Brady Bound

On the way to Orem I realized that it was Nathan’s and my 11^th anniversary. As usual, we will have to celebrate later. It seems that we’re always with family on vacation for our anniversary. Happy belated anniversary, Nathan. I love you.









My boys have a hard time remembering which grandparent is which, so when we drove up to Grandma and Grandpa Brady’s house Liam said, “Oh this Grandma and Papa’s”. Daniel tried explaining to me that it was the ones’ with “the rug”. I had no idea what rug he could mean until later that evening when we got ready for bed. Grandma pulled out some little sleeping bags for the boys. One has a bear cub that tucks into a cave pocket and the other a dog that tucks into a doghouse pocket. Daniel got all excited and said, “See the bear and dog rug!” (Rug—Sleeping Bag—whatever, he knew what he meant.)

It’s always fun to visit Grandma and Grandpa Brady, but we were also fortunate enough to catch Uncle Daniel and Damian visiting as well. I think Damian, being an only child, was a little wary of our mob to begin with. But I was amazed at how quickly he adjusted to our noise and chaos. Damian quickly joined in one of Daniel and Liam’s favorite games—sliding down the stairs as fast as they can then racing to the top to do it again. We don’t have stairs in our little house, so it is a novelty to all our guys. (Daniel actually asked me earlier this month if we could please build some stairs in our house for him. It reminds me of Fiddler on the Roof: a staircase just for going up another for going down and one in the middle just for show—my boys’ heaven.) Caleb hasn’t figured out the going down bit so we had to block off the top most of the time. He did sneak away quite a few times to climb up. When he was caught he would squeal and climb even faster. Some kids may report that they went to Utah, or Dinosaur Parks, or 6 Flags on their summer vacations, but I wouldn’t be surprised if mine report on Grandma’s Stairs.

Thanksgiving Point was celebrating their 10^th anniversary while we were there so we all went to the giant Dinosaur Museum. My boys have grown up a lot since the last time we went. They spent a lot longer at each of the exhibits. Liam loved that they included live fish swimming in some of the streams of the exhibits. He and Daniel had fun building walls of sand to trap water on their dinosaur water and sand table. Caleb loved the big sandboxes where the kids can uncover dinosaur bones. (He’s at just the right age for it—he loves his freedom in the box and he doesn’t even try to eat the sand.) Daniel’s favorite part was watching his first 3-D movie about whales and dolphins on the huge screen. It was so cute to see Daniel and Liam reaching out, trying to touch the whales and dolphins that were ‘swimming’ so close to us. Daniel leaned over to me and said, “Mom, that whale kissed Caleb!”

The boys had lots of fun blowing bubbles with Grandma outside. Grandma even got each of them their own spill-free bubble container to use. I guess Grandma remembers what it was like with her own 4 rascals when they were our rascals’ age. (I was really impressed by the kind she got. I might need to make the investment for our house too.) She also got a swimming pool to set up in the back yard (always one of my boys’ summer favorites). The water started out freezing cold but they couldn’t resist. Grandma surprised them with little penguin toys that swim, and dive, and even do loops in the water. They were totally entertaining (my boys have used them nonstop since we’ve gotten home and have already replaced the batteries twice).

While Uncle Daniel and Grandpa went golfing, we (including Grandma and Damian) drove down to the Living Planet Aquarium in Salt Lake. Damian was really excited about it. It was so cute to see him running with Daniel and Liam from one tank to the next, so excited to show us what they’d discovered. The shark tank was one of our favorites, but the aquarium has grown since the last time we went and it was pretty impressive. I liked the poison frogs and caiman (like little alligators). They even had a bird-eating spider—yikes. They will be getting a penguin exhibit soon, so we’ll have something new to look forward to next time.

After the aquarium we had the opportunity to visit some great friends of ours, the Casamalhuappas, that recently moved from our ward in CA. Daniel and Liam miss their little girls and point out their old house each time we pass. They also point them out in pictures. We were especially eager to check in on them because their daughter Michaela has been taken out of school and hospitalized due to on-going seizures since they moved. Michaela is not able to walk, or talk, or even eat regularly now but over and over they said how blessed are. What a great family. I am so thankful for their example. Their younger daughter, Marilynn and their son Sam, have grown a lot since we last saw them. But Daniel and Liam picked up on their friendship like they’d never been apart. They thought they were so funny crawling down the hall, past us, under blankets. One of us would get up to go over to them and they would run off shrieking and laughing. They also made a game of trying to avoid the camera!

Since grandma lives too far away to celebrate birthdays with all of her grandkids, she decided to have an unbirthday party for all of them while we were there. It was really sweet. She found a delicious Oreo cookie cake and even had all of their names put on it. Daniel and Liam thought it was great to get the birthday treatment again. I thought Caleb might do a better job of getting messy 1^st birthday pictures, but once again he took little snitches with his fingers and got upset when his hands got sticky. What a funny little guy.

One afternoon, Grandpa and Nathan returned to their old stomping grounds on BYU campus to meet up with some of their MPA friends. While they were gone, the boys and I made a quick visit to my Grandma Carr’s house. We chatted with Grandma in the front yard while I pushed the boys in the same tire swing that I used to ride in. It was so fun to share the memories. Grandma apologized that she wasn’t wearing her nice dress. She told me that before I came she’d climbed the fence in order to recover 6 apricots that she didn’t want to waste that had fallen on the other side—obviously she had to change into pants so as not to ruin her dress. Of course the rest of us wonder what about the fence ruining Grandma! She also told me about some nice funerals she’d been to lately. It seems she’s shopping around for a killer funeral! Ha Ha! I love Grandma so much—although I guess I have to just laugh at her crazy antics. She showed the boys the canal that they can still use to water the lawns. As a kid we used to love it when it was her watering day so the front yard would be flooded and we could splash and play on the grass. Grandma insisted that Caleb take a spool doll she’d made to entertain him in the car. She is so giving. Caleb has had fun with the spool toy on the trip and after; simple pleasures.