Travelogue Post #1

My heavens, where to begin.  Sometimes I feel more inclined to just do one liners with pictures, let your imaginations take you where they will...and yet, when I come look at my blog entries in five years, or let's be more realistic, in two weeks I will have forgotten all the nitty gritty details myself.  It would be a twisted reminiscence in my case.  But is that really a bad thing sometimes?
Yep.  The one liners sounds like a good idea.
We left Connecticut.  The girls finished school (almost) and we said goodbye to friends for a bit.
We flew on two airplanes, didn't spill any drinks, got no dirty looks from people sitting in front of us and only sat on one hot tarmac for an hour because of a maintenance issue.  We arrived in Utah and into the arms of our hostess Carrie Ann.
Then we fell asleep, because we were very tired.

 This is Hazel on the plane.  We had a lesson on how to hold things between our nose and upper lip.  She is very talented in this arena.

 And this is the girlies with Carrie the next morning, all wearing their adorable matching ice cream jammies that were in their very own welcome baskets.

 On our first day here the girls got to go to a "Fairy party girls' camp" put on by one of my sister's huband's nieces...got that? It was adorable and the girls had so much fun making flower crowns, searching for fairy treasures in the garden and making little fairy houses.

 We may or may not have run across a busy street just so I could take my picture in front of the sign.  I have a degree from this place, I figured it was worth Carrie almost getting hit by a car, almost...nope, maybe if it were a more flattering picture of myself, but it ain't.

Then, the second day we were here, one of us got really really sick...I put it in my top three sickest that I have ever been in my life.  I chalk it up to being completely exhausted and finally being around other adults that could care for my kids while I die just a little bit.  My sister and her husband have been lifesavers, and done things that they should never have to do, namely cleaning up things they shouldn't have to clean up.  Because while I was trying to recover and get out of bed, two of the kids got sick.  I just got out of pajamas yesterday, things are looking up......
Now jump ahead a few days folks because that paragraph right up there was written back when I thought the worst was behind us...and who knows, the worst may still NOT be behind us but I sure hope it is.  Since I wrote that, the last two daughters have passed through that nastiness AND our delightful hostess has been bedridden all day.  I keep picturing us as little plague carrying rats infecting all we come in contact with.  Which is precisely why, upon picking my brother and his wife up from the airport today I drove them straight to a hotel.  I cannot expose them to this...mostly because I like them a lot but also because my brother is the official photographer the wedding that has brought us all to Utah in the first place.  This house needs to be fumigated and the kids all Clorox dipped before we bring anyone else here.

 We did get out to see the Kennecott Copper Mine yesterday between known illnesses.  It was quite impressive.  And have I mentioned how gorgeous the weather here is? It is.

 This beauty had absolutely nothing to do with causing illness, though it surely didn't help, I'm sure...mmm, JCW's shakes.

 We also were able to squeeze in a trip to the pool between people dropping like flies.  This summer's discovery - Hazel does not like the water.  So we played a game, "how many times can I take off my diaper at the pool before Mom notices" between "I wonder how many times I have to push all these buttons before something comes out".  Both were fun games.

So needless to say, this has not been the vacation thus far that I had envisioned.  I was looking forward to a trip that was not overscheduled with things to do and places to go...I just had hoped that meant maybe more than sitting on the couch and watching Shark Tales 500 times (why do they keep choosing this one? It is a horrible movie...and why do I keep letting them? Well, it is vacation afterall.)  I am dying to spend more time with siblings and cousins and maybe a Grandparent or two...I just don't want to strike them all down with the plague while we are at it.  This part of the trip is passing way too fast...maybe sometime soon we will all be healthy simultaneously and get to hang out...at the very least be able to attend the wedding and festivities that hopefully will be featured on the blog next week--may our faces all be rosy and glowy, and not green and gaunt.
Here's to your health.