Grass in the Freezer--A Weekend at Bear Lake

I just found myself calling (wearily) to Starling, "Starling! No more putting grass in the freezer!"

Although, I suppose, if wet grass in the freezer (and all across the kitchen counter and in piles and clumps on the tile) were the greatest of my worries we'd all have a ... merry Christmas. (???) (I mean ... assuming ifs ands and buts were candy and nuts as well, of course.)

Alas, grass in the freezer is among the very least of my worries. (Though let's not count it as nothing. It was grass scattered all through the freezer after all.)

Still, many of my troubles are simply "grass in the freezer". Exhausting and distracting, but not of any lasting consequence. (And many of those troubles that do seem to be of lasting consequence will likely be proven grass, ere long, as well. Or, at least I hope.)

I know all of that. (And I didn't actually begin this post intending to coin a new term for insignificant troubles. I just mentioned the grass I'd been cleaning and then ... of its own volition ... it became a phrase unto itself. 🤷🏼‍♀️) Still, I present: a little weekend of happiness and also ... "grass in the freezer".

Last Wednesday night I woke to screaming from the boys' room. Hans was sure he'd seen a monster in the night and, barring bright light left on for the remainder (which caused Jesse and Anders, who were already none to happy to have been woken by such hysterics, to protest wildly), he would, he wailed, continue to see the monster. 

So I brought him to our room, and then, when it was clear that Mike wouldn't be sleeping through the whimpers, I carried him out to the loveseat in the living room (then settled myself, as comfortably as one can settle when one has planned on a night's sleep in one's king-sized bed, on the couch nearby). 

For the next hour or two Hans continued, every few minutes, to say, "Mom?" -- just to make sure I hadn't drifted to sleep and forsaken my keep-monsters-at-bay duties. And I'd respond and shush him and tell him he had to stop talking and go to sleep.

And then ... it was morning. (If there was any sleep in between that time ... I'm not aware of it.)

But, there was no time for lazing or recovering from the night. There was a house to clean and seven kids to help get packed for Bear Lake. (Where I'd decided we'd spend Fall Break--even though Mike's work and church duties meant he wouldn't be able to come with us.)

Things went mostly smoothly with all the readying. And Penny got some more driving practice in by taking us past the fruit stands on 89 (where we stopped to buy fresh apples and corn) and up through Sardine Canyon into Logan--where all eight of us tumbled out of the van and into Wal-Mart for groceries--before continuing up through Logan Canyon (this time with me driving since those turns still seem a little sharp and narrow for Penny to be taking in the van). 

But when we arrived at the cabin, things took a bit of a turn. I was doing all my regular cabin-arrival duties for getting us settled--calling for various kids to carry in this or that, assigning someone to put away groceries or help a younger sibling, vacuuming up all the dead boxelder bugs that inevitably collect near the windows in our absence, etc; but I was also doing the duties I usually leave to Mike--getting the pilot light lit and the water on, and checking the mouse traps (which were full this time--blech). 

In the midst of all of this we noticed a smoke detector's low-battery beeps. I'm never good at resetting them to stop their beeping--even when I put a new battery in. And of course this one happened to be in an out-of-reach spot (and us with no ladder). Eventually we were able to get to it by putting Jesse (who I knew could figure out the reset better than I could) on a chair ... on a table. 

While this was going on, another child managed to clog the downstairs toilet. The flapper inside of the toilet tank (that shuts tightly down after each flush so the tank can fill with water) wasn't sealing properly, so the tank wouldn't fill--which meant that the water, that normally would turn off once the tank was back to a high enough level--just kept on running. And running. And running. We would have noticed it right away if it had been in the bathroom right off of the kitchen, but it was the downstairs toilet that had been clogged. By the time Jesse, who'd gone down to help me with the toilet flapper situation, saw the flood, not only was the bathroom floor covered with an inch of water, but it had soaked six inches out into the carpet in the hallway and run under the walls and into the two adjoining rooms. 

There was quite a bit of panic as I rushed to the utility room to turn the water off and yelled for a toilet plunger and for every towel we had (luckily we have lots of beach towels at the cabin). With Penny, Jesse and Anders helping, we soaked about twenty towels getting the water up--and we still weren't sure if we should be pulling up carpet or not.

Luckily Mike, bless him, drove all the way up after work with replacement flappers and the wet-dry vac. (He also picked up Goldie from Utah State along the way and brought her to us since she hadn't been free to come earlier in the day.) He didn't get up to us till about 9:00 and had to leave again by 6:00 the following morning, but it was a comfort to have him there for a minute to make sure we were truly settled after all the trouble.

(For some reason I only got my real camera out one time during the trip. These two pictures of Penny and Starling are the result. Everything else came from cell phone snapshots.)

The rest of the trip went quite well. (Though I don't know why I always bring extra books and things--imagining up all kinds of personal time that has never existed amidst all the adventuring and feeding and cleaning of these vacations.) But other than the typical squabbles and messes (the drive home was soooo squabbly and loud!), we had a very good time.

It was perfect fall weather. Not only ideal for hikes (which we did Friday and Saturday), but also warm enough for the beach! (Well, "warm enough". It was probably in the low 60s. So not a lot of actual swimming, and I brought everyone's sweatshirts just in case, but we still all wore our swimsuits and had a lovely time on the mostly-empty beach.

(We loved how Mette would hold that throwing pose each time she threw the frisbee until it landed or was caught.)

A lot of the leaves had already fallen off the trees, but Anders was the first to point out how the aspen leaves had decorated all the evergreens like for Christmas. These shots don't show them off well enough. They looked really pretty all covered in yellow leaves. 

(There is not a single rock, stump, or fallen tree that the kids don't have to stop to climb on. We make very slow progress.)

Anders was very pleased with this hat he found (and spent some of his birthday money on) in the local grocery store. We were all pleased with it.

Every time we are at the cabin the kids plaster it with a million, mostly-ridiculous, pictures. These from Anders and Jesse are lovely:

We also went to a couple of parks. These swinging pictures were taken one of the evenings at the park by the Pickleball Courts. (Goldie, Pen, Jesse and Anders played pickleball while Summer, Mette, Hans and Starling insisted I push them over and over on these swings.) (We went to another park on Sunday when we got the start time for church wrong and had a half-hour to kill. [A half hour to get everyone's church clothes untucked and dirty.])

(Starling packed her own outfits for the trip. The broad array of colors she selected should not surprise anyone.)

(Everyone scrambling to get enough chip dip before their siblings have eaten it up.)

(Swinging into the setting sun.)

(Little angel Star. Right after all the packing and cleaning up at the cabin, and loud driving back home, and carting everything back into the house and putting it away, Starling looked at me and said, "How about we go back to the cabin?")

Truly, despite the hiccups, the figurative grass in the freezer 😄, and despite all the work, and despite no Mike, it was a happy time.

(The one small "tree" with fall leaves by our cabin driveway.)

And when we came home, we came home to these! Roughly one billion apples our neighbor had asked Mike to come pick! They are so good! I wish wish they didn't have to be changed into some other apple form for them to last. They just make grocery-store apples seem bland and waxy in comparison, and I wish we could keep them fresh all through the winter! But we will probably make some cider. (You'll recall Mike's cider press desires. Well he got one. How could he not once he had all of these?)

The end.