Chicago-Wisconsin Trip 2009

Colby and Austin got their first taste of flying last Thursday when we took off for Chicago on a trip to see Jared and Katelin and Jake and Nicki and their families. They were a little nervous, but once we took off, they were fine and loved looking at all the cars and buildings getting smaller and smaller. They alternated between reading, video games, and looking out the window and survived their first flight just fine. They both agreed that it beats the heck out of driving for 20 hours to get to Chicago. And of course Mel and I kept reminding them of how completely and totally spoiled they were for getting to go on this trip, so I don't think they dared complain. They were impressed by the tiny little airplane bathrooms and the fact that the nice ladies come around and give you a FREE drink. Woah. Some people are just easy to impress I think.

We took the L train from O'Hare to downtown Chicago. Frankly Melanie and I were pretty impressed with ourselves for that little adventure. We figured it out just fine. The boys definitely had a bit of culture shock, but thankfully they were quiet about it (good thing too since it was rush hour and there were plenty of interesting characters around).

First stop was the Sears Tower (no I will not now be calling it the Willis Tower, as some things just cannot be messed with). Austin was brave and ventured right out onto the new glass walkways on the 103rd floor. I took a little coaxing and Melanie had to outright drag Colby onto there. I admit it's pretty freaky taking that first step out onto the glass, but so worth it. Very cool and definitely worthy of bragging rights.

Turns out heights are not really Colby's thing. Who knew?

Austin thought this would be a cool picture on the glass. I would not normally lay on glass 103 floors in the air, but I had my 11-year-old son with me, and I've got an image to maintain.

Millenium Park at night is beautiful. They have cool fountains and sculptures and this huge jelly bean sculpture. Since we were there at night, the pictures of the jelly bean sculpture didn't really turn out, but it looks like this stolen picture below. Very cool.



From the time we purchased our tickets to Chicago and the time we arrived, my brother Jared and his family moved up to Minneapolis, so in an effort to see both families, who now live 6 hours apart, we arranged to meet at Wisconsin Dells, which is a VERY COOL place! Who knew such a thing even existed? It's a huge resort with three indoor waterparks. There are hotels and duplex style condos all around and in the middle there are three huge water parks with some completely insane rides. It was a lot of fun. There are restaurants and arcades and laser tag and all of that for when you get water logged after 15 hours in the pools and on the slides.

Austin loved the water park. Even when I got out to take a rest, he never skipped a beat. He was having a hard time believing he was at three Seven Peaks water parks in ONE DAY. Crazy stuff.

The coolest thing there, if you ask me, was this huge wave pool, and if you'll notice, the ceiling in this building is glass. Well, this glass DOES NOT BLOCK THE SUN. So you can be in the sun (and get a tan of course) INSIDE A BUILDING. Just my kind of thing.
I told Jared, as I was taking this picture that it was going on the blog. So don't feel sorry for him, he was warned. This is his method for drying off before we went to one of the restaurants to eat lunch.

The whole gang at lunch. There's some funny expressions if you look at all those faces. Take a look at Jared and his son John (right in the front). These two happen to be the best demonstration of "like father like son" I have ever seen. Just look at their expressions in this picture. Ha ha! The best part was watching Jake trying to manage his three high-spirited little ones while they ordered food and kept them entertained with ice, ketchup, straws, forks, napkins, drinks, ranch, salt shakers, etc. Fun stuff.

John was so excited that he was big enough to play laser tag with the big boys at 10:30 at night. The kids were all really good sports. They were up late every night and really did pretty good.

Austin takes his laser tag pose very seriously. Looks pretty ominous to me.

So Jared normally won't smile in any picture. He said something about hating pictures, but all I heard was blah, blah, blah as I snapped pictures right and left. So in the one picture the whole weekend where I said not to smile (seems weird when you're holding a gun), check out Jared's face. Some people.

Sunday morning we packed up and headed back to Milwaukee for church and Jared and Katelin headed back to Minneapolis (all worn out I'm sure). All the kids had fun playing together, and I'm so glad we got to see them! They are all growing up so fast ... I think that means we're getting old.

Jared, me, Melanie, and Jake. We haven't had one of these pictures in a while. It was so great to see them. We had an amazing time hanging out, playing with their kiddos, and staying up late talking and laughing. It's fun to see my brothers with their kids being such good involved dads. They really are so cute with their darling little kids.

Nicki, Katelin, me, and Melanie. Thanks ladies for the fun trip! You took such good care of us, and it was so fun to be with you and catch up and laugh. You guys are amazing moms and wives and wonderful friends to me. I love you all!

We went for a drive to downtown Milwauke on Sunday afternoon and just walked around. The Packers were playing, so the whole city was like a ghost town. I couldn't believe how dead it was. We only saw a few dozen people the whole time. Apparently they really hunker down for those Packer's games.

Our main reason for venturing to downtown Milwaukee was of course to see the Bronze Fonz. You just don't pass up opportunities to see stuff like that.

Who knew I am about as tall as the Fonz? Now that's information I needed to have. Too cool.

Interesting sculpture by the river. They are bowling balls and other weird stuff hooked by chains. Very weird, but it seemed like something I should take a picture of.

This is one of those bridges that opens up for barges to come through. We got to see it open up the next day when we came back through the city. You don't exactly see those in Utah. Every time we go back to the Midwest, I'm amazed at the amount of water. There are rivers and lakes all over the place. Both Milwaukee and Chicago have huge rivers going right through their downtown areas. Can you imagine that in Utah?

Austin hanging out with the Sadie, Ty, and Brooklyn. Nicki was enjoying having the big boys around to climb in the back and buckle the kids in, and it was nice to have extra hands around to hold onto them and catch Ty when he escaped. It was fun for our boys too.

At Miller Park, where the Milwaukee Brewers play, there is a TGI Friday's on the concourse looking out over the field. We had lunch there on Monday. Very cool.

I love baseball. We went to a Brewers game here a few years ago, and it was a lot of fun. There's just something about a baseball game ...

This happens to be the coolest used book store on earth. It's in Milwaukee. It's called Renaissance Books, and you would not believe it! It is something you just have to experience. All I know is I could spend HOURS there. There are four floors and they all look like this. The building itself looks like it is about to tip over. The stairs are crooked and tipped and seem to be coming away from the wall just a bit. It is honestly a little unnerving even to be in there.... but I LOVE IT! There are books EVERYWHERE. The shelves are packed and there are boxes and stacks everywhere. You honestly have the feeling that you can't sneeze or even move quickly or it will all come tumbling down. There are old books and new books and rare books ... everything. This is where I got my 1912 edition of Mark Twain a few years ago. We didn't have as much time this go around, but I still found some fun things, including a 1928 copy of "The Passion for Life" by C.S. Lewis.

We took the water taxi from Navy Pier up to Union Station, and then we were supposed to walk just a few blocks to the Blue Line pickup for the L train back to O'Hare, but I was the one who got the directions from Jake, and I sort of got my North and West mixed up. So we walked a few blocks out of our way, got stressed, acquired directions from two street vendors, and barely made our flight. It was a little too close for comfort, but we survived. Melanie yelled a little. I figured in a city that size, someone has got to be able to give us directions. You'd be surprised at the amount of people we stopped to ask who were like "Huh?" Seriously people. You're killin me here. One lady gave us some excellent directions off a map that was upside down. That was fun. It was nice thought I suppose.

Anyway, our trip was crazy and fun and amazing, and I can't wait to do it again. It was fun to go with Austin and have that time together. Melanie and Colby made great traveling companions. At Giordiano's, I got tricked into biting into calamari under the guise of it being an onion ring. Jake thought that would be funny. One bite in, and I knew something was not right. Nice Jake. It definitely reaffirmed my strict "No Seafood EVER" policy. Gag.

It was hard not to miss Dave being in all those places where he would love to be. He served his mission in Chicago and loves to go back and visit. We've been once together, but I think we might have to go again. There are so many things to see and do that I'd love to do with him. I'm grateful he was willing to send me off to have a good time and took good care of the house and kids while I was gone. Dave, Jason, and my mom took great care of the remaining 7 kids at home for five days, and they all seem to have survived relatively unscathed. Thanks to all of you!

We consumed approximately 58,000 calories in five days (thanks to Giordiano's - the best pizza on earth), visited the Harley Davidson museum and spent enough money on souvenirs to earn a free puzzle (whoopee), walked a ton, rode the train a lot, saw lots of interesting people, laughed a lot, drove up and down the Magnificent Mile five times (but don't worry Jake wasn't lost), learned a lot, met a lady in a church in Milwaukee whose daughter lives a mile away from us in Eagle Mountain, got lost, rode the hurricane water slide (i.e., death by water slide) way too many times, got a tan inside a building, had several hours to read a good book on the plane (when does that EVER happen?!!), and had an AMAZING TIME! Can't wait to do it again.

Anderson Idol 2009

Okay folks. Here are the rest of the highlights from Anderson Idol 2009. Thanks Jimmy and Mary for a great night! We had so much fun! My camera ran out of batteries, so we didn't get everyone ... just a few. Keep in mind, some of these videos are not for the faint of heart. Consider yourself warned.

Anderson Idol 2009

Just in case you missed it the first time, I've got ya covered:




Our friends, Jimmy and Mary Anderson, hosted a fun night of karaoke at their house this weekend. It was a BLAST! We had so much fun, and thankfully for all of you, I remembered the camera. Ha ha! I'll post the rest of the videos later .... I'm not sure y'all are ready for Dave's performance. Oh boy.

Hmmmmm .....

Most of you know that Dave does home health visits as part of his work. These cute little old patients of his will often send him home with tokens of their appreciation for what he does. We have gotten all kinds of fun things like fruit, candy, garden vegetables, cookies, donuts, chocolates, gift certificates, coloring books/toys for the kids, etc.

So yesterday, he came home with this treasure. One of his patients gave it to him. If you can't tell, it's a shovel complete with a toilet paper roll holder made out of a horseshoe. It's apparently for some kind of drastic roughin-it camping without bathrooms (scary). Pretty creative if you ask me. For some reason, it makes me think of James Stock ... weird. I know you guys are all jealous. Maybe we'll let you borrow it sometime.

Welcome back schedule ... I've missed you.

It seems that the first day of school came and went without too much trouble. The picture above describes pretty well how the kids approached this day. Well you can't please them all ... but one of out three is not too bad. Ha ha! Those faces are CLASSIC! After a way-too-fast summer of pools, parks, vacations, sleeping in, snow cones, BBQ's, staying up late, bike rides, friends, fireworks, tadpoles, and playing, playing, playing, the first day of school snuck right up on us. Don't get me wrong folks, I am definitely a summer kind of gal and I do love having the kids home and just "hanging out" with them, but let's be honest, even I was getting dizzy with all the chaos around here. So here we are, back to school, and we are ALL back on a schedule. Yeah!

I did manage to get one smiling picture from the boys (after a threat involving video games and a bribe involving cookies). I think they like school more than they will admit. They are just really invested in their "cool guy" image and as we all know, it's not cool to love school when you're in 4th and 5th grade and you're a boy. Too bad, so sad - YOU'RE GOING ANYWAY!

I love school. School is SO good for kids in SO many ways. I love the social interaction/experience and the respect for order, structure, and authority that comes from school. I love hearing about what they've learned and the new and creative ways their teachers present ideas and concepts. I love watching them grow in their self-confidence as they learn and understand new things. So that's my opinion. I love school. I love the bedtime. I love the time doing homework (most of the time - when I know how to do it!). I love eating breakfast together and making their lunches and watching them walk out the door and across the street to school. I love sitting on my porch to watch them walk home. I love being involved with our school and our teachers and being able to volunteer at the school with so many great friends I've made in our community. So as you can see, I LOVE summer, but I also LOVE school.

London was really excited to start the first grade. She loves her new teacher, Mrs. Frampton. Jackson's teacher is also named Mrs. Frampton. Apparently someone at the school thought that would be funny. Ha ha. Austin's teacher is Mrs. Wade who coincidentally is a friend of mine from junior high and high school and grew up in the stake I grew up in. So that's been fun! Everybody seems happy so far. We've really been blessed with great teachers at this school.

T.J. happily started his first day of preschool all excited to see his friends and Miss Jenny again. He loves school! So we're off on the right foot with this one. Of course, I recall Austin and Jackson loving preschool too. I'm not exactly sure where we lost it with those two. Oh well. Two out of four kids happy about school is not too bad if you ask me. One more year before T.J. is in kindergarten. Woah.

Where did the time go?

Austin celebrated his 11th birthday on August 11th, so I took the chance to go back and look at some old pictures of my first baby. I can remember so well being pregnant with him, and being sure I would be pregnant forever. I was due on August 4th, and he came a week later after 16 hours of labor and then finally an emergency C-section. I remember when they held him up to show him to me for the first time, and it was so surreal. I just couldn't believe he was mine. He had a bit of a rough start and I didn't actually get to hold him until the next day. I remember the first time I held him, he seemed so heavy! I don't know why I remember that so vividly. He just didn't seem like a newborn. He was 9 pounds 3 ounces and 22 1/4 inches long.

I can remember those first few months so well. Austin had a serious case of colic and cried A LOT. I can remember many frustrating nights and days and a lot of crying from both of us. He was scared of loud noises too. Even a sneeze or a cough or a door shutting would really freak him out, and he'd cry and cry and take forever to calm down. In fact, when I was pregnant with him, the Utah Jazz were in the NBA playoffs (I believe against those stinkin Chicago Bulls) and every time we'd cheer really loud, he'd start kicking like crazy in my stomach. He has always been easily startled I guess.

This picture seems like it was just taken. Where on earth has the time gone?!! This was in 2004. We had just moved into out house in Eagle Mountain, and Austin started kindergarten at Eagle Valley Elementary. We live right across the street from the school, and believe me, the convenience of that location is something I am really grateful for. I sit on my porch swing and watch my kids walk across the street and into the school. I sit there in the afternoons and watch them walk home and then we sit on the swing and talk about their day. I love it. It seems like just yesterday he was off to kindergarten, and I just sent him off to 5th grade a few weeks ago. Crazy.

I'm not exactly sure when this happened. He was a little baby and then a cute little kindergartener, and now he's almost my size (literally, he's 5'1" and I'm 5'4" tall!) and he's out there on the football field plowing over people like it's nothing. What is up with that? It's those Leatherwood genes I'm telling ya. He started football a few weeks ago and after a timid first few days, he got his first "kill" (as Dave calls it) and now it seems he's got a bit of football in his blood. A few days into their first week, he came home and told me he had knocked the wind out of a kid. I was a little taken back since he's normally kind of timid and not too aggressive. Apparently the kid had hit Austin in the previously tackling drill and hurt Austin's shoulder, so Austin (in his words) decided to "make him wish he was never born." That's a little strong, but let's be honest here, he has an insane football fanatic for a father, so this might just be pure genetics. So when they switched places in the drill, Austin tackled the kid and apparently knocked the wind out of him. When I asked Austin if he helped the kid up, he said, "Well, I was going to, but the coaches were all around congratulating me and giving me high 5's, so I couldn't." Nice. He's definitely gaining more confidence, and that's fun to see.

When I asked Austin what kind of cake he wanted, he asked if I could make a tower out of donuts. What kind of a question is that?!! Of course I can take a box of store-bought donuts, and stack them up and stick some candles in. Frankly it was a fun change from the normal decorated birthday cake that I usually buy from Smiths! Hehe!

Austin got Legos, Bionicles, and video games for his presents. He got a little frustrated with his Lego set (maybe because it had about a million little pieces in it) and asked for my help with it. We had a nice time sitting together working on his Star Wars Lego ship, and he was actually impressed with my Lego building skills. Good thing I'm still somewhat "cool" to him ... not sure how long that will last (unless I get better at Mario Kart, cause right now I stink at it). He also got a BYU tie for church that he wears proudly and takes on any Ute fan he can find with pride. He also got a cap gun that he uses to scare away the neighbor kids when they are picking on T.J. ... I haven't heard from their parents yet, but I'm sure I will.

It's fun to see Austin grow up, even though it makes me feel old that I have an 11-year-old. As goofy as it sounds, time really does go by way too fast. I'm excited for what these next few years bring for Austin. It's a crazy world he's growing up in and it's hard to not protect him as much as I want to. He's got a tender heart that is a great example to me. When he was a baby, I used to always sing him the song "You are my sunshine" when he was falling asleep, and since then I've always called him my "sunshine." He has always been able to brighten my day and make me smile. That will never change. Happy Birthday Austin!

ULCER 2009 - We Survived!

Dave, Paula, and I have been training for the ULCER (Utah Lake Century Epic Ride) for a while now. Actually Paula and I have been riding and/or spinning for almost a year. Paula and I ride several times a week, and Dave rides when he can. Paula and I were just going to do the ULCER together, but then I got thinking that it would be fun to have Dave ride with us, and he had kind of expressed a little interest, so I signed him up while he was at work, and then sent him a text message letting him know he was all registered. Thankfully, he didn't even get mad and just got busy training. He did talk me into a new road bike though. I guess I had that coming. He's a good sport, and it was really fun to have him with us. He kept us laughing the whole way.



Paula and I rode 63 miles back in June on the Little Red, and Dave and I did 70 miles last Saturday to train, but that was our farthest ride so far. The ULCER was 111 miles, so that was quite the jump in mileage.

We started at Thanksgiving Point at 8:00 on Saturday morning along with 1500 other riders. We were excited and probably a little nervous. Dave and I and the kids had driven the ride course the previous Sunday, so we kind of knew what to expect. I think that helped. Turns out the first 50 miles or so were pretty much flat with just a few little hills here and there. Very nice.

Dave was all excited for his first big event. He was pretty nervous before our 70-mile ride the week before, but after that, he felt better and was all pumped up for the ULCER. He did great! I think I've got him hooked on biking. He's always been such a runner, and he still is, but the problem is that I HATE RUNNING. I hate everything about it, and believe me, it hates me just as bad. So we can't do that together. So I had to bring him over to the "dark side" and now we can bike together. My devious plan worked! Turns out biking is slightly more expensive than running, but we both love it, and I love that we can do it together. We've got Paula working on Bret now and hopefully he'll be biking soon ... next year Bret!

See above and below - This is what happens when Dave has the camera for most of the ride. We have a lot of pictures from this angle. Thanks hon.



That's great Dave. Nice camera work. In this picture he made sure to get us riding past these people with the flat tire and not stopping to help them. So let me explain. Early on in the ride, when Dave was a little ahead of us, we passed a man and woman on the side of the road with their tire off and they looked frustrated, and nobody had stopped to help them. They do have support vehicles that come around and help with bike repairs and stuff, so Dave sailed right past them (he was worried about making the deadline for lunch). Nice hon. Actually, Paula and I sailed right past them too, but as we did the guy held up something and said, "Hey do you guys have one of these?" We still passed them a little bit and then we were like "Crap. No we feel bad." So we went back and it turns out they needed a pump, and Paula and I each had one. So we were glad we stopped. Dave finally noticed we weren't with him and stopped and came back, so he now wants to claim 2 extra miles on the ride, but I told him he can't because he failed the Good Samaritan "test." You really shouldn't mess with Dave when it comes to lunch.

It was really pretty riding through farm and orchard country in Southern Utah County and especially the lake. It was beautiful! I forget how green it is on the other side of the valley. We're hogging all the desert landscape out here in the Cedar Valley I guess.

The weather was nice and cool. It only got to about 80 degrees for a high ... in Utah ... in August! WHAT IS THAT ABOUT?!! It was so nice to not have it be closer to 100 degrees like it has been here for a few weeks. It only brought one problem ... WIND! More about that later ...
Nice self-shot Dave. He actually took like 8 of these, but this was the best one. I guess he was bored waiting for Paula and I to catch up.

I didn't hardly get the words "flex for the camera" out of my mouth before I saw this. Good think I'm so quick with the camera.

Man, who is that?!! What a show off! No hands and showing the guns?!! Holy cow.

Dave made me do this pose by the way.

And this one.


Still on the flat part. We were cruisin.

She looks happy! Nice and flat. Just had lunch. Not to the hills or the wind yet ... oh boy.

This is the lovely town of Elberta. We stopped here for drinks/bathroom/snacks before climbing up the west side of Utah Lake. We had been feeling some wind all day coming from the North, but we hadn't actually ridden into the wind yet, so WE HAD NO IDEA!!! Oh my gosh. The last 40 miles we rode into a 10 to 20 mile per hour headwind, and it was uphill, the hardest part of the ride by far! It was KILLER!

Still in Elberta taking a nice long rest, gearing up for the climb and the wind. Still smiling.

If you want to know how were were doing at this point, check out my face. We still had 25 to 30 miles to go. We just had to stop for a minute to catch our breath. You can only pedal into that kind of wind for so long. We had been averaging 17 miles per hour on the first part of the ride, and for most of this stretch, we were between 10 and 12 miles per hour. AAAHHHH!!!

Poor Paula ... her knee was dying! She hung in there and finished the ride. What a trooper! At least 30 miles with her knee really hurting. She rocks.

We managed a quick smile for the camera before getting back on those little teeny tiny bike seats. Anything to delay riding in that wind for a few minutes. Ha ha!

When we had about six miles left, our friends, The Stocks, rode by in their van and waved and smiled and cheered us on. That was so fun! And then they turned around and came back and drove slowly by us for a few minutes and talked and encouraged us. That was such a boost! We were so dead, and needed that. Thanks Stocks!

With about 3 miles left, Paula's husband, Bret, and her kids drove by and cheered us on, and then they drove by again. Yeah! It was so fun to see them! That was a great boost too. We were just do dead and so tired. They raced us to the finish line so they could get pictures of us crossing the finish line. Thanks Bret!

My mom and dad had our kiddos all day (and for a sleepover the night before!) and my dad brought the kids to meet us at the finish. It was great to see them! They were so impressed and so proud of us. It's a great feeling when you're kids tell you that they are proud of you. I'm lovin that!


THE FINISH LINE!!! WOW! I can't even tell you what that felt like. We had been on our bikes since 8:00 in the morning, and it was 5:15 p.m. We rode 111 milles total distance, and had about 7 hours 30 minutes of actual riding time. WHAT?!!! It was so fun to ride with Paula and Dave, and I am so proud of all of us for finishing and still being able to smile about it! I love the feeling of having a goal and working so hard toward it and then reaching the goal! What an amazing feeling! I couldn't have asked for better riding companions. Thanks for the encouragement and for the amazing day guys! Can't wait for next year!