Sand and Sun

Here is what we were doing just 60 days ago:

Now we are back to this:

Autumn was nice to me this year. It was more like a west coast sort of fall, but with the colors of Michigan--the perfect combination.
Matt took some time off for his birthday (and to get away from internal medicine), and mother nature gave him some 80 degree weather for a gift. This is in the beginning of October; the trees are vibrant and so is the sunny sky. The stage was set for the perfect vacation.

This is on our drive up north to Traverse City, Michigan.

We got a hotel deal as one of their fall packages (because normally by then the tourism goes down).
After getting a good night's sleep, we went over to their National Park dunes by Lake Michigan.
Look how steep this sucker is.
Gotta love a hike that you can do barefoot the whole way.

I tried to get the four of them together, but Michael wasn't cooperating...

...so I just got these three goons. They got to ditch school for this. Lucky dogs.

A view of an inlet of L.M.

It's a good thing Alex was wearing red this time so we didn't repeat the Arches incident.

What are dads for, right?

Once we got to the view of the Lake, we found a little drop off to jump from. It was only like 6 feet up, but when you are standing up there, it looks a lot higher and your brain really doesn't like being talked into landing on sand as opposed to water. It really isn't that cushy of an impact.

Here is Matt with his basketball player form. We weren't trying for any kind of form, but the pictures sort of captured our athletic capabilities in the way we jumped.

Then me and my dumb cheerleader-esque jump. I thought I was done with that venture.

Bekah is ever the graceful one. But really, she could get a job in physical comeday because falling down comes to her so naturally.
She opted for the 2 footer and basically ran down. I think she cleared an inch at this point.

And Alex wins for true athleticism.

After the hike, we drove back through this:

We stopped and got some Moomer's ice cream--supposedly voted best in America by Good Morning America. It was really good. They need help on their chocolate milk, though. Not much better than Hershey's syrup.

Then we went for a swim at the hotel pool. Michael loves water. He also loves balls. He would not get in the pool because of this ball. For some reason it totally freaked him out. I have no idea--because it is pink? Who knows?
He's glaring at me because I put it near him for the picture.

After swimming, Matt got some presents, because it was his birthday. Don't worry he got cake at home. Then we went out to eat. We picked a place that we got a discount at from the hotel package thingy. I told the server it was Matt's birthday and they gave him a free dessert, a free mug, and a $10 gift certificate. Plus, we had the hotel discount. He seriously scored there. So if you ever want to go to Traverse City on your birthday, go to The Blue Tractor restaurant.

The next morning we walked up and down the Cherry Capital main street. We got some really good pie (and I'm not a pie person), and we found an awesome store.

Why was it awesome? Free samples! They had samples of so much stuff, that you could eat lunch there. And everything was amazingly good. So we got our fill before hitting the road for home. It was the perfect end to the perfect vacation.

Face off with Mary

Just fyi: I may not have obtained direct permission, but I can say with a fair amount of certainty that Mary would not be horrified by this post. She'll laugh. That's why we (mostly me) loved having her with us and wished it could have been like 10 times longer. Grad school was calling, however, and she left us. It's kind of like someone letting you smell some fresh baked cookies, letting you admire all those glistening, melted chocolate chips and then they whisk them away and deliver them to the cat. I like cats. But they sure as heck don't deserve those cookies.

Mary? Come back.

Anyway, back to the humiliating stuff.

First things first, an aunt must entertain the masses.

A little more examination shows us her "hungry werewolf" look. Those kids must look delicious. I think the red-eye really sells it.

Okay...in Mary's defense, she did not know she was included in that shot.
Such is not the case here. Just chillin' with the gals.

My personal take? She's a little sleepy after that wolf meal.

And here we go on a walk so Mary can have a feel for real fall weather.

Either she is going to fall, or going to throw up. Take your pick.

Poor Mary. As far as I know there is not a boy out there she is trying to impress. If there is, then she should know better than to tell him she has any siblings.

Alright, so I guess it runs in the family. See? I ruined a potentially great picture.

And the close-up, to be fair. Now you might throw up. Yikes.

And maybe it is just my (and Matt's) photography skills, because Alex took this and we actually look human.

However, we did not get any pictures of what we really spent most of our time doing: sitting on the couch. That includes talking, reading, and napping, but mostly watching movies. Nothing new, but still really, really fun.

Right here are the tools you need to get you all the candy you could want on Halloween:

You'll also need a decent neighborhood, some ambition, and good shoes to make the rounds. We made some serious profit on the candy front. We bought our share to pass out, and we came back with 3 times as much. If only making money were that easy. Our kids are eager to share and Matt and I pretty much help ourselves with K & M's. We had to carry them around and pay for the costume, so it's a fair trade.

Michael looks like a thug (that drools).

And one must include the jacks.

Alex did his "vampire" by himself for the first time and I love it. It is on the far right--reminds me of one of Sid's eggs below. Awesome.

I brought these cookies to our church Halloween party. Just FYI: midwesterners know how to celebrate Halloween way better than Californians.

Time to go eat some Twix.

The Clinic

A few weeks ago, Alex cut a hole in his shirt. When I asked him why he would take scissors to his shirt when he knows perfectly well what scissors are for, he responded, "I wanted to see what would happen."
Before I had a chance to be mad, I remembered that I did the exact same thing in first grade. Except I did it to my friend's shirt. I explained this to Matt because he had that look on his face that read, "Is this kid a total moron?". I told Matt that it must be a 7 year old thing to do. He said, "That's not a 7 year old thing, that is a Locke thing."
Matt likes to blame all the flaws in our children on my side of the family; all the successes he credits to his side.
So how does he explain his lunatic behavior when he gets behind the wheel and encounters any sort of traffic? In fact, it doesn't have to be traffic, he could have had a perfect drive for 10 hours and then the car in front of him brakes a little too early for a right turn and suddenly he wants to blow them up. Yes, really. His #1 request for the last 9 years for his birthday and/or Christmas has been a bazooka license plate. I'm not even going to google that to see if it exists, because I don't want Homeland knocking on my door.
It must be his side passing down the imagination for use of hideous weapons, because Bekah has pulled a couple on us. We read the scriptures at night as a family and one particular night we read about a guy cutting off another guy's head (the Nephi-Laban story). I was just hoping it wasn't too gruesome a scene for my sweet 3 year-old daughter when she asks, "Did he use a chain saw?"
Um...yikes.
Okay, okay, so I am not innocent either. I have broken a window and a mirror, and kicked a hole in the wall on separate occasions out of frustration. At least they are all inanimate object. Completely replaceable.
And lest you think the other ones are too young...
Michael was a little peeved for some reason or another. He kicked the nearest item--the diaper bag--then turned and started walking away. But as he was walking, he was watching out of the corner of his eye...the bag teetered for a moment, but then regained its composure and stood upright once more. As soon as Mike saw that he stormed back and kicked it again, with more force, to make sure that bag was humiliated and on the stinkin' floor like it should be. The kid is one measly year old.
Speaking of one year-olds, here is a sampling of Keturah's prayers last year:

Me: Keturah, say "please"
K: NO! please
Me: Say, "bless"
K: NO! bless
Me: "our family"
K: NO! our family

Me: Keturah, say "thank you"
K: Grrrrr. thank you
Me: "for the prophet"
K: Grrrrrrr. prophet

I guess that confirms it. We should all be committed.

Cheapskates

Alex's homework had some menu choices with prices associated with each item. He was asked to pick 3 foods he would order and add them up. These were his choices:

Beverages: milk-$3, juice-$2, water-$0

Fruits/Veggies: salad-$4, apple-$3, orange-$3, carrots$3, green beans-$5

Grains: bread-$3, rice-$6

Meats: chicken-$8,hamburger-$7, hot dog-$6

Dessert: pudding-$3

He chose:
Carrots
Bread
Water
Total - $6

When I saw what he picked I beamed. I said, "Alex, did you pick the cheapest things from the menu on purpose?" He grinned, "Yep." Not only that, but it is a fairly well rounded meal. If he's learned nothing else from us, at least he knows how to order out on a budget. That's my frugal boy.

Botox

Are you looking for a great deal on a face lift? I can show you two ways to get one for free and it looks just as good as any plastic surgeon can produce.

Method #1. Fall down a flight of stairs. Michael models the results with a certain artistic flair.

Method #2. Throw yourself into the path of an angry bee. This takes some agility and proper aim in order to get the correct placement, but Keturah has proved to be talented on this wise. Just look at those luscious lips.

The kreme of the crop

You know you have an awesome family when 2nd cousins show up after a 5 year absence (which is most of, if not all, of their lives), and they fit right within about 3 seconds. Such is this family. We had a brief stay at Matts aunt and uncle's house in Utah on our way home this summer.

The kids went straight for the trampoline.

Matt and I had fun catching up with everyone. Here's Natalie and Aunt Kim. I'm so glad Matt lets me share his family. We missed seeing Uncle Ron and all the others that couldn't be there.

Us with Aunts Jenalyn and Carolyn and some cousin babies. Their stay was short, but much appreciated and cherished.

After eating Aunt Kim's yummy soup and salad, we got to leave our kids with the older ones, and the adults partied it up at the local rodeo.

Nicole (the one in the boots) was sitting right behind us and it took me a while to not jump every time she would whoop and holler. She's not much more than 90 lbs, but can bust out the decibels like no other. She was at least as entertaining as the bull riders.
On top of all that excitement, we were even treated to strawberries and cream. Can't beat that for a Friday night.

We came home to all the kiddies asleep in the living room.
The next morning we had a quick breakfast and then we had to hit the road. It was too short, but the visit was superb.

We set aside a little extra time in Utah so we could see some good friends. Matt knows Jeff because they served together on their missions to Spain 10 years ago. Jeff was still out of town when we first got there, so we hung out with Brindy and her two kids. We went to the park to feed the ducks, except we brought cereal instead of bread. The ducks were pretty snobby about the cereal and didn't really touch it. If I were a duck, I would totally be diggin' the break in the monotony of bread. Plus, it was Honeycomb cereal. Hello? It's called sugar and its awesome.

After Jeff showed up, we talked them into Mexican food for dinner. Then we came back and the kids enjoyed the mildly warm tub outside.

Jeff liked to take every opportunity to make fun of me. You see, my leg was still injured and I basically had no functionality in my calf. The result was a very pronounced limp. Matt would reference Men in Black, inferring that I looked like the bug in the Edgar suit. I'd enter a room hobbling and instead of pity he would just gruffly say, "Sugar. Water."
Jeff went a different route. He just starting singing Thriller by Michael Jackson every time he saw me. Such loving company.

After their "baths" in the hot tub, Jeff read some scripture stories. Then instead of putting them to bed, we spontaneously decided to go get donuts.

Krispy Kreme was inspired of heaven. We pretty much all attacked them this way.

Then the kids went to bed for real. Then we watched a movie and crashed for the night.
The next day we took the kids to temple square, which included a lot of walking for me and my dang leg. Aside from that, it was relaxing and beautiful as always.

But then we had to part ways with the Whipples and face real life after our super long vacation.

Real life is pretty good, too.