Long and Boring Travelogue from UT/AZ trip

We recently returned from a trip to Utah. Since one of the goal in a Hansen-relation’s life is to go to as many states as possible, we went through NM, CO, and UT on the way there, and through AZ on the way home, so Max has 5 states for being 5 months old.

Here's Max and Liesl celebrating the 4th:

This was the Nomad Vacation, and our minivan sighed with relief to be back in the garage. (But not for long) After staying the night along historic route 66 in New Mexico, we drove to UT just in time for the awesome salmon “fry” (grill) my brother Bruce and his wife Michelle do for Father’s Day every year. They postponed it and we were lucky to attend, and then stayed with them and their 4 kids in Pleasant Grove. Some things we did: went to my nephew Will’s blessing, the BYU Anthropology Museum for a “culture day,” storytime at the Orem library, and played kickball for FHE. After going to Heber to see my Palmer cousins at their family reunion, we stayed one night at my parents’ house, and celebrated Heidi’s birthday with Dawn and Melody and wow Heidi, aren’t you so excited to have 11 kids come along too? Mark was still in KC, so the kids and I then went to West Jordan to stay with Dawn & Jay and their 3, and then Mark joined us.

Trissie & Matthew w/ my favorite dessert: chocolate eclair cream puff ring. About a jillion calories but so worth it. Mark, Max, and I went to my cousin Mark’s fancy wedding reception and got to see more family. Mark and Jay had to work all weekend, but we got to go to Dawn’s ballet studio’s performance:

(The actual dancers are on the left)and the hubs stopped working so we could go out on the town while two twelve year olds watched 7 kids under 7.

Celebrating Heidi's birthday at the Homestead while Brian cheeses it up:

Mark flew to DC on Monday and my friend Cheryl graciously invited the remaining 5 of us to her home in Cedar Hills for Bill’s pizza and to play. We then moved back to the Hansen Homestead to eat cherries, play with cousins, hang w/ my siblings, and take it easy. We visited our Wilcox relatives as Mark flew home. We celebrated the 4^th by going to the parade:

Felic & Matthew with some random kid and Kilton BBQ, and then up to Lehi to the Fergusons’ for the going away party for Heidi and Aaron. (celeb name: AirHide) The next day Liesl and I went shopping and we saw Wall-E with lots of Bergesons, Tyler, Brian, and Fergs. Unfortunately, our little niece Camille had to be hospitalized so the Bergesons had to postpone her baby blessing. However, she came home Sunday night and came to the rest of the reunion.

Saturday night started our family reunion, with a slideshow by Bruce in the Bergeson Basement. Neil & Kristie & co had joined us, Kent, Kurt and Alice flew in Saturday, so we also had dinner and family pictures on Sunday. Monday, we went to Pine Valley, southern Utah, to stay in my sister-in-law Holly’s family’s cabins for the rest of the family reunion, with almost everybody from my gigantic immediate family in attendance!

Lana & Megan sucking thumbs and lying on the stairs at the cabin. What a couple of cuties. Although it was a lot of people in a smallish space, we were really grateful to the Ences for letting us have it there and it was fun to be away, where there were no distractions.

Jan winning the potato sack race. Go plaid! (we lost. too many little kids) Paula, Alice, Lizzie, and Kristie @ Mtn Meadows Monument


We departed via the Grand Canyon, actually not on the way home at all, but well worth the detour. I drove along the long and winding road… and then we’d stop and walk around. We stayed in Flagstaff, had lunch in Holbrook as a tribute to my college buddies Evan and Will, and stayed in Albuquerque that night.

Us at the Grand Canyon. Looks like Katrina's getting rubbed out by the camera.

Our house gave us a very warm welcome, (broken a/c) but we’re happy to have gone and happy to be home. Maybe one of these days I’ll actually unpack. Actually no, just repack for the trip to Sweet Home Alabama.

Social Studies

We’ve been reading the Little House books, and recently finished Little House on the Prairie, which ended when the Ingalls family had to leave Missouri because it was Indian Territory. We were discussing the difficulties in getting along that the early settlers and Indians had. I was trying to explain the paradigms of the American Dream (you work & pay for it, it’s yours) vs. the American Indian way of thought (the earth and all its blessings belong to everyone) and discussing pros and cons of each. For example, sharing is good, but sometimes people take advantage of the system. I asked them if they would like it if someone came in and took our tv that we saved and paid for.

Felicity’s response:

“Well, they wouldn’t take it from us because our skin is darker than theirs. Although, we should probably hide you.”

I don’t know what the color of skin has to do with anything, but there is usually a connection, as far as Felicity is concerned. I guess she doesn’t remember that she listed American Indian/Alaskan Native as her ethnicity when we registered her for 2^nd grade?