Wednesday, July 30, 2008

cold to hot

We left a lot of clouds behind as we left Seattle earlier this week. We started our 14+ hour drive an hour later than we had planned thanks to a late night at the parade and unfinished packing. I must admit that I wasn't sad to leave the gloom behind and head into some hot sunshine.
An unexpected stop on our journey came on a desert highway in Idaho. Traffic came to a complete stop for an hour as a rescue helicopter came in to life-flight a person injured in an accident a few miles up the road from us. So we turned off the car and explored the side of the road in the 100 degree heat. Thankfully we didn't have to wait longer, and thankfully we weren't the ones in the accident. Our trip was uneventful enough -- it better have been with all the money we had to spend the week before on car repairs. **side story on bottom** As expected, the boys were hitting each other and yelling with boredom and exhaustion by the last hour of our drive. Sommer had a few fits of crying because she was stuck in her carseat. She just got mad and threw to the floor whatever I offered to try to console her. But we made it.
And now Eric is off hiking somewhere in Wyoming and we are playing in the sunshine. The kids are having fun playing in the water and on the trampoline at all hours of the day.
Early morning pj romp on the trampoline. Sommer still isn't sure about the thing. Yesterday we went to visit Mindy and her kids. We invaded just in time for lunch, went and ate gelato at a shop just around the corner from her house, then went swimming at a really fun outdoor pool in her area. The kids enjoyed the slides and the dump buckets. I got sunburned, not a good thing but it was a good thing to enjoy the water and the sunshine.

I wish I could send some of this weather up north to friends who are having another rainy day today. And now we're off to another pool to play with cousins.


**Last week our car was in the shop for a few days. The kids were signed up for swimming lessons and they had been improving so much and I had paid for the lessons so I didn't want them to miss. So we took public transportation -- and survived. It was a short ride for us, only one bus for about 5 minutes and each day it only cost us $2 since we were able to return on our transfer passes in time. That might be cheaper than using our car. The hardest part was that it took 2 hours longer than usual to go to swimming and return home, someone else was planning our schedule for us. In the summer that isn't such a bad thing, we had a few days of adventures on the bus, but we were really glad to have our car back.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

My sis in law is ready to pack up and move..she's so sick of the aforementioned "gloom". Me too. What a happy time you must have had (still having?), the pictures are wonderful.

Torrie said...

the sun looks lovely! and i'd rather be burned than pale...any day. i'm glad your car ride was safe and that you got to hang with mindy!
continue to have fun! and keep us updated!

kelly said...

i'm so happy you're enjoying the sunshine and friends and family!
what a difference between the top and bottom photos.
depressing...
and you are such a modern-day pioneer taking your four to the pool on the bus!