Getting in Late

Last week was the first week this year that I missed getting a blog post up. If our well-designed plans had worked out, I would have easily had a post up. But when does that ever happen? Last Sunday was one of those days where anything that could go wrong, did go wrong.

We spent the weekend in Utah with our families, since Tyson's sister and both of my brothers were graduating from BYU. We had a fun weekend of ceremonies, luncheons, picnics, laser tag, ultimate frisbee, and watching a track meet, among other things. Sunday we spent the day with my family and had a fun birthday dinner for my brother Ryan. We planned to leave for Idaho around 6-6:30, putting us home at a respectable hour.

It started when Sierra, Tyson's sister called us. She had come down with us in our second car as we were giving rides to several others who were going to Utah for graduation, although only one person was coming back with us. She was driving north from Provo with that one person, and was feeling sick and asked if we could meet her at the freeway so Tyson could drive back with her. So at 5:45 we drove to the freeway and I dropped off Tyson and Xi (I was not going to drive back with four kids alone if I could help it). Two minutes later Tyson called me back, saying that the little Honda was overheating. I drove back and he added water and looked at it for about 10-15 minutes, then came to the decision that it wouldn't make the trip.

We drove back to my parent's home with our rider, who was having second thoughts about going back with us in the van. About two minutes after getting there, she announced she had found another ride, and could we take her back to the freeway to meet the new ride? So Sierra drove her back to the freeway while we waited another 30 minutes to get on our way.

Finally she got back and it took us about another 30 minutes to load the car. We were all ready to go. . .then the van wouldn't start. Nothing. Tyson got out and started checking things out for about another 15 minutes. The starter was bad. We called around and found one store in Salt Lake City with a starter that works for our car. We used my dad's car, and made the almost 2-hour round trip to get the part.

We got back and Tyson went to the van and turned the key, and for whatever reason this time the van started right up. Tyson attributes it to the van cooling down. So, now at 10 PM, we loaded the kids and started driving back up to Idaho.

We dropped off Sierra at her apartment a little after one AM. We arrived at our apartment, and poor little Xi woke up and started crying as soon as we arrived. I was pretty sure that he had acquired an ear infection during our trip (which was confirmed Monday when we went to the doctor), and took him out of the car and went up to the door, waiting for Tyson to open it. I waited, and waited, and waited. Finally after a few minutes I went back to the van, where Tyson was searching everywhere for the keys that had been in his backpack. We looked everywhere. Then Tyson spent another 30 minutes trying to break into our apartment through a window. The highlight was when Tyson, in a t-shirt and 40 degree, windy, freezing cold weather, was trying to get into our office window when the sprinklers came on.

A little after 2 AM we gave up and drove to Sierra's to sleep on her floor. Jared let us in and gave us several blankets and pillows, while Tyson brought in our blankets and sleeping bags. I then realized that our bag with our diapers and a few other things was last seen sitting just behind our van at our apartment. I drove back to our parking lot and found the bag in the middle. I'm not sure if our van dragged it there when we backed up or if it blew since it was so windy. I recovered the bag while leaning out of the drivers side door, not wanting the car to die (it dies if the gas pedal is not down at all times), worried it might not start again.

So that was the end to our eventful weekend! Thankfully our landlord let us in the next morning. It was a great weekend. Pictures to follow.