Yellowstone Adventure, Part 2

After leaving Colorado Springs,  we arrived at our destination 12 hours later, with nothing remarkable happening, except the remarkable fact that I managed to not kill my own children after being locked in a car for 12 hours with them. Seriously, though they did quite well, a fact that ascribe to none of our own parenting skills, but merely to their getting older.  One nice thing is that I apparently have the bladder of a 7 year old boy, because I was relieved every time Youngest Boy needed to stop for a restroom break.
As a Kansas boy, I was always impressed with Colorado, but Wyoming and Yellowstone specifically, is so, so, so much more. All I can say is this: if you haven't been, you need to. It's worth it; I don't care what state you are from, I don't care what country you are from, its worth it! In fact, I think most of the people at the park right now aren't from the USA. There are people from EVERYWHERE!  Busses full of them!
Anyway, we arrived at Two Feathers Cabin in Montana, the vacation home Herself rented on VRBO.com, to find it much nicer and better equipped than we expected. Our hosts, Bill and Rose, were also very nice and very accommodating. Upon arriving and unpacking, we discovered that Oldest Boy had inadvertently left his suitcase with all his clothes in CO Springs! All his clothes, all his candy, all his money, all his extra stuff... He was quite crushed, but Rose graciously helped us track down some second hand stuff quite quickly. WAY better than driving 120 miles to the closest Walmart!
After spending all morning getting settled in the cabin and chasing down new clothes, we finally drove back into the park, which is less than a half of a mile from West Yellowstone. Where you gonna go first? Old Faithful, of course. We were in the gift shop to begin with (using the restroom, of course) when I asked when it was due to go off. When she told us "any minute," we hustled down there just in time to see it begin, as if it were just waiting for us. We felt pretty special, anyway.

Old Faithful was certainly cool; it sure seems that is what our minds first go to when we think of Yellowstone, but it just a drop in the bucket compared to all the other awesome park features there are to see. The park web site is shockingly bad; it was obviously designed and built by some federal employees that had no fear of losing their job. It is virtually impossible to plan your trip by looking at it, so we looked at other people's blogs, and ultimately decided that we would just rely on the local's opinions. Thus far they have been very helpful and informative. 

We spent all day at the Old Faithful/Upper Basin. There were miles and miles of boardwalk, always with signs depicting little boys getting steamed to death, standing off the boardwalk over a geyser while his mother watched horrified and his father was distractedly looking elsewhere. 

Building built in 190-something. This picture doesn't do it any sort of justice; it is mammoth and goes on and on and on and on on either side of it. 

One wing

There are just thousands of interesting things to take pictures of. 

Bubbling pools everwhere

The sign said this thing grows an inch every year. 

Above and below: Morning Glory Prismatic Pool

"I've had enough of you asking for a piggy back ride! "

3 of nature's beauties! 

Finishing off the day with pizza at "The Gusher" pizzeria. 

Yellowstone adventure, part 1

We, the Fosters, are off to Yellowstone National Park. This too is a result of my impulsiveness; a story I won't go into, let it suffice to say today that many months ago I wrote it down on the calendar and made the proclamation to Herself (much to her surprise) what we were doing.  Partially to her surprise because I usually hate going anywhere at all, and partially because I volunteered to take a week off of work. And drive for 19 hours. With the kids. In a car... But similarly to The Hebrew Daniel's king Darius, I find it awfully difficult to go back on what I write in ink, especially on the calendar.

For the first leg of our trip, we went through Colorado Springs. Of course any time that we have something resembling an excuse to see our dear aunt and uncle in Colorado Springs, we jump at it. This time, though, it was with great trepidation that we went, because our aunt has cancer, and is not long for this world.  We hadn't seen them for a year, and the last time we saw them, the kids, unprepared by their negligent father, burst into tears after seeing her in the shape she was in, and that was a year ago... So we were a little uncertain of how they would react to her in her latest condition. I am proud to say that they took seeing someone they love on their death bed very poorly, but only after we left. Our aunt was hardly herself; but it was so encouraging at one point to see her rise from her bed, come join us at the kitchen table, and instruct our Oldest Girl to get some lotion and rub her arms and hands with it. She said she was doing this not for herself, but because it is good for young people to learn to be around sick people. That is Soooo our aunt: climbing out of her death bed, in order to make someone do something that will enrich their life. I almost laughed out loud at that, it was so quintessentially her. This picture of that experience is so cool, Wifey told me to shoot it, and I'm so glad I did. Oldest Girl also painted her nails; she wanted "sparklies" on her nails like Oldest Girl, but alas, we had none. 

The real encouragement of this part of the trip was our uncle, quite capable, if initially unlikely, (since he had always been the care-receiver) in the role of caregiver of his wife. What a real stud! He does everything for her, and in the complete absence of any drama, with good humor and good natured jibes along the way. 

We left there at 5:45 the next morning, each of us with nerves raw with the realization that we would never see her on this earth again. It was quite painful; and as we pulled away from their home in the dark and each of us prayed aloud for them both, there was an abundance of sniffling noses, quiet sobs, and tears. I've said it before, but I'll say it again, these two are my heros. 

In the midst of all these tears, I asked my kids if they were glad that we came, and all responded with an overwhelming "yes!"

A Barn-Raising (and my restlessness)

Not to insinuate that my little farm operation is in any way a big deal, but this year we hatched several dozen of our own chicks and ducklings and even a few turkeys.  All of this to say that we have quite outgrown my little tiny chicken house I built several years ago.  It was getting cramped enough in there that they pretty much were "beak to tail" in there, and there was an over-abundance of squawking, etc going on in there.  So, even though I was planning on building an attached garage on the north side of the house this spring, I've been held up greatly by the State but mostly by a very incompetent surveying company, so I got really bored while I waited.

Boredom around my  house is never a good thing; it usually results in me spending more money, and further complicating my life.  Sure enough, this time it resulted in me whipping together forms for a 432 square foot slab in order to build a building to house our poultry, sheep, and hogs. In other words, a barn.  I decided it should look like a real barn, except with a little extra special Foster Flair to it, so I tweaked the roof and made it into an "Ell" shape, just to make it a little more of a challenge.  There was a small problem getting fill sand to prep the forms prior to getting concrete before the weekend that resulted in me getting bored again.  So I tore down most of my forms and re-formed it up as 864 square foot.  Yup, that's right, it just doubled its footprint in one little weekend.  If I would have had sand, it would have been done and over with.

Anyway, here are some photos of the process so far.  Included in these are some pictures of trenching that will be of no interest to anybody, just for my own reference for future digging.

Old size

New size

Boys trenching!

Brand New slab

Trusses up

First Roofing panels.

James Rush, Eloy and I pouring Concrete

Below: trenching Photos for posterity 

Table top

Here are a few photos of a little project the kids and I did for our Dear Neighbor Lady.  I'm always so sure things will hardly take any time at all; some times I'm right, this time I was only slightly wrong.  Anyway the kids and I had fun doing it.

Finished Product! (with clamps)

In Which I Chronicle the Disastrous Effects Of My Impulsiveness...

One evening Herself was Skyping one of her sisters that lives in China, and her sister mentions that she would like to return to the country that she lived in whilst in the Peace Corps, the Republic of Georgia.  She wanted to do this in order to re-acquaint herself with her friends that she had made and her host family that she stayed with.  Apparently she had developed really good relationships with folks there.  She was lamenting that she didn't want to make the trip by herself but she couldn't find anyone that would catch the vision enough to commit to going with her.  She was saying all this as I came into the room, and I surprised everybody (myself included) by saying "Wifey will go with you!"  This is another classic case of my impulsiveness...

After much discussion, (of course) all the details get hammered out and it is decided when they are going, it still seems all very far away and unimportant.  As the date gets closer, Herself starts compulsively making lists to help her keep track of everything that wants done before she leaves.  :)   

Then on the evening of the big day, she asks me where her passport is.   I realize that it is locked up in the Safety Deposit Box in the vault of our bank!  We were going to leave at 8:30 in the morning the next day, and the bank doesn't open until 9:00.  I texted my banker that evening and he was gracious enough to sneak me in a side door and give me access to the vault prior to the bank opening early that next morning, with plenty enough time to spare.

After that big 'ol airplane swallowed up our Beloved Mama, we went home, the kids were quite energized by the thought of fending for themselves and taking care of Silly, Helpless Daddy.  I came home that evening to a wonderful meal of spaghetti and my favorite home made cookies; peanut butter!  It was awesome!  From there, however, things just sort of unraveled.  Nothing traumatic or anything like that, it just became VERY apparent (really quickly) that there needed to be a full time person in my home taking care of things the way She does, to maintain normalcy.  And we didn't...

The first obvious example is wal-mart...  I decided to go shopping for groceries.  Now ordinarily, I avoid this place like the Ebola Virus, but one "Mustn't Grumble", so I trudged off to the my least of favorite stores.  (It may as well had a sign that stated: "Abandon hope all ye who enter here".  Anyway, I spent an HOUR AND A HALF looking for my list of 15 grocery items!!! An hour and a half!!! I realized that I knew where NOTHING was!  Now, I'm not suggesting that all I came home with was 15 items, noooo, in fact it cost me well over 200.00 dollars, but it took me that long to find the items on my list.  I was really frustrated by the time that I was done, but I was so proud of myself for sticking it through and getting my stuff. And not killing anybody or yelling at anyone in the meantime...

But sticking with the theme that things were different around the house without Mama, I quickly realized that there was a lot of stuff that happened around the house that I didn't (couldn't) care about.  One thing I realized quite quickly was this: How do single moms that work full time do it?!?  My work is very flexible, and I have very competent staff to get stuff done in my absence, so I took a lot of time off; going in late and coming home early, and I have my in-laws living right next door to help with child care, running to the library, etc, and all my kids have been doing their own laundry (and mine) for quite some time now, and I didn't hardly ever have to cook, and it was still nonstop chaos.

So, what are you going to do when your hospitable Wifey is gone over the 4th of July, and you have a bunch of family around (from both sides), and that family has friends with large families from out of state around, what are you going to do?  I'll tell you; you host a Fourth of July Party without caring how well it is executed, that's what you do.  And you invite literally anyone who wants to come.  There was more than 50 people there, including some of them that I'd never met before, and most looked like they were having fun.

It was unseasonably cool most of the time that Herself was gone, which was nice with the extra traffic of Roper kids going in and out; I wore out a few flyswatters, though.  But we finally developed a gait of unsteady rhythm; mostly winging it, with all the extra company, unregulated bedtime hours, sporadic meal times, we lived in Splendid Squalor, without any sort of schedule.  For the first time in my children's life, they lived in unchecked chaos; it was fun at first, but they were Sooo ready for Herself to come back and restore order in our lives.  As was I.

As for myself; I was nearly a basket-case from the beginning, but as the days wore on my resolve to "stay calm and carry on" was wearing pretty thin.  I found myself pretty irritable and lonely, and towards the end, even depressed (very unusual for me) for lack of Mama. Overall, I'm so glad she went, I'm delighted for her to have this experience to travel to another country, because I'm not at a point in my life where I'm willing to take 16 days off and go do that sort of thing, and I know she has a strong desire to do such things, but I can't really see the circumstances that it will ever happen like this again... Here are a few pictures of the fun Mama was having without us:

Above: The Black Sea