Gough Family Vacation 2012 (part 2)

The rest of Sunday was rather uneventful, a good dinner and some time in the pool.  The kids slept pretty good at the Palm Desert condo's.  Kate is a LOUD sleeper -especially when she's a little sick, which she was.  And, I am a very LIGHT sleeper, so a few nights we stuck her bed in the bathroom.  It worked some of the time.  We just had one really bad night with her, the last night in Palm Desert.  I have no idea what was wrong, but she seriously cried/screamed from about 1:30 am until sometime between 4:30 or 5 am.  And then Hyrum woke us all up at 6!  Luckily she did great at our place in Las Vegas on the way home, and she's been sleeping great at home.  She must just be a little homebody when it comes to sleep.

I should have kept better track of what we did each day!  I think Monday was mostly a hang out at the condo's and swim.  Hyrum loved the pools, and we got him some water wings when we got there, which he did great with.  Kate seemed to like it -in her little floating boat, but wasn't too ecstatic.  She might be like her mom, not really a water girl.  

Tuesday we went to The Living Desert zoo.  The highlights were this awesome little model train village, that I didn't even get a picture of or let Hyrum look too long.  We were in a hurry to get in line to feed one of the giraffe's and had planned to go back.  By the time we made it back around, we were all too tired and hungry to go back!  Oops.  Feeding the giraffe's was fun, which the 3 older kids did.  They have LONG tongues!  It also had a fun playground that the kids liked too.  There was also a petting area, which Hyrum loved until one of the goats hit him with his horns.  

We had a delicious steak dinner on Tuesday -for Valentines day.  We mostly ate in, Dave and Lisa doing most (all) of the cooking, but we did go out a few times.  It was a lot more relaxing to be at home and easier with the kids for sure!  

Wednesday was a sick day for the Lafeen's.  It was scheduled to rain, (originally it was going to be Disneyland, but it was raining in Anaheim too), so it was a good day to be sick, I guess.  They both had fevers and were pretty ornery.  Luckily, they were over the worst of it by Wednesday night and were just a bit tired and wiped out for the next day.

Speaking of Wednesday night... Justin didn't want to be overshadowed by the kids this trip, so he decided to have a little issue of his own.  Some kind of bug down there did not like him very much, and his skin felt likewise.  He had, what we assumed, were bug bites all over his body.  The weird thing, he was the only one who seemed affected -out of the 4 of our, and everyone else there.  I neglected to think that buying some benadryl might at the very least put a bandaid on the situation.  So, at 2:30 am he woke me up and asked what he should do.  Every inch of his body was red, and he was starting to get white welts and swollen all over too.

If we weren't planning on leaving for Anaheim at 7am the next morning I would have said just suffer through the night and go to an urgent care.  But, since we needed to leave so early, he drove himself to the ER.  It seemed to be going okay, but they wanted to give him a shot of Benadryl, and (obviously) wouldn't give it to him until he had a ride home -since it makes you so drowsy.  It was 3:30 am.  I tried to get him to take a cab, but it would have been pretty expensive and then we'd have to drive back and get the car anyway.  So... he started calling cell phones.  We tried Dave and Lisa, since they were the only ones without kids and would wake up the fewest people.  Instead, I think we ended up waking up all 4 condo's.  Shondel responded to his text, and she said she'd drive me to the hospital, but we needed someone to stay with the kids.  I knocked on the door of Kris and Marime's condo for 6 or 7 minutes (they were the ones right next to us) with no luck.  We finally got Kris' cell phone and woke them up that way.  I left the doors open between the two rooms while I was gone.

I got to the ER, they gave him a shot, and we were on our way home. Back to sleep around 5 and up at 6.  It was a LONG day!

Gough Family Vacation 2012

Day 1
We got on the road around 9 am and actually made it to Cedar City before stopping the first time - for lunch. Hyrum was excited enough to be going on vacation 'in the desert' that he was pretty good for that leg of the trip. Kate was a little more difficult to keep entertained, but it wasn't too bad.

Our second and last stop of the day was in Las Vegas. Hyrum couldn't wait to go swimming- even though it was a little cold and windy for swimming, we did that as soon as we got to the hotel. Justin didn't want to hasstle with the traffic on the strip so we found an Applebees for dinner near UNLV. We did drive down the strip, while Kate slept and Hyrum ooohed and awed at the lights, pirate ships and fountains. Kate did great that night, in a pack n play in her own little room. Hyrum was awake from about 3:30 until 5:30 or so. Different routines and norms I guess.

The next day we caravanned through the Mojave Desert with Dustin and Shondel. We 'left a man behind' according to Justin, Kris and Marime went on their own a bit later than us. Marime wasn't feeling great and their 3 month old, Konner, proved he wasn't a great little traveller the day before. That trip was also suprisingly uneventful. Had to stop in a pretty scary place for Laila to use the bathroom and then 20 minutes later on the side of the road for Hyrum to pee in the desert. We finally made it to Palm Desert and the condo a little before 2. The kids (and adults) were happy to be out of the car for the day. Pool time for the kids again that afternoon and a dinner in the condo.

We have 2/4 places for the entire family. Each condo can be used on it's own, half is more like a hotel room, with a small kitchenette, bathroom and porch, but its connected (through double locked doors) to a slightly larger one. Separate room and bathroom, full kitchen, pull out bed couch and it's own porch too. Our little family has the bigger half, Hyrum thought it was pretty cool his bed came out of the couch last night. So far this morning we've been on a walk around the resort and now most of the kids (two smallest -Kate and Konner) are still in the condos taking naps) are at the pool for the first time today. With a bit of luck we've thoroughly worn Hyurm out and he'll actually take a nap this afternoon.

One more day

Car is cleaned and vacuumed -even the trunk. 

We have new carpet in the whole house -and it's still mostly clean from that endeavor.  

Laundry is nearly done. 

Large bag for the week is packed and already on it's way to Palm Desert in Mimi and Papa's car.  

Snacks, car toys, and hopefully enough stickers, iPad books, and new items to keep 2 kids somewhat entertained in the car for 12+ hours.  

New tire tube that will hopefully keep air all week on our stroller. 

Homemade (by my sister in law) Disney shirts for the kids are finished.  

Sunscreen purchased for us and the kids.  

I need to call and make a pedicure appointment for tonight, finish packing our Las Vegas bag, get everything in the car, cut Hyrum's hair, and get all of my different lists over the past week on one sheet of paper to check everything off.  

We're almost ready!  

Christians

I maybe make one or two politically minded posts a year.  Since this is an election year, maybe it would stretch to three or four, but usually I stay away from that.  This is one of them.  (Consider yourselves warned.  The four of you that read this).

Because this blog is also my families journal and scrapbook, sometimes I feel the need to explain a few things that would be painfully obvious to those reading this online.  So, Facebook is a social networking site.  An online forum where you have 'friends' and make comments about life or what you're having for dinner and people can comment on your original statements.  Sometimes they comment A LOT.

I saw (for the first time) a quote from Stephen Colbert, a satirical comedian who has a pseudo news show on cable.

"If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it". 

I couldn't agree more with this statement.  There is a large percentage of LDS members (I'll refrain from saying majority) that feel close to the Republican party.  I'm not really sure why.  If you were going to generalize, in my opinion, I suppose the Republicans would like to have an image of a budget conscious group, all for family values (a little vague), and less government oversight.  As a whole, the group is against abortion, and seems to be against special rights or allowances for homosexuals.  They like their guns, and seem to favor breaks for large corporations, as a method to keep the economy on the right track (trickle down theory, anyone?).  Sorry for any of you that consider yourself a republican that might like to add or take away from my description, it's just my opinion and I don't claim to have a complete description.

We (Justin and I) find ourselves on the other side of the fence for the most part.  We may differ a bit in our views (and Justin, you're MORE than welcome to write your own post -for posterity's sake), but for the most part we're on the same page.  The only issue that I think we don't see exactly eye to eye on is the 'gay' issue.  And then, it's only a slight difference of opinion.

I've thought a lot over the last 10 years or so as to why I find myself on the other side so often.  I think it comes down to a few core beliefs.  One, is definitely access to affordable health care.  In a society like ours I do not believe affordable health care is a luxury.  Period.  I'm not as sure on the solution, either a national health care system, or changes to insurance company (Eeeek -government oversight and regulation) policies, or letting people buy into a federal or state sponsored health insurance plan if your employer doesn't offer one, but I think it's a priority.

Another big issue is addressed in that quote by Stephen Colbert.  We are a so-called Christian nation.  I just don't understand my fellow neighbors and church members that are so against the social programs that provide support and benefits to those that are less fortunate.  This is another one of those issues that goes right to my core and turns me into a bleeding heart democrat.  I don't even think it warrants the arguments by so many about misuse, inefficient bureaucratic departments, and perpetuation poverty.

Either we help the poor and needy, or we don't.  We're either content to take care of ourselves, our family, and to hell with everyone else who isn't as lucky as we are, or, we're willing to take care of ALL our brothers and sisters.

After posting that quote to my facebook status I couldn't believe the response! All 32 comments (which is a LOT in my book).

Here are some of my favorite responses against the comment (I'll leave the names off)
-Let's just make it optional and let me choose how to 'help'.  And how would you choose to help?  Give more to United Way, volunteer at the food bank or homeless shelter, open your home to less fortunate children who do not have parents who can or will provide them with a safe environment and basic living essentials?  Are you doing that now?  


-...Jesus didn't spend his life working to feed people who sat around enjoying his labors.  He taught men how to fish.  When the government also does that I will support the left sides ideas more. We know very little about the physical labors of Jesus.  He did heal a blind man -who probably was not able to work to support himself.  Did Christ expect repayment or that man to start working before he gave him service?  How many people did Jesus teach and provide gospel truths to that walked away and did not put to good use what He had given them?  He didn't ask what that end result would be, he offered and gave without strings attached.  

-I'm a christian/republican/conservative and I pay a lot in fast offerings to help those in need and watched my sister's kids for 3 years for free so she and her husband could work full time to make ends meet.  That is great.  That is how it is supposed to work.  Family first.  What if she didn't have a sister willing to do that?  And, how much to you pay in fast offerings?  Enough to put food on the table of a family for a month?  A week?  Two days?  We feel like we give generously, but it wouldn't stretch very far at the grocery store.  


-I'm not so sure that government programs aren't perpetuating poverty. I think if welfare entitlements were removed, that charities would receive more help and volunteers would be more involved...everyone would benefit, both the giver and the receiver.
Again, what are YOU doing right now?  How many charities do you support?  (other than fast offerings -which is great and a commandment -but will not reach every one even in Utah that is in need of a helping hand from time to time) 


-Christ is a capitalist, you get what you reap.
Yikes!  Claiming Christ was a capitalist???? Is that in scripture?  


Around 3 am (sick kids) I added fuel to the fire I suppose and added this little comment:
Next time you see a mom with handicapped children receiving help to buy feeding tube supplies, a kid in foster care who gets a whopping $800 in their hands and is told to start their own life and find an apartment and a job with health benefits, or , heaven forbid, someone using government subsidized loans to attend college to obtain an education, be sure to tell them they're breaking the system and don't deserve those programs. While you're at it, you might as well take away school lunch programs and early intervention tools for those ungrateful and wasteful children, the largest group affected by poverty. 

It's not all whinos and drug addicts using government programs. 

How many FAMILIES could your charitable donations feed for one month? Not many with our personal funds, I'm afraid. And I haven't clocked many hours at the homeless shelter this month either, I'm sad to say. 

You can't have it both ways. Social programs are used by all of us, we don't like to admit it, but I would guess we all have at some time or another. 

And since it's 3 am and I have a sick kid I'll end my rant by saying, we are not all born equal. I don't care who you are and how hard working you claim to be. Someone helped you get there. For most of us it was family, and that's good. That's how it's supposed to work. But too many don't have a fair chance from early on, and if you're Christian, charitable, guilty, or just not a jerk, you can admit it's okay to give some people a break. They don't all deserve it, you're right. And some of them make bad choices over and over again. But I must be missing the scripture that said Jesus only helped those who could help themselves or would put to good use the service or teachings he provided. 


At the end of the day, there is no way that private charities and families can care for everyone in need.  Sure there is abuse and inefficiencies in the system.  Sure people need to make better decisions and work harder, make better plans, get an education, have less children -but in a country where there are those that have so much, it's inhumane to allow the poor -and particularly the children- to suffer.  Suffer.  Not just go without cable and cell phones.  There are people with NO food in the cupboards.  That die prematurely because they didn't have access to preventative medical care.  Do you have food in your cupboards?  Because the food bank could use some of it.  Do your kids go to their yearly well child check ups?  Because their are families that can't afford the $600 for yearly vaccinations.  (Even those WITH insurance too often end of paying for these).

I make jokes that the church still allows me to keep my temple recommend despite that fact that I'm a democrat.  I'm beginning to feel like the tables are turning.

 Mosiah 4: 21 And now, if God, who has created you, on whom you are dependent for your lives and for all that ye have and are, doth grant unto you whatsoever ye ask that is right, in faith, believing that ye shall receive, O then, how ye ought to ^aimpart of the substance that ye have one to another.

 22 And if ye ^ajudge the man who putteth up his petition to you for your substance that he perish not, and condemn him, how much more just will be your ^bcondemnation for withholding your substance, which doth not belong to you but to God, to whom also your life ^cbelongeth; and yet ye put up no petition, nor repent of the thing which thou hast done.

 23 I say unto you, wo be unto that man, for his substance shall perish with him; and now, I say these things unto those who are^arich as pertaining to the things of this world.

Lately

Lately I've only been taking pictures of the kids (no surprise there) and I seem to be able to update their blogs a few times a month, but the family blog is probably lacking in our daily doings.

So far in 2012...

Justin has traveled to Toronto and is heading for California next week.  

I've been to a funeral.  One of my friends (since Kindergarten) step-father passed away after cancer.  I haven't been to a funeral for years where I haven't been in the family section.  I still became overwhelmed emotionally, but it had very little to do with the funeral and more to do with someone attending it.  I had no idea I felt so strongly about this person.  Turns out if you mess with one of my friends, I take it very personally.  

I've done church once on my own.  This is probably the hardest part of Justin being in the Navy. I'm sure I'll feel very different about that in 2013, but just having to do church on my own with 2 kids and having to play the organ in Sacrament meeting is pretty tough. 

Hyrum has spent at least 2 nights with the Lafeens, one with the Goughs and once or twice with my parents when I was there.  Kate went to the Lafeen's and Hardcastles.  They usually do really well on sleepovers.  But, since it's at the grandparents, they usually come home a little more tired than usual.  A small price to pay for a night off -usually.  

We visited a preschool that Hyrum will probably attend.  His cousin Laila went there and they loved it.  I wish I could find someone to carpool with, but probably won't -no matter where he goes, so we might as well go somewhere with high recommendations.

We went to the aquarium with Grandma Hardcastle.  They have a new sea otter exhibit.  They slept the whole time we were there.  Maybe we'll try again this week to see if we can see them playing in their cool new home.  

We found out they were able to recover all of our files from our media drive that crashed.  At least we'll get our money's worth.  And a new hard drive.  

We've attended 2 birthday parties, including a surprise party for my sister.  Hyrum is still talking about yelling "Surprise, Happy Birthday, Jodi"

We had a week of abnormally warm weather and made it to a park a couple of times.  

We had friends and cousins come over to play.

Lot's of time inside this month to play with trains.  

Lesson Learned

I briefly mentioned this in a previous post.  Justin and I thought we had this great idea (and it was) to have a media drive that basically synced our computers together without the networking headaches.  We save pretty much everything on the media drive, not on our computers.  Great idea right?  Computer's crash, and you lose information.  By not saving anything on our computers we could bypass all of those problems.

I did bring up the point that maybe we should make a few backup dvd's with the pictures and our businesses financials -you know, just in case.  Well, that takes a lot of time, and a bit of planning, something that both of us sometimes lack in.

Right before Christmas Justin told me he thought the media drive.  I didn't want to think about it.  I couldn't think about it, just the thought of thinking about it brought tears to my eyes.  Every single pictures I've ever taken digitally or scanned was on the drive.  Wedding pictures (which thankfully can be recovered, along with the last family pictures and the other professional ones taken by Terra at Magnifique) every picture of my kids, vacations, you get the idea.  It just makes me sick.  Justin not only has personal files on the drive, but also work stuff, including all the financials from 5 or 6 businesses.  We won't be able to do our taxes without it.

So, he sent it off to IOMEGA (after getting an estimate of $200 -$1,000) to recover our files.  This week we got the written estimate.  $1,800!  I can't believe it.  We are lucky and blessed that we can pay that.  And, in 5 years I would absolutely regret not paying the money to recover our family pictures.  That's obviously the most important thing to me, but as I mentioned, Justin is going to find his life getting very difficult and spending countless hours trying to recreate a lot of business paperwork.  Here's the worst part.  We still don't know if any or the files even CAN be recovered.  The estimate states that $1,800 is the price regardless of how much is recovered.  If they aren't able to recover ALL of the files, we can choose to accept the repair as is (for the full price) or not anything.

So, let's hope that our files can all be recovered and we've learned our lesson.  We are both already transferring the few files on our computers to dropbox.com .  It seems like a great service and we'll be able to access everything from anywhere -it even has an app.

Book Report

I think I want to start tracking the books I read somewhere.  And, I guess this will be the place for now.  I doubt I'll say much about each book, just a sentence or two, but you can always google it if you want more info.

Since Christmas I've finished:

Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien -the first one.  I read this like a real book.  My dad lent me his hardback copy, but it was all three novels and I couldn't hold the dang thing.  I ended up borrowing a paperback from Jodi.  We read it for my mom's book club.  Mostly because it was a book that we all had on our 'to-read' list and had never got around to it.  Since we didn't meet in December (so we had twice as long) we decided to read it.  It was okay.  I'm not sure it was as great as some reviews and best of book lists say it is, but I'm glad I read it.  And I think Peter Jackson did a great job with the movies.

This Much I Know Is True by Wally Lamb.  I started this in California with the audio book.  I had read another one of his, The Hour I First Believed and really liked it.  There is a bit of language in his books and he usually has at least one scene that might embarrass a few people.  I think he's a good writer and keeps his reader interested the entire length of the book (which is usually pretty long).  This one was about a set of twins, one with bipolar disease and how the other deals with it.

Never Let Me Go, Kasuo Ishiguro.  I listened to the audio book.  (I've really gotten into audio books since my one day California trip -thanks, dad).  This is another one that I had see the movie before I read the book.  I liked it a lot better than the last one I read from the same author.  Kind of like a dystopian story that was quite interesting.

Anthem by Ayn Rand.  I discovered the free app from the library and this was one of audio books on there.  It only took 2 hours to listen to.  This was a short one for Ayn Rand.  I've never read one of her books before -have you SEEN how big Fountainhead is?  I was curious about her writing, and probably wouldn't mind reading some of her other works.  I think this one in most releases is around 250 pages, pretty much a novella compared to her other novels.  It's another dystopian story.

The Litigators by John Grisham.  Another audio book.  My gym time is coming in handy getting extra books in.  I haven't read a John Grisham book for ages, they all started to get too familiar.  This one is much of the same but he is a good story teller and there were enough little turns at the end to keep it interesting.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.  I read this in school, along with just about every other student in the country.  I've joined another book club, one where we will read books that had been banned or challenged at one point.  This is the first one we're reading.  I'll be honest, I sort of forgot most of the details near the end, so it made it a great read.  Not that this one isn't a great read anyway, no wonder it's read so often.  I actually purchased this book (haven't done that for ages, I'm a fan of the library).  I figured that one of our kids will eventually read this too and unless they start issuing iPads (which may happen, who knows) in junior high, we'll have a copy.

I'm currently reading:

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey.  This is another free one from the library.  I've seen the movie, years ago, probably also forgotten a lot of details so it's sort of new to me.  I noticed it mostly because it's one that was on our banned books list, so just in case we read it, I'll have it fresh on my mind.  I'm about half way through it, slightly disturbing but the language isn't horrible.  I can't remember why this one has been banned in the past, but I think it get's a bit more graphic later on.

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion.  This is the first book I'm reading on my new Nook Tablet.  Which is sort of why I'm reading it.  It's my turn to pick the book next month in our mom's book club, so I made sure no one had read this one and picked it.  I'm a little worried about being in two book clubs -hoping to get ahead a little on reading.  I didn't realize it was a memoir which follows the year following the authors husbands death.  It's an award winning book and so far I like it.

I usually don't have quite this long of a list, I was nearly done with Lord of the Rings and the Wally Lamb book by the time Christmas came along too, so that is probably why it's so long too.