Matthew Palmer

Ever since Trace was in Kindergarten, he has been friends with another adopted kid by the name of Matthew Palmer. They live close and have a good relationship. One day when Matthew was at our house playing, I decided to ask his Mom if it was okay if I took the boys to McDonald's for a light lunch. He said okay, so we went to the one that has a play land close to our house. The boys had a good time like always and I made them pose for an obligatory photo.

Pho

Trace has been watching a cartoon show wherein the main character talks about and eats "pho" on a regular basis. So he's been begging us to try it since the loves noodles and thinks it will be his new favorite food. We finally found a nearby quick serve restaurant that had pho on the menu and wasn't over-priced so we gave it a try. I got the same thing as Trace and I really liked it, but he was a little disappointed in the taste and texture. He still ate it and I think he would have liked it more, but it had a large amount of onions and garlic in it. Nonetheless, I was proud of him for trying something new and he did agree to try other kinds later to see if there were other kinds he'd like more.

Fremont Indian State Park

Our first camping trip of the summer was set for a place in Southern Utah called Fremont Indian State Park, where we stayed in the Sam Stowe Campground near the local museum. The area is famous for carvings and pictures on the walls of the canyons from ancient settlers that once lived there. We brought Boston with us this time and started the trip with a stop at a playground along the way to give the kids and dog a chance to stretch their legs.

We brought with us Trace's two electric scooters so that the boys could have fun exploring while we got the trailer set up. What a beautiful campground! We were there a little early in the year, so we were not surrounded by many other campers. It was nice!

Since we were trying to have a vacation along with a camping trip, we decided to take the boys out to eat a few times. We visited a few local places and also decided to make our own "tinfoil dinners" one night. Messy, but fun! While making the fire for the tinfoil dinners, Trace got to fulfill his long-awaited desire to burn his math book. I guess when he was struggling with math during the school year, he said he wanted to just burn his math book and Kevin said he could do so after school was out. I guess he remembered and Kevin decided to let him make good on the promise. I never thought that "burning books" would be something that my son wanted to do, but he is a boy and destruction seems to always fun for boys of all ages. 

We decided to rent a 4 wheeler UTV to take the boys on a few trails around the area. I was a little worried about Kevin and I and whether our back would be able to handle it, but it went surprisingly well! They must make those machines to take the shock and bumps of the trails with minimal damage to the riders, it was actually really fun! We took a map provided to us and went around the area looking for fun places to explore. The boys loved every second! We eventually switched the way we were riding and let each boy be up front for a bit and Kevin even let me drive! I was a "crazy driver" according to Trace and Kevin, but I still had a blast. At the top of one of the trails was an "outside museum" of an abandoned mine with actually equipment used and even an old cabin with abandoned supplies inside. We had to be a little careful since the spring run off sent the water ways and rivers running high and fast, but the boys listened to instructions and stayed close. 

After we got back to the trailer each night, the boys played some video games and watched movies before bed. Raven joined them most of the time too, she's really spoiled when we go camping. 

(Even more than usual) One time when we were relaxing before another adventure, the boys were playing the Nintendo classic game "Super Mario Brothers". They were playing against each other, and this round had Trace being Mario and Boston had ended up playing as "Peach" the princess at the end of the traditional game. When the characters get hit by the enemies, they shrink to a smaller size and must find another growth flower to return to regular size. Kevin and I were doing our own thing and heard the boys laughter and taunts as they played the game. During one particular battle, Boston screamed at the top of his lungs; "I'm a little princess and now you're gonna die!" We all burst into laughter and therefore, the rest of the trip he was often referred to as "the little princess". Hahaha!

The next day we went to explore the nearby Fremont Indian Museum. They had lots of exhibits and examples of how the ancient Indian civilization lived. They lived underground and stored their food in a nearby "underground pantry" and the boys explored both, but I opted to stay out where I could actually see the spiders coming at me instead of them being able to creep up on me in the darkness. The boys said it was dark inside the pit house, but much cooler too. Maybe I should have ventured down.  The museum had a play area where they could pretend to make markings on the wall and a microscope that they could use to exam the local rocks and fibers of materials close up. We saw a sign that said you could borrow the local weaponry, so we decided to give it a try. We watched a video and then tried our own hand at throwing the "atlatl". Kevin was pretty good at it, as expected, I wasn't too terrible, but the surprise was that Boston kept trying to throw it sideways like a baseball and it didn't work well, but Trace was great at it! He was better than all of us! I guess we found his sport! We'll have to look into local atlatl events in our area, we have a ringer in our house for sure.  

They provided corn kernels so we each got to try grinding them into corn flour. 

Talk about hard work!

This is called getting sidetracked by chasing a lizard instead of retrieving the atlatl to throw again.

At the end of completing all the museum challenges, the boys both were 

awarded "Junior Ranger" status and got a free badge.

We went for small hikes and founds some actual petroglyphs. When we had endured enough heat and sun, we went back to the air-conditioned trailer and let the boys build some Lego sets we had brought along. 

After doing all the outdoor things we could endure for one week, we decided to seek out a way to cool off. We found the local swimming pool and decided to venture over for a swim. On our way there, we passed by a bunch of baseball diamonds with kids of all ages warming up. Kevin told Boston; "We aren't really going swimming boys, we brought you here to try out for a new baseball team." Without hesitation, Boston replied with panic; "But, I didn't bring my gear!" We laughed and laughed. He wasn't thinking about why we would have him try out a team without his parents, in a town that is hours away from his house, etc. etc., he was just worried that he didn't bring his stuff. Pretty indicative of the world he lives in, I thought. 

When we arrived at the pool, we discovered that it was indoor, but like a professional sports arena, the roof opened up to let in the sun and even the few sprinkles of rain that showed up. They also had a slide, diving board and a huge inflatable obstacle course that the boys had a blast on. I even tried it once and was very glad that there seemed to be no video recording documenting the disastrous attempt. When the boys were getting ready, I asked Trace if he wanted to wear his swim shirt and he said yes. I told him Boston wasn't wearing one, but he still wanted to wear his. I asked if he was ashamed of being shirtless and he said; "No, I just want to look good." I said; "For who?" He said; "It's always okay for the ladies to look." Oh brother. 

The night before we came home, we actually arranged to participate in two very special events. We got to meet up with a couple other campers and a local ranger who took us on a real, honest to goodness scorpion hunt! It was so cool! The scorpions they have in the area are fluorescent when you shine a UV black light on them, so we went to an area that they are known to be and walked along the trail, finding dozens of them all along the trail. They were sort of creepy, but thankfully, they were a little too small to cause much concern. The boys were great at finding them! They found a bunch more than any other kids along the tour. When we returned to the museum, they had set up a huge telescope and we got to look through it, to see the surface of the moon! It was a good time of year and season, to see the different mountains and craters of the moon with the huge, bulky telescope. We got to see so up close, that they had to move the telescope a couple times as the earth rotated to maintain the same view. That was the highlight of the tour for me!

Discussing the scorpion life cycle with the ranger before the tour