No. 5: Go Cross Country Skiing

Without a doubt, this was one of the funnest before thirty experiences we have had to date.  Jennive and I have been cross country skiing before, so this was nothing new.  The true point of our list isn't to do thirty new things we've never done before, though many of them are.  It is simply a list of experiences we want to have with each other before we turn thirty.  Some of our experiences we had before creating the list were so good, we wanted to relive them again.

Jennive and I were both introduced to cross country skiing as children.  We don't own skis, so we aren't professionals by any means, but we aren't novices either.  I would classify our collective experience as intermediate.  For this before thirty experience, we selected Harriman State Park in eastern Idaho as our destination.

The day was mostly clear, though a bit cold for March.  We started off slow on a trail following the Henrys Fork of the Snake River.  We stopped often taking pictures, talking, and relaxing.  We followed the river for a short distance and then broke off to the main trail.  The trails were all pre-groomed; so we just set our skis in the tracks and shuffled our feet.  We went as far north as the Railroad Ranch before heading back.  It wasn't a far or difficult distance.  It was just right!

There was a little bit of wildlife out and about.  We saw several trumpeter swans in the river and flying overhead.  There were also geese and ducks out on the water.  We saw a few fox and muskrat tracks down by the river.  Incidentally we didn't see any wolves, which is a good thing, because forgot my miniature glass bottles and tape at home...!

In all we were out on the trail for a little more than two hours.  Our time together was well spent.  We enjoyed breathing the fresh air and hearing the silence of nothing.  I am a big fan of the Idaho State song.  In it is a perfect description of how I feel each time we visit: "the majestic forest where nature abounds...where ideals can be realized...a legacy we'll always prize".  The beauty of this remote area of the world is surreal.  I am grateful to have experienced the majesty of this landscape every day growing up.

Post Script: As a child, I was fortunate to live four houses away from my grandparents.  I have many many memories of my Grandpa Hawkes.  We did so much together.  Among my favorite experiences is cross country skiing into The Place.  The Place was what grandpa called an area of land he owned hidden among the dry farms in southeastern Idaho near the Teton Mountain Range.  The old wood skis we used weren't anything special.  They were kind of a crude introductory compared to the clamor of equipment available at stores now.  But it wasn't about the skis, or even skiing for that matter.  Looking back, it was about the time we spent together.  Grandpa taught me so much about life on those short trips.  A few years ago Jennive and I were invited to go dog sledding with him.  We went and created one of our fonder memories of time we spent together.  Below is a photo of Grandpa Hawkes, my uncle, and his son dog sledding with grandpa.

No. 2: Go On A Cruise (without the kids!)

The airplane slowly rolled down the pavement.  It was preparing to leave.  Many on board were connecting with family.  Some were conducting business.  Ours was simply for three nights of uninterrupted sleep!

This was our first experience flying into Long Beach, California.  It’s a small airport.  Mostly outdoors.  Very well organized.  We immediately boarded a bus to take us to the cruise ship.  Our impression was an overwhelming feeling of the first time jitters.  We had more questions than answers.  Could this vessel really be our home for the next three nights?  Where will we go while on board?  What will we do?  Who will we meet?  All questions were answered soon enough.

Coddled among hundreds of others disembarking from the United States towards our bordering friends in Mexico, we were ready to go.  While in Salt Lake City we were bundled in coats, which soon were packed away.  Spring and summer cannot come soon enough.  As we flew away from home our nerves settle.  It’s not easy to leave children, although in capable hands, for any amount of time.

We boarded the boat early Friday afternoon.  Once on board we checked into our room.  We were on the Riviera Deck, (4th floor).  Our room was comfortable and convenient, enough space for sleeping, which is all we needed.  Soon enough we found the buffet lunch.  We sat aft, which is a unique enough word.  My vocabulary was not built for cruising.  I learned that quickly.  The food was a refreshing start to our stress free weekend.  Quite honestly, refreshing was how I would describe almost everything we did.  From sleeping to laughing, eating to…well eating, we soaked in the replenishing culture of the ship.

After a lengthy safety orientation, Jennive and I went to the front of the ship to watch the disembarkation from the mainland.  Two hours of standing and waiting later, we decided to go eat dinner.  Eventually, after resolving whatever technical difficulty the ship was having, we departed.  Years later we will all forget that the week before a cruise ship was stranded at sea...without working power...for five days.  Imagine our nerves as we sat at port, two hours delayed.

That night we slept A LOT!!  The rocking of the boat was like a mother rocks a child.  A full nights rest was our rejuvenating start to the weekend.

Saturday we ported in Ensenada, Mexico.  We toured the countryside, first through the city, and then north to a small hotel and cantina.  Our server provided chips, guacamole, and a very well prepared bowl of salsa.  One of the locals sang a romantic melody as we ate.  Soon we made our way to the beach.  The coastline was beautiful.  The sand was glistening in the sun (appropriately named as the Gold Coast).  We soaked our feet in the ocean and picked out sea shells for the kids.

After our tour we stopped downtown to shop, barter, and sightsee.  It was a great time.  The city of Ensenada was full of small trinket shops which lined both sides of popular streets.  It was not hard to see the level of poverty the locals lived in as the vendors begged and bartered.  Part of me enjoyed haggling.  The part of me that is cheap.  However, part of me did not enjoy this experience.  It was evident these people were poor.  Mothers would exploit their poverty by sitting with a small child or infant cradled in their lap, an empty cup held out for spare change.  “Por favor” has a new meaning to me now.

While in the city we enjoyed a coke from Oxxo and a smoothie from McDonalds.  That reminded me of the time we ate at Burger King in Madrid, Spain.  Ironic, huh?!  We were able to purchase fun clothing for our children, a new wallet for me, and some new sandals for Jennive.  Proof of our visit, nothing more.

Later that afternoon we took a horse carriage ride back to the boat.  We were ready for a nap.  Fortunately, the Big Bang Theory was playing on television.  So instead, we watched hours of reruns.  Who wouldn’t, right?  That night we enjoyed a formal dinner.  Jennive was complemented by everyone we greeted.  In fact, as we walked into the restaurant, I counted several people checking her out.  That’s right, I married a hottie!!!

The night was fun.  After dinner, we went to a comedy sketch.  Small world, we were greeted by a couple we had met earlier in the day while at McDonalds.  Even smaller world, they used to live in Utah and attend Brigham Young University.  The comedians were funny.  Their sketches could use some work.  They relied too heavily on race jokes.  None the less, they put on a good show for the night.

Sunday was a day at sea.  We slept comfortably and were fortunate to start the day with a couples massage.  Though, it was more of a couples lay-down-and-have-massage-oil-rubbed-all-over-your-body…there wasn’t much massaging.  Trust me, I know, my wife is a massage therapist!  The music was nice though.
It craftily disguised the thumping from the over used running track above.  Our massage was cut short by, well I’m not really sure.  I think they just wanted to cut it short.  So $300 later, we still have very stressed necks/backs/feet…

The remainder of Sunday we spent eating, relaxing, and eating more.  We dressed up again for dinner.  It was fun to celebrate our 9 Year Wedding Anniversary as we dined.  The kind servers sang “Happy Anniversary To You” to the tune of “Happy Birthday to You” as we ate our dessert.  Good times!  It reminded us of the Christmas Story duck dinner.  Frarararara, rara, ra, ra.  Later that night we went back for some more laughing at the comedy show.  I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time.  A great way to end the night.

After a final night of continued sleep, we woke up, ate breakfast, and got the hell out of there.  It was time to go home!  We missed our kiddos.  Funny enough (and even smallest world!!) we saw a group of old classmates preparing to board the ship as we were leaving.  Then it was off to the airport, our nerves settling again.

Post Script: Nine years ago, Jennive and I committed to live and love for time (and a year later for all eternity).  Over the years we have grown and developed in mutual responsibility by creating and expanding our family.  Our love and devotion to each other parallels the love and nurturing we extend to our children.  We are very blessed to have experienced so much growth to our individual characters.  Our children teach us every day.  Their laughs lift our spirits.  Their cries tear our hearts.  We are blessed to have their smiles fill our home.  In September, we look forward to receiving one more blessing.

No. 15: Visit SoCal

Sunny SoCal.  We had been planning this field trip for some time.  After all the fun we had in San Francisco, we couldn't wait to get back to California.

Our trip started off with an ice storm here in Utah.  The storm was so bad we were close to pulling the plug on the entire event.  Instead, we decided to chance it and go.  We left in the early afternoon on a Thursday and made it to St. George in a reasonable amount of time.

Early Friday morning we were up and out the door.  We drove the entire day and made it to our hotel in San Diego just after dark.  Our original plan was to go to the beach that afternoon.  I had been tracking the weather prior to leaving, but our plan was foiled when a cold front moved in the day we arrived.  Unlike the record sun and warm weather from the week before, it was cloudy, cold, and rainy, so we scratched the beach idea.

Friday night we went out to eat at a Chinese restaurant.  It was really, really good food.  Mason and I ordered a seafood dinner.  Jennive and Madi ordered a pork lo mein.  We all shared and enjoyed some fine Asian dining!  Mason loved eating all of the seafood (including squid).

The hotel we stayed at was rated highly on the web.  It was also very inexpensive.  Surprisingly, it was a huge let down when we got there.  We didn't see any cockroaches running around, but our ten month old found an old ranch sauce packet while crawling on the floor.  It was very unique.  Most of the grunge and funny smells we were willing to look past.  The kids didn't notice anything at all.  To them, all they cared about was that they were on a vacation!!

Saturday we were up really early. Then it was off to Sea World.  The weather was cold for San Diego, but warm for us.  It was partly rainy, but mostly sunny.  There was hardly anyone there all day long!

We started off with some fun kid rides.  Mason and Madi had a blast!!  Soon it was off to watch the dolphins play, and then we went to pet the stingrays.  Burke loved petting the stingrays so much that he tried to jump in several times.  It was hilarious!!

We spent the entire day at Sea World.  The kids were able to see up close, and in some cases even touch, a variety of sea animals.  We went to dolphin/bird show and got splashed.  We also went to the whale show.  The kids loved every minute.  Overall, we all had lots of fun eating and playing.  The food highlight was a funnel cake we ate topped with ice cream and strawberries.

After our fun day at Sea World, we ventured out on the town for some authentic Mexican Food.  It took us a while, but we found a highly reviewed place just down the street from our hotel.  The service wasn't very good, but the food was really good.  Of course Mason and I got another sea food plate and devoured as much as we could.  Jennive and Madi had some pollo y arroz.  It was tasty.  We had so much food that we boxed up the left overs and ate it again the next night.

Our final day in SoCal was spent at the San Diego Zoo.  I was so excited to take the kids to the zoo.  Mason and Madi have loved going to zoo's so much we bought a season pass to our local Hogle Zoo here in Utah.  We go as often as we can (we even went for Christmas earlier this year).

Our day at the San Diego Zoo started out similar to Sea World.  There were very few people so we were able to go anywhere we wanted without huge crowds.  We saw a lot of animals and plants.  I didn't realize the Zoo was as much of a botanical garden as it was a zoo.  The amount of plant life they have is amazing.

Some of the zoo was under construction, so we were not able to see everything.  Some of the highlights were going on the parks Sky Ride, seeing the hippos, pandas, and elephants, and sharing an ice cream cone.  I think it would be really fun to visit the Zoo's second park called the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.  We went to a safari park at Disney's Animal Kingdom, so if San Diego is anything like Disney, it would be worth the trip back.

The next morning we woke up early and left for home.  After all of the fun we were ready to get home and back to life.  Another fun family blitz vacation was a success.  We had a lot of fun creating memories and experiences together.

Post Script: Please indulge my soapbox rant for a moment. The Zoo was a big letdown.  This over priced not-for-profit tourist trap gets two thumbs down from me.  Even Melman would have been disappointed.  Everywhere we turned we were informed of how humans as a species are driving animals to extinction.  Their over attempt at guilting each visitor into conservation activism is simply sad.  Even the animals with no endangerment threat are portrayed as two steps from extinction by humans.  The cherry on top was when we got onto one of the parks many over used, noisy, double-decker, gas guzzling, air polluting, diesel fueled buses which operate all day throughout the park.  For a place that should be operated by biological conservationists, it sure didn't feel like it.  No thanks, we'll stick with the Hogle Zoo here in Utah.

No. 3: Visit A Beach (With The Kids)

Daniel has finally given me the opportunity to write one of these blog entries.  This one is about our before thirty visit to the beach with the kids.  If you know me, this is going to be short and sweet.

Just recently I had a client who went on and on about the freedom in her life for not having children.  How she and her husband can go where they want, see what they want, do what they want and not have to worry about children at home, or having to take care of them.  I just smiled and nodded (because I was hoping for a big tip), but in my mind I felt so sorry for her that she had not yet experienced the world through the open eyes of a child.

Daniel and I have both visited beaches at times in our lives.  We even had the opportunity of living next to a beach in Hawaii for three months.  The reason we put this one on our list wasn't for us, it was for our kids.  We live in landlocked Utah.  And we don’t often get the chance to visit any water, let alone a beach.  So when we pulled up to Ocean Beach, (we know incredibly original name), the excitement and anticipation in our van was palpable.  The doors were literally bursting open with little Mason, Madi, and Burke wanting to get out there and see the sand, surf, and sun. 

Although we've been to several different beaches, seeing this beach with our kids, exploring each seashell, each seaweed, each wave, and each grain of sand was entirely new.  This was one of our favorite before thirties as a family, and we look forward to experiencing it again with our kids.