It is hard to believe that in two days Jacob will already be 3 weeks old. Hard enough to believe I did actually pull out a calendar after typing the last sentence just to be sure it was true. What I believe and what is true frequently aren't the same thing, but in this case it really does seem to check out. On September 9th Jacob will be three weeks old. The time really has been clipping along.
Last week was Jacob's blessing. Lexie's parents are serving a mission in Salt Lake City. A baby blessing is something for which they can get a leave of absence to attend. It was a lot of fun to see them and they were delighted to see Jacob and the rest of the kids. Tyrell kept Papa (Lexie's dad) busy singing just about every song he knew.
Lexie's parents were able to come up to see Jacob.
We decided to skip the state fair this year because the Monday the kids had off of school was rainy and it didn't seem worth the effort and expense to cram a trip to Blackfoot into a school night. I think Florida has their state fair in February so hopefully we can catch that one. I think there is a pretty strong poultry showing down in that area. Something I would really like to do once we get on the road again is to make it to a large poultry show.
In the spirit of keeping the stone rolling as to not gather moss we did get out this weekend to go to Craters of the Moon National Monument. We brought my grandma. To accomodate sleeping much to the delight of the kids we needed to bring a tent. I find it highly amusing that given our life style a persistent complaint with the kids is that we don't camp enough. Camping of course to them means that one needs to sleep in a tent not one of those cushy trailers. The requirment of a tent and extra bedding pushed our departure time a bit farther out than we had anticipated so we did not arrive at our camp site until after dark. Although he traveled wonderfully Jacob was the definition of "not a happy camper" when we arrived so Lexie was tied up taking care of him. There was something strangly fitting to me about being a mid thirties guy setting up a tent by myself at 9:30 PM. It just seems like the kind of thing guys in their thirties with more ambition than capacity are supposed to do. Since we were only truely short one bed in the trailer I decided it was a worth while risk to leave the fly off the tent as to have a reasonably unobstructed view of the stars. The weather prediction did not include rain and even if we did get rained on the worst case was the kids would go in the trailer and I would stay out in wet bedding.
Sleeping with the fly off turned out great!
We were very comfortable in the tent.
I can't remember the last time I saw stars so brightly but I believe it was in Idaho when I did. I don't know nearly enough about astronomy but I was reasonably sure I could see 2 galaxies in addition to the Milky Way.
Tyrell took advantage of having extra space in the trailer and slept in it. I slept with Dallin, Natalyn and David. The bet in leaving the fly off was a good one. Everyone slept comfortably through the night outside.
I made it a point to get my run in first thing in the morning because I knew that we would be doing a lot of walking through the day. I wanted to be sure I got my run finished before I lost enthusiasm. For the last 4 weeks I have been following a 5K training program from the book "Running for Mortals". I haven't been perfect to the schedule, but I have been doing really well on it. My only misses were when Jacob was born and when I have been sick. I plan to race in October to compare my time to my race time last year. I don't remember my exact time other than to know it was in the 28-30 minute range. With my October race I am not going to be happy with anything over 25 min. My secret hope is that I can push my time under 20 minutes but I know that is not going to happen by October. I have to much evidence of my love of hot dogs and ice cream riding with me to get a time that fast for a while. In the mean time I keep telling myself the extra weight is building muscle as I run with it. With that said I do feel confident that if I can hold my current course I will eventually get there. My running program is time based as opposed to distance based so I haven't been keeping track of my distances with respect to time. In general right now I think I am jogging at what I was racing at last year. Yesterday I was pleased that I was able to jog for 35 continuous minutes in light hills. I am not happy with the pace yet but thrilled that I was able to keep at a jog. Bit by bit my running is feeling more like it should. Yesterday was one of the first times I can remember in much too long that it seemed like my body took over the running for me. I remeber when I was a teenager it seemed like I could just get my body running almost like one would start a car and then it would just go without much more effort from me. Yesterday wasn't quite that good but it did remind me of it. I think a key to life is grabbing hold of the things which are right and enjoying them even if they are not perfect.
After getting back from the run and cleaning up camp we started the day at the visitor's center to get the kids packets to become junior rangers. Other than Cabrillo National Monument the kids have gotten Junior Ranger badges at all of the other national parks and monuments at which we have stopped. I don't remember if this stop made 8 or 9 but at any rate it is growing to an impressive collection especially for a single year. I don't have any intention of having any of the kids grow up to be park rangers but I do like the contents of the activity packets which require observation and recording of observation. There is so much to be learned in the still and quite of nature the sooner one can turn their ears, eyes, nose, mouth and touch toward it the better. Of course when my kids get in it nature isn't so still and quite anymore but I am quite pleased everytime they find things of genuine interest to themselves. I was especially delighted on one part of a hike when David couldn't get more than 10 feet without finding something which would stop him until he could show it to Lexie. The shapes and colors of the Craters of the Moon National Monument really are spectacular in that they are so different from most of what we see in our day to day lives. That is of course those of us that don't live by volcanoes. There are some pictures at Craters of the Moon of lava tubes in Hawaii which still have molten lava in the bottom. I think those would be fantastic to see.
The kids had a great time playing on the car as we were getting camp struck.
We had wonderful weather. Jacob did great through the whole day.
Ty and Dallin did a great job reading signs on the trails.
The four oldest on their way to the caves.
In the absence of kids to watch I think I could spend a full day just staring at the colors and shapes in the park.
The kids loved the caves but hated the dark.
I often wonder what happens in David's mind. Right now I think he is just tired. He was excited by many of the things he saw on the trail.
Grandma was very pleased to get back to Craters of the Moon. She was amazed at how much pavement there was. Her memories involved dirt roads.
My garden August 31, 2008
My garden September 7, 2008. I have started thinning the lettuce.
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