May Part 2

I think how I'll do this is one day at a time, starting with Friday, May 24, the day we left.

We flew out of Tucson at lunch time.  Jeremy got a protein shake from the gift shop, and I got some really hard jerky.  We were 2 hours early, so we got bored.  We played Pokemon Go, walking up and down the halls, and then Jeremy decided to do some more fancy exercising. ;)

We made it to Chicago!

Jeremy's buddy at work had two free passes to the United Airlines Club inside the airport, and he passed them on the Jeremy.  We just thought it was a fancy place to sit, and that maybe there were donuts or something.  They had a full dinner!  It was so good!

They had these fancy crackers.  They were yummy too.

After we ate we went looking for a more comfortable place to sit that also had outlets for our devices.  This was the choice we had.  All the comfy chairs had a lamp in between that was glued down. XD Made it kind of hard to chat with a lamp in the way.

 I'm not really trying to show you this guy.  I'm just trying to show you the room.  Dinner tables were on the other side of that blue glass, and the actual dinner was to the left of it.

This cool dinosaur was just standing there in the airport.  It didn't have a label or anything.  I think it's plastic, but it's still cool.  We sent a picture to Grandma Burk to show Timmy, and he said, "That's my favorite kind of dinosaur!"

 Walking down the moving sidewalk towards our gate.  The lights overhead changed and moved with us.  It was cool.

Almost there!

While we were waiting in the club place Jeremy actually changed us to another flight because ours was delayed.  The one he changed us to was supposed to leave earlier than the original one.  Well, it turned out that was a bad idea.  Both flights were very delayed, but the original one actually arrived in Washington DC that night.  The one we ended up with was delayed 10 minutes and then 20 and then an hour and then a half hour more (not exact minutes, but you get the idea).  It just went on and on.  Finally they told us that the plane had an oil leak and was taking a while.  Then like an hour later they said they might try to get another plane.  Then later they said they would try to get another plane, and for everyone to go to a different gate to wait for it.  So we waited at least another hour, and finally they said that that plane was broken too, and there was no way for us to leave that night.  They offered us hotel rooms and food vouchers.  So we hurried over to customer service.  As we arrived in line, though, we were told that they were out of hotel rooms (there were like 8 flights delayed overnight that night), so they offered us cots in another terminal and some food vouchers.  We were some of the last ones to get food vouchers before they ran out of those too.  We got $40 worth.

So back we went down the moving sidewalk

and past the dinosaur.

We were super tired and kind of hungry too, so we got some McDonald's on our way to find a cot.  Here's us sitting to eat in the middle of the night.

So. Many. Cots.  We looked up and down the row and found one cot here or there but none together.  Then we were out in the hall and there was this black guy looking for a cot too.  He saw some on a cart, so we all went to grab one and just park it at the gate they told us to be at at 7:00 AM for our flight to finally leave.  But then some grouchy worker lady came and told us to put them down, that it was a union thing and we couldn't get our own cots.

We finally found another hallway that had two cots together.  It was an awful night!  We were right next to the girl's bathroom, and toilets flushed every couple of minutes.  There were lights in our eyes that they didn't even dim, and workers kept going up and down the hall clanking and talking.  And every couple of minutes a loudspeaker made an announcement telling us not to park here or not to smoke there or not to leave our luggage unattended or to cover your cough or to not bring this or that in your carry-on.  I couldn't sleep.  I think I got like 5 minutes total.  I pulled out a book to read because that makes me sleepy, and I read several pages, and then when I got sleepy I put the book on my face to shield my eyes from the blasted light.  Right after I nodded off someone's stupid phone rang.  The ringtone was Baby One More Time by Britney Spears.  Argh!  I don't think I'll ever think the same about that song again.

I didn't sleep any more after that, thought I did honestly try.  At like 3:30 some workers came down the hall and thunked a hygeine kit down on the end of every cot.  And then at 4:00 the same grouchy union lady came and shouted, "This is your 4:00 wake-up call.  Time to get up and move along because we need to clean up."  She repeated it over and over.  I just wanted to smack her.  Instead I went and shut myself in the bathroom and sobbed.

The weirdest thing, though, was that there was this one lady several feet away from me who kept sitting up straight in her cot and staring.  It looked like she was staring at me while I was reading.  Then she'd lay back down, and then after a few moments she'd pop back up and stare at me again.  It was so weird.  Then at 4:00 she was the one who was shouting at the guy who was standing there waiting for her to move so he could take her cot.  "You're making me uncomfortable.  I'm not comfortable with you standing there watching me."  Poor sleep-deprived lady.

Then when we went to the gate, which had changed to a completely different terminal in the night, there was a lady sitting there who told us all about her night.  She didn't get any sleep either, but she had decided to find a hotel on her own and use the form that we were given to try to get it reimbursed, but the hotel she went to didn't accept that, so she ended up just coming back.

We did have a good bagel sandwich that morning, though.  Yea for food vouchers.  It was so good!

May Part 1

I think I'll do a few parts to may because I have A LOT of pictures I want to blog about from our trip.  This first set is all the things that happened in May up until our trip.

The activity day girls had a mother daughter party just before Mother's Day.  It was short and sweet.  They took this picture of us. :)

The girls served their moms first.

Timmy's been having separation issues.  He doesn't like to go to school or scouts or Primary.  Once he's there he's great, though!  He does participate at scouts, but he's full of anxiety over it.

This particular rainy day the EA Courier had free comic book day.  We've been having a Gila Valley Comic Con for a few years now (we've never gone, though), and this year a guy from Tucson came and had a booth with comic books from his store.  He was flabbergasted that there wasn't a comic book store here, so he teamed up with the EA Courier, and now they have a few little shelves of comic books for sell, all nice and in sleeves.  These free ones weren't in sleeves and probably aren't worth much.  It was still fun to go look.  The Courier took this picture and posted it on their Facebook page, along with other people who came in.

Grandma and Grandpa Badger arrived in Nauvoo to start their mission in the Temple!!  We're so happy for them, and we really hope we can come and see them there this summer!

Grandma Burk graduated from Gila Community College, which is in Globe and operates under EAC.  I didn't hear what her major was, but if I find out I'll update this!  She worked hard for that degree.  Yea, Mom!

One day I made elephant ears, and I left the extra batter and powdered sugar out so Joshua could make himself some when he got home from school.  Fortunately, the little guys didn't get into the batter.  Unfortunately, they did grind about 3/4 of a bag of powdered sugar into the carpet. 

I took them to the park anyway.  I figured they were probably feeling cooped up, and I wanted some fresh air anyway.  Henry wants nothing to do with the splash pad.  I think he just hates being cold.  But they had a good time.  They found a hopscotch someone had drawn, so they played with that too.  I guess you can't see the hopscotch in these pictures, but they were so cute hopping all over down the sidewalk.

Michael made this Papier-mâché hat in art. :)

We usually go to the library every Thursday.  This year Star Wars Day was on a Saturday, and the library isn't open on Fridays or Saturdays, so they had their Star Wars Day on Thursday.  This clone trooper came out, and Timmy wanted a picture with him.  Later Princes Leia came out, and her costume was pretty OK.  There were two other costumes I think.  One I think was Boba Fett, but the other was supposed to be Chewbacca.  It was a really bad costume.  The mask was longer than the guys face, and it flopped around when he moved.  It was the wrong color (was way lighter than the bodysuit part of the costume), and just wasn't Chewbacca's face.  I wish I had a picture.  It was hilarious!

Cute little boys sleeping in their own beds!

Timmy's teachers at church are so nice!  They really wanted to do anything they could to help Timmy be happy to go to class.  Brother Oakes does origami, and Timmy just happens to like everything he makes.  He usually has something for him when he goes to Primary.  We thought it might help Timmy if his teachers came to our house, so Jeremy came up with an ingenious plan to have them come over and teach some origami.  I liked that!  They've come twice now.  They're great people.  This particular time he was teaching us to make dragons.

 Here's Timmy as his class is walking in to have their end of year music concert!  He's in the back against the wall next to the girl in the white shirt.

He came to see me after the concert.  He smiled for a picture and gave me a hug.  Then he turned to go find his class, but as soon as he did he turned right back to me and burst into tears.  Poor kid.  I took him home with me.  End of the year anyway.

 This is Jeff and Laurie's boy Andy.  We haven't seen those guys in years and years, but we keep an eye on them through Facebook. ;) That and Jeremy texts Jeff pretty regularly.  Anyway, Andy is graduating soon!  He decided to go to Washington State University.  He wants to go into civil engineering and try to fix the traffic problems around Seattle near where they live.  I'm pretty proud of this fine young man.  (We sure have cool nieces and nephews!)

Henry likes to use his bath towel for a blanket. :)

We didn't take a picture on our anniversary, so I took one later.  Lovely, eh? ;)

We told Bubby to get dressed, so he got like all his underwear and put it all on, at once.  He thought it was super funny.

Sleepy Mother's Day! ;)

I was late for Jill's school program and missed their first song - The Lion Sleeps Tonight.  I was so bummed! :( I heard most of the songs, though.  Jill's on the end of the second row up on the risers.

Out in the sun after her program

Michael brushed his hair or something, and it made it extra big and puffy.  Ha ha!

Here's Benji at his concert.  These guys he's standing with did the snapping in the West Side Story medley.

Here's the whole band.  You can see Benji's head sticking up out the the middle in the very back.

Putting away instruments

Papa decided Benji was done, so he picked him up and carried him out.

Michael at his concert with Walker on the right and Tim on the left.

On May 17, 2019 BreAnna had her baby Asher Ryan Burk.  Jeremy brought Joe a burger, and I brought Bre some baby clothes.  That's Joe with his two boys in the middle.

There was trouble again with this baby.  Poor Joe and BreAnna!  With their first baby, Jesse, Bre had to push for like 12 hours or something.  Her pelvis is small, so this is hard for her!  Their second baby was stillborn, so with this pregnancy they were worried the whole time.  And then he was having trouble coming, and Bre was getting tired.  They tried using suction, but it kept popping off.  So they tried forceps, and he finally eventually came.  They were worried about him right away, though, and they took him to get an x-ray of his skull pretty soon after he was born.  They doctor came back and shooed all but Joe and Bre out of the room and told them that they did think he might have a fractured skull, so they were going to fly him to Phoenix Children's to see what they said.  Those poor guys!  It was awful.  Bre had to stay in the hospital overnight, but the doctor promised to release her ASAP the next day.  Joe drove down to Phoenix as soon as they took Asher to the helicopter, and Jeremy went with him so he didn't have to be alone.  Rachel and Susie met them when they got there, and Bre's family took her to Phoenix right after she was released in the morning.

I feel like it's so lucky we were there so Jeremy could go with Joe!  Jeremy's dad used to share on office with Dee Flake, and there's a big basement storage place there.  Years later, Dee became a judge, so it was a conflict of interests for Dad to share an office.  So he moved out, but still, I guess, rented the storage.  Now Dee is retiring, so the whole building needed to be cleared out, including the storage.  Jeremy took off half a day on Friday the 17th to go help, and that ended up being the same day Bre was being induced.  We weren't going to be there at all until Jeremy heard that Dad needed help.  If we hadn't gone Joe would have had to drive alone.

Jesse was just so excited about his new brother and the hospital room and everything.

He kept throwing this pillow down and laying on it, and then taking the baby's bottle out of the diaper bag and pretending to drink it with the cap on.

Jeremy played with Jesse while he ran around giggling and Joe and Bre cried.  It was just kind of horrible.

Anyway, it took all the way to Sunday for the doctors at PCH to do all tests they were going to do and to finally tell them what's up.  Asher's skull ended up having several fractures, but he's going to be OK, and they should heal just fine on their own.  Thank heavens!

On Friday night I drove all the kiddos home to Thatcher after grabbing dinner at Jack in the Box.  On Saturday Rachel brought Jeremy to Globe, and I met them there with the four little ones.  We went to China Taste for lunch.  Yum!

Timmy thought this was super clever - a ham-er.  It IS pretty clever. :) He's been trying to make jokes lately.

Benji finally solved his Rubik's Cube!  He's worked on it for a long time.

Here's Jill on the last day of school!  She got all sorts of awards, of course, because Katie Udall is a cool teacher.  One was this CEO of Kindness around her neck.

 I made these towel ponchos.  The necks came out way too big, but I just followed the directions!  It's nice, though, because now I don't have to carry the towels for swimming lessons. ;) At least, I don't have to carry them after lessons.

 Timmy made a game called Defeat the Yeti.  He has a yeti drawn on the paper he's setting up, and he made paper snowballs to throw at it.  He's clever.  He wants me to be sure to tell you that the yeti has the rules.