Landscape: Valley of Fire

Atlatl Rock

The Cabins

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Valley of Fire with Grandma

As part of our visit to Nevada, we stopped to play at Valley of Fire minutes away from Great Grandma Allred’s house. This is such a fun place to play.

I can’t wait for the day when Nate can just do a normal smile again!

Video Link 

This is a typical “Cara” look. It is her obstinate self.

But here she is all playful.

 

She insisted on climbing the stairs barefoot.

 

In a couple more years he will completely fill up this void.

Looking out over the vast landscape.

 

We were so glad to spend this fun little weekend with my mom. We enjoyed nice conversation and the kids got some good one-on-one time.

Meeting Great Grandma

I believe it is important for my kids to get to know as many of their relatives as they can. I didn’t grow up with an extensive extended family but I’m proud that my kids have one.

I have quite a few memories of my Grandma Allred (mom Raines’ mother). We visited her and grandpa in Seaside, California a few times when I was a child and those are good memories. I was mesmerized by both the German cuckoo clock and the artillery training at the nearby military base. Both were unfamiliar sounds. Both were consistent and methodical, one ticking and cuckooing and the other a deep, low rumble.

The backyard was odd. They didn’t have any grass! There was concrete and sand and strange plants. But they had the most awesome thing in abundant. Snails! Hundreds of snails! My brothers and sisters loved finding and playing with them.

There were two parks we played at and both of them strange. First was a small neighborhood park. It didn’t have a playground, only a gigantic concrete mound to climb on and slide down. It had a tunnel through it to hide in. The second park was Dennis the Menace Park. Everything here was huge. I remember the most a metal tower to climb on. It had an arm that you could hang down from and spin on. I’m sure that’s gone now.

Well, the last time I saw Grandma Allred was right before she moved to North Carolina a few years ago. I think Madeleine was a newborn and Nate was two. Recently, she moved back to Logandale, Nevada (1/2 way between Mesquite and Las Vegas) to live with her sister and her husband. My mom and I thought it would be a really great idea to go on a road trip to visit her. Rob was in New Mexico/Arizona working that week so it was the perfect time. I packed up the kids and we were off.

 

While we were at the house waiting 3 hours for grandma’s 49-page personal history to be printed on the dot-matrix printer, the kids and I played “I Spy” in the tchotchke-filled living room, explored the backyard full of pistachio trees and pomegranate bushes, and took a walk out front on the lazy, small-town street.

Here is Nate trying to figure out what this is. I have no idea.

My great aunt Venita (sp?) crochets and Madeleine found this rainbow-colored washcloth that was just completed. She fell in love with it so Venita (sp?) gave it to her. She carried it around the rest of the day.

On the drive home my mom read grandma’s personal history to me and I enjoyed learning more about her and her life. Here is the link to the videos my mom made of grandma answering some personal history questions.

I’m so glad we were able to visit Grandma Allred! As I’m typing this, Madeleine is coloring a picture of Cinderella to mail her. I love that they now know who she is and will have at least one memory of her. We will have to go back for another visit sometime.

An Afternoon in Zion

While Rob was evaluating some bridges in Virgin, UT the kids and I spent the afternoon in Zion National Park a mere 10 minutes away. But first the kids and I stopped at the Virgin Trading Post for lunch. We waited a little while for our food and I really was only expecting the quality to be on a theme park level. But. Oh, man.

I had .literally. the BEST cheeseburger I believe I have ever had. (Name that character!) Ever. I was stunned by its pure serotonin-inducing goodness. I ordered one for Rob and dropped it off to him because he just HAD to eat one.

After eating the kids and I bought two carrots to feed the onsite burros and play in the makeshift wild west buildings outside. I took a bunch of pictures but haven’t been able to find them :( Somehow they got deleted or I lost the memory card.

Then the kids and I went into the park and took the shuttle to the riverside walk. I like this stop with kids. It’s easy and they love to play in the water. I only took my phone and these are the two pictures I took with it.

The kids were so beat after this. We picked up Rob and went to the hotel in St. George. The next morning we swam a little before picking up Rob on the way back home.

I’m so glad we were able to go with him on this trip. The kids and I always have so much fun exploring and it is SO MUCH BETTER than staying home while he leaves. That is no fun at all. This way we get a little vacation and don’t have to be separated. It’s a win-win.

Driving Down South

I was going to let Rob blog about our drive south to Escalante but he’s just too busy with lame things like work.

Sunday after church we started our 3-hour drive to Escalante, Utah. On the way we stopped at a dive for, according to the kids, the best pancakes in the world.

 

We drove past the red plateaus of Capitol Reef National Park and through the unbelievably cute tree-lined town of Torrey. I think I’d like to stay there next time.

Then we climbed into the pines. I think we slowed down for about 20 deer and 10 cows through these mountains. They were just lining the sides of the road with their young. We reached the top and looked out over the expanse. Wow! Madeleine was even impressed saying, “Wow! It’s so beautiful!”

Down we drove into lower elevations to the Hogsback. I had wanted to make it here for golden hour but it was already getting quite dark by the time we arrived so we couldn’t see much this time. Luckily, we drove back and forth over it a few times over the next few days because this is one of my favorite spots in Utah. We pulled over to the side of the desolate road, turned off the headlights, and watched the lightning in the distance. After a while we decided that we better get to town before the downpour hit us. Not more than a couple of miles later, rain began. No, I correct myself…a faucet was turned on. This happened to be the night of flash floods in St. George and we were witnessing a desert summer thunderstorm in all its fury on our windshield. It was unbelievable. We had to drive 15 mph on a cliff-side road with hardly any site lines. When we were lucky, we could see the water gushing off the hundreds of feet of stone lining the road. After about 25 minutes of this the storm finally started to let up, just as we were leaving the treacherous landscape. What a thrill!

This is another view from the top of the mountain looking down into the terrain below.

Princess Promenade

Our ward held its annual Daddy Daughter Date. Madeleine had been looking forward to this ever since the last one! It’s a fun opportunity for the girls to get all dressed up and spend some special one-on-one time with their dads (or other significant man in their life).

We have cute pics of all the girls but of course our own daughter decides to unknowingly pull a face. This is the look she gives when she knows you are trying to get her to smile for a photograph. She tilts her head, half smiles, and stares into space. I tried a few times but this is the best I got. Nice. I decided I had lots of other cute pictures of her and her dad so I didn’t hold up the line any longer and moved on to the next girl.

They played Pin the Shoe on Cinderella and raced in high heels, made a wand (it was so funny to see all the grown men concentrating so hard on making them!), learned a fairy dance, ate treats, and danced some more. Madeleine tried very hard to do the dance just how they were taught but the other girls were more interested in just running and twirling. She got a little frustrated since it was a dance to be done in pairs.

The table decorations were so fun. Each was themed around a specific princess. Between all us leaders, we had enough princess paraphernalia to pull it off!

The girls had a grand time so we dub the night a success!

If your daughter attended the event, you can see more pictures here and download them at will.

Taking the Kids to the Devil

…Devil’s Garden, that is.

When Rob and I visited this area a few years ago we knew it would be so much fun to take the kids. After Rob quit work for the day in Escalante we drove down Hole in the Rock Road to get to this remote and rocky destination. Serious fun, people.

The kids climbed and climbed and climbed. Here’s the video link.

 

Then slid and slid and slid. Here is the video link.

 

They ran.

They hid.

                       

 

 

One of my favorite things about this part of Utah is just how quiet it is. It’s unpopulated and there are relatively few visitors so when you stop talking, all you hear is NOTHING. It’s so quiet that you take notice and it feels special.

If you’re interested, here is our last post on the garden.

Health, Verbal, and Behavioral Assessments

Caroline just finished her in-home health, verbal, and behavioral assessments and I thought I better write this all down before I forget. The nurse, speech pathologist, and behavioral developmental expert are with Kids on the Move. It is a federal and state funded precursor to Early Intervention designed for kids under 3 years of age. We were referred to them by her pediatrician, ENT, and orthopedist (I didn’t even ask her opinion, she just gave it).

 

2 Year Well-Baby Checkup:
Her weight has actually dropped even further off the chart. Blood work was redone to compare to her tests a year ago. Small improvement in her numbers, still worrisome to the pediatrician. She needs to be kept on whole milk and take iron and Vitamin D supplements along with her normal daily vitamins. Dr assumes her constipation has to do with her body trying to hold on to everything for as long as it can in order to get as many nutrients as possible out of it. Even on daily full doses of laxatives, she poops approx. once every 3 days. For a few weeks she had many fissures because of this and became so itchy that she would claw at herself down there until she bled. Luckily, the fissures and itching have subsided.

Health Assessment:
The nurse thought everything looked good except the concerns with her constant bowel problems (spit up as a baby, diarrhea, constipation). The nurse recommended we have her visit a pediatric gastroenterologist. I tend to agree. We wonder if she has a milk or wheat sensitivity or if she is unable to absorb the nutrients she needs. The doctors are only located at Primary Children’s and are booked through the end of the year so Cara is waitlisted.

Verbal Assessment:
Caroline is in the 47th percentile for verbal comprehension (I think it’s higher, she just loses interest or focuses on other tasks) and 8th percentile for speech. The cutoff for the program is the 7th percentile unless they give a clinical recommendation for her, which they did because of some of the other things I mention below.

Behavioral Assessment:
Caroline is in the 70th percentile for motor development. After an hour and a half discussion and observation, there is some concern with her, especially in 3 areas. 1) Her borderline obsession with stuffing her mouth overly full and chewing on everything she shouldn’t including crayons, erasers, pencil lead, markers, peanut shells, etc; 2) Her disconnect in behavior between how she acts at home around her family and how she acts in other social situations. She has a seemingly quiet, conscientious nature but she is actually a dare devil and has disregard for safety of self. Usually kids this age are who they are regardless of setting; 3) As intelligent as she is, she has made very little progress with speech in the last year.

There are also a few other minor things they saw and will be watching to make sure they don’t develop into bigger issues, namely, her short span of compliance is only 5- 10 minutes and then she breaks down (for example, while shopping, in sacrament meeting, eating dinner with the family). She shuts down when pressured to do anything she doesn’t want to do. Also, she noted that Cara wiggles all her fingers when she is concentrating or listening or working on something. Now that it was brought up, I realize that she does do it sometimes but I hadn’t consciously taken note of that before. May mean nothing, but they took note as it being something to watch.

What’s Next:
So, like I said, they have accepted her into their therapy program. Our initial goals are to get her to expand her vocabulary so that she can express herself and also to increase her short compliance span. They will be putting together an individualized plan for Caroline. In the meantime, the family  will be working with her on basic sign language. They also suggest I attend a set of 3 classes for parents of speech delayed children. She will start weekly 1/2 hour, in-home speech therapy sessions and maybe something else with behavior. I’m not sure yet. She will be reassessed in 6 months.

 

Sheesh. That’s a lot of information. I was actually quite impressed by the whole thing. The women were all very professional and knowledgeable and have a lot of experience. They took their time, listened to me, and I felt they really got a good idea of who Caroline is. They don’t know yet if there is an underlying issue causing some of this. Cara is still so young and they haven’t had enough time with her yet, but they are taking a lot of notes and know what to be watching for. I’m hopeful that with their help we’ll be able to make some progress in the areas of difficulty.

The point of this whole thing is that delays, when taken care of early, decrease the chances of bigger issues down the road, especially in school. Speech delays increase the chance of other learning delays. It also affects behavior and social skills.

In case anyone thinks I’m just being overly zealous and worrisome about this, there is a reason. I know first hand the effects of a speech impediment. I actually really hate talking about it because it negatively affected me so much. Many kids have it for a little while but grow out of it. I didn’t. I finally conquered it at 17 years old, but it had lasting affects. I am normally an introverted, somewhat shy person but the impediment made me much more so. I was tough at the time, but even now that it’s been 14 years since, I still sometimes tear up when I think about all the embarrassment I had growing up. Lots of making fun. Most of it was good-natured, some it was ill-natured. In 2nd grade I told peers that the accent was because I was from Canada. People looked at me strangely when I spoke and I had to repeat myself so, so many times. I didn’t like all the eyes on me as I walked out in the middle of class so that I could attend Speech. I hated that Speech focused on rhyming and categorizing words rather than the real issue of not being able to get my tongue to do what it was supposed to do. It really came to a head when I was 16 and one of my friends told me that her mom thought I was “retarded”. My friend thought it was funny. I was devastated. I was always one of the smarter kids in class and had never realized that people may have thought that about me my whole life. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but I’m not. That was the last straw. My parents decided to invest a couple thousand dollars into a real speech pathologist. She worked with me for a couple of months, couldn’t help me, and we had her stop coming. Finally, a couple of weeks or months after that (I don’t remember exactly), a miracle happened and something clicked. All of a sudden, I could speak. Finally! Not long after that I made many new friends and started dating a lot more. Gosh. I’m so thankful for that miracle!

Anyway, yeah, I really don’t like admitting this about myself but thought it would give insight as to why I’m so concerned with Caroline’s speech. I don’t want her to go through even a little of what I did. I don’t blame my parents and I don’t blame the Speech teachers. There wasn’t anything my parents could have done differently and therapy has come a long way since then. Thankfully.

Here’s to Cara learning how to speak!

 

…I must be crazy to publish this about myself…I could’ve left it safely in the past where no one knew it existed…