How can I possibly catch up?!!!

Here I am, finally home and suffering from my usual malady -- too much to say and not enough brain power to think about it. Dang it sucks to be almost 40. I've come to realize I have traded wisdom for mental agility. It is a pretty decent trade for the most part, but I long for the days when I could have 5 different things zipping around the neurotransmitters in my noggin and not break an intellectual sweat. Well, despite my whining and procrastinating, there are grandparents who are waiting to hear how our trip went, so I'm going to forge ahead, come what may. Tally Ho! and all that good stuff... here comes the first installment of:

The Byers Summer Roadtrip 2009.

One score and 5 days ago, I set out on a much anticipated trek to the wilds of Oregon; not the land of my birth but of my coming of age (and some of the stuff in between.) I had determined that 5 years was much too long to go without having seen my parents and siblings on their home turf and I felt that my children needed to experience the thrill of shivering with cold in the middle of July. (which we did!) I planned the trip there with several stops to see friends and family along the way, putting us in Oregon 5 days later. Ren has been enjoying/enduring the busiest summer teaching he's ever had, so he flew out to Oregon to meet us after we drove up. The first stop was with our friends the Everetts in St. George, UT.

The Everetts served as our family-away-from-family while we lived in Murrieta, CA for 5 years and they moved away the same week we did. They have a child counterpart for Hannah (Lauren), Jonah/Cody (Addison), Curtis (Jacob) and Gid (Cole). Only Zach and Eli don't have a direct Everett buddy. That's pretty good for us since our childspread is 14 years apart and we really never find a family that has a friend for all our kids. We only spent one night with the Everetts, but had a ball playing with them and enjoying a great indoor waterpark in St. George.

Here are a few of the pictures of the kids at the park:

Zach and Gid

Lauren and Hannah who are like twins sometimes

Jonah's amazing swimmer hairdo

Addison and Jonah

Cole

Eli having a blast, obviously

Gideon loving the froggy waterslide

Curty splashing down

I don't know how I missed getting pictures of Jacob and Cody -- sorry guys! One funny anecdote that came from this leg of the trip: When we were getting ready to leave, I noticed that some of the swimsuits were still damp so I threw them in the dryer with some of the Everett's clothes. When they were dry, I sorted through the clothes and made sure I got everything, then we left. The next time we were suiting up to swim, Hannah yells for me to come and see something. I go in and she is laughing because her swimsuit bottom has been magically transformed into a Speedo! Yikes! Somehow I had left Hannah's cute little black, boyshort bottoms in the Everett's dryer and she had acquired a lovely Speedo to go with her swimming ensemble. Sorry Heather! I'll send it back soon, I promise. We're still debating about who it belongs to...

Stay tuned for our next stop: Fruit Heights and our Rochester friends, The Christensens.