We Went to Cedar City or National Lampoon's Stone Family Vacation

Our family doesn't have a very good track record with vacations, it seems something always goes wrong, and this time was no different. It was fall break, and the kids had a couple of days off of school, so we decided it would be fun to go down to Cedar City and spend some time with Jayme and Cassidy. We decided to take the Astro van, which we've had for 10 years and 100,000+ miles, so the kids wouldn't be too crowded in the Cruiser. Well, we left as planned, and as we hit the freeway, it was stop and go traffic for an hour and a half. When we finally started moving, we noticed that the engine was running hot. So, we turned of the air and turned on the heater, still running hot. We pulled off in Fillmore and Dennis decided it was the thermostat. He wanted to turn around, but since we were already halfway there, I convinced him to go the rest of the way and fix it there.

Thursday afternoon we hung out with Jayme, went to dinner and went swimming at our hotel. Friday we decided to stay close because Cassidy had classes and couldn't do anything with us. First we went to the Iron Mission State Park and Museum. It was kind of interesting, with lots of displays from the early settlers. Then we went to a park and played, and then we went to see Footloose. I loved it!! Caution: the preacher's daughter is much more skanky in this version -- may not be appropriate for small children. After the movie, we went back to Jayme's and played Just Dance. When Cassidy was done with his stuff, we went to dinner, and swimming again.

Saturday we were going to go down to St. George and Snow Canyon to hike in the lava tubes. Dennis got up early to replace the thermostat on the car. Unfortunately he discovered water in the oil. He replaced the thermostat, filled the radiator, and had the oil changed. We decided it would be best to head straight for home. The car was running great and stayed cool until we stopped in Fillmore for lunch. After that, it started getting hot again. We pulled over and put in more coolant, but it stayed super hot. Finally we decided we weren't going to make it home. Good thing, as we pulled off the freeway in Nephi, the car seized up and we coasted into a parking lot, where we left her. Scott came to rescue us, and we made a donation to Kidney Kars.

It was great to get away for a couple of days, even if it wasn't exactly what we had planned. I love spending time with my family, and we don't get to see enough of Jayme and Cassidy, so that was wonderful! Unfortunately, now we are in the market for a new family car.

Ammon Football

Ammon started out having a great year playing football. He played a lot of Junior Varsity, and a fair amount of sophomore ball. There were lots of weeks that he played most of both games. He was playing linebacker and fullback, and doing well at both. He had several tackles each week, and quite often had a couple of good carries. Everything was going great until the Timpview game. In this play, he pulled the other kid onto his knee and tore part of his quadricept muscle.


Fortunately, one of his team mates has a dad who is an orthopedic surgeon, and he was at the game. He was kind enough to come look at it, and was concerned with the large amount of swelling in his knee. He sent us to his office the next morning for an x-ray, and then an MRI. Lucky for us it wasn't severe enough to require surgery, but this is what it looked like.







After two weeks of intensive physical therapy, he was able to go back to practice and played the rest of the season. After his break, he decided he would rather just play sophomore, so he didn't really play much JV after that. He finished the season with a touchdown in his last game. Yay!!

Matthew Soccer

Matthew had a fun year playing soccer, but it was a little challenging for him. First of all, there weren't enough coaches (are there ever?), so his was a dad who knew nothing about soccer. He asked for help, and even though there were other parents who knew something about the game, they wouldn't step up. I'm not faulting the coach, at least he tried, but it was disappointing to have a season where he learned nothing at all. Then, there were only four teams in Mapleton this year, so they played each other over and over again, that was fun. All in all, I think he had a good time, and he played pretty well, scoring in most of his games. Matthew doesn't think he is ready for club soccer, so maybe we'll go back to SF next year, I just don't know what to do exactly. At least it was fun, and he did well, right?

Jordyn Soccer

This year was Jordyn's second, and likely last year playing soccer. She had a lot of fun, but well.... When you have a co-ed team with mostly boys, guess who never gets the ball? There is a reason that little kid soccer is called "gather ball", it is because they all swarm around the ball and try to kick it at the same time. Not Jordyn. The mob of kids would all be running together, trying to kick the ball, and then about 10 yards behind them would be Jordyn, trotting along. She never even knew where the ball was, she would be following the crowd! Then, when she did get the ball, it was inevitably taken from her by one of her own team mates. Her coach tried really hard to actually teach them something about the game, but it just wasn't sinking in. I think we'll stick with dance. :)