Karin, Abe’s mom, snagged a great deal on a condo by Yellowstone and wasn’t able to use it, so she passed it on to us. It came at the end of Abe’s quarter, and he was dying for a trip to reset himself after all of the work stress. Even though I had my initial reservations about the trip, I could tell Abe really needed a getaway.
The condo was reserved from Sunday through Tuesday, so we left at 10am on Sunday, just as Conference was starting. We listened in the car and drove like crazy so as to miss the Conference crowds on the I-15 when it ended. We sailed past Salt Lake with plenty of time and did not stop until we were sure we had outpaced the crowds.
The drive up to Yellowstone was beautiful. The colors are changing, and the route is so pleasant.
However, when we got to the condo, we encountered three surprises that had me wanting to head straight back home.
The first thing I discovered in the condo was that I was on my period. I could not believe it. Normally my body is aggressively fertile, even when I am nursing, but this was a new level of ridiculous. I felt like my body was trying to kill me! Clarissa has not had one drop of formula and she is not even six weeks old–and I am on my period. It felt so wrong and unfair.
Right after that discovery, I moodily headed to the kitchen to feed everyone dinner (Ramen), and as the kids were eating Abe came in and said he thought we were having an earthquake. The floor was shaking, and so the girls and I crawled under the heavy oak table. I was holding Ammon by the ankles while he tried every which way to escape while Abe went to get Clarissa off the bed.
Just then the front desk called and we found out that we were above the laundry room with giant machines that shake the floors. By that point, Lydia was sobbing with fright, Mary was singing a little Daniel Tiger song to herself about “taking your grown-up’s hand and everything will be okay,” and Ammon was running around like crazy because he was so relieved to be free. (We learned that in a real earthquake, I will just have to lie on top of Ammon because there is no other way to keep him down.)
The next thing we knew, someone was banging on the door. I was tired and stressed and half dressed from nursing Clarissa, and when I opened the door I met a very angry downstairs neighbor who wanted to know if we were playing football in our condo. I was so out of it that I said all of the wrong things (totally unintentionally) and the neighbor probably thought I was both a brat and an idiot. She left and after that we didn’t allow Ammon to touch the floor for the next three days. We just carried him everywhere, and the girls learned to tiptoe and whisper.
Abe relieved things by taking the kids swimming, after which we put everyone down. I went to bed early and Abe sat for hours by the fire engaged in one of his favorite activities: pondering work, life, and God.
Abe had a wonderful day, and I could have had a great day too had I not been so easily stressed out by things that should not have stressed me out to the degree they did.
