Last Three Counties in Utah

Last Friday Jeff and the boys were out of school for their Fall Break (a.k.a. UEA or deer hunt holiday). We decided to take advantage of the long weekend to drive over to Vernal to visit Jeff's brother and family. In the process of the trip, I finally made it to Duchesne, Uintah, and Daggett counties, the last three counties I needed to visit in Utah. Ta da!

That puts me at 652 of out of 3141 counties (20.76%), 36 of 50 states, 2 Canadian provinces, and 9 other foreign countries. I have now visited all the counties in Nevada, Utah, and the District of Columbia. You can find the website I use to track my counties and access a map of my U.S. travels on the Scoreboard here.

We had a great time with Nathan and JoLynn and their boys. The kids all played pretty well together and we just enjoyed each other's company. On Friday they gave us the grand tour of the Utah Field House of Natural History, otherwise known as the "dinosaur museum." As museums go, it is really nice. If only Jared weren't afraid of dinosaurs. :-( Saturday we took a picnic lunch and drove north on U.S. 191 towards Flaming Gorge. Our first stop was a hike near Red Fleet State Park to see some dinosaur tracks preserved in the sandstone on the edge of the reservoir. The weather was very pleasant and the hike was enjoyable, but a bit long for the younger kids (3 miles round trip). Jeff had Dallin in our backpack, but we ended up taking turns carrying the three toddlers a lot too. Next time we'll be better prepared. After the hike we had a quick picnic lunch in a scenic spot before heading home. Here are some pictures of the kids and the scenery:

Cheesy Grins














Nathan & Aiden




















Corbin the Lizard















Adam was hungry enough to eat a rock sandwich. Mmm, sandstone!

I Knew This Would Happen

I knew that once we got into the nitty-gritty part of the move, I would get behind on my blog. I was right. I really don't know where to start catching up, so I guess I'll just jump in. Jeff's parents flew to Texas to help us pack up and make the drive to Utah. Every major move we've made since we left Provo in 1999, either Jeff's parents or my parents have helped us out, and what a blessing it's been. This time I told Jeff's parents that we could probably handle it on our own, that they didn't need to come to hot west Texas in July to help us make this move. Luckily, they insisted and we didn't turn them down, because once again it was a huge blessing. Moving is just hard and stressful, no matter how prepared you think you are, or how early you have started the whole packing and cleaning process (May, in my case). They, along with several wonderful elders and Relief Society sisters from our San Angelo ward, helped us get everything done so we could drive out on Wednesday the 11th.

We used U-Pack (ABF) again, which worked pretty well. They drop off a semi trailer, we pack and load it, they pick it up and drive it to our destination, then we unload it. More than once in the last couple of weeks I've said to Jeff, "There has to be an easier way to do this whole moving thing." There is, if you have tons of money or a company who will pay to move you professionally. We've never had that luxury, but we think U-Pack is a relatively nice way to do it yourself. It's a bit more expensive than renting a U-Haul truck, paying for gas, and driving it yourself, but it's really worth it not to have to drive the big truck. This is especially true as our family gets bigger and we accumulate more stuff and need a bigger truck.

I planned our route to be different than any other trip we've made to Utah so we could catch a few more counties. :-) We avoided the Interstate until we got to northern Arizona, but it was a more direct route on good roads, so I don't think it was any slower, unless our unintended detour made it that way. We left San Angelo around noon on the 11th and made it as far as Roswell, New Mexico that evening. Thursday we headed straight west across New Mexico. There was one town, Hondo I think, where we could have headed south and gotten a county near Ruidoso that wasn't directly on our route. With four kids and my in-laws along, I wasn't planning to stretch the trip out just for the sake of getting counties, but we ended up making that turnoff by accident. When I realized the mistake we were only about two miles from the county line--definitely worth it. So we trundled over the line, made a quick turnaround in a casino parking lot, then headed back up to our original route. It probably cost us an hour. Oh well. :-)

We stayed the second night in Flagstaff, Arizona, where we enjoyed the fresh scent of pine trees and the thoughts of living in the shadow of real mountains again. On Friday we let Jeff's parents take his Eclipse and head home, while we made our way in the minivan to my parents' house in Cedar City, where we had planned to spend the weekend. Conveniently, my nephew Isaac was being baptized on Saturday over the mountain from Cedar in Orderville. We were happy we could make it to that fun family event, and look forward to being able to participate in many more family events now that we are living closer to most of our relatives.

After a nice weekend with my family, we headed north again, ultimately to Jeff's parents' basement where we are living until we buy a home in Utah County. On the way we took a few hours to drive past some of the homes we'd been looking at on the Internet. We were able to eliminate a few of them that way, but also determined that there were some good possibilities as well.

There is more to tell, but I think I'll divide up the story into more than one post. We miss our dear friends in San Angelo. We're glad to be back in Utah, close to our families. We're grateful that every thing has gone relatively smoothly with our move so far. We feel Heavenly Father is blessing us and watching out for us.

P.S. County-counting stats: 3 new in Texas, 5 new in New Mexico, for a total of 648 (approx. 20%).

Dallas Weekend Adventure

Okay, here's a long story about our short weekend last week.

During the summers of 2003 and 2004, Adam took swimming lessons at the Oakley Pool in Cincinnati with two friends, Peter and Ross Lohrisch, who lived in our neighborhood. At the pool we met and became good friends with two other families, the Sellas and the Russells. When we moved away from Cincinnati, one of the things we really missed (in addition to Graeter's ice cream) was hanging out at the Oakley Pool with these friends. Last summer, the Lohrisch's also moved to Texas and bought a home in Plano. Maryann called me a couple months ago to let me know that John Russell was coming to Dallas in April to guest conduct the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. John, better known to us as "Jack and Alma's dad," was the associate conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra while we lived in Cincinnati. So we made plans to travel to Dallas last weekend to visit my brother, Adam, and his family, to play with the Lohrisch's, and to see John conduct the Dallas Symphony Orchestra concert with the Von Trapp Children, great-grandkids of the real Maria and Captain Von Trapp of "Sound of Music" fame.

Last Friday we planned to leave for Dallas as soon as Jeff and the boys got home from school so we could get to the cousins' house around bedtime. I ran around all day like a chicken with it's head cut off, trying to get all my errands done and get packed and ready to go. I almost made it, but best-laid plans failed again. We got a late start and didn't get to Dallas until about 10 p.m.

Saturday we drove up to Plano and spent several pleasant hours visiting, eating lunch, and swimming with John and the Lohrisch's. Three-year-old Jared provided the first excitement of the day by falling into the pool. Jeff had brought his swimming trunks but hadn't yet changed into them, so when he went in after Jared he soaked his wallet and clothes. Jared was fine, but scared. I'm afraid it's going to be a challenge to get him anywhere near a swimming pool anytime soon.

The second incident of the day occurred as we left Lohrisch's to go back to Dallas. The back tire on the driver's side of our van was completely flat. It took five men and at least a half an hour to figure out how to release the donut from underneath the van and get it mounted. Not wanting to drive too far on the donut, or to have to deal with fixing the tire on Sunday before we drove home, we pulled into a tire store five minutes before they closed Saturday evening. Fifteen minutes and eight dollars later we were on our way again. We made it back to Adam's and Paula's house with about an hour-and-a-half to eat and change before leaving for the concert.

The plan was to take Adam and Ryan with us and leave the little boys with a babysitter that Paula had arranged. I thought I had prepped Adam and Ryan well for the concert by buying the DVD of the Sound of Music, which they enjoyed in the van on the way to Dallas on Friday. However, they were tired from the late night Friday night, playing hard in the pool, and getting pretty bad sunburns--I forgot to apply sunscreen. The third incident of the day was one of those ugly parent-child power struggles when they both threw a fit about wanting to stay home and play video games with the cousins instead of going to the concert. I had actually considered letting them stay home with the babysitter until they started throwing tantrums--especially over video games! Then we were in a situation where we couldn't give in. So we got them dressed and into the van against their will, and we were off into what is known as the Mixmaster--downtown Dallas freeways. We only got turned around once off the last exit and made it to the Meyerson Symphony Center on time. The Meyerson was beautiful--can you see the Starship Enterprise in the lights on the ceiling?! The Von Trapp Children had amazing voices for teenagers, and John was fantastic--fun and energetic as usual. Adam and Ryan settled down and enjoyed the concert, as I thought they would. It was great experience and we really appreciated the tickets John comped us.

After another late night, we enjoyed a relaxing Sunday morning with Adam and his family. It's been so nice to live relatively close to them and get to spend time with each other fairly often. Our boys love playing with their cousins. Family is the best! We went to sacrament meeting with them in the afternoon, then headed home, again hoping to make it by bedtime. Our final excitement of the weekend happened when we stopped for gas in Sweetwater, TX, about 75 miles from home. We noticed that the tire we had gone to so much trouble to repair on Saturday was flat again. Grrrr. And it was pouring down rain. Jeff had no desire to put the donut on in his Sunday clothes in the rain. And he didn't feel good about driving home on the donut in the rain and in the dark either. Fortunately we were in a town big enough to have a truck stop with a service area that was open on Sunday evening. Unfortunately they didn't have the right size tire for our van. Fortunately they were able to refer us to an auto parts store that, amazingly, was open until 8 p.m. on Sunday evening and did have the right size tire. I still can't believe that. Unfortunately, the auto parts store wouldn't mount the tire for us. Fortunately, the truck stop service area did mount the tire for us. We saw some awesome lightning on the last leg of the trip, making it home 7 1/2 hours after we left Dallas, again about 10 p.m. (It's normally a 4 1/2 to 5 hour drive.) I let the boys sleep in Monday morning and took them to school late. When the secretary asked why they were tardy, all I could say was "hard weekend." Hard, but fun. And we got six new counties. :-)

County counting

Since I've been married, and particularly since I've had kids, I've had a difficult time answering the question, "What are your hobbies?" It's not that I don't have any. It's just that the time I have to spend on them has pretty much disappeared. I can tell you a whole lot more about hobbies that I've enjoyed in the past or interests I'd like to pursue in the future than I can about hobbies I'm involved in right now. There are a few things outside of raising kids and household chores that I do spend a little time on. I thought I'd write a blog about each of them, as I get time.

"County counting" may not seem like much of a hobby, but I've been having fun with it. Our friend, Dan Miller, from Cincinnati introduced me to this one through his blog, Every Whatever. He's a fun-loving guy with many hobbies, some of them pretty off-the-wall. He found this website, www.mob-rule.com/counties/, that allows you to keep track of every county that you've visited. Did you know that there are 3141 counties (or county equivalents--parishes, etc.) in the United States? So far I've visited 625 of them (19.90%). Here's my map. Thanks and credit mostly go to my parents and Jeff for moving me to several states in various places across the U.S. Most of my counties I got without even trying. I do have plans to get a few more counties in Texas before we move back to Utah this summer. Then when we move we'll alter our normal Texas to Utah route just a little to get some new ones as well. Here's an interesting map of the U.S. showing which counties have been visited most frequently by "county-counters" on the website. You can have fun checking out the county-counting website to see where people have visited, or you too can be a county-counter by starting your own account following the simple instructions here.