Reunion and Tennessee

Speech SchoolCam came through and got himself accepted into the Washington County School District Speech Therapy Program! Jonah tried to help Camden overcome his speech delay before the evaluation, but Camden still said "y" or "w" sounds at the beginning of every word, so the school district is providing him with weekly private speech lessons! We are all VERY excited that he may someday be coherent. Surprisingly, Camden is excited too! He wears his backpack to lessons, calls it "Speech School", is dutiful about doing his "homework" (he even works on it by himself without us asking him to), and loves that he doesn't have to do school with other kids (they sometimes bring in another student to do a mini group lesson, but its mostly just him, Jonah or me, and the speech therapist). So far, the only words he can say clearly are "Fo Shizzle my Nizzle". He calls Jonah "My Nizzle". He is just a great kid!

Aja's Ten Year High School Reunion
If you did not know that I had my Ten Year Reunion this month, then you have obviously not talked to me much in the last nine months. For the record, I was NOT the Senior Class President, but it is a long drama filled story of how I ended up planning and implementing most of the reunion. It's funny how things don't change... the same friends from the Senior Class Committee who were helpers Freshmen-Senior Years, were the same ones who came through and helped with the reunion. So, it was a year's worth of work, but it was totally worth it! I had a great time contacting people and making up surveys and putting together bio books and the whole works, and it was ESPECIALLY fun when the Reunion Weekend finally came and went. We had a lovely dinner for alumni and their dates on Friday night and a rockin' Picnic for alumni and their families and kids on Saturday afternoon (which my BFF Brad and his wife Julie took care of...so it was my favorite part). We had about 165 people show up, which was a great turnout .

It was a little crazy the two days prior to the reunion, especially since it was in Las Vegas and we were not. We drove down Thursday night, and on the way down, we had a blow out! It the Virgin River Gorge! Scary!!! But, a nice AZ Highway Patrolman came and helped us get air in our flat spare tire...and I got to ride in his patrol car! Coolness. He got me laughing pretty hard when he showed me all the tickets he had given out that day and said, pointing to them, "Do you know what that's called??!?! That's called 'Hammer-time'!!"
We drove down speedy quick to Las Vegas, just in time for me to slip into Nordstrom's and buy a dress for the reunion five minutes before they closed. We stayed at my dad's house, and he luckily watched the kids the next day while Jonah and I picked up last minute things for the party, got my hair and Ana's hair cut and styled, found me a pair of shoes, helped my favorite friends Kyle, Sean and Chako set up decorations, and get all ready for the dinner that night. I was SO lucky that Tyler AND Sonna came up to Las Vegas from Phoenix to help me! Tyler took money and tickets at the door, and Sonna helped take care of Elsie at my dad's house. Man, I have a great family.
So, if no one else had a great time, Ana did. She was in her element at the Family Picnic, playing with the other six-year-old kids and bouncing her heart out int he bounce houses. She also LOVED having her hair cut and styled by a REAL stylist (THANK YOU ALYSON!) , and lamented, "I wish I could go to school today so I could show all my friends my new do!"

TWO DAYS AT HOME
After the picnic, we decided to come back home . Elsie wasn't sleeping well at my dad's house and I was exhausted. We were sad to leave Tyler and Sonna, but I did get a full 10 hours of sleep back at home. Plus, Eli (Jonah's brother) was in St. G with his new girlfriend, and we were excited to meet her and hang out with them during Conference Sunday. Jonah, Eli and Julie took the kids to Snow Canyon in between conference sessions, and Ana had some happy sand dune time.
We also took the time back at home to figure out where we wanted to go on vacation (Ana had school off October 10-12th). We had been planning to go to NYC and Boston for a couple months, since we had to cancel our trip there in September, but Jonah's siblings back east were being inundated with visitors, so we decided to skip it (plus, we wanted to space out our "big city time", since we had just been to San Fran two weeks ago). We looked at the map, and thought it'd be fun to head to Puerto Rico. Then we realized it was hurricane season. Then we thought Cabo San Lucas... but we realized we only wanted to go there so Ana could practice some Spanish. We finally settled on somewhere I've always wanted to go: TENNESSEE. I've heard several times how beautiful it was, plus it has the best State Parks in the country, so we knew the camping would be lovely.

TENNESSEE

So, we flew out Monday afternoon to Nashville, Tennessee. We had a great trip. It really is a gorgeous state! We stayed in a hotel our first and last night and camped the other nights. We car camped one night, and backpacked in the other two nights. The kids loved it. Tennessee is great because we got to experience the beautiful forests and autumn leaves, but it was warm and sunny the whole time we were there. In fact, we didn't check the weather before we went, and we brought a whole suitcase full of coats, scarves, and gloves, only to never use them. Oops. We also only brought long sleeves and jeans, when we would've been more comfy in shorts.
Oops again. I guess it was a little chilly when we camped in the mountains.

Jonah and I had never been to the South (except Florida), so it was a real awakening for us. We didn't know that Piggly Wiggly was an actual grocery store! We thought that it was just made up! We also could not get over the fact that EVERYONE there has a Southern accent. We found out why at the end of our trip, when we all had an accent too! It's contagious. We also didn't believe that they put lard in EVERYTHING, until we bought some chocolate milk at the Piggly Wiggly, and it was actually chocolate LARD! Grossness. Besides that, the restaurant food down South was exquisite! We had the best Mexican food ever.
We were all refreshed by being outdoors so much and by being torn away from any computer access. We were delighted that the kids got along really well almost the whole time, and the only real argument we had to extinguish was the one that started when Ana insisted that Jonah and I stop singing the theme to Davy Crockett for the 54th time.

THE UNCLAIMED BAGGAGE CENTER
Besides the sheer beauty of the state and the fun camping, the highlight of the trip was our visit to the Unclaimed Baggage Center. Now, most of you think we went to Tennessee just to go to the UBC, but that is NOT the case, thought it was one of the reasons. If you don't know anything about the UBC, check out their website here: http://www.unclaimedbaggage.com/
It's the D.I. on steroids. Imagine a D.I. filled with things that people didn't WANT to get rid of. 75% of the stuff at the UBC is brand new! The other 25% is laundered, because how often is your suitcase filled with dirty clothes?... The clerk at UBC said, "Of course we have to launder everything... can you imagine the smell in here if we didn't?" Gross. Lard.
So, we spent six hours the first day and three hours the next. It was a life changing experience. I wish we could take each and every one of you there. If it wasn't located in the middle-of-nowhere-Alabama, we'd probably move to live by it. The prices aren't near as good as the D.I., but that's because the stuff is better, much better. Here's a picture of some of the stuff we brought home:
My favorite find was my almost new Maclaren Stroller, which retails for $230, and I got it for $30. We also got a nearly new 3-man backpackers' tent and a brand new 2-person tent, both of which retail for $300. SO, we are going to eBay those puppies, unless any of you want to buy them from us for what we bought them for. We got brand new DVDs ($4), Italian Leather Shoes ($20), tons of designer clothes ($4-$6), a sleeping bag, brand new umbrella stroller for $2.50, incredible ethnic outfits for our Anthropological tastes (like a hand-emboidered dress from India for Ana for $6: "everyone at church said they thought my dress was beautiful"), brand new tennis shoes, socks, CDs, electronics, jewelry, and of course, a brand new rolling duffel bag to carry everything home in. Oh, and that picture above is Aniston in the UBC Annex where they have all the Unclaimed Unusual Baggage, like these green party plates for 20 cents that she used to serve us S'mores on and then we used them as frisbees. The Annex also has all the toiletries, microwaves, and large area rugs that people somehow took on the airplane. We'll have to go back someday...

CAMPING
Elsie loved wrestling with Cam in the tent.
We had a great time camping and everything went off without a hitch, until the end of the week when all the Tennessee schools got out on "Fall Break" and the campgrounds (even the hike-in ones) got a little too crowded and we had to spend our last night before we flew out in a hotel in downtown Nashville... which was okay because we wanted to see Nashville anyway and Jonah and I took turns walking down to the Honky Tonks and listening to some live music.
Its hard to believe we all fit in that tent, but its actually quite roomy once you get inside.
Aniston loves that she doesn't have to do her hair when we're camping. Notice that we're all wearing the same outfits in all these pictures, even though it spans over five days...
Packing Elsie into the campsite.
Packing our gear into the backcountry camping site in South Cumberland.
This picture is a little confusing, but it's looking out of our tent at Ana, who is climbing that skinny little tree. She is such a monkey and can climb almost anything. We should live in coconut land.
Great bark.

Lovely ponds, lakes and waterfalls all over the state.

Leaves popping red all over the place.

On our hike to the bottom of the U.S.'s highest waterfall east of the Rockies.
Called Fall Creek Falls.

From the bottom.

From the top.

Ana is the best big sister to Elsie, and appears instantaneously to cheer her if Elsie is sad or upset. Luckily, Elsie is never upset when she's in her backpack. She sings to us the whole time we're hiking.

We've been camping in Southern Utah and N.Z. so much that we were SO SO SO excited to get to have an actual campfire in Tennessee! They don't just allow campfires...they actually encourage them. Ana became an expert at "marshing" her Marshmallows, as she calls it.

Of all the sites, this one ruled. Part of it was held together by duct tape.

Jonah making Rat Face while pointing at Captain D's.
This tree looked like it was pregnant. Ana is of course climbing another tree. Check out Cam, too.

We had a bonus our last night when the Doubletree messed up our reservation and compensated us by putting us in the top floor King Master Suite. THE Ryman Suite. The kids were delighted to have their very own room in the suite with their own large flat screen TV. Jonah and I were excited to get 8 uninterrupted hours of sleep. Oh, and I also scored us some comped breakfast buffets. SWEET!
On our way out of town, we stopped at the Nashville Farmer's Market, and it was true to Tennessee form of being amazing and understated. I mean, check out those gourds!

Safely home and none the worse for the wear.

We have a crazy rest of the month while we finish a few more "pet projects", play catch-up at work, and celebrate the best holiday on the 21st... I mean 31st. Sooo... we probably won't be blogging for a few weeks. Go play on JibJab in the meantime.