The Fourth

We decided last minute to spend the 4th with Andy's family.

We couldn't decide if we should go because of a few things but my main concern was that Ben was due for one of his clusters (they come weekly now) and it's just easier to deal with the seizures at home.

But, I finally just decided that we could be spontaneous and I'm so glad we went.

It wouldn't be a weekend at Grandma's house without the 4 wheeler train.

Andy rode a bike along side...

I'm not sure what Ben and Austin are communicating here :)

The boys also rode along side...

It also wouldn't be a weekend at Grandma's without playing in the waterfall...

Thanks again for these great pictures Jenny!

We also need to have a production put on by the kids each time...

After the play we were debating whether or not we should go try and catch the fireworks.  It was almost time for them to start and we knew the traffic would be bad so most of us opted out.  I'm glad our family didn't end up going because Ben started his cluster shortly thereafter.

Ben found Grandma's collection of rubber ducks the next morning and had to line them all up...

...in order by type.

Got all his ducks in a row :)

Then Grandpa and the kids went to the stream to have a rubber duck race...

They didn't move quite as fast as we were expecting.

Here's Dad downstream with the butterfly net ready to snatch those swift duckies out of the water.

Mostly they just got caught in the rocks and weeds and things but it was a fun experiment anyway :)

A fast but pleasant holiday weekend!

Bryan Family Vacation 2014 Days 4 & 5

The next day Ben had his cluster.  I had come prepared with things to do at the condo in such a case so I was content to stay back with him while Andy took the kids hiking around Pioneer Park.

The loved it!

This is my favorite with the St. George temple in the background.

That evening everyone gathered at one of the condos and played games and things.

We had finally given Ben diastat after his tenth seizure but he was still really sleepy and drugged so, again, I willingly stayed back and read and worked on my hexies while watching retro t.v. and munching on snacks :)

The next day was departure day.

Ben talked his cousins into playing Duck Duck Goose with him.

They are all so good to Ben.

That morning we debated whether or not we should take an extra side trip and go to the Grand Canyon.

We had originally thought that it would be an extra 4 hours in the car.  The kids and I had never been there so I (even though I'm not a fan of car travel) voted for it thinking we would regret it if we didn't.

Then, Andy did some looking online and found that it could take much longer to get there...like up to 4 hours one way!  What to do?  We checked with some locals and I checked the internet and we decided that we would just do it and that it probably wouldn't be as short as a 4 hour round trip but most likely not as long as an 8 hour one either.

Andy told me I would be amazed at the amount of greenery toward the end of the drive.  I felt like we were in Yellowstone or even Oregon in some spots.  It contrasted so much with all the red rock and heat that we had been experiencing the last several days.  It dipped down to 69 degrees in the coolest part of our drive but then quickly climbed back up before we came out of the trees and hit the canyon.

It was quite amazing and breathtaking!

Ben slept through a good portion of it.

It ended up being and extra 5 hours which was just fine.

I'm so glad we made the trip.

Ice cream at the lodge afterwards.

That night, we drove back to Springdale and stayed in the same hotel as the first night.  Some of the extended family was staying there and going into Zion the next day since they hadn't done it before St. George like we had.

We had a great trip.  I'm not a dry, hot, dusty sort of person...my kind of beauty is the lush, green, rainy kind.  So whenever I saw something that was striking, I would say something like, "Oh, that's kind of neat...in a dry, hot, dessert sort of way".  It kind of became a joke between me and Andy.  He loves this kind of scenery and was very much in his element.  I feel like I did come to appreciate some of the "beauties" of Southern Utah though and I was relieved that we survived the heat!