As a tradition, my family always stops at the Tuacahn outdoor theater for some “Broadway in the Desert!” They have built the most amazing theater right in the middle of the awesome St. George red rock. We saw Cinderella last night, and are going to see My Fair Lady tonight. In Cinderella, they used live animals and had real fireworks in the show. You can’t fo that in a NYC theater! They put on excellent musicals, and it is so much fun. St. George, like the entire western U.S., is in a heat wave. Our night started at 8:30 and 100 degrees. By the end it was about 90 degrees - nice and hot! Tristen held Scout the whole time, and he was perfect and awake the whole three hours. We kept him cool with a cool rag on his head and water bottle spritzing.
This morning, we all got up and I asked if anyone had any nightmares. (My dream was that we were all taken by bad guys to a cliff where a mammoth fire was going to engulf us. Kind of a huge combination of all of last night’s events.) Cade said no, but told me the following story. He was sleeping with Chloe in the bed. She said she was scared, so in an effort to make her feel better Cade said, “Chloe, picture yourself frolicking around in a huge field of beautiful flowers. And you are eating a chocolate frosted cupcake with sprinkles. You are skipping and playing.” By this time she was feeling much better. Then Cade said, “It is nice and sunny and you are jumping in the flowers….WHEN A DEAD GUY GETS OUT AND GRABS YOU!” She screamed and started crying again. Megan got so mad at him and sent him to sleep on the floor for the second night in a row! Classic!
I know this post won’t do the story justice, but for record keeping’s sake….it must be written down. So tristen and I pride ourselves on being really fun aunts. Our nieces and nephews have so many stories about us that will be lifelong memories. But I think tonight may have been the topper of them all. And we definitely had a culprit….our other sister Megan!
We are staying in St. George, UT for a couple of days before we get to Provo/Salt Lake. It is Monday now, but last Friday a really large forest fire started from lightning. It is still burning, so after watching the musical Cinderella we came back to our hotel. On our way, we saw flames on the ridge that didn’t seem really far from our hotel. So because we are the cool aunts, we got all of the kids in the car to go fire hunting! We were going to see how close the police would let us get to the fire.
We headed south on the 15 FWY and got of on the now famous Black Rock Road. It is the first road in Arizona from Utah. We got off and turned East and headed for what we thought was the fire. The road quickly turned into a winding dirt road that was completely desolate. I guess I started the whole experience off with the following comment, “hey guys, this is exactly how every horror movie starts out. Here we are, driving, laughing and having fun….and then we turn a corner and find a bloody woman standing in the middle of the road trying to stop us.”
At first we were laughing, but between Tristen, Megan and my comments it was getting really creepy. It was pitch black, and there was no light in sight. Megan, the driver, kept swerving like she saw something scary to set the mood. Every time she did, everyone would scream! Tristen would put her hand out her window and bang on other people’s windows to scare them. I just kept saying creepy things like if we see a hitchhiker, he is probably a murderer and we shouldn’t stop. If I wasn’t in on the whole thing, I would have been really scared, but this was still just the beginning.
We probably drove six miles until we finally hit an abandoned mine with two random semi trucks. When we got there, Megan began to do a U Turn to turn back. I told her to go back so we could find someone. None of the kids were too keen on that idea, so when Megan started going towards the mine again they started screaming….and Trey was starting to cry. We drove around but didn’t find anyone so we headed back to the freeway. On our way back, I said that if there was suddenly a barricade with mummies and bloody people holding axes we should stop our car and just run as fast as we could. At this point Chloe started crying - probably because she was the slowest. Megan started doing the swerves and sudden braking again which produced mass hysteria every time. Then I whispered to Megan to pretend like the car was breaking down. She secretly put the car in neutral and pushed on the gas to make her brand new car was doing something funny.
As she was revving the car, but it was just slowing down, EVERYONE was getting scared. She said, “Lindsey, what is wrong?”….”Lindsey, did you push a button or something…why is my car acting funny.” I kept saying things like, “Are you cracking a joke, Megan?” and “why did this have to happen here of all places!?” Beyond the screaming and yelling in the back, Trey was literally FREAKNG OUT! He was balling and yelling at the top of his lungs over and over, “CALL THE POLICE!” I finally picked up the phone and said I was going to call Micah (just so he could here what was going on). When I said that, Trey yelled back, “DON’T CALL MICAH…CALL THE POLICE!” By this time -a minute into the car going bad, Chloe and Trey were crying. Skylar and Cade were freaked out and screaming. And Megan decided to get a heart. She started laughing and finally told them it was a joke. We all started laughing so hard, we were crying -except Trey and Chloe.
It wasn’t until we got back to the freeway that Trey toughened up. He then started saying things like, “I was only scared because i thought we were running out of gas.” and “If we went back, I wouldn’t be scared!” It was a priceless night, with no sightings of the fires. I ended it all in a perfect way at the hotel. When everyone was getting out of the car, I was hiding under the car door and grabbed their foot as they stepped down from the Suburban. Somehow I scared each one..but especially Trey!
I honor of your B Day Scummy, I thought I would be really creative. I came up with the idea of saying 29 nice things about you because you are 29! But because I am short on time (first day of family vacation to Utah), I am going to just say 29 words/phrases:
1. Good Singer
2. Nice Brows
3. Teenie Bopper
4. 5′6′’ with shoes
5. Makes her girls look cute EVERY day with bows!
6. Competitive
7. Healthy eater
8. Real Estate Guru
9. Hilarious
10. Only mom who stays out past midnight with me (lindsey)!
11. Flasher
12. Shopper Galore
13. Life of the party
14. Great white elephant gift giver
15. Always dressed to impress!
16. Good mom - but not the funnest anymore!
17. Ultimate skate waitress
18. Always knows someone who knows someone
19. My little phone buddy
20. Looks good in Britni’s lingerie
21. Goes the extra mile for a buck!
22. Shameless
23. Bargain hunter
24. Loyal friend
25. Always up for anything - those types of girls are few and far between!
26. Always gives me her US Weeklys
27. Out of control
28. Always happy - until Bryan threatens her in Catan
29. BFF!
Scummy - have a great birthday, and I went to G-Funk for a little help with above! We both love and adore you, and hope your birthday this year can top the surprise party I gave you last year. WHHOOOO you little “superstar”!
Scout’s latest trick is copying what I do. Actually, he is only copying one thing - sticking out his tongue. If I stick out my tongue, he will look at it for a bit, and finally stick his out! Now that everyone knows about his trick, he has tongues stuck in his face -in total- about three hours of the day. I kind of think he sticks his tongue out just to get everyone away from him! It is very cute!
Scout is taking his 2nd road trip ever. I am on my way to Utah with my family, with a three day stop in St. George. The car ride has been great, and Scout is being very good. As you can see, he just “hangs loose” the whole time!
Look how cute Skilly is when she bathes Scout. Every morning this summer she has begged to bathe him,and I finally snapped a picture of how cute she is when she does it! I have to admit…she is very good, and has it down to a science. Skilly gets SO happy whenever she gets to help out, and I think Scout has literally turned into her real life doll.
I keep trying to figure out if Scout has Micah’s personality or mine. A lot of the time Scout is very serious and stoic…a real thinker like Micah. Other times, I think he is devious, a tease and funny like me. (or at least I like to think I am funny).
This morning my mom and I spent about thirty minutes trying to get the little guy to smile. We did all of the tricks up our sleeves like patty cake, “the yellow submarine” song, talking to him in a baby voice, playing peek-a-boo, etc. He just looked at us and observed silently, so I figured he must be tired and exhausted. It was a little shy of his nap time, but it seemed like the obvious conclusion. My mom got him situated on her tummy to fall asleep, and looked at him and said, “You are the cutest thing in the whole wide world!” Scout looked right up at her and gave her the BIGGEST smile. This is a day where I think he definitely got my teasing trait! I absolutely love it!
Yes, it’s a tradition. Whenever the family gets together (mostly whenever the Brockbank kids are around) I get in my Speedo and spend the day tanning my thighs. The kids think it’s the most disgusting thing on earth, and I’m all about the good laugh. I’ve gotten some good mileage out of the new pink version.
Lindsey has her tradition too. Not to be outdone, she finds the ugliest bathing suit she can find, steals one of the kid’s goggles, and refuses to put on sunblock. It’s all in good fun.
I suppose she is the ultimate winner–she beat me in Bocce ball.
This post is seperate from the fourth of July post because I didn’t want it to get lost in the mix! Micah thinks it is funny to pull out these disgusting pink striped Speedos every time my family is around. I will admit I thought it was funny the first few times, and he is a HUGE hit amongst the grandkids! BUT, I am now wondering if he likes these things a bit too much. It is now at the point, that we all ask when he is going to put the lovely Speedos on. So of course, after we all got down to the pool….Micah starts unlacing his trunks to expose WHAT ELSE…his favorite Speedos! His usual timeframe is about 45 minutes until he puts his trunks back on, but this time he lasted about four hours! Even when we were playing Bocci Ball, there he was…out collecting the balls in the lovely things. So in an effort to get him to stop the madness, my sister started snapping pictures so I could embarrass him by posting the pictures. Who knows if it is going to eliminate or exacerbate the problem??? I would bet this is only going to put a little fuel on the fire, and next time we can expect some thong Speedos!
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