Last Week of School, Zion Mountain Ranch, 1st Week of Summer Va-ca

The last week of school zoomed by.  Samuel and I went to Eric's class picnic that Wednesday.  We walked over to the park across the street from the temple to eat lunch and play games.  We also went to the school on Friday for awards, I missed whatever presentation I should have seen and was just there during year book signing.  I wish I could really sum up the year for the children, but that is hard to capture all of the emotion and feelings behind that.  I was really touched to see how much Eric is going to miss his teacher, Mrs. Davis.  He cried and was really sad to leave her.  He did not want to leave school and it took me leading him out.  Mrs. Davis was emotional at her class leaving also.  Eric has already written a couple of notes/letters to Mrs. Davis that we need to mail and really wants to go visit her at her home in Oakley.  Rubie was fine leaving, though she also has grown to love Mrs. Soderstrom.  Both teachers really love our children.  I am so grateful for that.  I love my children and know how special they are, but I am glad to know that others love them as well.  Their teachers helped me to see some strengths in each of them.  I love that Mrs. Soderstrom loves Rubie and finds her to be such a pleasant student.  We will be excited to see who are teachers are next year.  On Friday afternoon we packed up and headed to Zion Mountain Ranch.  Scott booked this vacation awhile ago and we have been looking forward to it.  ZMR is located on the East side of Zion National Park, on the Mt. Carmel side.  In our cabin was a leather bound book.  Scott decided it would be the adventure journal.  This is what he wrote in it:

Well here we are all settled into cabin at ZMR just outside of Zion National Park.  It is the beginning of Memorial Day Holiday Vacation 2015.  Last year was our 1st annual "Hoteling" trip.  We spent the weekend in Capitol Reef.  This year we'll spend five days in and around Zion's, our 2nd annual "cabining" trip.  Rubie was so excited she built a model cabin out of blankets and chairs the first week of May and slept in it for 3 days.  This is our first trip as a family since I was laid off from AtTask last December.  The family was so supportive and cooperative during my time unemployed, this vacation is a great opportunity to enjoy getting out and enjoying ourselves.  Everyone was so happy to get into the cabin.  So far we've played some games and started a movie.  Off to a great start.  Scott

Let me just fill in a little bit.  We stayed in a small cabin.  It was like a large hotel room with 2 king size beds, a pull-out couch bed, TV, table and chairs, small bathroom, microwave and fridge.  It was a little rainy so we were grateful for the TV and DVD player.  The wifi didn't work so we were lucky to have brought DVDs with us.  The office ranch had some to borrow as well.  We arrived late Friday and returned home Tuesday morning.  So we had Saturday, Sunday, and Monday to explore.  We explored around Kanab going to some caves which we just happened upon and some locals told us to go to.  We visited the Best Friends animal sanctuary (just saw a sign and went to check it out), we visited the Coral Pink Sand Dunes.  Monday we went to Zion National Park (along with 1/2 the world's population).  Dan and his boys were in St. George visiting his friends the Cornea's.  So we met up with them in Zion's.  I'm not joking about the amount of people there.  It took forever to find a place to park, to even drive through, get a shuttle, and get from shuttle's to the hikes.  We decided on Angel's Landing.  Lots of people hiking too.  It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, I pictured hiking up in a continuous line of people just shuffling along.  But when we reached the saddle to start the hiking with the chain area, that is where the solid line of people was.  I was so proud of Eric and Rubie.  I never imagined they would hike that far up.  Scott didn't make it very far.  He had Sam on his back and as soon as we were on a ledge and the wind was whipping around him, he couldn't go anymore.  But I kept Eric and Rubie going and as long as I let them take some breaks and didn't push them too fast they were good.  Even Eric would say his legs were so tired but he kept on going.  It really helped to have Dan and his boys along.  We did get separated for a little while, we hunkered down during some rain, and then when Dan and the boys came along, that rejuvenated Eric and Rubie and we kept on to the saddle.  They were awesome and I was so thrilled!!!

We loved ZMR because of the cabin but also it is a working ranch.  They have 65 head of buffalo.  Goats, horses, chickens and ducks.  Rubie loved all the animals.  She loved watching them and feeding them and interacting with them.  Sam loved to run after the ducks and chickens (kickens or bak-bak he would say).  There was a large fire pit where in the evening they would start a fire and we could roast marshmallows and make s'mores.  It was beautiful.  It was somewhere we could definitely go again.

Rubie wrote this in the book:

I liked yesterday because we got to play in the sand and see sand buggies!

Eric wrote this in the Adventure Journal:

I built a ginormous sand castle.  We built a little cave and watched it erode and fall.

Our first week of summer vacation has been kind of chill.  Rubie decided it was time to claim her room back.  Even though I told her we would start the next day she decided as soon as we returned from ZMR she was moving Sam out.  She went in and put all of his stuff in the hallway so she could move in.  While I did not want her to do that and was quite frustrated it was okay.  Throughout the week I would spend a little time with her moving her stuff in and putting up her old decorations and such and making it a cute room.  We moved Sam in to Eric's room but he does not quite understand that yet.  We thought if we get out the toddler bed that might help him.  We have decided to sell the bunk bed because no one will sleep on the top and so we ordered some beds for Eric and Rubie and too and that should help.

We also spent time looking for a new car.  The X-terra is having issues again with the head gasket.  It is constantly leaking and according to the mechanics could go any time leaving us stranded somewhere.  It would cost upwards of $3,000 to have the head gasket fixed and that does not really seem reasonable as the whole vehicle is probably not worth that.  Our credit still is not the best and so we cannot get the vehicle that we really want.  Even though we may be able to afford the payments a bank is not willing to loan us the amount of money for a nice Tahoe or something like that.  So we have found a vehicle at Low Book sales, a Dodge Journey that will be a good car until the we can get that Tahoe we want.  It is pending an inspection by Scott's trusted mechanic, Steve Whitehead, that hopefully we can get tomorrow.