Sweetheart?

Have you ever been called "sweetheart" or "sweetie" by someone, not a friend or family member, and you know they really mean "stupid"? As in "Sweetie, could you please stop kicking the back of my chair?" Translation, "If you are too dumb to not know that kicking someone's chair is annoying, then I will pretend to tell you nicely." A teacher at school called me sweetie, and I knew she really meant "stupid." I should have kicked the back of her chair!

Idaho-Part II

After escaping the (potential) axe murder in Lava Hot Springs, we rolled along up the state to visit my grandma. Grandma is 97 and has a better mind than I do. I can't remember last week (which may be a good thing). She can remember details and dates like none other. We had a good time visiting with her and my aunt and uncle. My aunt fed us a delicious lunch, and we watched the afternoon session of conference. Although, my late night (almost) conversation with the drunks made me doze off during some of the talks. (Hey, what are the odds of using the words "drunks" and "conference" in the same paragraph?)

After conference we decided to check into our hotel so Curt and Kevin would have time to get to the Priesthood Session. The hotel was nice; the main feature we loved was that the bathroom had a door! After Curt and Kevin left, we went down to check out the pool and get some pool towels. Several children were swimming and enjoying the pool. Even though the hotel was fairly new, I thought the pool had seen some wear and tear. Otherwise, why were so many deep brown gouges scattered around the bottom of the pool? They couldn't possibly be...? No, if that were true then the culprit would surely have told a parent who would have warned everyone to get out! I offered to come right back and take Camille and Rachel swimming, but bless their precious little hearts they wanted to wait for Kevin. That sisterly love saved us all from a horrible fate! Krysta went for a walk an hour later and came back to tell us that the pool was closed for several hours. Only one thing closes a pool for hours folks! The poor maintenance man.

But the evening wasn't lost yet. The Easter Bunny had brought an early present, Princess and the Frog on dvd. We decided to watch it in the room. But our dvd player didn't work. We gave up and went to bed for a well deserved rest. Unfortunately, the words "rest" and "family vacation" are not meant to be used in a sentence. Erin had woken up that morning with an earache that got progressively worse during the day. I spent the night giving her tylenol and warm washcloths to put on her ear. Kevin was at the end of a cold and spent the night expelling mucus from his lungs. Huckaloogie! Huckaloogie! all night long. Just as I was falling into a deep sleep the alarm (which we did not set-we are on VACATION) proceeded to ring at 6:30 am! Curt turned it off, but apparently only hit the snooze. Ten minutes later it blared again. We had to turn the light on to get it all the way off. Welcome Easter Morning!

The good thing was the Easter Bunny came!

All of the girls received crystal pendants that are the same kind of crystals used in the Draper Temple chandelier. Later, I had to reassure Camille that they hadn't been taken FROM the temple. They were just from the same manufacturer. I could tell she wondered if I had reached up (15 feet) and snagged a few crystals.

At least the hotel breakfast was good. After a night like we had we really needed something more filling than pastries, and they had eggs, bacon, and waffles. The plan was to eat, watch conference, and head for home. In another of our series of unfortunate events, channel 5 no longer worked. We watched the news the night before. How could this be? (I later found out it was on another local station, but that didn't help us then.) We went to say good bye to grandma and hurried home hoping to catch the afternoon session on TV at home. However, judging from the painful moaning from the back seat, we knew we had to find a doctor. We stopped in Ogden where Erin was diagnosed with an inner AND outer ear infection. We haven't dealt with ear infections for, oh years and years, but why not this weekend? After we got Erin drugged up with antibiotics and lortab (which didn't help her pain much) we finally made it to home, sweet, home. Spring Break 2010--Good bye!

(P.S. I mentioned to the hotel clerk that our stay was not the best. The alarm going off was the straw that broke the mother's back. Even though some of it was not their fault (they can't help that other people have crappy kids), the manager called me the next day to offer a free nights stay. Idaho-Part III? Here we go again.)

The Griswolds...er, Grafs go to Idaho

We headed out on Friday to Lava Hot Springs. It's only 2 1/2 hours from home, so it's the perfect short vacation spot. We had reservations at Cascade Villa, a two room, two bathroom condo. Sounds nice, right? Well, I've learned that anyplace that has a website, but no pictures is one to be cautious of. Our first clue came when we could not find the place. The business area of Lava Hot Springs is only about 6 blocks long, so how hard could it be? Krysta even managed to get an address from her iTouch. Still no luck. We were at the address, but no "villa" appeared. We asked at several other motels, but no one could give us a clue. Finally I asked a clerk at one of the stores; she led us to another store, Mountain Mayhem, about a block away to check in. Mountain Mayhem? Cascade Villa? Oh sure, those sound alike. We were told the "villa" was in the second story of the building across the street. From the front, it looked like it could be old-fashioned and charming.

From the back entrance, it just looked old and scary.

It was actually quite spacious, with a large kitchen with a very nice refrigerator. I coveted that fridge, but I wondered why they would spend money on such a nice fridge; I would have replaced the 1950's sofas first.

There were, however, a few interesting features. The bathrooms didn't have doors, just these screens that were meant to be placed across the bathroom openings at the appropriate time.

These stairs were much darker than in the picture, and Camille told me that someone could come up them at night to kidnap us.

My first thought, which I didn't share with the kids, was also to envision a crazed ax murderer coming up these stairs from the abandoned shop below. I told Camille that Kevin would save her.

Rachel told me she found this hiding spot while searching for mice.
I had also wondered about the possibility of mice, since there was a open vent from one of the bedrooms leading into the walls of the building. I didn't share that thought with anyone either; Rachel came up with it on her own. We both would have been excited to see a mouse, but for entirely different reasons. Fortunately, there was no evidence (other than the decon under the kitchen sink) of mice.

Ignoring the kitchen at our "villa", we ate burgers at Fat Jack's with their old fashioned candy machine and 10 year old grandson as the cashier. The burgers were so good, we came back later for more.

We very much enjoyed the hot springs. It was so relaxing and not cold at all to walk between the different pools.



The top pool is 112 degrees with the lower of the three pools being 102 degrees. Those 10 degrees make a difference. The top pool was really hot, while the bottom one was merely warm. The middle one was our favorite.

Upon returning to our "villa" we soon found that while the "villa" had beds for 6, it only had shower water for 2. After the first two quick showers, we had to wait several hours for the water to heat up. Rachel and Camille learned this the hard way as the warm water ran out in the middle of their showers. Poor girls, got all toasty warm in the hot pots and then froze in our room.

One of the good things about our "villa" was that the bedding was very clean and the beds were comfortable. Curt and I had the "master bedroom" at the front of the building.

We didn't need a nightlight because there was a big streetlight right outside our window which the blinds did almost nothing to darken. Nevertheless, I managed to sleep really well until 2:00 a.m. when the bar down the street apparently closed and all the drunks loudly stumbled out to find their cars. "Do you want to fight?" one guy asked another. "Sure, ha, ha ha," the other guy replied. All of their approximately 15 drunk friends joined the conversation. I probably could have made a comment and the single pane window would have done nothing to dampen my voice. But in case, one of them knew about the stairs leading up from the abandoned store, I kept quiet.

The next morning we found several inches of snow on the ground. We ate breakfast at the Chuckwagon cafe. The pie we had there the night before was so good, the kids had more for breakfast along with their all-you-can-eat buffets. It was greasy, cheesy, buttery, and fattening. Cafe food at its best. In our less than 24 hours in town, we'd pumped more than our fair share into the local economy. Whoever thinks Idaho is a cheap vacation would be mistaken. We watched an hour of conference, said farewell to the "villa" and headed to see my grandma. Stay tuned for Idaho-Part II wherein we discover our hotel pool is actually a cesspool, Erin requires Lortab, Kevin joins the Wannahuckaloogie club, and our TV rejects conference!

Mother Nature's April Fools

First day of Spring Break in northern Utah.

Guess where we are going to escape all of this cold and snow?... Idaho.

Pack your winter gear kids...we're on Spring Break!