American Castles

It's always fun to see the beautiful things of our area through a visitors eyes, to see the awe as they turn the corner and witness the grandeur of Delicate Arch in real life instead of on a Utah lisence plate, for instance. But it has been a whole new experience seeing these things through the eyes of not only a visitor, but a foreigner to our country. I was talking with Marie-Laure, the delightful French girl who has been staying with us for the past several months, and told her that in France, their castles were my favorite things to visit. She was mystified as to why that would be. In France, castles are everywhere. "You have no castles in the United States?" she asked. "No." "Why no castles?" she asked. I explained that our country was not only too young for castles, but that we had never been ruled by a monarchy - no kings and queens have ruled here - well, unless you count the King of England, but he didn't bother building a castle, which is why we kicked him out. So we took Marie-Laure to Mesa Verde to see the oldest buildings we have in the United States - which would be basically on par with the age of those fascinating castles we visited while in France. I'm not sure you can really refer to Indian ruins as castles, but it was the closest ancient thing I could come to, so we climbed the 32 foot ladder into the Balcony House to see, well, a castle.

And I'm not sure a cute 19 year old girl was appropriately impressed with the ruins, which may have had more to do with her lack of understanding of our English speaking guide, but the rest of us were.We also made a point to tour Cliff Palace since we were on a castle tour. I think you will agree that this is pretty castle like. Although she still thinks her visit to Las Vegas was better, at least I will know that she will go home in a few weeks having seen some of the most beautiful parts of our country. Some of our history, our legacy. Our castles.

I Want To Do It Again!!

He just left and I'm already missing all of this cuteness. And I've decided . . . I want to do it all over again. I want to have five sweet babies one at a time, maybe with some type of epidural this time though. I want to chase them around, play with them all day, and rock them to sleep. I want to do it all over again, but this time with Drew and Marie-Laure and Dave all helping so I can still go to work, to Young Women's, teach seminary, and basically do whatever I want to because there is a built in babysitter. Yes, it's been a fun week for all of us.
And we kept all the rules. Here is a list of things that we did NOT let Chase do this week.

1. We did not let Chase take Dee Dee - his favorite blanket - outside. Not ONCE!!
2. We did not have to resort to creative feeding methods to get him to eat anything besides peaches.
3. We did not loose him. Not one single time was he ever lost


Alright, he took Dee Dee outside, but we didn't let him drag Dee Dee around in the dirt.

And even if we had, all you have to do is shake Dee Dee real hard and she comes clean as a whistle.

And here is Marie-Laure using our claw toy to feed Chase his vegetables. But hey, it worked and you just use whatever works when it comes to getting little boys to eat their vegetables. Besides, I think they really do this in France :) Edited - Marie-Laure says NO they do not feed babies this way in France.

But we didn't loose him, which was the most important of the the three, right?
Or did we ?
O.K., funny story. Marie-Laure was outside on the back porch watching Chase, but she was barefooted out there. All of the sudden she comes tearing into the house, grabs her shoes, starts cramming them on her feet, and in the process, looks up at me and says, (Imagine a cute French accent) "Chase is lost." Then, seeing the horrified look on MY face, she says, "I joke! I joke" and then she goes tearing back out the door. So, I don't THINK we lost him, but I guess I can never really be sure. All I know is that we sent him back home today. Safe and sound. Back to the arms of his Mommy and Daddy. Lucky stiffs.

Some People Are Just Too Curious . . .

I was going to drag this out until Dave's family all arrived tomorrow, but someone at work with the initials DD is annoyed with me, so my clues will come faster and on facebook now.

A Call To Serve

It came today. We've been watching for it, and it finally came today. And Drew was at work, but just over helping Grandpa, so I called and said, "Drew, I'm holding your mission call. Come home and open it!" He said, "Oh, really? Well, I'm helping Grandpa. I'll be over when I'm finished" But I JUST CAN'T STAND TO WAIT!!! A little secret that I've just started confessing to a few people, when Brennan got his call he was in Cedar City and wouldn't be home until the weekend, so I opened his call, looked to see where he was going, and then sealed it back up and acted surprised with everyone else when he finally opened it with the WHOLE FAMILY there. I know. I'm bad!!

So, Marie-Laure and I walked the call over to him and I said, "Open it now, or I'm going to open it." That is why greasy, dirty Drew is opening his call right out on the job. O.K, we did make him go inside to get Grandma and wash his hands.

And since we were out on the job, there was no nice clean letter opener to use, so Drew just pulled out his big ol' leather man and hacked away at it.

Wait, does he look happy here? O.K., we know he wanted to go outside the US. But, did he get what he wanted?

These Are The Important Things

Just for the record, these are all the things we prepared, cooked, and served up for Chase to eat for lunch before finally hitting on peaches . . and he ate the whole can. The entire 15.257 oz can of peaches. And we were beginning to think he wasn't hungry. Am I spoiling him by making him four different foods for lunch? I don't care - I'm the Gramma! Deal with it.

This was our morning, which included a "cycle" ride with Papa. I knew a day would come when Dave would regret the huge number of motorcycles we own and I think today was it. Chase found Papa's stash at the shop and he wanted to ride every single one . . . over and over again.

You may not know this, but you can't smile when riding a motorcycle. It just isn't done. Even if you are loving the ride and you don't want to quit ever. It just isn't manly to smile. Also, you need to look down periodically and check out your bike. Especially if the Papa giving you a ride isn't adhering to rule number one and is too busy smiling to pay attention.

All too soon Papa had to go to work, so Marie-Laure stepped in and gave Chase a bike ride, which is just as good as a motorcycle ride if all you have left around the place are girls.

And he played some basketball. Gotta keep those athletic skills sharp for Dad.

Swish! Sharp basketball skills. Check.

After some quality twirl time on the front lawn with Marie-Laure, which included learning a few new French words, it was time for a nap. We're napping good here at Gramma's house. The heavy playing is wearing us right out.

Ssshhh . . .He's Asleep!!

Kimbrey and Daniel are off to Boston for the week and WE HAVE CHASE!!! And we aren't giving him back - just so you know. Kimbrey called last night kind of choked up about missing her boy - ALREADY - and I promised to post pictures of him every day, so get ready for a week that's all about Chase.

He's been having plenty of fun guys and he hasn't missed you at all . . . yet.

And he's getting plenty of attention. We have several adults here who are overjoyed to entertain a cute 22 month old. And he thinks we are all pretty funny.

Our wild bunnies are running amok all over our yard and it's so much fun to try and get close enough to them to fed them.

Oh! Oh! I think he's going for it. See how persistence pays off? Please excuse the messiest part of my back yard. It's where the bunny ran to, of course.

And this is how funny it is when, in getting close enough to the bunny that he takes the bait, you jerk the celery back away so the poor little bunny can't get it. But now he's asleep. Napping. With Dee Dee and Ray. And all is well.

You Can Take The Girl Out Of The City . . .

But what do you do with a city girl when she comes to visit you in the country? You teach her all about country things! And that is what we've been doing with Marie-Laure since she came to stay with us three weeks ago. She's gone hiking, camping, and four wheeler riding. So what could be next?


Motorcycle riding, that's what. Brennan and Marie-Laure went to our top of the line, professional motocross track today so she could ride the four wheeler again and Brennan could show off his motorcycle skills.

But the Four wheeler ran out of gas, so she hopped on behind Brennan and went for a ride. Incredibly brave of her I thought after the whole swinging episode last week. Having a great time! Wish you were here!

But then she hopped on FRONT and took control of that there motorcycle . . . with a little help from Brennan at first.

She catches on quick, this girl from the big city of Pau, France. After a few laps she was riding by herself. She would probably have been fine without Brennan, but I made him stay on with her. I didn't want to try and explain to her French speaking Mother why we were sending her daughter home in several pieces.

That fear came from the bad karma Dave brought home with him from HIS ride the day before.
We're not sure what's wrong with that elbow, but we aren't the kind of people who go to the doctor if a limb is still attached, so we're hoping for the best. But the next time a ride comes up, we're sending Marie-Laure in his place.