he said, “I just cleaned that 4-wheeler….”