hola, isabel

Thanks for all the well-wishes and comments about The King getting laid off ON THE PHONE, ON VACATION.  Yes, that was lame.  But seriously, we’re fine.  (He had an interview on Tuesday and has another on today.  He’s totally rocking it.)

Plus, he’s had dinner on the table EVERY night this week.  I don’t hate that.

Let’s move away from talk of laid off husbands and talk about our vacation.

(Can you truly call a week with my family in Utah a “vacation”?)

The drive from Seattle to Utah is boring.  Bor-ing. B-o-r-i-n-g.  There is no radio coverage, no trees, and generally nothing to look at.  We had my iPod, but it wasn’t playing through our car stereo very well.

And so I came up with a solution.  And while totally ghetto, it totally worked.

Aw yes, speakers on the dashboard.  Classy.

But not as classy as this:

Yes, that’s a car being transported IN THE BACK OF A TRUCK FULL OF HAY.  We passed it as quickly as we could.  We did not need a car falling on us.

After two days of driving and one night at a hotel in Boise, Idaho (surprisingly a lovely town) we made it to my folks house in one piece and in good spirits (despite the recent lay off, which we decided to not tell my parents about).

About ten minutes after getting out of our car my dad showed up this HUGE box that had just been delivered via FedEx.  It was their new pergola for their back yard.  And it needed to be assembled .  Here are some facts about this situation:

1) My dad is NOT that handy.

2) The King is SUPER handy.

You know what that means, right?  Oh yes, The King spent the first two days of his vacation putting together the pergola for my parents.

It turned out awesome.  And I think The King had fun building it.

Plus, my dad was so appreciative of The King’s skillz that he helped pay for our new iBook, which we had to buy since The King no longer has a job and had to give back his work laptop.

Gulp.

The trip was pretty laid back.  The weather was awesome and the treats and soda were plenty.  I was thrilled to see how the kittens we saved back in May were fairing.

Of the original four kittens that my parents rescued, three are still with them and are 100% healed.

(My dad woke up one morning to find fox prints near the cat cage and a missing kitten.  While nobody found a body or any blood at the scene of the crime…you do the math.)

The kittens are doing so great that one of them managed to get himself up a tree.  Although he was unable to get himself down.

We spent a lot of time in our swimming suits.  I love “swim suit time” almost as much as I love “non swimming suit time”.  My Sweet Babboo was able to partake in the small town activity of running through the sprinklers.

Of course the one day we decided to check out the new local swimming pool there was rain.  RAIN.  We spent a total of four minutes in the lazy river before lightning struck and everyone had to get our of the water.

(You will note how awesome this City Pool is.  You will also note the gray sky.)

We left the pool *grumble* and got our money back ($4, thanks you very much).  Thankfully the weather improved and we were able to participate in the treasure hunt my mom had created for the grandkids.  She had a real live map and hidden treasures and even a treasure chest at the end.

(Babboo was thrilled about the treasure hunt.  More so then the actual treasures.  Interesting little fact.)

Oh, oh, oh, I forgot to mention; two days before we headed out to Seattle I got an e-mail from my best friend May (the one who deserted me and moved to Reno) was going to be in Utah at THE SAME TIME.

This sort of made up for the fact that my husband had just been laid off from his job.  We drove over to May’s aunt’s house (awesome) and were able to catch up for a few minutes.  I was happy to see how much her girls had grown.  The King was super bummed that Mr. May didn’t come too.  But not too bummed to take some pictures of May and I together.

(If he was a professional photographer, you would now understand why he was laid off.  But he is not a professions photographer.  So you can’t expect much in his photo taking skillz.)

Ahhh-much better. (Side note to May: I miss you so much.  Please move back to Seattle as soon as Mr. May graduates from college.  Please!)

Back at the ranch, I came across the most interesting thing in my parents back shed.

Dude, who needs this gas cans?  There were so many that I wasn’t able to fit them all in the frame.  Seriously, are my parents secretly planning for the end of the world?  Seriously, isn’t one spare can of gas enough?

Another way my parents are planning for the end of the world is by using Home Food Dehydrating books from the 1970’s for their food storage.

Oh yes, my mom had this book on her book shelf.  And not ironically, I might add.  Because my parents have 52 fruit trees, and because The King was bored after the pergola completion, he decided to try his hand at food dehydration.  He spent the remainder of our vacations dehydrating cherries that he picked out in the orchard.

There is nothing I don’t love about The King.  He’s the quintessential Renaissance man.

So there you have it, our week in Utah in a nutshell pictures.

Oh, I forgot another thing.  My sister is getting so grown up and I love her more and more everyday.