Rebecca
About Rebecca
Posts by Rebecca Golden:
Glenwood Springs Getaway
I know in my last post I referenced the time six years ago when Dallas and I went to Moab by ourselves and left the kids with my parents. Ever since then we’ve been itching to get away again just the two of us. With my parents leaving for their mission in less than two months, we knew we needed to act fast!
We needed a destination that wasn’t too far away since we were just planning to be gone a couple of nights. I had a friend suggest looking through the Groupon Getaways to see if we could find a good hotel deal. That’s how I stumbled upon Glenwood Springs, Colorado. I’d never heard of the place and Dallas was skeptical that it would be any fun to visit, but I reminded him that going grocery shopping without the children feels like a luxury so anywhere we went without carting our four precious kids along would be just fine. It was settled.
We took off on a Monday morning. After briefing my mom the best I could of all our kids’ preferences and quirks, we were off. We made it to Colorado without a hitch and decided to take our picture next to the sign like the tourists that we were.
Me: “You couldn’t have taken your sunglasses off?”
Me: “Now you’re squinting. Maybe you need your sunglasses on.”
Obviously our selfies weren’t cutting it. Luckily another family stopped for their photo opportunity and we took each other’s pictures.
Now there’s a picture we can be proud of.
We checked into our hotel and they told us our room had been upgraded. We had more space in our hotel room than we had in our first home. Things were off to a good start.
We decided to drive around the town and see what it had to offer. Dallas heard that Doc Holliday’s gravesite was in the town so we decided to pay our respects. I didn’t really recall who Doc Holliday was or why we would care about his grave, but what did that matter?
You have to hike up a little mountain to get to the graveyard. On the way we encountered this tree:
We’re still not quite sure what that was about. We think it was a tribute to someone who had cancer? Maybe?
We made it to the graveyard and found that they have a monument for Doc Holliday, but they don’t actually know where he’s buried. I felt scammed.
We needed dinner so we walked down their Main Street looking for some places to eat. Glenwood Springs is a pretty small town, so everything about it seemed charming and quaint. I mean, look. Someone used a ski to fix the gaping hole on their balcony. Adorable, no?
However, we were there on the off season and it was a Monday night to boot, so we found not many places were open.
We did keep seeing these buildings with green plus signs on them that were always open. We couldn’t for the life of us figure out what they were. Something medical probably because of the cross, but why was it green? Then our wanderings brought us to a building with a funny smell wafting from it and this sign outside:
Oooooh yeaaaaah. We’re not in Kansas anymore. Our favorite marijuana shop was the one in the Walmart parking lot complete with its own greenhouse in back:
The next day we went to Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park. You buy your tickets at the base of the mountain and have to sign a liability waiver to continue. That’s how you know you’re in for some good fun.
Then we took a tram up to the top of the mountain where the amusement park was:
It was an interesting park because of the variety of amusements available.
There were two caves that we toured. We joked that our first tour guide was on a completely different tour than the rest of us were on. She told us she had been up all night partying, and she definitely smelled like she had been partaking of some of what those green-cross buildings had to offer.
Luckily our second tour guide was a little more grounded in reality making that tour a bit more informative and enjoyable for us.
The amusement park had four 4-D movies for us to watch. Those were fun:
We played laser tag and found some crazy mirrors:
Then there were the thrill rides. There was a zip line ride which I didn’t get a picture of. Dallas’s favorite ride was the alpine coaster:
You’re in these coaster cars and you can control how fast you go. It was really fun.
My favorite ride was the swing. There was hardly anyone at the theme park so we didn’t see the swing in action before riding it. I was expecting to simply rock back and forth a little. Oh no. We were strapped to this contraption that shot us super fast right over the side of the mountain so we could look down over the cliff and feel like we were plunging to our deaths. You can see the ride to the right of this picture and you can see how high up we were and how you just fly off the side of the mountain:
You can face two ways on the ride. After our first ride no one else was in line so I asked if we could ride it again facing the other direction. The worker seemed to think it wasn’t the greatest idea to ride twice in a row, but we were sure we were up for it. Or at least I was sure I was. Unfortunately, after that ride Dallas started feeling sick. That put an end to our stay at the adventure park.
We had a quick nap back at the hotel and then were ready for more fun. We grabbed some gourmet burgers which were delicious. We took pictures of our food because I guess that’s what you do these days:
Glenwood Springs didn’t have a movie theater, but a neighboring town did, so we drove there and saw a movie in the theater which we haven’t done in ages.
The next day we decided to hike to Hanging Lake. The hike was only about a mile long, but it was like doing a StairMaster the whole way up. That was some good exercise. We were happy to make it to our destination:
We stopped for some lunch on our way out of town and headed back home. It was so nice to get away for a couple of days and play and do whatever we wanted without having to worry about nap time and homework and keeping kids happy. We were glad to relinquish those duties temporarily to my mom so that we could have a fun little trip.
Thank you Glenwood Springs. You were very good to us.
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Goblin Valley
A couple of months ago as spring break approached, I told Dallas he should try to take a day off during the week so we could do something fun together as a family. He assured me there was no way he could take off that week.
I’m not exactly sure what happened, but the Monday of spring break Dallas announced that he had gotten Wednesday off. Yay for dads being home during spring break!
Ever since Dallas and I went to Moab six years ago, we’ve been dying to take the kids to Goblin Valley. It’s a huge area with funny-looking rock formations, and you climb and explore to your heart’s content. Our kids love climbing all over rocks, so we were sure this trip would be a huge hit.
We got up early in the morning and took off. We made it to Green River at lunchtime, so we grabbed some food and headed the rest of the way to Goblin Valley.
We sunscreened up, took a couple pictures of the valley, and set off to exploring.
The kids loved finding these little caves:
This was Spencer most of the day:
He really hated the rocks getting into his shoes.
After about an hour of exploring, the kids were getting really crabby and whiney. They were tired and wanted to leave. Dallas and I were both thinking the same thing which was, “We just drove four hours and we have to drive four hours back. We are not leaving after only ONE HOUR.”
I was so sure the kids would have a blast and never want to leave. How had I misjudged so grossly?
We decided to head back to the car and have a snack break. We let the kids gorge themselves on crackers, granola bars, candy, and water. Turns out that snack was just what we needed. We set off again and this time the kids were running ahead of us scampering all around having the time of their lives, just as I had envisioned they would. We wisely brought some hard candy with us as we were hiking this time so anytime someone got tired or complained we could give them a Jolly Rancher and that would keep them happy again for a long while.
The second half of the day was perfection. We had so much fun exploring and laughing at all the funny rocks we saw.
There weren’t many people around, so we were by ourselves most of the day. Late in the afternoon we could hear someone following us. After a while a woman found us and desperately asked if we knew how to get back to the cars. We pointed her in the right direction and before leaving she took several pictures of us:
She insisted on taking one of just me and Dallas and was really bothered that Spencer slipped into the shot. We assured her we’re used to little people photobombing our pictures, and it was okay.
Brooke jumped off a rock:
Then Caroline got some air:
So of course Madison had to try:
Brooke really conquered the gaze-victoriously-into-the-distance look:
Brooke: “Can we take a picture with just the girls looking adorable?”
Done:
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Old Enough
It’s a really weird thing to have your oldest child start turning into a big kid. I’m used to babies since they’ve been my focus for the past eight years, so Brooke routinely catches me off guard with her…I hesitate to say maturity exactly…but something like that. The smallest seed of maturity is almost peeking through, and every once in a while I catch a glimpse.
The first time I really noticed this was a little while ago. I had to give a lesson in Primary and told Brooke that I would be teaching. She said, “Are you going to use that voice?”
Me (taken aback): “Voice? What voice?”
Brooke: “You know. That voice you use when you talk to little kids. Like this.”
She then proceeded to do such a spot-on imitation of my “teacher voice” that I was gobsmacked. How has my mostly oblivious child picked up on my perhaps slightly obnoxious mannerisms and started ribbing me about them?! Is this my life now?
My mind instantly recalled all the teasing my sister and I did to my poor Mom, my favorite being the time my Mom made a laughing sound, but her face didn’t smile. That right there was UNFORGIVABLE to my sister and she never let my Mom live it down.
Now here I am. Payback. I think I preferred being on the other side of the equation.
But back to Brooke. She gets jokes now. She can understand deeper themes in books. It’s really kind of delightful in a way. And scary. Let’s do more examples.
Now that Brooke is eight she gets to accompany me to the general women’s session of general conference. This wasn’t exactly welcome news to Brooke. On the way over she was grumbling and complaining about having to get a dress on and go to a boring meeting. During the opening song I noticed there were young girls mixed in with the women singing in the choir. Hoping to cheer Brooke up a bit I excitedly said, “Look! There are girls your age!”
Brooke (with mock enthusiasm): “Yeah. And look! There are grown-ups YOUR age.”
Touché.
Brooke asked if we could just skip out and go get ice cream instead. After all, that would be way more fun.
I sensed a great opportunity for teaching a lesson and began a sermon. “Brooke, we are about to be nourished by the word of God. That’s far better than ice cream. Jesus taught that we can eat ice cream and if we eat ice cream, that’s it. We’ll still get hungry later, but if we ‘eat’ the words of God, we’ll never hunger again.”
After a moment of silence, surely allowing the Spirit to pierce her soul with the truthfulness of my words, she said eagerly, “So, you’re saying I only need to go to one meeting, I’ll hear what I need to hear, and then I will never have to go back to church again?”
Um. That is not at all what I was saying, but that was pretty sound logic, and I was rendered speechless.
Luckily she’s also starting to understand the beauty of a compromise. We made it through the meeting without further incident and then I finished off the evening chatting with my favorite almost-big-kid-eight-year-old…
…over a bowl of ice cream.
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The Kids Said…
Brooke: “Mom, is it okay if I get things wrong on purpose at school?”
Me: “No. Why would you want to?”
Brooke: “Because if I get it right they make it harder, so can I just get some things wrong so they don’t make it too hard on me?”
Always strive for mediocrity there, Brooke. We’re so proud.
***
Madison was playing with one of Brooke’s Lego animals. Upon noticing, Brooke snatched it out of her hands. Madison’s entire body shook with rage as she shouted out the best insult her not-quite-two-year-old mind could come up with: “Na, na, na, boo, boo, I SEE YOU!”
***
One evening as we were reading scriptures Madison noticed that Dallas had turned his hat backwards and couldn’t get over it. She kept repeating, “Mom! Daddy’s cool!”
***
This happened way back at the beginning of the school year. Brooke was in a bad mood about having to get into the routine of doing homework again. This was her finished paper:
Me: “Why are you making your lines so complicated?”
Brooke: “What? If my teacher is going to force ME to do work, I’m going to force HER to do work to find out my answers.”
***
After church one day, Caroline greeted us with this paper. Four kids and a very suspicious question mark there. For the record, there is no question. We are NOT expecting baby #5.
***
Caroline: “Mom, I love you from A to Z.”
(Contemplative pause)
“Actually, I just love you from A to B.”
***
