Bappa: What’s in your box there?

Della: Make-up.

Meanwhile, Della created this portrait of George, which George hates because, he says, he doesn’t have lellow hair; he has white hair.

We drove several of our white trucks north to Bear Lake last weekend to see Flew the Coop play at a casual country club restaurant on the Utah-Idaho border.

At first we were concerned that we would not enjoy child-minding while camping in a parking lot. Someone saw us hanging out like this pre-concert and asked if there was a golf tournament going on. I don’t think you could get away with parking your RV in a country club parking lot in Virginia, but I’m not sure.

As Paul said, even though we’ve been listening to this band play these same songs forever, we’re not going to be able to see them play forever into the future. (Because they’ll probably get signed by a major label and tix will be cost prohibitive.)

Multimedia documentation was amateurish, but I assure you we had an extremely good time. (Like my kids, Paul has started cutting his own hair!)

The children stayed up way late dancing, were awful the next day, but it was super worth it. At one point Della walked up to Bappa and gave him a kiss. Bappa invited all of the women in the audience to do the same. He got at least 3-4 kisses out of it.

Plus hugs from George. (Which you wouldn’t think of as a big deal, but George typically doesn’t snuggle men because of “sharpie things” on their faces.)

Look at this gentle beast.

Ahh, Miss Lexi. My plan was to bring you out to Utah so you wouldn’t miss Della and George so much. There were times, though, when I was afraid you would never want to see them again after this trip! But in the end you seemed to still like them, despite all their whining, wailing, and misbehaving. And for sure, we had some fun times…

Remember when we almost lost George inside a beach umbrella?

And remember when you were just a tiny speck in the reservoir with one or more of my children while I was chilling on the sand checking my phone?

We did other things, too. Like watch the Balympics, at home and at this Tex Mex restaurant. Della was so impressed with Rio, she officially moved her imaginary family – husband, Eric, and their many babies – from Scotland to Brazil.

One of the days, George got a haircut. Some people like it; some people don’t. Some people prefer the shock and ambiguity of the old scruffy George to the severity of this new clean cut.

Lexi rode a horse for the first time! As with all of her accomplishments, Lexi passed this off as no big deal. 

Another thing we rode: the gondola up the mountain.

On our mountain walk, Lexi observed that Della doesn’t like to walk and never has.

We watched more than enough of the free concert going on at the mountain’s base. Remember George pre-professional-haircut?

Look at this scary cat. George cut off its tuft of white hair “because it was too scary. Yeah.” 

Okay folks, the ditch was running while Lexi was here. And what 19-year-old doesn’t appreciate a good irrigation ditch? 

And what 19-year-old doesn’t want to pass her time at the local Kangaroo Zoo?

We snuggled some baby goats at Jorro’s farm…

Some of us even got our nails done. Della is sure patient when she wants to be.

Oh, look who else got his nails done…

Nails and face.

Also this guy.

Dude, we went to Lagoon. My kids call it The Goon, just like I did. This place. Is. So. Fun.

We made the mistake of taking George on BomBora, which is a lightly thrilling roller coaster that doesn’t discriminate against the small of height. Afterwards he swore off all rides forever, save for the teacups. 

But I should have guessed both kids would have the most fun just watching the 15-year-old girl at the Guess It booth try to guess people’s age and weight. Della has a thing for girls with microphones.

Oh, we had a full-on tea party. Not up to my mom’s standards, but with the addition of a bubble machine, thanks to Grandma Linda.

We drove around in the back of the pick-up truck.

The kids did tons of chores…

…and never so much as glanced at a screen.

George cut paper into little bits, and we ate s’mores on National S’mores Day.

We took pretty walks.

And Della put on a show. Lots of them.

Love you/miss you, dear Miss Lexi!

We think it started happening around 2011. Look at this wall of spray cans in a bike shop/art gallery.

You can paint your own bike on site with popsicle designs, etc.

Look at this apocalyptic landscape.

We walked up river and floated down. Here we are catching air in a bag and then pushing the air into our rafts for quick and easy inflation. 

Paul has a new girlfriend, unpictured. She is very attractive and congenial.

It’s such a shame the kids couldn’t make it. Also Steve couldn’t make it. It was just me hanging out like a free woman for five days, which as you can imagine was extremely boring and unrewarding and made me miss all the hallmarks of domesticity. 

Meanwhile, Steve was having a blast caring for our well-behaved children.

And Bappa was out on his dirt bike.

They have a pet goat that keeps them calm.