Oklahoma Adventures Week 42 & 43

May 18th - June 1st

Be prepared, this is going to be a very long post. I'm combining two weeks since we were out of town for a Sunday and weren't able to post in the middle....and I was too tired when we got back to catch up immediately, so here we go, I hope I don't forget any important details. :) I will post all the pictures up front though for those of you who really only want to see pictures of Logan and everyone else who wants to can spend a while reading the rest. Some pictures might make more sense though if you read the whole thing though :)

Before we left for the trip I gave both my boys a haircut - yep Logan is really sleeping.

The daddy's gave the kids their first bath together.

This was Logan's favorite toy at Great Grandma's house during the cleanup day.

There is my handsome husband, he worked so hard on Saturday during the reunion.

Memorial Day: all the girls and babies on the awesome airplane teeter totter.

Sometimes I think the adults have more fun than the kids. Logan would not let go of that badminton raquet, he wanted to play.

Daddy and Grandpa getting the Snitch Pitch ready.

Logan' favorite activity the whole week was being able to run around on real grass!

I call these my "mama-love" pictures. I love getting hugs and kisses from my baby boy.

Logan, running to daddy to give him a bug hug.

"Mama-Love" again.

It's no wonder he was so good flying, we practice with him all the time.

Logan's turn to fly the plane.

The boys with the kids in the plane.

Logan and Kashlynn playing at the park.
It was really hot.

"Hi Mom, me and Dad are going to cool off now."

Splish Splash!

Ahhh, refreshing!

This was our last day in St. George, I think Logan was ready to come home, he usually likes swings more. :) We had a blast at the park though!

So, here goes the overly-long and overly-dramatic posting you've all been waiting for:

I guess the starting point is our trip to St. George. We had plane tickets to fly out on May 21st and come home May 28th. We had a small flight to Denver and then from there a small flight to Las Vegas, and then a small drive to St. George. If only it really would have been that simple. This is where our real adventure begins. We got everything all packed up and headed to the airport. Logan was being pretty good. We got through security and sat at our gate for a while. I was the official bag watcher and Morgan was the official Logan watcher at the airports. Logan loved walking around in the airports and looking at people, so Morgan walked around with him until we boarded our flight. We had a child carrier (backpack style) that we thought we could gate check (basically leave at the door of the plane, they pack it in, and bring it out for you when you get off), but they only gate check "strollers" (so unfair) so when we boarded the plane we got funny looks from the flight attendants gaping at our "gigantic" carry-on item that pretty much took up an entire overhead compartment. Needless to say, we were always anxious when getting on the plane to make sure we could find an overhead compartment that was empty.

Logan did not like boarding the plane, as soon as we picked him up to get on the plane he struggled and whined and wanted to get down and walk around some more, but as soon as we got to our seats he calmed down and was actually quite good. So, here we are on our first flight...sitting, waiting for take-off and then we're still sitting, waiting for take off.....and waiting. We basically sat on the plane for over and hour and half (luckily Logan actually fell asleep on our laps about 30 minutes into the wait, so it really wasn't too bad). Finally after that hour and half they tell us that they have to have an FAA inspector come and check one of the mechanical repairs before take off, just a minor thing, something to do with the emergency slide that pops out of the side of the plane if there is a crash. It really shouldn't take too long - oh, but wait, there are NO FAA Inspectors in Oklahoma City right now (Oklahoma City is one of the biggest bases for FAA) so we'll have to fly one in.....ugh! So, we de-board the plane and I hurry and call the airline and re-schedule our flight. The next flight doesn't leave for an hour...we could have already been in Denver by now, but oh well, here we go.

So, the question now is what about the luggage. We checked both our big bags, so now we have to go out of security, get our bags, go back and check in and go through security....again! We did have time for a little bit of lunch though, so we grabbed a bite to eat and went to the gate. And what do you know, our plane is coming in late, and who just happens to be on board, but the FAA inspector that they are flying in to check on our other plane. What a morning! They board us very quickly (again, paranoid we won't find a place for the carrier, AND Logan already took a nap, who knows what he'll do now) and we actually take off! Yipee, we're on our way to Denver, but the flight was late, so now we're wondering if we're going to make our connecting flight to Las Vegas.

During our flight to Denver - the one that actually took off - Logan did really really good. He was an awesome traveller considering the circumstances. He basically fell asleep during take-off and landing, all were a little bumpy, so I think it basically rocked him to sleep and the flights were only about 1 hour and half and 2 hours. Anyway, so on this flight to Denver we pull out Logan's sippy cup, not a normal sippy cup, but the kind with the straw that you can flip down the lid and cover. We pop it open, and there comes Old Faithful - note to self, unscrew the cap to release the pressure before opening straw lid - Logan and I were covered in his drink, but luckily he had finished his juice at the airport and it was just water with a slight hint of juice. Morgan and I couldn't stop laughing. After everything that had happened this morning and now this...what a mess, but it sure was funny, I really wish we would have had that on candid camera.

So, we land in Denver and our original flight that was delayed is only about 15 minutes behind us, but had we waited we would have missed our connecting flight - someone must have known we'd had enough flight problems that we could handle that day. We barely had enough time to go to the bathroom, change Logan (never had a poopy diaper on a plane by the way - count your blessings, that's for sure) and board our next flight. This flight was really smooth, we were able to find an overhead compartment, and Logan was a little trooper. Everyone on the planes loved him and said how great of a little flyer he was.

Finally we make it to Las Vegas! And only 3 hours late - our goal was to get to St. George in time to watch the American Idol finale, we have only missed maybe one episode this season. We can still make it if we leave Vegas within the hour. We catch the tram to get our bags, get our bags and catch the shuttle to the rental car place. I reserved everything before hand, so I'm thinking that it's only going to take about 10 minutes to get the car and get going........I've never rented a car before and boy was I wrong. We got to the rental car place and there are only 2 employees there (I guess it was a slow morning and the manager let about 3 people go home early) but luckily we are next in line, but that didn't matter, we still waited 45 minutes holding all our luggage and a fussy Logan before it was our turn. But it's okay, I'm thinking in my head, we've got everything planned out, it will only take us 5-10 minutes once it's our turn. WRONG AGAIN! It took another painstaking 45 minutes just to convince the lady that no, we didn't' want to upgrade our car, we'll be fine in the car we reserved, give us the dang keys and let us be on our way!!! It was like I hadn't even made any reservations. In the end there were so many hidden fees and charges that we got ripped off on the rental car. It was definitely a live and learn moment for us. And it's really hard to take everything in when Logan is crying and being fussy. We'd both just had enough. By this time, I'm just glad my parents are recording American Idol and we'll be able to watch it at all.

We FINALLY get our car (covered in scratches and other things we have to make note of), but at least they did have a car seat available for us. Woohoo - there was the silver lining, even thought it was kind of crappy and dirty it still worked. We head out and if we really push it and have good luck with traffic we might still make it for the end of Idol.....except for the fact that because of all the delays in getting the stupid car, we are now stuck in Vegas rush hour. I think it took us about 30 minutes just to get past the strip, which should only take maybe 5. Our hopes are dashed, but again, at least it's recorded and we'll have good ol' KFC waiting for dinner. Poor Logan has hardly eaten anything good or at all for that matter on this trip and must be starving. I give him some crackers to munch on and that seems to tide him over, I don't even care that he and the car seat are now covered in cheese and crackers. He really didn't like the car ride and was exhausted by the time we got to St. George about 5 hours after we thought we would (and we thought a 3 hour plane delay would only put us there 3 hours late).

We brought our luggage in and my brother was there with his wife and their little girl who is only about a month younger than Logan, but they are both walking and jabbering and Logan perked right up and got his second wind. He usually goes to bed around 8:00 every night, I think we finally got him settled down around Midnight (OK time). He sure did have a blast exploring Grandma's house that night though.

So after we gobbled down some KFC we turned on the recorded American Idol and sat through almost the entire 2 hour special when during the last 2 minutes, it stopped recording because FOX went over time but the DVR stopped at the designated time. All that and we still don't know who the Idol is?!?! What?! Thank Goodness for the Internet (again, there's the silver lining). We were able to watch that final two minutes online and see the reaction of (Caution: spoiler if you don't know yet) David Cook as he was announced the new American Idol. I really didn't know who was going to win this season, I think they will both have very bright futures ahead of them.

And that my friends was Day 1 of our week long visit to Utah. :) If only this post ended there. teehee, there is so much more to go, probably not as dramatic, but still more adventures.

The reason we went to St. George was for the big Goodman Family Reunion and the small Goodman Family Reunion - basically one for all the extended family, and then a small one for just my parents and their kids and grandkids.

For the big Goodman Family Reunion we had planned to go to Cedar City and help Grandma and Grandpa with some big projects (mostly cleaning) on the their farm. We were expecting really hot weather all week, but for the first few days it was actually quite chilly, I'm glad that I decided to grab a couple pair of pants and jacket at the last minute for Logan before we left. On Saturday everyone worked really hard and got more done than we all thought we could and the weather was perfect, just chilly enough to not be working in the hot hot weather, but it was still warm enough that Logan and I went outside (he had his jacket and pants) and we even got a little sunburned. Cold weather can be very deceiving that way. I ended up having to get the lunch ready by myself (not completely true, I did recruit a couple cousins to help, Thank you SO much!) since everyone else in the family was really dirty from working outside all day and our family (my dad's family) was in charge of the meal. It ended up being the same scenario with the cleanup too, but it wasn't too bad and I did have some great help with Logan while I was getting that done. And at least I had a great excuse for not having to do the hard manual labor in the farmhouse, I love being pregnant. :) Logan's got a crush on my brother's girlfriend now, she took him outside and played with him while I was cleaning up lunch.

After a day in Cedar (Saturday) working and playing with all the kids we headed home to play games until the wee hours of the night, it's impossible to get my family together without pushing our curfew to the limits with games. Good thing there are a lot of toys to play with at Grandma's house now to keep the kids entertained, and it's good that there are only 3 of them right now. :)

On Sunday we all headed up to Cedar for church, since we were going to be meeting at the Grandparents (meaning great-grandparents to Logan) for games and family fun. It's good it was warmer that day because I think Grandma said that with everyone there it would be 27 grandchildren and 27 great-grandchildren (or maybe that was just what the total would be at the end of the year because I don't think there were THAT many people there?)....that's a lot of kids to have in one house. We stayed and visited and played for the rest of the day and it was so nice to see everyone and their kids and catch up on everything. And again, we headed back to St. George that evening for more games. :) And apparently this day there were some big storms and several tornadoes that hit Oklahoma...good thing we were gone....don't worry, we did have a house to come back to. :)

Monday was Memorial Day and that was the day designated for the small Goodman Family Reunion since everyone and their spouses/children/girlfriends would be in town and together. It's hard in my family to get us all together because I have one brother in Seattle, one in Wyoming, we're in Oklahoma, and two brothers in St. George. It was really nice to see everyone. A few people went golfing that morning. Morgan and our sister-in-law Kim teamed up for a game and they won! That alone probably made Morgan's day. :) After that we had some badminton and snitch pitch tournaments, I think we had the unfair disadvantage with me being all preggo, but we did come in second for Snitch Pitch. Then we had delicious dutch oven potatoes and chicken and some excellent steak that my brother grilled up and topped it all off with Peach Cobbler and homemade ice cream. It was the perfect weather to be outside and pretty much the most perfect day of the whole trip.

On Tuesday a lot of the family was parting ways and heading home. Morgan and I got to go on a little date and saw Prince Caspian (which was excellent by the way) while my mom babysat Logan. It was really nice to go to a movie just the two of us....and it literally was just the two of us. We were the only ones in the theater until about 2 minutes before the show started. I guess that's what happens when you go in the middle of the day while everyone is back at work. :)

On Wednesday morning we got up bright and early and got everything packed up. Logan actually slept in that morning, so we were almost ready to go by the time he was up and fed and ready too. We packed up the car and headed to Vegas again. I'm starting to wonder if Logan really likes facing forward, or maybe it was just this specific car seat, but he wasn't super happy on the way down. He did sleep for about 45 minutes though. We got to the rental car place and dropped off the car...never will we rent from Payless Rental Car again! We pull up in this garage clear on the opposite side of where we need to be and the guy checking in cars basically says get out and get your stuff out very gruffly. We confusedly (I think that's a word) get out and unload our two gigantic bags, a baby, a diaper bag, and a laptop (we decided to ditch the baby carrier at my parents since we probably won't do much hiking with Logan this summer with me being pregnant and it might be fun to go to Zion over the Christmas break when we're back again). He just looks at us like we're dumb and says you're done, you can go....so we go and begin our trek across the gigantic parking garage to the shuttle to the airport. It wasn't until we reached security and Morgan was emptying his pockets that we noticed we still had the key to the rental car. Haha, must be karma. So we called and told them we had the key and they said okay, just mail it when you get to Oklahoma. Then we get a call later while we're already in Denver (yay no plane problems the whole way home and Logan slept through both flights...we found out later that he really wasn't feeling good and that's why he was so fussy and sleepy on the way home). Anyway, it turns out that someone has already lost one key to the car and they don't have a spare and they want to try and get the key back before we get on the plane...uh a little late for that now. They even threatened making us pay for a locksmith to come and make a new key for the car since it was just stuck there in the garage....um, I'm not going to pay for a locksmith because they didn't have the business sense to have a spare...yes, I know there are faults on both sides, but after our terrible customer experience with them, you have to draw the line somewhere.

So, we tell them we'll ship it overnight and get it there asap. There is a post office open 24 hours right by the Oklahoma City Airport, so we just went straight there after our flight. So far we haven't seen any extra charges on our card, although we did forget to fill up with gas before we got there, it was only about 2/3 full, so we'll see. I guess ultimately, we learned a lot from this trip, travel wise and we just have to chalk it up to experience, but hopefully our Christmas travels will go a little smoother since we'll have 2 babies by then. :)


We finally make it home and for some reason it feels like we never left except for the fact that we're completely exhausted and I have a whole lot of work to catch up on. On Thursday, we got to go do our ultrasound. It was so awesome to see our little Damon again. We even got to do some 4-D pictures. We have a really cute one of him sucking on his toes. We still have to scan those and get them in, so they might be on the next post. Everything is normal and healthy and on track with the little one. We are so grateful for that.

Morgan had to work on Friday and that was when reality and hit and we were really back into the swing of things. For summer he's basically doing full time clinical hours 8 hours day 5 days a week, except he doesn't get paid. That's a bummer, but we only have 3 semesters left and summer tuition wasn't too bad and our financial aid finally came through for the final year of school. The Lord really is looking out for us, although, I don't know that we always deserve it, but I know we wouldn't be where we are and making things work without His help.

Saturday was a busy day. We had to get some desperately needed car maintenance done..oil changes, fluid flushes, etc, but you've already heard enough negative with our rental car story, so I won't bore you with the craziness there, I'll just be grateful that both our cars are still running and will hopefully keep running for another couple of years. We went to an Elder's Quorum Social that afternoon, it was fun, there wasn't a huge turnout and it was hot, but Logan had a lot of fun running around on the grass and chasing soccer balls and the food was delicious. After that though and Morgan mowing the lawn, we crashed. I went and rented a couple chick flicks from Redbox and got some ice cream and Morgan and I settled down for a nice relaxing evening.

And then Logan wouldn't go to sleep....he's been extra fussy at bedtime since we got back from our vacation, I think he's still adjusting and it doesn't help that he was sick for a day or so with some fever and diarrhea. He's over that now, but he still has no appetite, which is a little stressful since we're already worried about his lack of weight gain. Hopefully that will come back in the next day or so as well. I know they go through phases and he's had quite the past week or two, but I'm his mom, of course I'm going to worry.

So, we put the movie on hold for a while and then we got a call from Nola, she needed us to watch Brayden for a couple hours while she went to rescue her step-son and family, their car broke down about 40 miles out of town. We let Logan run around outside for a while as we waited for Nola and Brayden to get there and chatted with the neighbor while Logan talked to the dogs. We finally got the two boys to sleep and finished our movie. (Logan was still being a little stinker, Brayden fell right asleep in about 10-15 minutes) All is well in the land of Oklahoma. Even though Oklahoma isn't our favorite place to be, it's home, and home is where we are truly happy.

Thanks for hanging in there on this gigantic post. Hopefully I won't ever get this far behind, but it's tough keeping an online journal when a lot happens that you want to write about. :) We had a lot of crazy adventures and learning experiences the past couple weeks, and in the end everything always seemed to turn out okay and there was something positive about it all. We love our family and already miss you! It was so fun to hang out and see our niece and nephew and Logan was a super traveller. It was a much needed vacation, but as with any vacation, it was also good to come home. Maybe someday we'll be able to move a little closer and coming to visit won't take an entire day of travel. :)