i’m sitting on the couch. It’s Quiet Time. This is what we designate the hours between 1 and 3ish.

Jocelyn is supposed to be “sleeping” in her room.

Ethan is supposed to be playing quietly in the toy room.

Jocelyn left her room long ago and has been playing in the toy room. I don’t really mind. It’s not like she was actually going to sleep, heaven forbid.

They’ve been doing pretty good, but I’m currently hearing some disagreement noises. No one is crying, so I stay put on the couch in the living room.

Soon enough, I hear the door opening, and soft accusatory voices directed at each other as they make their way downstairs.

“I’m telling mommy that you hit me on the leg.”

“Well, I’m telling mommy that you hit me on the head.”

“Well, you hit me on the leg with your leg.”

“You hit me on the head with your hand.”

Soon they arrive in front of me. Jocelyn is all decked out in several of her dress up garbs, complete with wings. No one is particularly upset. Voices are not heightened. They almost don’t even seem upset with each other. It’s like they’re standing before me JUST FOR THE PRINCIPLE OF THE THING. TATTLING IS SOMETHING WHICH MUST BE DONE, NO MATTER HOW MUCH I DON’T CARE THAT YOU HIT ME.

Jocelyn starts. Ethan waits patiently until she’s finished. I hear about the hitting of the leg, WITH THE OTHER LEG, and the hitting of the head WITH THE HAND. As each one finishes, the other starts back in about their body part that has been afflicted. They would probably still be standing in front of me, calmly going back and forth about the head, and the leg, and how each of these important body parts were injured, calming waiting their turn to reiterate, until I interupted. South and North going Zax indeed.

I ask them what happened to cause all the hitting. They look at me blankly. Didn’t I realize that the HITTING just happened out of the blue? Hitting just happens. There is no reason for it, their blank looks seemed to say.

“Was there something that someone wanted and the other one had?”

Finally Ethan comes to life. Eureka! That’s right! THERE WAS A REASON FOR THE HITTING, he seems to think.

“She had my parts.”

“Your lego parts?”

“Yes. My lego parts. I wanted them back.”

“Jocelyn did you have his lego parts?”

“No.” (this, for ONCE is said in a normal, soft tone. Usually when the word “no” comes out of her mouth, it is emphasized as if she is explaining something to the dumbest person on earth, and it sounds like, “noooooooo-wuh!” This “no” consisted, miraculously, of only 1 syllable.

It’s also a miracle that Ethan doesn’t interupt at this point, but he just listened patiently.

“Did you?” I press her.

“Yes. I did. I took his parts.”

“Tell him you’re sorry.”

“I’m sorry I took your parts.”

“and that you hit him on the head.”

“I’m sorry I hit you on the head.”

“Now Ethan, tell her your sorry you hit her.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I hit you. I’m sorry I hit you on the leg with my leg.”

“OK guys, it’s still quiet time. No more hitting, and if someone has something you want, ask nicely. OK?”

“OK!” they holler as they scamper off up the stairs.

Most polite, calm, patient and quiet disagreement ever.

If only they were all like that.

James rented a bike in Moab one day and took the point and shoot camera with him.

This is my brother Joe, doing what I would call, “facing certain death”. Probably what he would call, “a total blast!”

All of the shots James took on the small camera are now on his flickr site.

Another shot, this one of my brother Larry and Joe, taken by Larry:

(look, there’s lonely mountain down there!)

Click any of the photos for a bigger version. It’s worth it.

They call it “Castle Valley” because the round, lone mountain in the middle has rock formations on top that makes it look like a castle on a hill. You’d think that mountain would be named Castle Mountain, but no, it’s named Round Mountain. However, before we knew it’s name, as we were driving and driving and wondering where in the world our campsite was (we still had 40 minutes to go with lots of STEEP windy roads up the mountains), we dubbed it Lonely Mountain, because it was all alone in the middle of the valley.

Lonely Mountain, as one drives through the valley.

Even closer:

The valley wall also held this nifty rock formation:

We finally left the valley floor and began climbing the mountains. We were driving my sisters old Nissan Sentra, and boy, it had to work VERY hard.

Just barely climbing, lonely/round mountain on the left:

And then up a bit more…

And then we were winding around through the mountains so much, there wasn’t really a vantage point for any more photos.

This is up the road even further from our campsite:

You can just barely see lonely mountain peeping up there behind a slope in the middle.

It took a long time to climb the La Sal mountains to get to our campsite. And we drove back down them again every day to go to Arches or go into Moab, so we saw this valley a lot.

And it took my breath away every time.

Click for bigger version.

… for june.

i love this photo of my strawberries, but now every time i load up my site, i get hungry and all salivate-y.

we are home now. it is so nice. 4? 5? I can’t remember really, days of camping in the La Sal mountains about 40 min away from Moab, UT was lovely. Getting back to civilization, in the garb of staying at my folks house in Park City for the remaining 5 days was even more loverly. Plumbing! Running water! A microwave! It’s amazing how the camping in the mountains/desert can give you a greater appreciation of these things. Seeing my entire family was so much fun. All those cousins and watching them play was just the cutest. The scenery was incredible. Arches National Park left us awestruck. There will be lots of (non blurry! non camera phone! yay!) pictures coming.

We flew to Utah with 5 checked bags. We accumulated more stuff out there and came home with 7 checked bags. Only six of them made it on our plane though, and the 7th will be arriving at our doorstep sometime tomorrow morning. I don’t really mind. It took a few hours to unpack and go through five of the six we actually have, and I didn’t have the energy to even open the sixth.

The best part about being home – sleeping in your own bed.

I think the kids would say, playing with your own toys…. and not having to share 🙂

The worst part… thinking about getting back to normal life in the next day or two. Going to work. And also, that spoilt milk in the fridge you didn’t throw out before you left. Yeah, that sucks.

Also.. someone in VA cranked up the heat, and turned the humidifier WAY up in this state. Utah was fairly temperate.. but even when it was hot.. it was a dry heat. Much easier to tolerate.

Ahhh. Bed. I think I’ll go reaquaint myself with you.

This is one of the dresses I wore for ballet.
Perfect for dress-up, even better for twirling. We’re taking it home with us, and Jocelyn keeps wanting confirmation. “It’s ours? Not Grandma’s? It’s coming home?”

Last day in utah. flying home early tomorrow.