I took a vacation to Utah in July, for ten days, without my husband, alone with my 4 sons.
Here's how it all began: The Perkins Family Reunion was going to be the last weekend of July. It was on a weekend that Josh couldn't leave work, so I decided to make a mini-vacation out of the trip and made plans for activities that the boys and I could do. I made a reservation and paid for tickets to see a play a few days prior to the reunion, and had a few ideas of things we could do for the two days in between the play and the reunion. It was going to be a 5-day vacation, and I was fairly certain I could handle the boys alone for that long. Well...then the days of the reunion got changed, but I couldn't change my reservation. So, instead of making two trips to Utah within two weeks of each other, I decided to make it one singular, and super long, vacation.
Because I want to look back to this in the future to help me remember why I don't take long trips alone with the boys, I'm going to share with you details from my trip, and none of it is going to be sugar coated...
We left for Utah on Tuesday the 19th. Because Josh wasn't joining us on the trip, I chose to take the silver car (the new Scion XB that we bought in January) because we would all fit (it seats 5) and it has better gas mileage than the Dodge Van (it gets about 30-35 MPG). We left after lunch, and on the way out of town, I stopped and got the boys ice cream cones. That was the best 10 minutes of the entire car ride! I knew we were in trouble when we hadn't even made it to Tendoy, and the boys were already fighting in the backseat. Before we left, I repeatedly asked them all to pack stuff for themselves to do in the car due to the long and boring car ride. Since I was busy packing the food and items and the bags into the car, and double checking the list to ensure that I had everything I needed, and making and cleaning up their lunch, I did not check their travel bags. Well...they brought minimal things, and the younger 3 boys were bored within 1 hour. There really was not a lot of extra room by the time we fit all of our luggage and bodies into that car, and the boys felt squished and compacted. It was a terrible equation: close proximity + boredom + energy of 4 excited boys + long car ride + compact car - no husband = longest, most miserable car ride ever to Utah. It took us 8 hours to get from Salmon to Logan, which included stopping in Idaho Falls for Jonah and Micah's dental appointments and eating dinner at a park, and pulling over 3 or 4 times to separate/yell at/threaten the boys in the backseat. It was not pretty, and there was more than one person on more than one occasion in tears. Anyhoo...I was relieved (and so were the boys) when we finally made it to my brother Cody and his wife BreAnne's home. I honestly thought we'd never arrive. I decided on that road trip, on DAY 1 of the 10-day vacation, that I would NEVER vacation with the boys and without Josh ever again!
The boys played the wii and I chatted with BreAnne until Cody came home from work. Then we went to bed--we stayed in their guest room and all slept in the King bed except Ammon who slept in a sleeping bag on the floor. After a long and restless night with Kanyon, we got up the next morning, packed up all our stuff, and got ready for the Perkins Family Reunion. We spent the morning in Logan and evening in Tremonton with family. That night I unloaded and unpacked the car since the boys and I slept at my parent's house in Tremonton that night and for the remainder of our stay in Utah.
The next day (Day 3), my agenda included taking the boys swimming at Crystal Hot Springs in Honeyville and going to a movie night with my H.S. friend, and fellow blog buddy, Darcy. I woke up looking forward to the day's events, especially since I'd had a bad night with Kanyon, who'd woken up 5 times in the night. When I walked upstairs for breakfast that morning, I got a call on my cell phone from a non-local phone number. I answered it, and the lady on the other end told me her name and that she had my purse in her possession. I was totally confused at first. She said her husband found it by the side of the road and that perhaps I had set it on the hood of my car and drove off and forgot it was there, and it fell off onto the road. I assured her that my purse was in my car where I'd seen it the night before at 10:00 when I last checked. As she continued talking, explaining what my purse looked like and the contents inside it, I walked outside in my PJ's to look in my car. Sure enough, my purse was not where I had last seen it. I went into a panic mode; I got a bad feeling and gut-ache. I thanked her for calling me (she'd found my husband's cell # on an I.D. card in my purse), got her address, and drove right over to their house. Her husband had been running that morning on the 1000 North road between the new hospital and the freeway entrance, and had seen my purse and all of its contents spread all over the road and the shoulder. He picked up as much as he could, and took it back to his house, whereupon his wife made the inquiring phone calls, first to my husband, and then to me. I looked through the depleted purse to try and figure out was was missing, and then I set out to the location that he'd described where he found it. All along the road, and on the shoulder, and in the grass and weeds alongside the road, were broken items from my purse: keys, chapstick, ibuprofen, sewing kit, lipgloss. There were also photos and receipts and business cards strewn all over. I walked along that section of road 3 times picking up every item that was not destroyed. And then I drove back to my mom's house, laid it all out on the counter, and went through every single item to discover what was still missing: a photo SD card, and a gas gift card. I called the police station, and made the report. Apparently just the night before, down the road from my parent's house, there were 2 burglaries of items stolen from unlocked cars in driveways. It felt strange and awful to be victimized in such a way, but I felt so blessed and grateful for the circumstances in which I was able to retrieve almost everything taken from me. Because I never carry cash, the burglar was not interested in the rest. He had gone through my entire purse, and when it came up short of what he was looking for, he chucked the purse and all its belongings out the driver window. The purse was torn apart, and my church key was broken in half (from being run over on the road), and a photo SD card was taken, but none of my credit cards or my social security card or my drivers license or my temple recommend were stolen. Thankfully the con artist didn't notice the boys' wallets in the back seat, all which actually DID have cash in them. We were very lucky, indeed. I always lock my car at night whenever I'm in Utah, because we had several things stolen from our cars while living in Utah over a decade ago, but for some reason, I felt safe enough this time that I didn't; I had parked my car right next to the garage, directly under my dad's security light. But what I didn't know was that there was an increasing number of car burglaries in the area, and that my dad's security light was burnt out. But I learned my lesson: I will NEVER leave my purse in my car while in Utah again!
After calling the police and making the report, we continued on with the day's agenda as planned. I took my boys, and my mom took my nephews, and we drove to Crystal Hot Springs in Honeyville. We hadn't been there in several years, and by going on a weekday morning, I was hoping we would have the place to ourselves, which we basically did! We were excited about going swimming, because it meant that Kanyon had filled his "Poo-Poo for Pool" chart. He has had issues with doing his #2 business in the toilet for the last year, and I'd finally gotten so sick of it that I changed our entire approach to it. We changed several things regarding what was influencing his behavior for not wanting to poop in the toilet, and then I put him on a reward scale. For every time he did it in the toilet without getting any in his underwear, he earned a sticker. When the sticker chart was full, we would all celebrate by going to a place of his choice. He chose to go swimming, and he earned all 12 stickers on the chart right before we left for Utah. It was a happy celebration for him and I both!
The boys in the warm natural springs pool:
There was never a line for the slides while we were there, so we went down over and over and over! The first time, we all coupled up: me with Kanyon on my lap, Malcolm with Jonah on his lap, and Quinn with Micah on his lap. But then we were informed that no lap riders were allowed on the slides. So Malcolm went first and waited at the bottom to catch Jonah and Micah, and I went down in front of Kanyon to catch him and Quinn went behind him to help him launch. Kanyon was pretty freaked out by the time he got to the bottom and he didn't want to go again. And he didn't for a half hour or so. Then we discovered the riding mats, and Jonah and Micah no longer needed Malcom to catch them at the bottom as long as they rode on a mat because it shot them across the deep water to the shallow steps where they could reach and get out by themselves.
So, we convinced Kanyon to go on one, and he took a chance and went again. But, after the first turn in the slide, he fell off the mat, and rode the rest of the way upside down and backwards, hitting his head on the pipeline connections the whole way. I was so proud of him for being brave and attempting the slides, but I felt bad for his bad experience riding alone! That ride officially ended it for him the rest of the day!
Here he is, coming down the pipe, laying on his back, with his head first and feet last, and the mat trailing behind him (Malcolm and I both had to help catch him this time):
After a while, the boys decided to take a dip in the natural cool springs pool. Malcolm showed Kanyon the hose, and he loved trying to spray the boys in the water!
...while the youngest boy was content to sit in the natural hot springs tub.
Before we all got out to head back to Tremonton for lunch, we all had a nice soak in the hot springs tub. And despite the yucky brown color of the pool, it was very relaxing and wonderful!
Day 3 of my vacation had started off like a nightmare, and it felt like a bad omen, but swimming at Crystal Hot Springs with my sons and nephews totally turned my bad day into a good one. And it only got better that evening, when I got to hang out with my good buddy Darcy and I felt so rejuvenated. And then having a spontaneous late-night chat with my older sister Lisa was the perfect ending to the day!
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