Our Easter/Phoenix Trip

I really did mean to post our trip two days ago, but I caught the bug that Elena and Ephraim had and so have been taking it easy to quickly get rid of it. I hope I'm over it before too long. I can tell it went up into my left sinus today, but I wouldn't have traded the experience of last week to keep from getting it. I just hope to be completely over it before we fly out to Omaha in two weeks.

Here goes: We left the house at apporximately 11:00am on April 12. Bob Hart our neighbor took us and our luggage over to Fairfield Inn on Broadway to catch the shuttle to the SLC airport. We were to arrive by 3:30 and our plane to take off by 5:10 for Sky Harbor Airport at Phoenix. We arrived there at SLC airport about 10 minutes early or so. We got in line to check our luggage. I put the info in the computer and got my boarding pass. Karl had to show his ID to let them know he was truely a senior. By the time we got our boarding passes and went thro' security and to the gate we had a 20-30 minute wait till they started boarding. We were flying Southwest. So no assigned seating. We were both in Aisle C so by the time we got on the plane there were no seats together anywhere. So Karl sat in the seat ahead of me. Both on the isle. By the time we boarded, there was only a ten minute wait till the plane took off. The security line there at SLC was two (that's no exageration) long and seemed to take forever to get thro'. Karl had worn a turquiose necklass and it and his belt buckle set off the alarm at the gate. My total knee didn't even set it off. It does at both IF and Sky Harbor. We arrived at Sky Harbor at 5:40pm. We collected our luggage (really made me appreicate the fact we hadn't taken extra luggage, just our carry-on luggage when we flew down last October. As Karl pulled out the strap to piggy back the smaller pieces to the lager ones, we noticed it was covered with a brown powdery substance. I said, "that hold must be filthy." Karl saidm "It looks like whey protein powder to me." I tho't, "Oh no!" We had to wait for the Super Shuttle about 15-20 minutes to take us to Richard & Téa's. Our driver was originally from Honduras. He said he was there when that category 5 Hurricane it in '98. I remember that one. We got to Richard & Téa's by 7:00. I was glad someone else who knew the way was driving. The children must have been watching because All four of the oldest ones were lined up on the driveway to welcome us before we got parked. Richard was there too. He'd been home from work about 3/4 of an hour or so. It was sooo good to be there and see them. When I got in the house I greeted Téa after gettting a hug form each of the children and Richard and went to find Ephraim. He is such a happy baby. He smiled and smiled at me as soon as I was in the room and started talking to him. Cheanna was kind enough to let us use her room. I was very thankful for that. She has a very nice bed. I went in and got down on the floor with Ephraim and started playing with him. I did "mousey, mousey" with him and he smiled wide. I did this "little piggy went to market" and he laughed out loud. I do the all the way home part up the leg and all the way up the toursle to the chin. Emma was there watching and she'd say, "Do that trick again, Grandma." So I did. He laughed out loud for more than five full minutes. He did alittle the next day too but that was the only times I really heard him laugh out loud. AT first I figured since he did it so readily that he must laugh out loud very easily. I found out differentlly. Richard later said he's very stingy with his giggles and laughs. He really did enjoy my playing with him. (And I thoroughly enjoyed playing with him._After he got sick on Sunday, I was able to make him smile occasionally even tho' he was miserable---if his fever was down. Later on on Monday, I think it was, Ducnan was watching me play with him and asked if I tho't he would remember how I played with him like that. I asked him, "Do you remember my playing with you when you were this age? For I used to play with you just like I'm playing with him." He smiled and said, "No, but I can imagine how it was when you were playing with me by watching you play with Ephraim." I also did "How big is Epraim." He got so he expected that when he grasped both of my thumbs at once. I don't think it would have been many more days and he would lift his arms up himself while grasping my thumbs. My children would do that, almost always having to have hold of my thumbs to do it. Until they got to be 18 months old or so.

The first morning we were there I went with Téa and the children to Buckeye (a small city, "about the size of IF) to her home schooling support group. I'm glad I went. It really opened my eyes as to what they do and what their goals are etc. Afterwards we headed for the Art museum with the other home-schooling support group she belongs to. We got off on the wrong freeway and since the children were hot, (the thermometer in the car reached 101 degrees while we were down town.) thirsty and tired, I told her that if it was all right with her we could just head home. On Friday, Karl and I helped with the home schooling. Karl with the math and I listened to the reading. Altho' Emma is just barely five and two months she is site reading the, no, and, on and maybe other words if I'd found them. Cheanna is a good little reader with much expression. She has the habit of reading words in her mind and skipping them out loud. So I'd make her go back and read the whole thing again. She wasn't very happy with me at times but I told myself that she was there to learn and I wouldn't know what she knew and couldn't help teach her unless I did that. Duncan is an excellant reader too. Reads with much expression as well. I don't know at what level they are reading but I do know that they are reading far above their grade levels of 1st and 3rd grades, respectively. I enjoyed doing that. We had originally planned on going to the temple pagent Friday night but it was cloudy with chance of rain all day and the wind was blowing and getting worse as the day went on. So we decided to go on Saturday. Friday night we played the Great Dalmuti, Karl, Richard, Duncan and I. I played a practice game with Duncan and Cheanna as the others were getting around. Karl helped Cheanna but she decided that that was enough and she would rather watch the Ugly Duckling and Princess and the Pea, that we had taken for them to watch, instead. It was fun. Duncan caught on really fast and seemed to enjoy playing except he was either the lesser or greater peon the whole time. I also spent quite a bit of time there too.

On Saturday, we went to the First Christian Church's New Life Festival over in Glendale. We left about 11:00am. For four red heads and me who also burns very easily we weren't very wise about taking sunscreen. Téa and I didn't think about it until we were there for awhile. The children had fun hunting plastic Easter Eggs and going to booths that colored Easter Eggs, had a Resurection Egg (this is where they collected the different scriptures that depict the crucifixion and resurrection in the Bible), tie dying and they also had a mechanical swing, large puffed up slides, and a climbing wall. The children really seemed to enjoy it all. We had Ephraim's stoller which after while carted the buckets with the children's treasures in and Eprhaim sat on the ground and played while I sat on a chair and watched the children do many of the different things. I tho't I did quite well tho' because I stood up for more than a hour while the children did their different things. At about 2:30 we left and went to a park where we let the children play and ate some of the sandwich Richard had made and chips and water. We left at about 3:30 to head for Mesa and the pagent. We got there before many others did and had the pick of the parking lot and the seats etc. Richard & Téa spread out two quilts on the hillside and that was our viewing area. We played games with the children and they rolled down the hill. After awhile some friends of theirs from the Madison Ward they used to live in came by and ended up sitting by them. Eprhaim was soooo good that afternoon and evening. I enjoyed playing with him. I was at first kind of concerned about how my back would feel because it had no support but I was able to squirm and lie down and sit up and walk around at will so I did just fine.