Here's a journal entry from our trip out west.
We just got back home from our trip out west. We drove to Colorado Springs the first day and stayed with Keith and Julienne. Our kids had a good time playing with their kids and their dogs. After dinner they got Jarret's old Legos out and Clark and Cal had a blast with those.
Day two we drove to St. George and stayed with Kent and Cindy (Ruth's cousins). We first went to Sam's hotel and watched the BYU game. They lost to Utah State, which was sad, but I was just so glad that I got to actually watch one of their games. Of course it turns out we could have watched the game at Kent and Cindy's house, but we didn't know and we knew that we could for sure watch it at Sam's hotel room. During the game, Ruth and the girls went shopping. They were gone almost the whole game.
The next day was the Lena Bartholomew reunion. It was her 90th birthday. The kids had fun playing with their cousins and playing the other games they had there - plus they had really good food.
After the reunion we got back in the car and headed to Ely. We were able to listen to the entire Saturday afternoon session on the radio on the way there. We got there just in time for me to change my clothes and attend the Priesthood session with my Dad. It was very good. I especially liked President Uchtdorf's talk on Pride.
Sue and most her kids (Alan had to stay at home with Joseph) were in Ely as well and our kids had a good time playing together and it was really nice to see Sue.
Sunday we stayed home and watched conference. The kids did pretty good (it helped that we had candy to reward good behavior). Between sessions Kent and his family came over for dinner. After that afternoon session we all went over to his house for a light meal and pie that Nathan had made (so good!).
Monday morning I went on a bike ride with Kent (I rode his Hammer Head). It was cool out, but in no time I wasn't cold at all. The trails that Dad worked on and created look great and it was a really great ride. We ended up going again the next morning as well. After the ride and getting ready we met Nathan at the railroad museum and he showed us all around. I think we even saw some things I'd never seen before. After that we went down to the office basement and got a lot of my old things that I wanted. That afternoon I took Ruth, Clark, and Shanna on a motor cycle ride. Clark loved it and wanted to go again and again. I was only able to take him twice as it was getting colder and starting to rain.
Tuesday we drove to Salt Lake City and walked around Temple Square. Then we went to Provo where we were going to stay with Stephanie and Andy. While there we took them out to eat at the BYU Creamery, walked around campus (twice) let the kids watch tons of movies, played Creationary (a new Lego game), got the van "fixed", and had all my nephews and nieces over for dinner that live in the area.
A little on the van. We replaced a wheel bearing after our trip to Sam's wedding last month. Well, the other side started to make noise just before our trip out west. Jeremiah Schaffer said he'd help me fix it so I ordered the part from Autozone. When we got it all apart the bearing I bought didn't match the one in the hub! So we put it all back together and when I turned on the car the ABS and traction control lights were on! We took it to Sanman to have it fixed the next day (the day before we had to leave) and they couldn't get a part in time to fix it before we left. We found a recommend place in Orem Utah to fix the bearing and when we took it there they said the bearing wasn't really bad enough to warrant fixing yet; however, they did say that the motor mounts were really bad, and it turns out the ABS light was on because we messed something up when we tried to fix the bearing ourselves before the trip. We're not sure yet what's wrong, but we'll probably need to take it to the dealer to figure it out. They put a different (used) sensor on there and the light was still one. Could be that the used sensor was bad too (cheaper to fix) or that the used sensor (and my original one) are good and we pulled on a wire and shorted it out (more money).
Well, Thursday morning we left Provo and drove to Denver Colorado to stay with Sam and Shawna. They have a nice condo there and they fed us a really yummy dinner with dessert. Then Clark and Cal had a great time playing Lego Star Wars on the Wii. Then we all watched Beauty and the Beast. Clark wasn't too happy about turning off the Wii, but after watching it for a few minutes he really liked it.
We left really early the next day and got home around 9:30 last night. It was a great trip and we were so glad we got to see so much of our family.
