Who put that on the fridge? (No really, read this post.)

A while back, I mentioned how we have a variety of objects plastered around our fridge. These items ranged from magnets, to receipts, to the occasional masterpiece painted by Elora. Lately, our refrigerator selection has taken an interesting twist.

Some weirdo seems to think they can put whatever they want up there...no matter how inappropriate!





I mean really. That thing isn't sanitary, is it?


Good thing it was only up there for a day. Whew!

By the way....its about 12 weeks along.
And Elora says its another girl named Elora (she said it was named Kiera at first, but she changed her mind.)
In fact she refers to it as "My baby Elora", or "My sister, Elora"
And she's gonna teach her how to eat pizza.
Even though Elora doesn't like pizza herself.

Route 66 (And Other Arizona Views)

One thing we were pretty excited about on our trip was traveling a section of Route 66. The whole time we were on it I couldn't stop singing snippets of that song, "Well it winds from Chicago to L.A.........Kingman, Barstow, San Bernadino.....yeah!"

I have been on sections of this historic route before, but Joseph had never been, so he was especially keen to take the drive. We passed lots of nifty kitschy stuff, like this:


I wish I'd taken more pictures of things...there was this one area where they had dinosaurs periodically along the sides of the road, and one was eating a lady torn in half. It was awesome.
At one point, we stopped to check out some memorabilia. Joseph ended up getting a mug with the "66" logo on it (he likes to collect restaurant cups too) and we couldn't resist getting Elora and Josh some cute kid-sized black biker jackets.

C'mon, what says road trip more than fake black leather with lots of zippers?

But what I was really looking for was a place with awesome desert scenery where we could stop and take a few pictures. I finally found it on the second day out from Kiera's. I do have to admit it was after we turned off the old '66 and started heading north through Arizona, on the road between Flagstaff and Page. But I figured it was just as remote and scenic, so its almost the same, right?

Late that afternoon, we found the perfect scenic overlook, at the perfect time of day. Doesn't this view remind you of the view in the movie, "Cars"?




During the entire trip, Elora had continuously asked if we could get out and climb on rocks, cliffs, trees, run across fields, etc. We kept having to find new excuses, like, "There is a fence in the way," "it's really cold and windy out," or " the cars will hit us if we get out here." Therefore she was understandably delighted when we finally said we were going to get out and walk around for a bit. She was more than ready to prance around and pose (in her new jacket of course) :



And Mr. Joseph was just as willing to have a stretch and take in the view:




However, poor little Joshua......well, poor little Joshua wasn't feeling that great. The day before, he'd been seriously sick, breathing shallowly, laying limply and unhappily in his car seat, and sporting a high fever. Luckily this day his fever was gone, but he was still recovering. Not to mention the fact that our unscheduled stop had awakened him early from a much needed nap.




So when Joseph helpfully arranged the kids on the perfect rock for our little photo shoot, Joshua started to really get upset (I love this picture though) :




The lighting was great, Elora was in a superb mood, not even Joshua's wailing would upset her:



But Josh kept crying,

and crying,

and crying,


and he cried a little more.



Finally, Joseph took him back to the warm car, while Elora and I played around for a few more minutes. She finally got to climb all those rocks:




and explore the local scenery.



"Mom, can we stay her forever?" (For color version, please see the sidebar.)




Eventually we had to go, so we took a parting shot... I wish we got more good ones of me :(
Is that so vain?




And when we made our way back to the car, Elora was crying because she wanted to stay and play.

Literary Connections

While on our Christmas car trip, we visited many places that we'd never been before, as well as locales I hadn't seen in a long time.

It was exciting to travel through Wyoming again, where we used to visit my grandparents before they moved to Arizona. I was slightly disappointed to not see the herds of Antelope that I remembered, but we did see a few groups of ranch Buffalo.

We were especially interested as we journeyed into Colorado, as it is one of the states where we might move when Joseph is done with school. What we saw wasn't the beautiful mountains and forests I expected, but at our motel we picked up a Colorado magazine, and discovered that we were (sadly) driving through the less scenic part of the state. It was good to know so that we can know what we'd be getting into, depending on what part of the state we might eventually move to. Maybe.

Kansas was, to me, stark and barren. There wasn't much snow, but it was bare and super windy; we drove in constant fear that we'd be blown into passing semis. From what I saw, I realized this was a state where I certainly don't want to live any time soon. When we stopped at a restaurant for lunch, we were pleasantly surprised by the people. The place was full of blue-collar workers, maybe men from a construction site or some kind of road work site nearby. Elora was being especially saucy, running around and not eating her lunch.

I expected the diners there to be annoyed and to give us dirty looks, but they were actually smiling at her and Joshua, occasionally chuckling at their antics. It was quite a refreshing response from these gruff looking men.

Oklahoma seemed positively lush after Kansas, as did Texas. One thing I found odd about these states was the difference in Fast Food places from what I was used to. For instance, so many places seemed to use Styrofoam cups and containers. What the heck? I thought those had been eliminated all over the country. Don't they care about the environment?

We ate at a Dairy Queen in Eastern Texas, and the menu was completely different than that in Western states. Instead of "Grill-Burgers" all of the burger offerings had the suffix of "Buster". And everything came with gravy, either for dipping or directly on the meat. You could also get batter-fried Jalipenos, referred to as "Jalitos". Very interesting.

One thing that was fun to see was Elora's observations of all these new parts of the world. It was amazing to see how easily she was able to draw upon the books we read her everyday to aid in her understanding of things. It all started before we left our house.

We explained that our first night of travel would be spent in a Motel. Before I even started to expound on what that was, she said, "Oh, like in my Sleep Book!"(Dr. Seuss). She understood completely about everyone parking outside and sleeping in the beds for the night, and she was so excited to go to a motel after that.

Several times on our journey, we passed scenes like this:


The very first time we passed some smokestacks, Elora exclaimed, "Look mom, just like in The Lorax!(Dr. Seuss) They're making smog in the sky!" Wow, who knew we were teaching our daughter to be so world conscious?


The connections between the literary world and the road continued on through our trip. When we were driving slowly in the rush hour traffic of Oklahoma City, we told Elora that there were lots of cars all going the same way, thus making us drive slower. "Oh!" she said with perfect understanding, "Just like on the "Zayt Highway Eight!" (Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are, Dr. Seuss)

One time, Elora and Josh were sticky while eating something in the car, so we gave them baby wipes to clean up with. Elora asked why we were using those instead of napkins. I told her it was just like in her Curious George book, when George tried to clean the Maple syrup off with napkins, they all stuck to him, so that's why we have to use baby wipes. She totally understood after that. (Curious George Makes Pancakes , Margret and H.A. Rey)

Even after we got home, I was amazed as she found more parallels. She asked me to read the tag on one of her toys, and I told her it said, "Made in China."
She said, "China? Hey, just like in Mulan!" True, that could be from the movie, but we don't own it and we do have a book all about the Disney Princesses.

I know there were many other instances that I didn't write down, but I was glad to see our daughter was well on her way to understanding all the problems of the world because of her reading habit. I'm sure she'll win the Nobel Peace Prize someday.

Cousins

We are finally back from our big trip to Texas to see my sister, Kiera, and her family, and to Southern Utah to visit my parents.
It was a long two week trip but it was mostly fun! Since my sister lives in Texas (and we used to live even further away in Washington) we only see each other maybe once a year.
Here is my hot (now blonde) sister:




Isn't she cute? We had lots of fun together, singing Carpenters and Indigo Girls songs, while cooking Christmas treats. We didn't sound so good when we started loosing our voices, but thats beside the point. Do you like the aprons our mom made for us?




We also visited with her husband, whom she is quick to point out, looks like Hugh Jackman. Here he is holding James, who is eight months younger than Joshua. Aren't they cute too?




James and his sister, Isabelle, are Elora and Josh's only cousins on my side. Isabelle is just three months younger than Elora, and they had a great time together!




Even though they are very close in age, it should be noted that Elora is somewhat less....dainty...than Isabelle:




They did the girly thing where they tried on each other's shoes.


Unfortunately Isabelle's new size sevens (which are a little large on her) were somewhat tight on Elora's size ten feet. She must take after her mother. I'm so proud! (No really, I used to brag about my large shoe sizes when I was a kid.)




In fact, we were quite amused to discover that Isabelle was only slightly taller than 18-month-old Joshua! (This angle doesn't illustrate it too well, but its true.) Not only that, but Joshua's feet were bigger than Isabelle's!



Despite all of the differences in age and size, everyone ended up having a great visit together:


They are going to be so embarrassed by this picture when they're older. Ha ha.



They especially had fun at the live nativity we went to..

complete with camels!


There were a few rough spots: Elora and Josh were throwing up on Christmas day (Kiera's kids had already been sick before we came), and the last few days we were there, both our kids developed hacking coughs that kept them up at night. At least we got to open presents before they got too sick!

It was crazy trying to find spots for everyone to eat, especially for Christmas dinner:





Isabelle wasn't too excited that her cousins got her bedroom, and sometimes there were fights over toys.
James was wary of his cousins, even though Elora and Josh really liked following him around and crawling after him when he tried to get away. He'll like them later, I'm sure.
It got a little chilly a few of the days we were there (in the 40's) but we were still able to go walk around outside, and go to the park once. (This picture is in Kiera's back yard.)



Oh yeah, we visited my turtle, Gollum too. I used to take care of him when I lived at home, but now he lives in Texas with Kiera's family, where the weather is much better for him.

They keep him in a small pond in the backyard. He's been in our family for about 15 years now!


After our week-long visit, we bid our favorite cousins goodbye as we headed off to Grandma's house. Thanks for letting us come, Kiera!