Happenings 3/17/08 - 3/23/08

Happy Easter everyone! Happy Birthday to Cornelea and to Julia!

This week was Murray State's spring break, and it was a nice week. J.J. worked on Monday and Wednesday, so I was at home with the girls on those days, and that was fun. On Monday we hung out at the house mostly, but I did take them both shopping, which went pretty well. Claire pushed her own mini cart around the store, and luckily didn't run into anyone else but me. I bought some strawberries to make jam, but by Wednesday they were bad, so I returned them Wednesday morning and got new ones after taking the girls to the library for storytime. The weather was nice and Claire played outside with her friends after they got home from school.

Wednesday was a busy day -- besides making jam, I also prepared three pork roasts for a Relief Society birthday dinner that night, along with some rice. I also did some laundry. It rained all Tuesday night and into Wednesday, giving us over two inches of rain, far less than areas around us that flooded. (We had our Relief Society BIrthday Celebration that night and it turned out very well. I had volunteered Paul to cook the pork and rice while the other members of the presidency took care of the veggies and bread and dessert. We had over 30 people there which is our most well attended activity thus far. It was a good dinner and we played some fun games. I think the women had a fun time. I did. I am lucky to have such a great presidency also. They make things a lot easier. I am especially thankful since I didn't know any of them when I was called and chose them)

Tuesday was my day to go into the office and write, and that's what I did. I spent eight hours writing more on a paper that I am presenting at a conference in two weeks. I wrote around 3000 words to add to the 3000 I had already written, but now I need to go through all of it and pick out the 3000 words that will be best for the 20-minute presentation. (Huh?) Later, I will use all of it as I polish it into a journal article. It was very nice to have a whole day to work on it and mostly finish it, so that I could relax the rest of the week.

Thursday morning, we headed southeast to Chattanooga, Tennessee, making it there in about 4 hours. We went straight downtown and went to the aquarium, which was quite nice, with lots of different fish and sea creatures that we all enjoyed. Claire loved the penguins and seahorses a lot, and was also quite amazed at the large tank with sharks and sea turtles. She could always spot the clownfish wherever they were. Upon Claire's request, we ate pizza downtown and then headed to our motel, which was a few miles away. Our motel wasn't very nice, but that was the only drawback of the trip. (It had a pool, which was a big bonus for Claire, although it really was more of a "big bathtub" as Claire put it. It was bigger than a hot tub, but still quite small for a pool and it was pretty warm. With 12 people in it, it kind of gave me the creeps, so the night I took her to the pool, I only swam for about 10 minutes and then watched Claire and her baby swim for awhile. Claire didn't come out with any skin diseases or anything and for that I am quite grateful. Rachel crawled around on the motel floor and from the looks of her dirty knees and feet and hands, I'm surprised she didn't come down with something! Gross!!)

Friday morning we drove the short distance from our motel to Lookout Mountain, which is a "mountain" about 2000 feet higher than Chattanooga. When we were telling Claire about going to this mountain, she was excited and said, "It's been years and years (one of her favorite phrases lately) since I've seen mountains!" I asked her if she remembered the mountains of Utah when she went skiing, and she said "Yes, but they had snow on them, so it's been a long time since I've seen real mountains!" I thought that was funny. Lookout Mountain is a place that has tourist traps from 80 years ago as well as homes and second homes that range from simple to opulent with great views of the valley. We went to two tourist traps -- Rock City and the Incline Railway. Rock City is difficult to describe, but the best way I can think of is part Hobbiton, part slot canyon, and part Indian ruin on a cliff. In the 1930s, a family bought an area that had lots of natural rock bluffs and streams on the edge of the mountain, and added rock walls and walkways and bridges through the narrow walls and up on top, so that now you walk over and under and through all of these places. It was pretty neat, and had a definite fantasy aspect to it. Claire liked everything but the Fairlyland Caverns, which took you underground and had all these fake gnomes and fairy tale scenes under black lights. It wasn't that friendly of a place, but that was only a small section. Rachel just rode around in the front pack and fell asleep at the end.

Claire loved the Incline Railway, which goes straight up from the valley to the top, and then down. We rode down first and had lunch, and then rode back. It's steepest point is a 72% grade, and it feels that steep. It was busy, either because lots of people had Good Friday off or because it was spring break around there also. It was a beautiful day, and once back in the valley we went to the city park, which was busy also, and laid out a blanket and let Rachel crawl around in the grass and Claire played on some giant animals. We all rode the carousel once -- Rachel and Claire loved it -- and Claire and J.J. rode it once more. After a couple of hours, we ate at a restaurant nearby, and then headed back to the motel. The worst part of traveling with small kids is the motel, because the rooms seem to have a secret energizing effect on them, and they get wild and have a hard time sleeping. Meanwhile, that makes it tough for Dad to watch NCAA basketball games :) or read because the lights need to be off. But we made it through two nights, and had fun anyway even though BYU didn't win.

Saturday we checked out and went to the Chattanooga Choo Choo, which is a hotel where the train station used to be, and they have train cars there that have been converted into rooms, and they are connected to an old engine. Being a big Thomas the Tank Engine fan, Claire loved climbing on the engine and pretending to drive it. We took an electric bus from there to downtown, played around the park/aquarium area for a bit, and then went back to our car and tried to find an overlook to the Tennessee River Gorge, but ended up going all over the place on Raccoon Mountain until we found a small park that kind of had an overlook. The park had a sand volleyball area that gave Claire and Rachel a chance to play around for awhile, then after driving down the mountain to have lunch at Cracker Barrel, we drove home, making it back by 6:00. (That night after Rachel went to sleep, Claire and I dyed Easter eggs. I think I enjoyed it as much as she did - which was quite a lot. We made all kinds of bright colored eggs - even the grayish ones you get when you try all the colors on one egg)

Today was a nice Easter, except that I didn't get the memo that there was no bishopric meeting, so I was there early by myself. I did a few things I needed to do, then went home, where Claire showed me the eggs she had found around the house. (The Easter Bunny had hidden the eggs she and I had dyed around the living room area. They weren't quite totally hidden, so she would be sure to find them and Claire thought, "That Easter Bunny sure hides eggs in funny spots." She then was amazed that the bunny could hide an egg up on the book shelf. I think she imagines him as a little regular sized bunny. Claire was allowed to eat two pieces of her chocolate the Easter Bunny gave her, but then snuck "three, and then three more". She got some seeds and child sized gardening tools in her basket, so we are going to plant some flowers soon) We had a lot of people in church, and I was one of the speakers. (Paul gave a great talk.) J.J. and her Relief Society sang a hymn, and they did a great job considering they were asked last Sunday. We invited a few people over for dinner -- Trevor and Shara Harper and Vernon Mersman, and it we had a nice time eating ham, potatoes, and asparagus. (It was a very nice dinner and it was sure fun to visit with our friends)