Happy Birthday Jaker-Baker!

So I am a little late posting, because we made it to Sharon and Rob's (my sister and brother-in-law who live in Douglassville PA). After another long day of driving, we stayed up til 3:30 a.m. talking. Needless to say, we are still exhausted!

But yesterday was Jake's 12th birthday, which is a big deal. I still remember laying on the hospital bed at UVRMC waiting for him to come. He has grown up so much! Especially in the last year. For a couple years when he was little, he went by "Jaker-Baker", and even though he won't let us call him that now, I feel like as Mom I have the privilege to go back to those sweet days every now and again.

Jake is amazingly smart. He has such a tender heart. He is go-go-go all the time. All boy. Intrigued by guns, hunting, fishing, camping. Dying to get involved in scouts and go on campouts. Thinks his Dad is amazing, but would never admit that.

Jake is so sweet with his little cousins. He is just a great kid, and I am so thankful to have him as part of our family.

So happy birthday, Jake. Hope this year is all you want it to be.

Gateway to the West

Since we were in St Louis, we decided to go see the famous arch, the "Jefferson National Expansion Monument" (dun dun dunnnnn). (Long story-funny tour guide). Phil took this fantastic picture of the monstrous structure. Seriously, the thing is 630 feet tall!
They have a neat museum inside, the Museum of Westward Expansion. But of course, that wasn't enough for us. We had to go to the top of the arch! It is, after all, a once in a lifetime opportunity!

So after you pay a ridiculous amount of money, they squish five (or in our case 6) people into these little enclosed tram cars. You ride up about 4 minutes, climb out and walk up a few stairs, and there you are, at the very top. Here's the view: (That's Cardinal Stadium right there)

That's us, at the top of the arch.

It really was a cool experience. One we hope the kids will always remember. It is amazing that the thing stands, and that people can actually go up to the top. All in all, a cool side trip.

Day 3

Today we drove from Topeka, Kansas to St. Louis, Missouri. Since we had a shorter drive and were going right through Kansas City, we decided to make a few pitstops along the way. One of the places we stopped was the LDS Visitor's Center at Independence, Missouri. As we drove up the street, we saw two very large buildings from afar. Here are pictures of the two buildings:

The first building was on the far corner, the "Tall and spacious" building was right across the street from the visitor's center. The LDS visitor's center is pictured below. What a contrast!
The first two buildings, and 40 acres, are owned by the Community of Christ Church, also known as the RLDS. The LDS Church owns 20 acres in this area, including the visitors center which is surrounded by these other buildings. The tall building is the RLDS Temple. We equated this area to be similar to our Temple Square. What a completely different feeling you get there though!

The other site we went to was Liberty Jail. On the outside, you cannot tell you are at an old jail site at all. It is a beautiful gray marble building, that looks more like a visitors center on Temple Square. As you go in, there is a room which explains some of the significance of this site, and a sister missionary gave us some history. Then we were taken into the jail area. The old jail crumbled years ago, but the original floor still exists. The Church used reliable information and some of the original stones to recreate the jail.

The sister giving the tour talked about the many blessings the Saints (and us) received while Joseph was imprisoned here. I didn't realize that the winter he spent in Liberty Jail was one of the coldest on record! There have only been two recorded times that both the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers completely iced over, and that was one of them. (Even now, the temperature is cooler down by the jail cell than anywhere else in the building.) The cold temperatures actually were a blessing to the Saints who were able to walk across the river as they were driven out of their homes instead of crossing through it. There is a large painting in one of the rooms there. It is one of my favorites. It is a picture of Emma walking across the frozen river, babe in arms, with her other children hanging on to her skirts. We know that she was carrying the precious record underneath her skirts as well.

The missionaries talk about Liberty Jail being a lesson in faith. I found it interesting that Joseph was in the jail for 4 months and 6 days. He felt abandoned by the Lord at one point, and prayed for answers. According to our guide, those answers came on his 110th day in prison. He was released 10 days later. Truly it was a lesson in faith for Joseph and those with him. But as usual, my thoughts turn to Emma. It must have been a lesson in faith for her as well. And as she always did, she met the task with grace and fortitude, never wavering in her love for Joseph or the Lord, never wavering in her testimony of his calling and work. I don't think I could praise her enough for all she went through. When times are tough for me, she is a great example of a woman of faith, a woman who did what she had to do without complaint, a woman who stood beside her husband through more than most of us will ever be called upon to endure, a woman of grace and charity. I am truly thankful for Joseph and Emma Smith.

A Few Fun Facts

So I thought I would include a few fun facts about today's journey. We drove from Grand Junction, Colorado to Topeka, Kansas. What a long, boring drive!

By the numbers:

4: Bathroom breaks (not including lunch and dinner)

4: Number of times Jackson sang "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" (down from yesterday)

5: Number of tunnels we went through

9: The lowest temperature we encountered today

42: The high temp of the day

7: Frozen waterfalls (not counting the springs coming out of the rock)

12: Number of signs warning about deer

5: Total number of deer we saw

0: Total number of deer we saw within range of the signs

5: Number of ski resorts we saw from the road

1: Number of half pipes we saw (Copper Mountain ski resort- very cool to watch)

5: Number of ice fisherman

792: Number of miles we drove

13: Number of hours driving (including stops)

Coolest thing we saw:

Bronco Stadium

Strangest Named thing we passed:

Republican River (in Colorado)

Funny questions Jackson asked:

Are we almost to Lehi?

Are we in South America?

Are we in the United Steaks?

Things we learned from Jackson:

Penguins live on the frozen Colorado River (that's why it IS frozen!)

Funniest Conversation:

Gabe: Why didn't you say Hollywood? That's where all the babes are!

Jackson: What are babes?

You better watch out!

You better not cry, you better not pout, I'm telling you why....

Jackson sang to us for the last hour or two in the car, reminding us Santa is coming to town...

What a funny guy!

Anyhow, we made it to Grand Junction from St George today. It was our intention to have the kids stand by the "You are now leaving Utah" sign, waving, and post a picture. Unfortunately, there was no sign. It was pitch black outside, so we wouldn't have seen it in time to stop, and it was 13 degrees outside! So you will just have to imagine them waving by the sign!

The day was relatively uneventful. Tomorrow will be an extra long one, though, because we are trying to get to Topeka or Kansas City. We'll see how that goes. Kids were well behaved on day one...hopefully that is a sign of things to come.

We left Eagle Mountain without getting to say goodbye to everyone. If you are one we missed, we are truly sorry. If you are one we caught, we're glad we got that chance. Either way, know that we love you and will miss you. We are thankful for the influence you all had on our family!

We said we weren't going to say goodbye this time, just see you later. So again,

we will see you later!

Jackson's lip...three days later

I took some more pictures of Jackson's lip tonight. The last ones were three days ago. Judge for yourself if it looks better. I think the swelling is starting to go down. Hope it speeds up, though. Awfully hard to brush his teeth without bumping his lip or cheek with the toothbrush, which is very painful for him.

Jackson and the Novacaine...

I took Jackson to the dentist on Monday for two fillings. When he woke up on Tuesday, his upper lip was still swollen, which I thought was strange. That afternoon he had another appointment for two more fillings. When he came home, his upper lip was still a little swollen, but his lower lip was huge. Apparently he "chewed on" his lip and cheek while they were numb, which caused the swelling to remain. We urged, begged, pleaded him to not bite his lip after the Novacaine on Tuesday. This is how he looked when he fell asleep on the LoveSac at 7 Tuesday night.

Not too bad, right?

This is how that same lip looked the next afternoon:

It looks awful and painful! The whole inside of his lip is white, you can kind of see that in the pictures. I don't think these pictures showed his lip at it's biggest. People thought he got hit in the face when they saw him on Wednesday! Thankfully, the swelling does seem to be going down, albeit very slowly. He is on a diet consisting mostly of jello and pudding (and of course Halloween candy, stubborn kid!). He has been a trooper, though, and the dental assistant told me on Tuesday she has never seen a kid do as well as him, being as brave as he was, even the second day in a row.
I can't help but wonder if maybe he is allergic to the novacaine?

Halloween

We had a fun halloween this year, although it was different than any other. We finally let Mady and Jake go out on their own with friends. They had a blast, though they came home a little bit frozen! Phil took Gabe and Jackson at first, while I manned the door, then I joined them for the last little while. They had a good time, and got so much more candy than they need. I finally made each of them put 25 pieces in a ziploc bag, and I hid those away. I'm hoping they can be saved for the long drive we have to Connecticut. If so, it will be the longest their candy has lasted! Here are a couple of pictures of them in costume:

Mady is so creative, she decided to be "The Milky Way" and taped Milky Ways as well as some planets to her shirt. Gabe was the Hulk, and the green goop on his face and in his hair was not easy to get off! Jake was a "Ranger's Apprentice" from one of his favorite book series, I made his cape two days before halloween (nothing like procrastination!). Jackson was going to be Wolverine, but decided to be a skeleton instead. I made his costume, and was quite pleased with how it turned out. It especially looks cool in the dark, as all the white was painted with glow-in-the-dark paint. I even painted his mask to glow. I wish I could have figured out how to take a picture in the dark with his bones glowing, but I am just not that talented with the camera. Oh, well.

Wonderful Weekends

Every couple of weeks we have a Great weekend. This past weekend was one of those. Not because anything out of the ordinary happened, just because we spent it all together as a family.

We started this weekend with a movie. We took the kids to lunch at JCW's, then to see Where the Wild Things Are (my recommendation...wait for Redbox). After that, Phil and I went on a date...nothing special, just walked the mall (something we used to do on a regular basis a few years back when that was about all we could afford to do), then went to dinner at Macaroni Grill (one of our favorites).

The kids played night games until we got home at 9, then Gabe and Jackson climbed into our bed to cuddle with Dad and watch TV while Mady and Jake went back out for night games until 10.

Saturday morning we all slept in, then had orange rolls for breakfast before going to Gabe's last soccer game. Grandma and Grandpa Wilkins met us there. Then we went home for some yard work while Mady went to roadshow practice. Afterwards we grabbed lunch and went to the pumpkin patch for some fall fun.

The boys climbed on John Deere tractors, and everyone picked out their own pumpkin. Our rule has always been that they have to be able to carry the pumpkin they choose. There was also a little corn maze for them to run through.

Later Saturday afternoon we watched while BYU beat SDSU, then headed to the church to see Mady in the roadshow.

Like I said, nothing exciting. Just being together. I'm learning there isn't much better than that.

Reflecting...

I've just got to say that tonight was a perfect example of what I am going to miss when we leave Utah. It was a beautiful and unseasonably warm night, and all four kids went out to play night games with the neighborhood kids. They had quite a good group, and stayed out playing until about 9:30. They had such a good time, and it makes me sad to know it may be the last time, at least for a long while...

I love our neighbors and neighborhood, especially how family friendly it is. We aren't sure what kind of neighborhood we may end up in back east, but it will be tough to find one as wonderful as the neighborhood we live in now.

I'm not trying to dwell on what I will miss, but tonight it was hard not to recognize how lucky we are to have lived here for the past nearly four years.