The Selfie Newbie

While on our Utah trip, Our Dear Goose fell in love with selfies. In a sure sign that she is growing up, Goose liked to borrow a grown-up's iPhone and take selfies more than most any other activity, though she was really doing well at learning card games, too, during this trip. 

Here are a few of Goose's selfies:

18 Months Old

Our Baby Grouse turned 18 months old while he was in Utah. Here he is, stepping through the small fountains and sprinklers in the beautiful City Creek development in downtown Salt Lake. Isn't he a cute little dude? He had been super-clingy to me for our 3-day visit with the Parke family at their home in Las Vegas, and remained glued to my side for the first few days that we were staying at Grandma and Grandpa's house north of Salt Lake City. But after about a week, Grouse chilled out and was able to be apart from me for small stretches of time. 

One of my favorite memories of this trip was throwing plastic balls or tennis balls up and down Grandma and Grandpa's basement staircase with Grouse. He loved this daily activity with me, and he'd stand at the top of the stairs and squeal when a ball softly bonked him on the head or bounced off his splayed-on-the-ground body. Good fun!

Mouse at the Salt Lake Temple

Mouse in front of the Salt Lake Temple, late July. I love this picture of my look-alike and wish I had been able to be at Temple Square with our family, instead of seeing their visit through photos. I was already back home in Boston. Ten years earlier, Mouse's mommy and daddy had been married in this very temple.  

Zonked

Our first full weekend in Utah (and my only full weekend there, as I left about 11 days before the rest of my family returned to Boston on July 28th), Grandma and Grandpa threw a family reunion of sorts in Park City. It was a great, chaotic, and memorable time, with great weather and plenty of cousin-time for our kids. Here, the youngest grandchild takes a snooze in the arms of one of the oldest grandchildren, who was soon to enter the MTC. 

Thanks for letting Baby Grouse take a much-needed nap, Elder Ross, and for giving Grouse's dad a little break!

Uncle Matt's Scooter

Unquestionably one of our kids' most carefree and spontaneous moments from our month-long visit to Utah in July: Going for a spin on Uncle Matt's scooter! We met up with Matt, Jenny, and their boys G and H at the annual Kaysville 4th of July pancake breakfast, which precedes one of the longest, most down-home and full-of-Americana 4th of July parades.

Mouse:

Goose:

Moose:

Grouse:

Too Young, Son

Friday, July 3rd, 2015: We left Las Vegas at 10 a.m., got stuck in an hour-long traffic jam in northwestern Arizona (does it count for crossing that state off my "visited states" list if I only drove through it for 60+ minutes?), lost an hour due to the time zone change, and pushed on all the way to northern Utah in one day. 

6 people, 1 DVD player (worth its weight in gold), 4 kids 8 and under, 6+ bathroom stops, 0 accidents (thank the heavens), 6 Mormon temples seen (including stopping at the Las Vegas and St. George temples), and Dear Old Dad rockin' 1 stylish pair of dark black compression socks to help my circulation on the 10-hour drive. 

Meanwhile, somewhere near La Verkin or Hurricane (pronounced "heriken" or something like that) or Kanarraville, we pulled off the highway in mid-afternoon for gasoline. This is where Our Mighty Moose got disappointed, because he desperately wanted to help me pump gas. Instead, he got to wash the mini-van's windows. 

Small consolation.  

On Top of...

...the Hoover Dam! We Wilson Warriors set out from our good friends' the Parke's home in Las Vegas on July 1st to hit the sights in the early morning. Our first morning in Nevada, I checked the external temperature while sitting in our mini-van at about 7:45 a.m. It read 92 degrees. Not even before eight o'clock! 92 degrees in Boston would be extremely hot, and usually a high reached around mid-afternoon. 

So, with three parents and seven kids in tow, our stop at the Hoover Dam on this scorching day proved to be mercifully short. Maybe we'll go back in a springtime or fall some other year. Still, despite the heat and the slow hike to the top, our kids were troopers. 

I stayed off the scenic overlook bridge because I was carrying Baby Grouse and had extremely unpleasant images flashing through my mind of him wiggling free of my clutches while we were walking across or pausing on the footbridge. Plus, there's an interstate that runs right alongside the footbridge, and with its high winds, the height of the footbridge, the rumble of trucks, and the gaggle of tourists, it was all sensory overload. 

Our visit made me want to learn more about this engineering marvel, though. It is staggering to consider all of the planning and work that went in to creating such a massive, durable, and long-lasting project. Plus, I got another national park stamp in my passbook from this visit, so that counts for something big in my book!

Government Mule

Ever since kids came on the scene at Chez TimBeck6 in 2007, yours truly has become the [sometimes self-appointed, sometimes not] packer/un-packer and loader/un-loader of all of our belongings upon departure and arrival. 

Becky and I agreed on the nickname "Government Mule" for me in these situations. It wasn't until this morning, as I started this post and looked up the origins of the phrase, that I realized our use of this term is not in-line with its actual origin and usage. 

Anyhow, whatever...we're still sticking with me as ye olde Government Mule, a sobriquet that you'll rightfully acknowledge is apt after you take a gander at the below photo:

This is me, dead-tired and at patience's end, after our family of six flew from Boston to St. Louis and then on to steamy (figuratively and literally) Las Vegas at the end of June. We were there to see some great friends, the Parke family, almost one year to the day since they had moved away from Boston. 

The entire Las Vegas trip is a post (or three) screaming for my time and attention. But this Government Mule had already flown 2,500 miles with 4 kids and an extraordinarily patient wife. Then we got slapped by 115-degree heat every time we left an enclosed structure (like the airplane, the airport, the car rental office, the parking lot), and jet-lagged and feeling like it was 8 p.m. when clocks in Vegas told us it wasn't even time for dinner. But it's a dry heat, they say. 

Word of advice: Don't ever say such nonsense to a middle-aged, slightly overweight dude who is this close to using toothpicks to keep his eyelids open and just traversed nearly the entire continental United States with four kids under 8, and is hungry, and is dead-tired, and still has miles to go before we eat, unpack, get said four kids to bed, catch up with friends, and crash. 

Vegas...Never again in summer. This Government Mule felt whipped like a real government mule from back in the day! 

Intensity

Check out the look of steely determination on Our Mighty Moose's face as he steers an antique automobile around an amusement park track. Maybe white-knuckle Boston driver attitude is a case of nature versus nurture? Is it hereditary? Is he predestined to be a stereotypical Boston driver?

Headgear

Our family life would be immeasurably more boring, more staid, more routine, without Our Little Mouse. Where her sister and brothers simply saw an empty cardboard frame that once housed a soccer ball and moved on to other toys, Mouse saw opportunity and hilarity. She keeps us laughing. 

At a time of family life when the routines (meal-time, bed-time, chores, school) make the days and nights too often blend together in a blur of sameness, Mouse's approach to creating fun is, 

literally, 

outside the box.

New Wheels

Days after Becky and our kids returned from their month-long vacation in Utah, my parents took our three oldest kids for a multi-night overnighter. As much as I had missed our family for the 11 days we were apart (I had to return home from Utah before my family did), I have to admit that it felt great to connect with just Becky and Our Baby Grouse for a couple days. See, when we all were in Utah, there were so many people around at any one time: cousins, grandparents, brothers- and sisters-in-law. 

We always had many people to talk and hang out with, which was awesome and exactly what we hoped for during this vacation. It was an awesome opportunity, with more time than on any prior Utah visit, to catch up with our western family.

It also meant that Becky and I had few opportunities for one-on-one time. I also felt that way about our kids. We were all together a lot, but didn't really deeply connect much. So, these few days and nights when it was just the three of us were pretty cool. Becky thoroughly cleaned our home, re-organized our attic and basement, got rid of a slew of little kids' stuff (she wisely did this while I was at work, because otherwise my nostalgia barometer would have spiked and I may have strongly suggested that we keep that 10-foot-wide, barely used plastic doll house, for example). 

And here is Our Baby Grouse, riding in a Home Depot shopping cart with two plastic steering wheels. He didn't seem to miss his older brother and sisters. The previous time they were gone, Grouse kept toddling into their bedroom and looked around for them. Not this time. He also played with two neighborhood boys, who visited daily. Grouse got loads of one-on-one time with us, which is an extremely rare occurrence for our 18-month-old. 

If he could tell you so, he'd probably say he had a great few days hanging out with just us.    

There's a First Time for Everything

...and Uncle Matt captured the very first moment when Our Mighty Moose saw and heard the Chipmunks. 

Matt took this photo in his finished, multi-room basement (of which I have major home envy) in July, when we were in Utah for a month of cousin- and grandparents-time. Moose had an absolute blast hanging out with Matt and Jenny's boys, who share a feverish passion with Moose for Legos, superheroes, and costumes. 

He wishes we could go back right now.

18 Months!

Our Baby Grouse turned 18 months old recently. He hit the milestone while he was in Utah with Becky, his siblings, his cousins, his grandparents, etc., while I was home after spending 2 weeks out West with our brood. Above, this is his happy face at his very first Red Sox game, the Saturday after Becky and our kids flew home. It was blazing hot, until the clouds rolled in, and then the weather was perfect for a day ballgame--about 75 degrees, partly cloudy. I am recording the minutiae of the day because it was a milestone for Grouse--his first time in historic Fenway Park, and without our blog, he won't remember or know anything about his time there. 

Grouse's vocabulary is slowly growing. He started becoming more vocal while in Utah. Here are most of the words he can say right now:

Ma-ma

Da-da

[His brother's real first name]

Yes!

Ya!

Shoe/shoes

A-en [that is as close as he gets to "amen"]

He's a cute little dude, even when he is love-sick for me and no one else will suffice. When his daddy love-sick fever crests the 100-degree mark, not even Becky can hold him or comfort him. It's been tiring, but I think the love-sick fever is starting to break, which is good news for me and for Grouse. 

And I can't resist one glamour shot of our little 18-month-old, in the bleachers at Fenway: