Utah Trip Day 7

On our final day we were all feeling fine and actually played around with the idea of staying in Vegas another night. But the reason for leaving Utah was to get home so I could deal with my stone, so we left the hotel, went to breakfast, stopped at the lion exhibit at MGM and went to the M&M Factory (always a must) to see the 3D movie. Then it was homeward bound. Looking back it was a great trip. We did some fun stuff. While there it was a little harder to see that. But I know the kids had fun and that's what's most important!

UPDATE: We've been home a week and 3 days and I still haven't passed the stone. Our terrible insurance wanted a lot of money for the procedure the doctor wanted to do, so now I am just hoping to pass it on my own. Good thing for strong meds! Wish me luck. :)

Utah Trip Day 6

Love this picture of Tamara's youngest boy, Thatcher. He was quite taken with Kirk. So cute!

Had grand plans of going to Heritage Park where "This is the Place" monument is and going to see The Great Salt Lake and Antelope Island today, but when we got up Avery wasn't feeling well. After much debate Avery decided she felt good enough and didn't want to miss seeing it, so we got into the car and stopped at McDonald's for breakfast where it hit Avery hard and she started crying and not feeling good. We had had it by now and decided to throw in the towel and just head home. Wasn't looking good for my procedure and it was too dangerous for me to drive that distance not knowing when that pain would hit again, so it was go home with Kirk or risk it and he especially wasn't willing to risk it. At that point it just felt like we weren't meant to stay. So, we headed back to Tamara's, packed up pretty quickly, called Sara (my friend from Boston that was there with her kids staying at her moms and had been on vacation up until that day, so we hadn't seen each other yet) and she, her kids and her mom stopped over for a quick hello/goodbye before heading to Las Vegas to spend the night. So sad. So many months of planning and looking forward to this trip and a week early it was ending...just like that. To say the least I was SAD! Avery slept in the back a lot of the way. Luckily, she never threw up - was just nauseous. We called The Orlean's on our way to get reservations for the night and we were there by about 7:00. Grabbed dinner in the lobby and ate in our room (minus Avery) and then went to bed.

Utah Trip Day 5

We did a lot on this day, but still didn't fit everything in that I had planned. It didn't help that in between doing these fun things Kirk was talking to or on hold with the insurance company. I have a friend in Salt Lake that is a Urologist. Convenient, right? Seriously, love her and am so grateful for her help through all this. She wanted to do a procedure to actually take out my kidney stone so that I didn't have to worry about it driving home alone with the kids, but the insurance company was saying no, I had to come back to CA. Kirk was pretending to be in CA and not in SLC with me and able to bring me home so they could see the importance of me getting this done while there. No such luck. They wouldn't budge. So, this was all going on while doing these fun things...

The movie at the Joseph Smith Building was on the Prophet Joseph Smith's life. It was very interesting and the kids were really good through the 68 minute movie! So grateful for these wonderful depictions of the history of our church. And even more grateful for Joseph Smith. He was truly an amazing person!

We then went over to see Brigham Young's house. In all the times I've been to Salt Lake I've never done this tour! Beautiful home!

In the grounds around the home.

Right after taking this picture we ran into a former past singles warder of mine, Don Love. He sings in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and invited us to a concert of theirs on Friday night. Said he would leave tickets at will call. So nice and we were excited to go! Too bad things went South and we weren't able to use them.

View from on top of the Church Office Building (another first for me)

View of the top of the Conference Center

The Capitol Building

We toured the Conference Center, which was very good!

Went over to temple square and found this new model in one of the visitors center. So neat that the kids (and everyone else) can see what the inside looks like.

Temple Square

Inside the Tabernacle

Still wanted to do the Church History Museum, but not enough time. We had tickets to the Angels minor league, The Bees. So, we went to dinner and made it just in time for the first batter.

Reggie Willits. Kirk's "favorite" player (said very sarcastically). He finally got sent back down and we were able to see him.

It rained a little towards the end of the blow-out game (12-3). Bee's lost, but we had fun!

Tamara called while we were doing Temple Square to tell us that her youngest, Thatcher had the stomach flu. Lovely. My first thought was Avery or Devin will get it and most likely it will be Avery. She's very susceptible to sickness. So, we were sure to stay away for as long as possible. Gone the entire day and not back until almost 11:00...I think we accomplished that. Great day!

Utah Trip Day 4

Normally when we are on vacation we don't go to church. I'm not sure why that is, but I didn't grow up doing it and certainly Kirk didn't, so we just never have. But this time we planned to go with Tamara and her family. And Tamara happens to teach Avery's age, so she was the luckiest. They have the 9:00 - noon time slot and we were in Salt Lake so we, of course, didn't leave their house until about 1 minute to 9:00 and were there just in time for the opening prayer. Amazing! Devin was only a little hesitant to go. They have Primary first and Sacrament last, so there wasn't a lot of warm up time for him, but Tamara's son Cooper is his age and was in his class so that helped.

I was only in Relief Society for maybe 8 minutes when I could feel the pains starting up again. After waiting only about 5 minutes I decided it was going to continue, so I left to go take some Vicodin. The pain came on pretty strong and pretty quickly and by 9:30 I knew I was headed down a bad path, so I went to get Kirk, talked to Tam (who told me not to worry and she would take care of our kids - such a great friend!) and we headed to an urgent care clinic. Once there and after vomiting (even after they gave me anti-nausea meds) they told me I needed to go to the hospital to get stronger meds and a Cat Scan. We lucked out and no one was in the waiting room when we got there and the urgent care place had called to give them a heads up we were on our way, so things moved along nicely, thankfully. It was confirmed through a cat scan that I did have a kidney stone and it was pretty high up. After 4 doses of Morphine and still being in pain, they finally gave me something stronger and it did the trick. Ahhhhh, the relief! After a quick stop at the pharmacy for more drugs we made it back to Tam's around 4:00. I was really doped up, so I passed out for the rest of night. I had urged Kirk to take the kids to see his Aunt Katie that lives in Roy and not wait for another day because I wasn't sure how things were going to go and didn't want him missing out on seeing her. She's elderly and we're not sure if he'll be able to see her again. They had a nice visit and I had a fantastic sleep!

Utah Trip Day 3

We found out our entrance pass to Zion's was also good at Kolab Canyons, so on our way to Salt Lake we stopped there and drove up the pretty dive to the top where the nice ranger took our picture. This is when my kidney stone first starts to make it's ugly invasion of our trip. I told Kirk I needed to stop and get some Advil or something because I was feeling a little crampy and I was suspecting the beginnings of a kidney stone, but hoping otherwise. By the time we stopped at the gas station at the next off ramp my pains had really started in. I took both Aleve and Advil and nothing was touching the pain. About 2 hours into the drive we pulled off the road so Kirk could give me a blessing. I'm so thankful for having a worthy priesthood holder in our home! An obnoxious and painful hour later the pain had gotten so bad that I had to roll the window down and vomit. Unfortunately the kids will always remember this part as I think I shocked them with what happens when you vomit out a window at 80 mph. Needless to say the van was a mess. I know...yuck! Kirk was able to pull over very quickly to let me finish my business and then when I was done my pain was gone too! We were only about 1/2 hour outside of Provo at that point, so we decided to pull off in Provo to get the car a much needed wash. Then it was onward to Salt Lake where we were going to be staying at my good friend, Tamara's house. We got there, unpacked a bit and then headed over to a hotel her sister-in-law was staying at so the kids could all go swimming. While there Tamara got ahold of her neighbor who is a doctor and he prescribed me some Vicodin just in case I may need some pain relief soon. The kids had a great time swimming, but poor Avery's eyes were allergic to the chlorine or something because her eyes were as red and puffy as I've ever seen and she couldn't open them for hours after we were done. Finally after running to the drugstore to get Visine she was all better. We had a great bbq of hot dogs, hamburgers, steak and lots of yummy fruit. I think the kids went to bed around 11:00pm and Tamara and I stayed up to visit and catch up until a little after midnight. It was a nice evening.

Utah Trip Day 2

I think this was probably the best day of our trip. We got into Zion's at about 10:00 and it was only about 78 degrees so far. During the summer they don't allow private vehicles on the main road, so we boarded the bus and headed to our first hike - Weeping Rock.

We were lucky enough to be able to see this beautiful deer on our way up.

This was a very friendly hike for kids. Only about .5 miles. It's a little steep, but it's so short that it doesn't matter. We had fun walking up and looking at all the pretty scenery.

And here we are at Weeping rock where the water trickles down non-stop all year round.

The view from Weeping Rock - gorgeous!

On our way back down.

We ran across dozens of these cute little things, but we never fed them just like we were told. They sure at gutsy little guys!

Our second hike was along the Riverfront on the way to The Narrows. We had originally planned to actually hike The Narrows (a hike through the Virgin River) until we read up a little more on it and didn't feel comfortable doing it with Devin. And it was a good decision because as we found out once there, just around the bend the water was about up to my chin. And it's moving water. I would have been too nervous having 3 kids that can't touch. Yes, 2 can swim, but still....too much for me. But we enjoyed the hike there and stopping to play in the water here and there. Didn't get to stay too long, though, because Devin had to go to the bathroom so bad we practically had to run back down to the restrooms.

The entry to The Narrows. Justin and Avery really wanted to try to get to the other side, but decided against it when they saw adults going through and it was up to their knees. The rocks were slippery and since we had decided not to do the hike we left our walking sticks back at the car.

A group starting their hike up The Narrows.

Our final hike - The Lower Emerald Pool. This was a very steep hike and seemed long. It could have been that it was just because it was our last hike and hotter (probably around 94 degrees), but we were kind of over it by then.

It was pretty cool, though. Literally. The water runs over the top and switches with the wind. We got a little wet, but it sure felt good!

Justin in front of the Lower Pool. I'm assuming this pool is fuller and prettier in the Spring when runoff is higher because this was just...not pretty. :-)

Another "friend" on our way down. Just one of many. I found it interesting that the squirrels up higher seemed to have bushier tails than their cousins at the bottom. Wonder why that is...or if it's even true.

When we got back to our hotel we all hit the very small pool. Refreshing! It was a great day!