SLC - ATL

Well, Allen and I are having a great time while our kids are having a great time at Grandma Camp. They were VERY excited to get going with Grandma Camp. We kept hearing, "Grandma, when does Grandma Camp start?" The word was that as soon as the parents left it would start - so they gave us the boot. It was good to see them so anxious for the fun to begin.

Allen and I drove down to SLC that day. We were only going to drive part of the way and took our time stopping here and there. I fell asleep and just like Allen's style - he just kept going. We got to SLC at 4 am. Ugh! What a terrible time to arrive somewhere. We were getting a little worried because every hotel we went to was full. Finally though we pulled into The Dream Inn. They had a room!! Yea!! It was probably the nastiest hotel room I've ever seen though! I had to take a picture of it just for memory's sake. I was a little afraid to take my shoes off. The carpet was probably from 1942 - but the bed was good!! They had a really nice soaker tub - but the stop wouldn't work so we couldn't use it. The shower had so much water pressure it actually hurt to shower! It was unbelievable. There was a bar of soap in there from a Howard Johnson hotel (do hotels steal soap from each other?) We had a good laugh over that place.

We spent the day on Wednesday hanging around in Salt Lake. We walked around downtown and around temple square. Allen enjoyed thinking up dumb questions to ask people. We had lunch in the Joseph Smith Memorial building. This picture is taken from a window in the waiting area at the restaurant up on one of the top floors. To the right of the temple you can see the new Conference Center. I'd never seen it before so that was fun. We also did a little shopping and generally just had a lazy day there. My goal was to see a General Authority that day. As we were leaving temple square Sherri Dew passed us. I figured she was close enough to a General Authority. :0) LOL

Wednesday night we flew from SLC to Atlanta for Primerica company convention. We're having a great time here. Our hotel is beautiful (quite a change from our SLC hotel!) and we're having a great time running into old friends. Today we went to some workshops and learned a lot. Tonight there's a big general session in the Georgia Dome. They figure there will be about 60,000 people there. As you can imagine it gets a little crazy!! They gave all the canadian agents and partners whitles - so whenever anyone from Canada speaks or gets mentinoed or is in a video or gets an award all the Canadians blow their whistles. Let me tell you, it's a little loud!! Not sure if we'll make that much of an impact in a crowd of 60,000 people though. There are about 8000 people from Canada. Should be interesting!!

Day Number Three

We went down to Warner today to the Dinosaur dig. It was HOT!!! HOT!!! HOT!!! They warned us that it would be 10 - 15 degrees hotter at the bottom of the ravine as it was 45 degrees in Warner. It was a little too hot for my liking and I was very happy to be finished when we were. It was very exciting though and the kids loved it. They got to make impressions of dinosaur feet in the museum and they saw all kinds of rocks and things that are remnants of dinosaur bones. They say dino eggs and a replica of a baby dinosaur in an egg. They even learned that a certain type of dirt that was in there is used in soft ice cream to make it smooth. I asked them if they wanted a soft ice cream cone when we got back to town and they all said, no way.

We stopped in Stirling and they had hard ice cream with the money that Great Grandpa Jensen gave them this morning. He came to pick up some photos from me and gave them some money for them to buy ice cream after the dino dig.

Tonight Nelson's van started just fine. GRRRRrrrrrrr. The silly thing. We think the battery was just run down but it really didn't sound like that when it wouldn't start yesterday. So we will use the rental van for another day and take it back on Saturday. Gayle will take the Nelson's van to work to see how it works. I wouldn't want to be stranded miles from home with five kids and a vehicle that won't work.

Tonight Jordan was the dinner helper. We made tacas and nachos. He did a really good job. Then we all went to the hotel for a dip in the pool. Once again I am pooped. The kids all seem to be going strong. Poor old Grandma needs her rest.

Sorry Guys

I think I KINDA goofed on this post. I am in a rush as we are off to Warner today to see the Dinosaur Dig. Pictures are posted wonky and I'm not even sure my last post made it. I will re post it so if it is duplicated, just chalk it up to my inexperience with this new blog.
LA

Well we made it through another day of Grandma's Camp. To start things off Gaylene and Duane's van died. We rented another van and went off to do our thing so we don't know what is wrong yet but we think it is the starter. Gayle will have it towed in and see what is wrong. We haven't told Gaylene and Duane yet. We don't think it is necessary for them to worry yet. We went to Waterton, saw the Prince of Wales again, took lots of pictures, wandered around and saw lots of people we know, had a picnic, let the kids get soaked in the lake, the we moved on to Mountain View where we bought the kids ice cream cones, and on to Cardston, where we visited the cemetery and the kids saw Grandpa Great and Nana Hyde's graves, Scott's grave, Karen Akroyd's grave, and anyone else they thought they might know. We thought this might not be too interesting or fun for them, but they all thought it quite unique to go and see. Then we wandered around Cardston a bit, went out to see Nana and Grandpa Great's house, the Fay Ray Fountain, and a few other spots. We were early to go to the theatre but not early enough to seethe Remington Carriage Museum or the Miniature Museum. We spent too much time in the morning messing around deciding and getting another van. Seussical the Musical was everything it was hyped up to be. The kids sat mesmerized. After the show the characters all lined up out in front of the theatre. The kids got autographs and we took their picture with The Cat in the Hat. Jill and Sydney liked Gertrude, Peirce and Taylor liked JoJo, and Jordan liked General Schmitz. It was great! We came got home at about 10:30. Everyone settled down and went to bed faster tonight. They were all pooped.Onward and upwards to more fun tomorrow.LA

Grandma Camp

The first Day of Grandma Camp.

First of all we had to get rid of all parents. The Nelson Parents and the Ackroyd parents were all here on Tuesday morning. Dawn and Allen were on their way to Salt Lake to catch a flight to Atlanta. Gaylene and Duane weren't sure what they wanted to do or where they wanted to go. They thought of going to Atlanta with Dawn and Allen but didn't have flights booked etc so they decided to go over the Going to the Sun Road, to Kalispell and Spokane.

After Parents left we all sat down and went over plans and rules for Grandma Camp. We planned the menus and who will be cooking for each meal. Then we went shopping. We paired the kids up and gave them lists of things they needed to find in the grocery store. A couple of hours and a couple of hundred dollars later, we made it out of the store.

That night we celebrated both Taylor and Jill's birthdays as we weren't there for Taylor's birthday on July 25th and Jill's is coming up on Aug 18th. It was a fun time. They all decided they wanted to sleep out on the patio. Allen had brought down a couple of tents for us but we just set up one as some of the kids wanted to "sleep under the stars". Although it has been pretty hot in the day time, it gets pretty cool at night and the wind was blowing. The paper on the hospital being built behind our house was rattling around a lot but they all made it through the night there. They took a looong time to go to sleep and got up pretty early.

Wed, August 1, 2007

Well we made it through another day of Grandma's Camp. To start things off Gaylene and Duane's van died. We rented another van and went off to do our thing so we don't know what is wrong yet but we think it is the starter. Gayle will have it towed in and see what is wrong. We haven't told Gaylene and Duane yet. We don't think it is necessary for them to worry yet. We went to Waterton, saw the Prince of Wales again, took lots of pictures, wandered around and saw lots of people we know, had a picnic, let the kids get soaked in the lake, the we moved on to Mountain View where we bought the kids ice cream cones, and on to Cardston, where we visited the cemetery and the kids saw Grandpa Great and Nana Hyde's graves, Scott's grave, Karen Akroyd's grave, and anyone else they thought they might know. We thought this might not be too interesting or fun for them, but they all thought it quite unique to go and see. Then we wandered around Cardston a bit, took some pictures at the temple, went out to see Nana and Grandpa Great's house, the Fay Wray Fountain, and a few other spots. We were early to go to the theatre but not early enough to seethe Remington Carriage Museum or the Miniture Museum. We spent too much time in the morning messing around deciding and getting another van. Seussical the Musical was everything it was hyped up to be. The kids sat mesmerized. After the show the characters all lined up out in front of the theatre. The kids got autographs and we took their picture with The Cat in the Hat. Jill and Sydney liked Gertrude, Peirce and Taylor liked JoJo, and Jordan liked General Schmitz. It was great! We came got home at about 10:30. Everyone settled down and went to bed faster tonight. They were all pooped.