The Great Road Trip of '10

We took a family vacation to attend a family reunion in Utah for my dad's side of the family. We looked at many different options of how to get there and back, and with the generous help of my parents, decided to rent a car and drive. (Our car needs new brakes and tires before embarking on a trip like this. Thus, the rental car.) Our adventures started before the trip even began. We had made reservations at National for a rental car because my dad could get a discount through his work. Their website also said we would be able to use a debit card instead of the usual credit card for the whole transaction. When we got there Friday afternoon to pick up the car, we found out that, no, in fact they don't accept debit cards after all. We panicked for a second, wondering what to do. We did the only thing we could do and went to a different car rental place that DID accept debit cards. We ended up at Hertz (luckily we were near the airport and all the car rental places were within a couple blocks of each other) which turned out to be cheaper than we thought, and also we were able to get the car we wanted, a Mazda 5.


I don't think we would have been able to get a car we liked as much as the Mazda 5 back at National, so in the end, everything worked out perfectly! Yay!

We packed up the car Friday night and left early, early Saturday morning. Most of that day consisted of driving through the flat, flat expanses of Texas, on our way to Denver, CO.




There were also lots of wind farms.

Josh and Lucy did remarkably well in the car. I was anticipating Lucy getting very tired of being in her car seat, but she only cried when she was hungry and had to wait for me to climb in the back seat. Josh was good about getting toys out of his backpack to entertain himself with. We also had a laptop with Curious George and Blues Clues on it for Josh when he got particularly restless. After 15.5 hours of driving, we made it to Highlands Ranch, CO, just outside of Denver.



This was taken about 10 minutes before we got to our friends' house. We stayed with our friends, Christina and Ben, both Saturday and Sunday nights. They have two girls, Audra and Claire. Audra is a week younger than Josh, and Claire just turned 1 years old. Josh and Audra were a bit shy at first, but they soon warmed up to each other and were chasing each other around the house before we knew it. It was great to visit with them and catch up on life and old friends. Christina grew up in the same stake Adam and I grew up in, and Adam and she were good friends in high school. The weather on Sunday was a bit stormy (it hailed three different times!), so our Fourth of July picnic plans were nixed, but we still had a great time. Josh and Audra probably don't remember the first time they met, two years ago, when Christina was in Washington visiting family and trekked down to Spanaway for a visit.
Josh was barely able to work up the courage to hold Audra's hand. Us parents knew long distance relationships rarely last, but I guess we forgot to tell Josh.


Just call him Rico Suave.



















Monday morning we headed out for the 8+ hour drive to Park City, UT. The drive across Wyoming was very windy and very boring. At least the kids were having fun.



We got to Park City around 6:30pm or so, and thus started a fun week of hanging out with family. My dad is the oldest of 7 kids, and we all stayed in 3 condos that we rented. On Tuesday, Adam and I and the kids went down to Orem by way of Heber and through Provo Canyon (such a pretty drive!) to see one of our Imaginary Internet Friends, Susannah, and get my hair cut. When we got there, Susannah was just finishing up with another one of our Imaginary Internet Friends, Momma Snider. It was great to meet both of them, and after my hair cut, Adam and I played pool while Susannah played with Lucy. Josh helped us play pool by randomly rolling balls into pockets. On our way back to Park City, we stopped at 7-11 in Heber for Slurpees.

This was the first time Josh got his very own Slurpee. He did all right with it until we were almost home and dumped half of it on his lap. **face palm**

Most of the aunts, uncles, and cousins arrived Tuesday afternoon. We had a fun week of visiting with family, riding the Alpine Slide, going to the park with Grandma and Grandpa, walking down Main Street, and playing games. Of course, everyone loved meeting Lucy and she just ate up all the attention.










































































On Friday we all headed down to the big Pratt Family Reunion, which started at a church in Highland, and then continued at Heber Vally Camp, a Girls Camp up in the hills of Heber Valley. This reunion was for my Grandpa Pratt and his nine sisters and all their kids, grandkids, great-grandkids, etc.

Waiting for lunch to start.

There were tons of people there, and it's easy to get overwhelmed. There are a few of my dad's cousins that I enjoy seeing, though, and it was fun to talk to them for a bit before we had to leave. The big reunion had reserved places for people to camp at the girls camp Friday night, but we went back to Park City for the night. We loaded up the car and left for the long trek back home on Saturday morning. We made it to Albuquerque, NM, that night, and then on Sunday we made it all the way back to San Antonio. It was a lot of driving, but we survived with audio books to listen to. The kids were pretty good in the car again, and we are all glad to be home.

Road trips are fun every once in a while, and driving that long with the kids wasn't as bad as I had expected it to be. It's not something I want to do often, but now I know we can do it, and have fun, too! I'm so glad we were able to go to the reunion and see family we haven't seen in a while, especially my parents and brother and his family. We had tons of fun with aunts, uncles and cousins and I'm so glad we were able to make the trip.

5 months old!

Little Lucy turned 5 months old about a weeks ago. I know I sound like a broken record, but she is just the best baby ever! This past month she has gotten stronger and has figured out how to roll back over from her front to her back. As I'm sure you recall from my last post about Lucy, she was just barely rolling over from her back to her front. Now, if she's in the mood, she can roll back to front, front to back, and so forth and get to where she wants to go. Sometimes, though, she rolls into the entertainment center and bonks her head, so we gotta be careful. When she's on her tummy, she also likes to bend her knees and then push with her feet on the carpet and try to propel herself forward a bit.

She also tried some rice cereal for the first time this past month.

She likes it! I give it to her once a day, when I remember. I'm sure she would love to eat it more, but it's not part of my routine yet, and I sometimes forget that it's an option.

She loves to play, and this past month we got out the Jumperoo to see if she was big enough for it yet. She likes to sit in it and play with the toys around the edge, but she doesn't really bounce in it very much. Her feet DO touch the floor, though. Just barely. Sometimes, she just wears herself out when she plays and can't keep her eyes open any longer.

She is just so darn cute. It is a joy to have her in our family!

Two-Face

Adam here. I was reminded today of one of the funniest things I ever did, and I was inspired to make a blog post out of it. Back in my Singles Branch days, my best friend Michelle and I were sitting in Sunday School, kind of paying attention to the lesson. Michelle suggested that we play a game that she had played with her sisters in church when she was younger. She folded a paper in half and explained that the would draw half of a face, mark where the eyes, nose, and mouth were, and then the other person would draw the other half of the face without seeing what the first half looked like because it was hidden by the fold. Then they would unfold the paper and see what the face looked like.

So Michelle folded a paper in half, drew half of a face on the left side of the paper, and marked where the eyes, nose, and mouth were. She handed it to me, blank side up, and I drew half of a face, too. Struggling to keep a straight face, I handed the paper back to her. I wish I had kept the actual paper to scan and show you, but here is a close approximation of what she saw when she unfolded the paper:





We were both red-faced and straining with the effort of not laughing out loud in the back of the Sunday School class. Clearly, the hours I spend in 6th grade practicing how to sketch a Ninja Turtle paid off after all.

It's been quite a while since I posted anything on our blog. Lisa does most of the posting on here because she remembers to do it and she has access to the computer with all the pictures on it every day. So this post won't have any cute baby pictures or anything, but it will have some thoughts on what has been most interesting to me lately.

Firstly, we are right smack in the middle of thunderstorm season here in San Antonio. Last Wednesday, there was a pretty severe thunderstorm that had a lot of wind to go with it. It knocked out power for a bunch of people and blew down some trees. Luckily, nothing was damaged near our house (and our power only flickered; it never actually went out). We had another huge storm last night. It didn't have the really high winds of last week's storm, but it had a lot more thunder. From about 9:00 last night to some time past 3:00 this morning, there was constant rolling thunder and flashing lightning. It reminds me of my mission in Milwaukee when there were severe thunderstorms in late May and early June that would shake the apartment all night long.

I really enjoy listening to the storms, as long as I don't have to be out in them. If I can lay in bed in our dark bedroom and just hear and feel the thunder and watch the flashes of lightning, then it's really relaxing and fun. I'm not sure if Josh or Lucy feel similarly, though. Lucy was woken up last night by the thunder around 12:45 or so, and she was not happy. She decided that since she was up anyway, she should probably also be a little hungry. So Lisa gave her a little bottle and she settled down. Josh doesn't seem to get too startled by thunder, but then, I think he could sleep through just about anything.

Secondly, we have been attending classes for Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. I have known about Dave Ramsey for a few years, but never really bought into the whole "no credit cards, no debt, cash only" thing. Until now. It turns out that his whole system is based on painfully simple common sense. Sure, the General Authorities have been teaching these same principles for years, but I was never really ready to do anything about it until now.

We have finally hit the point where we want do escape the evil credit card and consumer debt game. We're tired of paying huge amounts of money just on interest because we bought something with a credit card rather than saving up actual money for it. We're tired of living paycheck to paycheck and never really having a reserve in the bank for emergencies. We're tired of trading our financial security and future to credit card companies so that we don't have to delay our gratification a little and save up for stuff that we want.

So we have called up our credit card companies and canceled our accounts. We have finally started making a monthly budget and sticking to it. We are on our way to becoming debt free. It's going to take a long time to dig ourselves out of the hole we created with our instant gratification habits, but it will be worth it. And some day we will be able to go wherever we want and buy a house where we really want to live and enjoy the fruits of our labor, rather than giving all of those fruits to a bunch of creditors.

Lastly, we are really excited to go to a family reunion in a few weeks. We're going to be driving from San Antonio to Park City, UT. We're making a stop in Denver for a couple of nights on the way to Park City to visit my friend Christina and her family. Then we will see the Pratt relatives over the ensuing days. We're really excited for everyone to get to meet Lucy and see how cute and sweet she really is. We're not necessarily excited for the approximately 48 hours of driving that will be involved in the round trip, but that's what podcasts and audiobooks are for.

More pictures!

Last week I took Josh to get his 3-year-old pictures taken. He was, of course, uncooperative, and didn't want to hold still for the camera lady. I was scared there wouldn't be any good pictures, but it turned out there were a few that I liked. This first one is the pose we chose for the pics going out to family.