Summer Vacation 2021

We finally took our first official family vacation this summer (technically the end of September, but we’re calling it our summer vacation), and it was mostly awesome. Hattie and Tille have been asking to go to the beach for years (basically half their lifetime) and we’ve been meaning to take them, but Covid happened and kind of ruined plans for a while. But as travel started opening up this year, we jumped on cheap flights and vacation rentals and made it happen. We started with the girls’ first airplane ride. They did great. They weren’t nearly as interested in looking out the windows as they were in working on their new sticker by number books that they got from their Michigan cousins (thanks!) and eating the amazing snacks they got from the flight attendants (granola bars!). It was such a short flight that by the time they got into their activities it was almost time to put them away. We flew to Medford, Oregon. I had no idea how tiny the airport there was. Coming from the Salt Lake airport, where we had to walk what felt like miles to get to our gate, it was so nice to walk out of our plane, straight to the rental car counter, and then right out to the parking lot in just a few steps. We got our rental car and drove away and got our bearings a little bit. We got lunch and then checked into our hotel. Then we met up with Ellie and Danny. One of the main reasons we wanted to go to Oregon was to give the girls a chance to meet Grandpa Huntwork. He’s their only living great-grandparent, and we wanted them to meet him while they still could. So we had arranged with Ellie to all meet up at her house. But when we got to her house, she said he’d been having a bad few days (Alzheimers mixed with a tooth infection) and wasn’t up to getting together. So instead we went to dinner with Ellie and Danny. It was a lot of fun. Hattie and Tille warmed right up to Danny. They thought he was super fun and we all had a great time. We agreed to try again with Grandpa when we got back to Medford at the end of the week. The next morning, we drove out to Brookings, on the coast. It was just how I remembered it from my childhood, except that now that marijuana is legal in Oregon, there were dispensaries EVERYWHERE. Literally every tiny town on the way to the coast has at least one dispensary, we passed tons of pot farms, and Brookings has a dispensary on every corner. The little towns don’t have grocery stores or gas stations, but they have their weed. So weird. When we got to Brookings we had a couple hours to kill before we could check into our beach house, so we took the girls to the beach. We hiked around a little, avoiding the waves, exploring the rocks, etc. Then Matt showed the girls how they could stand at the edge of the ocean and just get their feet wet. Matt and I found a log to sit on that was completely dry, way back from the water, clearly hadn’t been wet all day, and watched the girls get their toes licked by the water. We were about 10-20 feet behind them as the waves were coming up about toe deep on them. All of the sudden, a wave came in that was clearly bigger than the others. Matt shouted at the girls to run, and they started running, but it wasn’t enough. Where I was on the log, the water came past my knees. I watched it come up to the girls’ waists and then they disappeared under the water. I honestly thought that was it. They were going to get washed out to sea and I wasn’t going to see them again. Luckily Matt thinks faster than I do and he ran straight to where he needed to be. I don’t know how he knew where to be, but he reached into the water and came out with two tiny arms. They were dripping sand and snot and sea water and too in shock to cry just yet. Matt pulled them to dry sand and we made sure they were safe. They looked like the scene from Carrie, only instead of blood it was sand. It was so much sand. Their braids were caked in sand, their clothes were clotted in sand, and there was sand everywhere. We got them up to the parking lot where there was a little spigot and we did our best to rinse them off, but they were freezing and it hurt to rub the sand off. Since we hadn’t checked into the beach house yet we had all our luggage in the car, so Matt got dry clothes and we used some to dry them off and we changed the girls into clean clothes. Matt called the beach house managers and explained the situation and thankfully they let us in early. It was only a few minutes away so we went there and got the girls into a hot bath (filled the bath tub with SO MUCH sand) and everything was better. I vacuumed the car and car seats (so much sand) and Matt did a load of laundry (ran it through twice; even after it came out, we were dumping sand out of the clothes by the cupfuls into the garbage- so much sand). For weeks after, I had ptsd, thinking about how differently this could have turned out. It was horrible. Once they got in the bath the girls seemed fine. Almost like they had forgotten about it. For a few days afterwards they would sometimes mention the big wave, but they really don’t seem affected. The next day, Hattie told us it was her fault because she’s supposed to protect Tille. I was stunned. I had no idea she felt so protective of Tille and that she was carrying that burden. We talked about it and told her it was an accident and nobody’s fault, and she seemed ok after that. Yikes. After that, the girls still really wanted to go the beach, but only to build sand castles. They had no interest in going anywhere near the water. Our beach house was awesome. It was a ways away from the ocean, up on the top of the mountain of Brookings overlooking everything. We’d get deer in the yard in the morning, we could see ships coming in at night, we had a perfect view of the ocean. It was great. We spent the rest of the week going up and down the coast doing whatever we wanted. One day we went to a little beach with a lighthouse and tons of seashells. It was too windy to even talk, so we collected sea shells and then left and kept driving up the coast to Coos Bay, where we found a great little German restaurant. We had the best chocolate cake there. Amazing. Another day we went to the redwood forest and stopped on the way back at ‘Mystery of the Trees’. It’s a privately owned part of the forest where they’ve built a network of suspension bridges that you can walk through. It’s so high that you can see the ocean from it, even though you’re miles inland. It also had a gondola that we rode from the bottom to the top of the mountain and hung out for a little while. At the end, there was a little museum about Native Americans who used to live in the area. It was pretty cool. And it had gigantic Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox statues in the parking lot. Another day we found an all-year Christmas store and let the girls each choose a Christmas ornament. Hattie got a mermaid and Tille got a jellyfish. Then we found a hike (Farrelo Point) that took us through a dark forest out to a grassy point that’s high above the ocean but surrounded on 3 sides by the ocean. It’s supposed to be a great whale-watching site, but we didn’t see any. That was my favorite day. Another day we went to another spot (Stout Grove) in the redwoods that has only become well-known in the last few years. You drive through a tiny village of cabins to get there. It’s on a tiny dirt road and makes you feel as big a bug. Even the ferns are as big as your car, and the trees are gigantic! I think this is the area where Star Wars was filmed. We walked through the forest and came out to the Smith River, where a group of kayakers was just leaving on what looked like an all day trip. It was really pretty. The girls loved throwing rocks and leaves in the river. One night we went to a seafood place on Brookings Harbor. Matt and I each got fish and chips and Hattie got a corn dog. Tille decided she was going to try something new and got fish and chips too. She loved it! At least the chips part. She tried the fish and declared she loved it, and even ordered it again a few days later at a different restaurant. Now she’ll tell anybody who asks that she loves fish and chips. Another night we went to a sushi restaurant. Such good sushi. It was so good Matt left an online review, and that’s saying something. But it was like nobody in that restaurant had ever seen twins before. I took the girls to the bathroom and everybody stared and adored them the whole way there and back. It was weird. We get a little of that everywhere we go always, but it was EVERYBODY in the restaurant. That’s weird. But still, good sushi. The girls had stir fry, and we had to bribe them with a shake to eat it. Matt and I got peach cobbler for dessert (also great), but we decided to go through the McDonald’s drive-thru for a shake after for the girls. We waited in line for 20 minutes. Once we got to the order, the same lady was taking orders and payments. No wonder it was a long wait! And everybody working there was of retirement age! And the weird thing was, that was kind of standard throughout Brookings. It was fairly obvious that the labor market is in short supply there. Oregon still has the law that you can’t pump your own gas. One day we waited half an hour for somebody to pump our gas because there were about 15-20 cars waiting and only one person working the pumps. It was nuts! Another weird thing about Oregon was the mask laws. The Oregon governor has mandated a new mask law, requiring masks indoors everywhere, and anytime we were within 6 feet of people outside. Everywhere we went we wore a mask and the workers told us we didn’t need to do that there. Sometimes the ‘there’ referred to their city, their store, restaurant, etc, but it was everywhere. Everybody was ignoring the law. Except at church. Everybody wore a mask at church, and they announced that they were going to start primary in two weeks, for the first time in 1 ½ years. That was surprising to me. Our last day in Oregon we drove back towards Medford and stayed in a log cabin in Grants Pass. It was kind of a bed and breakfast type place, where everybody has their own cabin. It was so much fun. It was right on the Rogue River, so we walked along that at night. Then they gave us hot cookies and milk before bedtime. In the morning we had a good breakfast and then headed for the airport. We tried Grandpa again, but Ellie said he was at a point where visitors just leave him upset, so it’s better if we stay away. Overall it was a fantastic vacation. Besides a few minutes of absolute terror, we all had a really great time. When we got home, the girls went around the neighborhood delivering sea shells to various people as souvenirs. It was pretty sweet.

Summer 2021

I'm super duper behind on blog posts. Partly because the computer I used to use was Matt's old laptop and it's gone the way of all the world. We have a computer downstairs that I could use, but our internet stopped working a few months ago and when we changed internets, the downstairs computer can't find the new network, so Matt's work computer is the only computer in the house that recognizes the internet, and he's usually working on it when I'm home with free time, so no blogging. But today is Labor Day, so I have time! And a whole summer of blogging to catch up on. Let's see how much I can remember. I have a feeling it won't be much. A month or so ago we took the girls to Lagoon for the first time. We've been thinking of getting season passes for Christmas, but they're still scared of splash pads, so we weren't sure if Lagoon would be doable. We picked a great day for it. It was the first day that the air was really smokey, so it was overcast and didn't get too hot. And for some reason it wasn't crowded. There weren't really any lines until about 2:30 or 3. We got there right when it opened and went straight to the kiddie rides. Tille was a little nervous so I rode the first ride with them, but after that, they were great. They went on most of the kiddie rides and had a blast. We stayed until about 4 and they walked all over the park and never complained and just had fun. It was kind of a bummer spending that much money to go on/watch kiddie rides all day when the roller coasters were so close, but it was still a great day. Now the girls ask all the time if we can go back to Lagoon. A few weeks ago we went through a special rite of passage. I was making dinner and Matt was working at the table and the girls were playing in the living room. All of the sudden, Hattie started screaming and crying that she had a bead up her nose. She had put a little bead in her nose and couldn't get it out. Matt tried to get her to blow it out but she didn't understand and kept sniffling and we were afraid it was getting higher. We were all freaking out. I went over and asked which nostril it was in. I had her close the other nostril and then told her to blow as hard as she could. The bead shot across the carpet and it was over. We had a lecture about putting things in noses and hopefully that episode is over. Three or so weeks ago we were all excited about going to our first cousin camp! The Michigan cousins were in town, and we were going to play at one of the aunt's house and it was going to be so fun. The aunt even had a bounce house for the day, but I was keeping that a secret from Hattie and Tille so they'd have an extra surprise when we got there. They'd been looking forward to this day for a very long time. Halfway there Hattie said her stomach was hurting. We had just hit road construction and stop and go traffic, so I thought maybe she was carsick. We pulled over and took a break in a church parking lot for a few minutes. She didn't look sick, but she still said her stomach was bad. After a little bit she said she was ok to go again. But after just a few more minutes she said her stomach was bloated (where on earth did she learn that word?!) and she was making gurgling noises, so we got off the next exit. We parked in a bank parking lot and played for a few minutes, and then Hattie said she wanted to go home. She seemed fine, but if she was willing to miss cousin camp, she must've really been bad, so I called Matt to come pick her up. We waited a while and then he came and got her. All this while, Tille never gave a hint that she might be off. So Tille and I waved at Matt and Hattie as they drove away, and then we continued on our way to Salt Lake. When we were about 5 minutes from out destination I turned around to say something to Tille just in time to see her projectile vomit all over herself and the back seat. I was shocked into silence. We drove the rest of the way to cousin camp. When we got there, I didn't even know how to get Tille out of the car. Everything was gooey. I finally got her out, but then she didn't want to go to the door. She was embarassed to go to the door looking like that. So she hid while I got an adult to come help me. I hosed Tille off in the backyard while Aunt Christy hosed off the carseat and car. Then Tille put on her swimsuit and played for a few minutes before she asked for a nap. She went upstairs to watch a movie and relax and I did the crafts that the cousins were supposed to do. Matt texted to say Hattie had slept all the way home and threw up all over the couch as soon as they got there. A few minutes later, Tille came downstairs with a bowl full of throwup, so then we left. She threw up two more times on the way home. One of them splattered the windshield, from the back seat. And she continued through the afternoon. Matt and I took advantage of the girls having no appetite and got sushi that night. All in all, it was a disgusting day with a good dinner. One night, maybe even the throw up night, though that has nothing to do with this story, I was wearing a shirt that says 'Vintage 1980', referring to the year of my birth. Hattie asked what it said and I told her, and she said, with a very disgusted face, "Oooohhhhhh, that is really long...". Yep. Thanks kid. This week we took the girls to their preschool open house to meet their teachers. It was a lot of fun and I think it got them a little over their nervousness to start school. Matt and I were standing at the edge of the playground looking around and we realized we were, without competition, the oldest parents there. In several cases we were almost old enough to be the parents of the parents. There were a few people older than us, but I heard each of them say they were the kids' grandparents. So I guess that's what we'll be experiencing for the next 13 years. And now I'll try to describe the pictures. 1-2. The girls were posing at Provo River Falls in the Uintahs this weekend 3. The boys stopped coming to the babysitters' house at the beginning of the summer. Hattie and Tille have been missing them, and sometimes Hattie walks around the house saying 'I miss (boy's name)'. As a little surprise, the babysitter arranged to have the boys come on the girls' birthday, and they had a tiny birthday party. Hattie and Tille love it! They were so happy. I talked to the babysitter's mom at church the day before and she said she felt like she was running a toddler dating service. 4. At the beginning of the summer Matt kept meaning to go get a haircut but he could never find time. He finally ordered an electric razor and had me shave his head. I took full advantage of the situation. I still laugh every time I see this picture. I shaved it again this weekend and did it the other way, starting at the edges and leaving it long on top. It looked pretty good and would've passed as a real hairstyle. 5. The girls had their first official playdate a couple months ago with the kids of one of my friends in the ward. It was 2 girls and 2 boys. By the end, Tille was cuddling with the oldest boy. Not sure how I feel about this. 6. Just trying out some of Matt's cabin equipment. 7. Tille and Hattie and I have been trying out some of the trails around Ogden this summer. This is one of the trailheads. 8. We took the girls fishing at the trout farm in North Ogden. Matt grew up just down the street from there and used to go there all the time on his own. My Grandpa Glauser used to take us fishing there all the time too. So it was special to both of us and we wanted them to know it too. We all had a good time. Both girls caught 2 fish. 9-10. One night in July Matt's work had a networking night at the zoo. We got there right at closing time, had a catered dinner, and then had the whole zoo almost to ourselves (just Matt's company and the few other companies involved). We had unlimited rides on the train and merry-go-round, sea lion shows, we could feed the giraffes, basically anything. The girls were only interested in the merry-go-round, so we did that several times and then walked around a little. It was about 1000 degrees, so we didn't do much, but it was still a lot of fun. Now Tille tells us she wants to go to the zoo because she liked the dinner. I hope she doesn't expect that every time. 11. Another hike. 12-13- One night Tille got really excited about a home evening craft. She wanted to make Joseph and Mary and Baby Jesus and she was talking about cutting and gluing and taping and I was getting really nervous. But we told her we'd do it if she told us how. In the end, she just wanted to draw pictures on big paper. Each girl drew pictures of the nativity and then we showed each other when they were done. It was really fun and cute. 14-15. Earlier this summer the girls were learning 'I Know That My Redeemer Lives' in primary. That day after church at Matt's mom's house their boy cousins came over and the girls took them out to the backyard, made them sit on the porch, and taught them a primary lesson and led them in the song over and over. It was pretty cute. They really love primary. 16. Posing on their favorite neighborhood rock. 17-18. We went on the carousel at Lagoon. It stopped when we were at the very highest point. Matt's not a huge fan of heights so he was holding firmly with both hands and not thrilled that I was posing with the girls. 19-20. The girls on the swings at Lagoon and Tille on the merry-go-round. She really wanted to ride on the tiny bear. 21. For the first time EVER, the girls had fun at a splash pad. We went with their Michigan cousins, and I think that was the ticket to having fun. They just needed to have other people to have fun with. 22. I got home from work the other day and Tille had drawn this picture on the deck in chalk. She said it's me when they were both in my tummy (you have to look sideways at it). 23-27. 4th birthday! For their party, we had a pizza party, a treasure hunt in the basement, a pinata, and cake and ice cream. Hattie had a blue Elsa cake and Tille had a pink Aurora (sleeping beauty) cake. It was a lot of fun. We had 11 kids over and lots of grown ups. 28. The girls are just being weird. 29. The girls got aprons for their birthday from Grandma T, and they love wearing them to help me cook. Matt and I got them an easy bake oven, and they love cooking little things. 30-31. The preschool where the girls are going has yearbooks from when Jacob and I went there. Crazy! 32-33. Our annual family picture at Provo River Falls. 34. Grandpa Glauser took the girls on a ride in the side by side at the cabin, and they loved it! They keep telling us it was their favorite thing at the cabin this time around!

April, May, June 2021

Oh man, I was reading through my notes that I take to write about in my blog, and some of them are so old. I need to write more often! So, update on Hattie’s boyfriend at the babysitter’s house: she was always telling us about her boyfriend and how she had told him he was her boyfriend, but we were only getting her side of the story, so we had no idea what he thought of the whole thing. Matt works a little bit with his dad; he handles the insurance policies for some of Matt’s HOA communities. So they were talking on the phone one day and the dad mentioned that his kid came home from babysitting and said that Hattie was his girlfriend. They asked if he could tell Hattie and Tille apart, and he said no, but he knew she was the one in the blue shirt that day. We all got a pretty good laugh at that! Hattie doesn’t talk about her boyfriend nearly as much anymore. Usually Tille and Hattie are both just happy when the boys (and sometimes their sister) are at the babysitter’s house to play, but they don’t gush like they used to. Matt had a work party at Boondocks last week and these friends were there, but Hattie absolutely didn’t want to play with them. She said later she’s shy around their parents. So that’s that. For months (almost ever since we transitioned to beds from cribs), at bedtime we’d read to the girls in bed, then we’d say a prayer and cuddle until the girls fell asleep. Sometimes it’d be 10 minutes, sometimes 30, there was no telling. One night, Matt was cuddling with Hattie and I was with Tille, and out of the blue Matt said, “Ok, we’re going to go, good night.” Hattie said, “Ok Daddy”. He gave Hattie a kiss, then came over and gave Tille a kiss. I pretended to be in on it, and followed his lead. I gave them each a goodnight kiss and got out of there. I was shocked! I didn’t know we could do that. But it worked! Hattie and Tille just accepted it! Matt said he figured we may as well try. Note- we had tried before, but Hattie always rebelled and demanded more cuddles. Anyway, it was amazing. Ever since, we’re about 50/50 on getting out of there on the first try. Sometimes Hattie needs to come out because she remembered she needs something (usually she’ll meander through her toy shelf before finding a ball or sunglasses or something that she absolutely can’t sleep without and then go back to bed); sometimes one of them is thirsty; sometimes one of them needs more cuddles. But sometimes they actually go to sleep on the first try and it’s glorious. One morning as I was getting ready for work, the girls were sitting on my bed. After I got dressed, in an outfit I’ve worn many, many times (green shirt, black pants), I said, ‘How does this look?” Hattie said, ‘No’. I asked what was wrong with it, and she said ‘The whole thing, the outfit doesn’t match,’ and Tille said ‘hair, just hair’. She couldn’t even put into words how bad it was. And the attitude they said it with! They were waving their hands in my general direction with disgust, as if they couldn’t believe somebody would have the audacity to think this was an acceptable presentation. I told them I didn’t have time to change and I left, and then I laughed all the way to work. We had a repeat of this experience a couple weeks later when Hattie was disgusted with my gray pants and blue shirt. This coming from somebody who wears two pairs of underpants outside her jeans. I guess they know what they’re talking about. We started back with 2 hour church about a month ago and the girls are loving it! They finally get to go to big kid primary. Their sunbeam class is them and three boys. On the first week, Tille volunteered to say the opening prayer in Sharing Time, in front of all the kids, and the next week Hattie did. Their teacher said they’re really good and attentive and sweet. They get so excited to go to primary. Yesterday they had a cold. We decided to go to sacrament meeting and sit in the foyer and see how they did. We told them ahead of time we might leave before primary if they were too sick, and we made sure to tell them they weren’t in trouble or anything. About 2/3 of the way through, they were both coughing really bad and their noses were really runny. Matt whispered to Hattie that she wouldn’t be able to go to primary, just to prepare her, and she got so sad. Her little chin was trembling and she spent the next several minutes just sobbing into Matt’s chest, but silently. She loves primary so much. It was so sweet. We signed the girls up to start preschool in the fall. A lot of the kids in our neighborhood go to The Little Red Schoolhouse. That’s where I went, so I couldn’t imagine it was still around, but it is! It’s the same place! They had a registration open house a couple months ago, and it looked a lot different, but also very familiar. The owner/teacher asked how we’d heard of it, and I told her I’d gone there, so she pulled out the yearbook from my year, and I found my picture. It was so cool! Anyway, we got the girls signed up and they couldn’t be more excited. They’ll be going Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons. Based on their readiness, the teacher recommended them for the older class. Which means they’ll probably start kindergarten the following year and be the youngest in their class. Other than age, they’re almost ready for kindergarten now. So it didn’t make sense to hold them back. The only reason we would hold them back is so I could have my kids be kids an extra year. Which I think is a pretty good reason. But I don’t want them getting bored, so fine. I’ll let them grow up. And now pictures: 1. I think I already included this picture in another post. But blogger makes it so hard to edit pictures, so I'm including it again. 2. The girls love posing on this rock in our neighborhood. It's on the next block over. 3. We got a kite and the girls figured out how to fly it really quickly. They took turns flying it across the park one day. 4. Hattie and Tille still love trying on my shoes. 5. One morning before the girls had come out of their room at all, I heard their feet hit the floor and then I heard a rustle, and then they came out looking like this, ready for the day. 6. The last few pictures are at Matt's work party at Boondocks. The girls rode the race cars and bumper boats with Aunt Julie and Aunt Maryann. They had a blast.