Toward the beginning of the month Fran had a baby and a bridal showers to attend I got to hang out with boys for the day. We hit JCW’s, went to see Guardians of the Galaxy (great movie) and worked on moving things and getting our old home cleaned up.

Later that week we went to Lagoon with the Sandbergs. I know thatLagoon isn’t Disneyland but I think it’s a fantastic local park with plenty to do if your expectations are realistic. The weather was overcast so the park crowds were just right and everyone had a fantastic time.

Lagoon has plenty of fun rides for thrill seekers. Wicked, in particular is a blast. Samurai is another fun ride… until is starts going backwards. For people not impressed with Lagoon’s coaster options the Cannibal is opening in 2015.

Chloe had a lot of fun this time! She was pretty fearless and wasn’t afraid to go on any of the rides (and on some of the rides the kids have to go on alone).

What trip to the park would be complete without some ice cream? And a broken phone. Fran’s phone was a victim of the Samurai- midway through the ride those of us on the ground watched her phone literally launch off the ride and sail about fifty feet through the air onto a bathroom roof and then onto the ground. Amazingly the phone still worked.

The carnival games at Lagoon were as popular as any of the rides. Personally I don’t see the allure of throwing my money away on junk (okay, I’m sure some would disagree). The park food is so-so but there’s something exciting about eating it (maybe knowing you could barf it back up later).

Here are a few fun parting shots. A pic from Colossus (it was really hard to hold my camera going to through the loops).  I went with Chloe on the BomBora roller coaster. Claire was really worried when I pulled out my phone for a pic on the Rocket. “No Dad! No! Put your phone away. Hurry!” But I’m not the one who breaks my phone on rides 😉

After selling our Hunter’s Grove home we moved into a rental up in Traverse Mountain. It’s an interesting place (both Traverse Mountain and the house). The home has some quirky features…  For example the only outside access to the [very tiny] backyard is through a gate on the side of the home. It’s conveniently blocked by a rather large retaining wall. If you actually managed to work your way to the gate you’d find that it swings open into one of the porch supports ensuring continued difficulty. Awesome. And in the kitchen “there are four lights!” There is a strange sad little fifth light with a burnt out bulb. I think you could make a case that this is the location Captain Picard was held after being captured by the Cardassians. I discovered the lights while I was lying on the ground trying to hold our dishwasher door closed with my foot (otherwise it won’t complete a wash cycle). Aside from the home’s strange quirks we enjoy having potential buyers walk though at all times of the day.

The house is coming along. The exterior is mostly finished at this point. I saw a rainbow shooting into our house and I’m totally sure that’s a sign we’re supposed to live here. Sigh.

Lots of concrete! I’m happy we pushed the driveway out  (via the retaining wall). Can’t have to much driveway, I always say…   I’m pleased that Ivory epoxied the garage floors- they look great and it saves us a ton of money. I love a nice garage… Wish I had something to put in it.

There’s always time for a wedding! Caroline and Brian were married in August. Beautiful wedding and a fun reception. Congrats! “What? That’s all your going to write about the most important day of her life?”  Uh… yeah?

Over Labor Day weekend we went camping near Mirror Lake with the Ercanbracks- Catherine (Fran’s sister), Lauren (Catherine’s daughter) and Randall (Catherine’s husband). Lots of good food, adventures and fun.

Kids in nature are extra cute! They carve wood, play chess, build traps and collect firewood. They also get dirty and complain. All part of the gig.

Mirror Lake was really pretty and equally as cold. Next time we’ll need jackets and maybe some fishing gear. Or maybe we could just look at these pictures and call it good.

I put things in boxes ’cause boxes are fun!
I won’t even know where I’ll live when I’m done.
I stuck all my crap in boxes with labels
In went my books and my chairs and my tables.
I packed through the day and I packed through the night.
I packed all the heavy and packed all the light.
Two hundred boxes put onto a truck
Where are there going? Who gives a…

Leaving Dad all alone in Utah. My lovely little world travelers…

A layover in Paris for a few days. Lots of stuff to see (like that Eiffel Tower thing) and it helps with the time zone adjustment (ultimate destination is 10 hours ahead of Utah).

Arrived in Reunion safe and sound. One of the first orders of business is a trip to get munchies… what a great view.

Check out all this foooood. This is why they go to France & Reunion.  I just know it.

View from the beach house – not too bad.  Some obligatory ocean time and a quick shopping trip – facilitated by Fran’s parents –  to get some nets so that the sea  life could be captured and studied.

Playing in paradise – Reunion is a lot like Hawaii with lots of lush tropical vegetation. Three trampolines with swings. Doesn’t get any better than that.

More time on the beach.

Hanging out, playing and eating- the key ingredients of a perfect vacation.

Fracoise’s family: Parents (Alain & Danielle) and her brothers and their wives (Pamela & Christophe & Alain-David & Sandra). They made the blog. Totally epic.

Fran and the kids got back at the end of July and, after they had recovered for a couple of days,we lit off some fireworks in honor of Pioneer Day.

Fran and I celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary. Things were chaotic but we managed to squeeze in a dinner outing at Shoots.

Having given up any hope of moving things ourselves we hired 7 Brothers to come take care of the furniture and boxes. They did a great job- if you need a moving company I can recommend them.

The new house is coming along. In July Ivory finished most of the exterior, got the drywall and texturing done and made good headway on our retaining wall / driveway.

Fran bought some kind of super dooper orange press. The kids have been drinking a ton of fresh pressed orange juice. Lucky kids. I’m still waiting for someone to hand me a glass.

Next Fran bought a giant box of bananas. We cut them up and she popped them in a dehydrator so we could have banana chips. Yum (not really). Lots of fruity stuff going on over here. But whatever makes her happy is fine with me.

We decided to thin out our movie collection. We ended up with a pretty good sized pile of movies we were never going to watch again (a lot of them were duplicates from our Blu-ray migration). We sent the kids outside to sell them and told them they could keep whever they made. Lemonade stands eat your heart out. They made a few bucks and we were happy for them but mostly I was glad the Lehi Flasher didn’t show up.
Gabe was upset that he didn’t get any of the money (he opted not to help with the movie stand) so Fran put him to work cleaning. All the money earned was quickly wasted on junk. Long live American consumerism.

Fran and I hit up a movie (Paranoia- only so so) and decided to sneak in some tacos. I don’t know if you have to sneak food into the Megaplex Theaters (there’s not actually any sign prohibiting outside food), but my gosh it was exciting when those tacos emerged from the recesses of Fran’s giant food smuggling sized purse. Yum.
In other news Chloe has started potty training! She’s not quite two and that may be why she’s not quite getting it.  Number one is going pretty well, but number two is always an exciting adventure. Fran has more patience than I do. If I had my way my kids would wear diapers until they went off to college.

The other night I decided the kids and I should make robots to beat up (this was one of my favorite things when I was younger… lots of undiagnosed issues, I’m sure). All the kids got a robot and some punching lessons (Mike demonstrates here). I had roles of duct tape on hand to repair holes, tears and instances of dismemberment. Later I made the kiddos some cardboard weapons to use on the robots (and each other). A hammer, an ax, a dagger and sword all meted out massive amounts of damage and destruction and good time was had by all.

I confess that I’m not a huge fan of most games to begin with… but playing against kids can be mind numbing. I don’t find my kids numb my mind too much if we play the right games though. I’m always down for some memory, chess or Jenga (I think we’ll be ready to try Monopoly soon). I can also withstand about ten minutes of making towers for Chloe to knock over.

I took the kids to see Percy Jackson (pretty good!) because they were super excited about it (in fact I can’t think of anything they’ve been more excited about this year).

It’s been quite awhile since I’ve been pulled over (surprise!). On Labor Day we had a small window of time in the early morning and decided to head up to American Fork canyon for a quick hike. About two minutes into our journey we got pulled over. The reason? No insurance. I didn’t realize the police could tell if you had insurance or not by scanning your plate. But no worries- it was a simple misunderstanding. Right? Nope. We didn’t actually have an insurance card in our Yukon and the policeman wasn’t able to confirm through Allstate that we had insurance. Long story short: It turns out we didn’t have insurance. As soon as we bought the Yukon Fran had called to add it (and remove the vehicles we sold) but our local Allstate company dropped the ball and didn’t make any of the changes we requested (hopefully we’ll be able to get that all sorted out). Unfortunately this stop took so long that we had to turn around and go home.  Perhaps fate intervened and stopped us from taking a fateful trip into the canyon that day? Who knows.

Fran and the kids temped fate later by actually making it to AF canyon and taking a hike (everyone survived). I can’t remember what I was doing- handling some problem, probably.

Mike has football games every Saturday now. Fran usually goes up at the start and I try to hit them toward the end. I’m not a big fan of football and I have to say that watching Mike’s team play doesn’t help. I’m glad Mike seems to like it though.
For our date Fran and I went to the new warehouse and took some time to organize our junk. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again- I love those Costco shelves.

Erin and her clan rolled into town for the SLC Comic Con. On Sunday we all went and ate with my parents. Doug brought out his impressive R2D2 (it pretty much does everything the one one in the movie did sans flying) much to the delight of my kids (particularly Chloe).

Ah kids… who else covers their faces (and bodies) with tiny stickers? Who else wants to race a box down the stairs? Who else eats hazelnut peanut butter in the bathroom and then hides the evidence under the sink? I love these little people.

The first leg of our flight (about four hours) took us to Georgia where we spent the night at a Marriott. The next morning our second flight (another four hours) took us to the St. Lucia airport. We went through customs, gathered our bags and settles in for the 1.5 hour drive to Sandals (next time we’ll take a helicopter). We stopped along the way to take in some of the beautiful views of St. Lucia’s coast.

The Sandals Grande Resort is awesome. It’s a little dated in terms of decor, but nearly everything on the grounds is well groomed and beautiful. We opted for a private rondoval suite.

The rondoval was awesome- everything inside was immaculate. We had our own private patio with a plunge pool, jacuzzi, hammock, and outdoor shower. I was surprised at how functional and fun such a tiny pool ended up being. The beach was just a minute’s walk out from the rondoval. The fine white sand was peppered with beach chairs, cabanas and various trees. The water was a gorgeous blue and complemented by the mostly sunny skies.

We spent a lot of time lounging in our beach cabana, the plunge pool (it was fun to just float) and we played in the sea (I had forgotten how salty it is- yuck). The weather was nice the entire time. It rained a little, but it was always warm tropical rain that passed after only a few minutes.

The food at Sandals was good, but not great. They have eight different places to eat and I think we tried five of them (including the complimentary room service). One thing we noted was the small serving size of the meals, which was just fine with us. On our anniversary we tried Sandal’s premier dining experience at Gordon’s (which is at the end of a pier). It was excellent until they brought out the main entree (we ordered veal over risotto). It was huge and while it was okay, it was disappointing compared to the rest of our meal. But the atmosphere and company were excellent 🙂

I could have lounged and read for the whole trip but Fran is the adventurous sort. We went kayaking a couple of times and she wanted to climb the peaks on Pigeon Island. I obliged- it was a good hike with some great views. At one point St. Lucia was  fought over by the French and British and there were some cool military relics to look at and a lot of interesting history behind them.

The is the Sandals resort as seen from the top of the highest peak on Pigeon Island. If there had been a zip line down to the resort from the top it would have been perfect.

Our rondoval came with two butlers, Benedict and Clynns. They made dinner arrangements for us, booked our cabanas, brought us drinks and food and made sure we were having a great time. They even poured a bubble bath for us and decorated the room!
I haven’t been out of the country as an adult so it was cool to get a stamp on my passport!