Jordanelle

Corey and I didn't go on a ride today. We were ok to rest our legs after our big climb last night. Corey got up early and left with Mel to go to Jordanelle (to get Mark's truck) and then they drove up to Layton (to fill the truck with stuff) and then to Bountiful to pick up Christian and his family's boat. I slept in and then got the kids breakfast. After our SpongeBob wake up call, one by one different groups headed out to Jordanelle. Joseph took him and Eliza & Mary, Sophi, Natalie, Owen, Daniel, Peter in Corey's car. Hyrum, Abi, Lily and Katharine went with Wayne. There wasn't room for me (well, Hyrum would have stayed but he said he didn't care either way, and I'd rather stay at the hotel than be at the beach, so he went for me, and I waited until Ethan & Bella were ready to go. I got there at lunch time. People were playing a card game. Christian had a group of kids out on the water. K was hanging around the food. I took her down to the pavilion and gave her a bowl of peanut MnM's, which she was working on in this pic -

Then she wanted my hat. It looks cuter on you, Katharine.

Group one coming back from fun on the water.

Joseph holding the boat while kids unload. Joseph came and swapped out with Eliza. Ethan holding the boat while group 2 loads up.

Those of us at the pavilion took turns helping with the babies. Little Mary looking so comfy snuggled up to her Uncle Hyrum.

Corey was holding Alvie, and I was down below on a beach chair and really loved my view of him.

Loving those cheeks! 

And that chin and neck!!! Oh my gosh Alvie you're so stinkin' cute!

It was a good day at Jordanelle, even though it was quite windy. I'll share pics of from the boat if Abi or Natalie or anybody took some. Sophi and Natalie got pretty burnt. They were out for both trips and they didn't put any sunblock on for some stupid reason. The boy did good protecting themselves. It's also too bad that the beach where we were at this time was all rocks. That made it hard to make a sand castle. I took Katharine to the bathroom like 4 times, but she wasn't able to go/relax. Around 4pm K was ready to be done, so she and I and Peter headed back with Nancy. Cousin Rhyan holding up K's head in the car after she started to nod off...

I headed back early so I could get started making dinner. We did Asian rice bowls, with potstickers, Spring rolls, and lots of veggies topped with teriyaki sauce. I had brought up shrimp, but I wasn't able to do it all by myself, but that's ok, we had enough for everyone, plus some of Joseph's friends (Talmage, Scotty Ben, and Spencer and their wives and kids who came up to swim and hang out. Katharine was happy to have a new friend in Annie (Scotty's cute little girl). Everyone went swimming, I stayed in the room with kids and cleaned up a little bit. It was a good day. I'm hoping we're able to go biking at Deer Valley tomorrow. We had planned to do that on Tuesday, cause the river was going to be on Monday, but then Monday turned into a hotel day and Tuesday was Provo River. It's been a full week, and tomorrow was supposed to be a hotel day before the family bbq. So we'll see what we do. 

Tie-Dye

Eliza had a fun idea for everyone to do tie dye shirts while we were up here at Park City. We did it today. Katharine applying some sun block while she waited as we started to set up.

She's been quite generous with the sunblock on herself. She does a decent job at applying it though. 

This was my first time every tie dying a shirt. Here's how we did it:

Step 1 - get a shirt. 

Step 2 - soak it (I brought some empty laundry buckets from home, which came in handy for that step.)

Step 3 - twist it up in desired shape (there was a paper to show us different techniques for the desired patterns). 

Step 4 - wrap it with rubber bands. 

Step 5 - apply dye. 

Oh, and Step 4.5 - put on gloves to protect your hands. Ethan skipped that step cause he thought it would wash off, but it didn't, and so his hands are currently very blue. The Marriott management was anxious about us staining the pool deck, and thus so was I, but we were vigilant and finished without making any stains on the deck or their wood tables. I was on high alert when the dyes came out, so I didn't get any pics of that, but Nancy did, I'll see if I can get those from her. We'll see how they turn out!

After finishing shirts, Corey and I went on a ride. On Monday, Corey made plans for us to take a long ride with Kyle, and maybe some of the older kids, and to have Hyrum film us a bit with his drone. The plan was to leave at 11:30 today, but that got pushed back to 12:30 cause Kyle was with a client, then it was too late for Kyle cause he had to be back in SL at 4, and it was also too late for Christian, who had a work call at 3. So then it was just Corey and me but we waited until after Christian was done. He came but said he'd rather RUN it than bike it. Um, wow. We left at 4:40, giving us a 15 min start ahead of Christian. So he ran over 11 miles up the mountain side like it was nothing. He followed the trail we were biking on (Armstrong) and with our head start, he caught up to us before we reached Midmountain. And we were going hard, like we were being chased. We chatted for a minute at the midmountain > pinecone connect, and then he ran ahead. Riding Pinecone was brutal. I got a PR, but I was dying. I would have been cursing if I was a cursing person. Instead I was just yelling and grunting. My legs were burning so bad. I probably should have put on music, but instead Corey and I were enjoying the sounds of nature and talking, or trying to talk when I wasn't yelling. It was a long and merciless climb. Christian got to Guardsman about 15 minutes before us where he met Hyrum, who brought him a bike and brought us some water (I sent a few messages pleading for aid, cause again, I was dying). Hyrum got a little bit of drone footage (we could hear it overhead) and after more water and a pic - 

...we biked back to the top of pinecone, aka up puke hill, ugh, I walked it. 22.09 miles, total, 3783 ft elevation gain. Moving time 3:45:51, my strava cut out before the decent, so those were from Corey's strava stats. My strava for the climb to the top of Puke Hill said I got 18 achievements, one of which was "3rd best elevation gain" at 3,237 (Corey's said we got 3,783 which included Puke Hill, which would have been a new PR - my previous PRs were when I rode up to Alta, which was 3696 elevation, and more recent PR when we biked from Park City to Millcreek (Jul 8 was 3697 elevation - haha just one foot more than Alta.) One segment on Pinecone was called "Pain Cave". That was probably one of the parts I hated. 1.57 miles, PR at 28 min and 34 seconds, ugh! We got back at 9, barely made it with visibility. 2 laps (4 lengths) in the pool. Cousins enjoying the babies - Alix with Alvie, and Rhyan getting a smile from Mary!

They have been starting to give us little grins and smiles, it is so cute. Babies are magic. 

Carpets Cleaned!

We went to bed at midnight last night (cause we're at the kids mercy up here.) I woke up at 6 to wake up Abi so she could drive down to Sandy to take a math test. She took the van. I laid back down after that, then woke up for good around 8, Corey and Joseph &Eliza, Hyrum, and Seth went on a ride. Mel was going to go, but when she saw Mary being watched by Sophi and Natalie, she decided to stay back and help with that. Joseph to Mel "I see where your priorities are..." I don't blame her, Mary sooo sooo cute! After the bikers left, I felt free to leave. I took Mel's car. So they left for a ride and I left for home before our 1:00 carpet cleaning appointment. I left Park City around 9, took my RS Presidency meeting call as I drove. We were done at 9:30 so I pulled into Momentum for a quick climb before I went home for the carpets to be cleaned. Did 40 boulders, 22 attempts, 18 sent. 

I said this in Monday's post, but I texted the carpet guy yesterday to see if we could change from Wed to today, cause Corey arranged for a bike ride with Kyle tomorrow at 11 and wanted me to come, cause we're going to revisit dead tree, and Hyrum is going to come to get some drone footage. So thankfully the carpet guy still had an opening today from 1-2-ish (I knew the openings he had from quite a bit of texting back and forth last week, and I checked with Corey several times that Wednesday was good, so then it was just kinda funny that he arranged the ride right when I needed to be in SL for the carpet cleaning. Today he texted around 11:30 to ask if he could come at noon, and I had things ready on the main floor so that worked out great. I didn't see Abi. After her test, she headed straight back up to get there in time for the river. I was vacuuming the carpet and picking up legos and earrings and moving furniture ahead of him.  I got the main floor ready and he took care of that while I finished prepping the upstairs, moving a few more things from the bedrooms into the laundry room and bathrooms. 

Before pic - you can see the high traffic areas there.

And the after pic - all clean. Ahh, I can breathe!

I really love the Roto clean carpet brush that the Aspen Carpet guy uses. He does a great job too. It is so nice to see them clean. Now we just need to move out of this house so we never get them dirty haha.  I went to Costco after the carpets were done and got a lot of food. Corey wanted more peaches. I picked up peaches for him plus other stuff for our stir fry/rice bowls meal on Thursday. Now I am down here blogging for a bit more, while I wait for Abi to tell me what she wants to do for dinner on Thursday (she said she'll be in charge of it). I need to know if I'm bringing up chicken or shrimp, and if she wants fresh veggies or fried? I got enough for both. Whatever we don't use at Park City we can have on Sunday when people come over for Mary's baby blessing. So I'm blogging while I wait, and I'm enjoying the quiet. The furniture is all in the kitchen piled around me. I finished three more December posts, yay, just need to do two more! Dec 22 and 23. And I need to do the ward RS Newsletter, which needs to be ready to send out Friday morning. We'll let the carpets dry and maybe I'll bring Hyrum down early on Saturday to help me put things back together before everyone gets home from Park City. 

Everyone else floated the Provo River today. Last year was my first time, and it was fun. It would have been fun to go again, but I was also ok to miss it cause cleaning the carpets was my #1 priority. Corey said he didn't get any pics, cause his hands were full. He had Katharine with him and she was scared and said "I don't want to be brave..." He said it made him think of how it must be in his own relationship with God and the trials he is facing in life, hoping that God has him and won't let him drown. 

I'm back up at Park City now. Daniel played his sax with the blues band tonight, his first public performance!

Joseph Mel Ethan and Hyrum were in charge of dinner. We took the group pic today because Seth and Isaac are leaving for Chile tomorrow. 

I'm going to keep blogging. I guess I'm not making it on a ride today, that's ok. I'm not training for the Olympics, so it's good for me to stick around. 

SpiderMan and Blog

Hello! We are up at the Wride reunion enjoying our first day at Park City. Corey and I went on a ride this morning, up Armstrong then down HAM, which was a nice and pleasant ride for us. We came back to kids watching Sponge Bob, as per the decades long Park City tradition, and eating cereal. (My plans for oatmeal did not materialize, cause I didn't want to cook it.) The activity for today (per the Wride Park City calendar) was to go float the Provo River. But then as we were all checking in yesterday, we saw on the hotel's activity calendar in the elevator that Spider Man was coming on Monday from 3-5. The river was scheduled for 1 o'clock. I wondered to Corey about moving the river to earlier? He said Mark had work. That's ok, I just won't tell Peter about the Spider Man visit, but then last night everyone else told him, so then we were stuck. Peter didn't want to miss it. Mark was tired anyway, so we decided to postpone the river day until tomorrow. Today we've been hanging around the hotel and Peter has come into the room to announce to me how many hours left until Spider Man came. After plenty of swimming, video games, and time in the Mine, the appointed time with Spider-Man was at hand. Peter must have been first in line, cause Corey had already sent a pic as I was leaving our room to go see. 

It was a dream come true for Peter. The poor Spider Man guy was scheduled to be here for two hours though. Around 3:30 there wasn't much going on, other than him talking to little kids who wanted him to swing up to the 3rd floor balcony by his spider webs. Ethan, slightly disappointed, asked "This is why we rescheduled river day?" Well, we also rescheduled because Mark was tired, Rhyan couldn't make it, and cause Lily had an online class to finish. Ethan took a pic of the guys' backside and showed it to us compared it with a pic of Tom Holland in his skin tight Spidey suit, followed by a gif from Elf with Buddy the elf "He's a fake!!" haha. Yeah, we know, but that's ok. It made Peter's day. We took a few more pics. It was all Peter had hoped for. 

I thought the guy did a decent job. It would be hard to pull off Spider Man. This guy didn't have a gut, so I say it's good. Katharine posed with him. She would have prob have been more excited to see Belle or Cinderella. That's ok. 

The older kids weren't interested in pics with Spider Man.

So then people went back to swim and do whatever, and I have spent most of my time today in the room today blogging. Around 4pm I had finished three posts from December, I kept working and now I've finished 5. I'm almost done, just 5 more then I'll finally be done with 2024. I've let June and July fall behind, ugh I'm also behind with March April May, oh well, I'll keep chipping away at it. Nancy had dinner tonight. As predicted, it was taco bowls with rice, chicken, and all the fixings. 

Our older kids are on for dinner tomorrow, they're doing Italian, Mark is on Wednesday (I'm saying he'll prob do ravioli and ceasar salad) and we have Thursday. We're doing something Asian. Friday is a BBQ by the pool day. Part of me feels I should be interacting more with everyone while we are all here together, but I'm also feeling (like Corey was two weeks ago at Bear Lake) that it is an opportune time to get stuff done when I know that the kids are all well and having fun and being entertained. So I'll try to crank out blog posts while I can. I rescheduled the carpets to be cleaned tomorrow instead of Wednesday, cause Corey scheduled the ride with Kyle on Wednesday on accident after I already had the carpet appt at 2. The carpet guy was flexible, which is nice. So I'll head down tomorrow for that, yay, I'm excited to have them cleaned! Hasn't been done since covid! 

Early Present

So we're back from bear lake. Kids have been enjoying their toys. I've been doing a bit of work on a new stretching program, and listening to podcasts (Diary of a CEO episode on sunlight and dementia, which was clickbait for my eye cause of spending time with Hibberts this weekend and our concerns of our parents. My mom's mom had dementia, and we're seeing a bit of short term memory loss in my mom. Remembering Neal Barnard's TED talk on that - 40 min walk 3x a week. Looks like sunlight is good too. Just keep trying to do all the things! Corey and I went to Momentum today and did toprope. It was fun. 

The girls are at Stake camp. I drove them up to Heber Valley Camp for that yesterday morning. I knew I was taking them at 7:30, so I did a ride to the ruins at 5:30 so I could be back in time to take them. They will get back tomorrow. We are going to Park City  next year, and Owen's birthday is Sunday. Since he probably shouldn't take his present up there cause he could lose the legos, I decided to give it to him today so he has a few days to play with it before his birthday on Sunday. I put it in a bag and we sang to him. 

He knew what it was going to be, and he was happy. 

A knock off lego brand ship for $45 bucks, yeah. And then they got to work. 

They've been busy all day. It's felt pretty easy to just have the little kiddos at home. Although it seems like the teenagers shouldn't add that much work, cause they should be good helpers (and they are...) but I think they do add a lot of work via their requests and desires. So yeah, it's felt easy and pretty chill yesterday and today. 

Checking Out

I slept last night on the basement couch. Pink light shining through the windows woke me up and let me know there was a pretty sunrise outside. I hurried out immediately but missed the pink and got orange. Still pretty.

Last night was our last night here at the Hibbert Reunion. The dance party was fun. Peter wanted to sleep with all his glow sticks on. 

I woke up ODP early so they could drive back with my mom and dad. Hyrum was going to go with them, but then Corey went instead. We needed to find seats for 4 people, cause Joseph and Eliza were taking Mel's car to Idaho. It all worked out. CODP left at 7:30

The rest of us cleaned up before checkout at 10. Well, Hyrum and I cleaned up. Mostly ALSN were sitting in the couch loving on Mary and Alvie.

We had so much stuff. Hyrum and I were shaking out heads at it all. I contributed to it. Hyrum didn't, cause all he brought was his carry on cause he had to fly in. That might be a good strategy for Park City next week - you are allowed one carry on and one personal item! It was a real mess packing it all in Corey's car, cause he doesn't have much room in the trunk. We shoved ourselves into the car, which still has no AC, and I told everyone they had to have their personal bags on their legs cause we brought too much crap. Lily said "Now we can spend the next 2 1/2 hours contemplating what we brought that we didn't need to bring..." haha! I thought that hit it right on the head. I was lucky that I didn't have to have my bag on my legs since I was driving. As Abi got into her seat and then put her big honkin' bag on her lap, she said "This is going to be horrible..." knowing she was going to be crowded and hot for the next 150 minutes. 

Everything we need and more. Natalie, Sophi, and Katharine in the back, Abi Lily Hyrum in the middle, Mel in shotgun. The top of the car was full with my bag, towels, legos, my yoga mats, 3 blankets, a bunch of stuff I brought that I didn't use. I hardly used the clothes in my suitcase, I just kept washing my dirty clothes when I washed K's underwear accidents, which happened about every day. So yeah, keep this note to self fresh before Park City - LEAVE THE STUFF AT HOME. All those books you think you're going to read? Leave it. I'll have everyone pack, and then put half of it back. We brought 5 bikes, used 2. I brought 2 yoga mats and one yoga blog, used none of them. Brought 7 books, used 2. Brought coloring books and crayons, used zero. Yeah, just too much stuff. We took a bit of food back home. Didn't use most of the food we brought (liquid eggs, sausage, apples and sauerkraut). Anyway, it was a lot. I hope it does make Park City easier with it all fresh on our minds.

We got home, the drive wasn't too painful. We unpacked the car, I took a nap, the girls packed for YW camp, which I will be taking them to tomorrow morning (up at Heber Valley Camp). We didn't pick up the van yet from Burt Bros. Corey wants another day to figure out how to pay for it. I was going to go climbing but I didn't feel like I should leave, so I went on an evening walk. The reunion was good and it is good to be home again.

Thomas Hibbert 1837-1898

We went to church at the 10:30 session of the visitors branch at Bear Lake. Kinda cool - one big room with a lot of strangers all coming together to remember the savior.

Back at home I took a nap (and missed lunch). Around 2:30 my dad called people together to talk a little bit about Hibbert genealogy, sharing some info on Thomas & Ann and Ambrose & Mary.

Thomas and Ann on the screen.

Then we went to go visit their graves in Paris. 

This tombstone, we're pretty sure, wasn't the original one put here. We think Sarah Hibbert Stone got this one later.

All Kim and Linda Hibbert's grandkids there for a photo. For our family it goes through these generations: 1) Thomas > 2) Ambrose > 3) Julian > 4) Kim > 5) Tiffanie > 6) JMEHWALSNODP > 7) Mary and Alvie

Ethan wanted a pic of Alvie and my dad, because Kim to Alvie is the same distance as it is from Thomas to Kim. 

Bella took a photo of all the descendants. 

Then we went by the Paris Tabernacle, which was built 1884-1889. Thomas passed away in 1898. so he would have been there when it was built and probably helped build it.

There were some interesting signs to read, giving some history of the tabernacle and of Paris. 

So that was fun, then we headed back. Corey Natalie and Sophi stayed home from the trip to Paris. 

Then we looked through scrapbooks of letters that my grandma Alice had put together. Letters, cards, and postcards. Kids played pickleball and basketball, and had an obstacle course through the playground. We siblings sat around the firepit and talked. We had a dance party on the pickleball court once it got dark.

Neil and Camilla took some surprise selfies on my phone. 

It was fun to dance and goof off. We danced pretty hard, esp to the electric slide. It was fun, and good last night bash. I'm heading to bed, Ethan is just getting a game of Secret Hitler going, but I'm gonna bow out of this one. 

Hibbert Family Pictures

We took some family pictures this evening, after the sun had set. 

The people renting the cabin next to us were all outside eating, so we asked one of them to come take our group pic. We're going to return the favor for their reunion tomorrow. :)

We were counting heads before the pic and realized that Lily wasn't there! She was upstairs doing homework with headphones in, so didn't hear the many calls to come that had been ringing through the house. Ethan ran in to get her, and when she came out we all were sitting there watching her and cheered as she came down the stairs. We were glad she made it. Before the big group photo, my siblings and I took a few with our parents:

This is our "silly" one ~ so silly!

And then some of just the "kids" - everyone line up in order, oldest to youngest...

We don't do tallest to shortest, cause we're all tied second place for short, and Grant gets 1ast place for not short. Yeah, who's that tall kid at the end? Whose genes did he get?!?! And why didn't he share with the rest of us?

Then finally, the traditional jazz hand pic. 

Neil was like "Ugh no! I hate jazz hands! Just cause we did it once when we were kids doesn't mean we are doomed to do it for the rest of our lives!" Then a reluctant "FINE!!!" with a big enthusiastic smile. And this one was actually my favorite. 

The big kids kept the little kids entertained while we did our sibling photo shoot, doing an obstacle course.

It was pretty tricky, but even Peter and Katharine wanted a turn to give it a go, with a little help from older siblings.

After pictures were done, we let the kids watch KPop Demon Hunters, which is all the rage this month. Little ones have gone to bed now. Older kids stayed up and played games. Joseph represented our family for this one. 

Ok, so most of us are in bed now. A little bit more of what we did today - Hyrum got to sleep in the kiddie room. He talked Peter into sleeping on the trundle so H could have a big bed. 

Lazy morning though... Sophi and Mel napping, Lily doing homework, and looks like Abi is on Corey's phone, so probably checking Instagram.

The weather was very nice today. Cool temperature and also cloudy, so I liked that and was ok to go to the beach. 

I still put on sunblock but I was less concerned about totally coating everywhere. There were fun games going on - spikeball ~

Katharine and I made a castle. I did the cobblestone bridge, pretty good if I do say so myself. 

Kids were out on kayaks. 

I buried K in the sand.

Cute picture of my parents. 

Mel made skipping stones from clay and we had a contest for distance. 

Katharine with a dirty face. 

But she still feels pretty!

People relaxing. 

I played Kubb against Joseph. Then Joseph and I were a team against Neil and Mikey. Then we did kids vs. adults, so Mikey and Joseph against me and Neil. That one went on forever, it was kinda funny. When Neil and I finally did have a chance to win and it was obvious we would win, Neil did went for the king without looking... and missed! Then it went on forever again. Funny. 

The new mothers Bella and Eliza with their beautiful angel babies. 

At the beach, Joseph was showing the men a faster way to tie a bow, and it was so funny how intersted they all were. 

Spend a couple of hours mastering this and then maybe it will save you 1 second when you tie your pants for the rest of your life, then you can slowly earn back those hours you spent learning. 

A special shout out should be given to Amy, Jerusha, and Jared, who did all the meal planning, prepping, and cooking for everyone during this reunion. We've been having a feast at every meal.