Memorial Day Trip

With a few days off for the Memorial Day weekend, we loaded up and headed to Utah for a few days with cousins, aunts and uncles, and grandmas and grandpas.  The first stop was Tropic, to see the kids' "second grandma and grandpa" (Stan and Mom--they are referred to this way by the kids because we usually get to them second since they are further away than Grandma and Grandpa Brinkerhoff, who live in Glendale, UT).

With the kids having become much more into riding bikes lately, we packed light, and put all of their bikes in the back of the van so that they could ride them up in Utah.  They ended up having a blast doing this with Halley, their cousin.














They also got to ride one of Grandpa Stan's horses, which was a big hit.  The thing which was not such a big hit, at least initially, was one of the pups Stan had there at the house.  It takes a little background, so here goes:  Stan has a lot of hunting hounds, and one took off and became lost during a hunt several months ago.  Despite several attempts, he was never able to locate her.  Then, just recently, the sheriff from the area called him and let him know he'd found the dog.  This was a big surprise, but a bigger one was coming:  she had a litter of pups.  All of the pups had been given away except one, so Stan went and picked mother and pup up. The pup, mind you, has been raised in the wild for the first two months of its life, and is very skiddish about people touching it.  I was very worried that one of the kids might get bitten, and they were very scared of it, especially Jesse who had a bad dog experience delivering Christmas cards this past December.  However, they all learned that while the pup was nervous around them, he wouldn't hurt them if they didn't act like they were going to hurt him.  They learned that he was a good little dog, and got along really well with him before the end of the trip.  The same could not be said for Lady, our Dachshund, who was constantly being harassed by the pup.  It reminded us of how Jesse sometimes torments Soleil, and we got a good laugh when Ang drew that parallel.  I think Lady was VERY happy when we packed up and left and she could be left alone.

We left for home Sunday morning, stopping for a visit in Glendale with Grandma and Grandpa Brink.  They seem to be doing well and it was nice to visit with them.

Finally, we got home to find our neighbor, Noah Barros, in exactly the same spot he'd been when we'd left:  shooting hoops in the street.