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On Wednesday we had an appointment with our Congressman (Rep. Jason Chaffetz) to tour the U.S. Capitol. We had tried to get a tour of the White House through Rep. Chaffetz but the staff member told us that since Chaffetz was a freshman rep and also a Republican, the Obama Administration wasn’t making any White House tickets available.

We rode the Metro in to Washington D.C. in the morning and made our way to the House office building. The kids probably enjoyed the train as much as they enjoyed anything else in D.C. When we got there Rep. Chaffetz wasn’t in the office but his staff was very nice and they escorted us on a wonderful tour of the capitol building including spending time in the House Gallery watching the debate on the Hate Crimes bill.

Riding the Metro

Each state had two statues in various parts of the building. Utah was represented by Brigham Young and by Philo Farnsworth, the inventor of television. Brigham Young is about as Utah as you get but Philo is controversial because Idaho often claims him as one of their own.

Hanging with Brigham Young

The rotunda was impressive and made you dizzy craning your head to look up at the building. We heard the various little tidbits that the congressional aides have been trained to tell about each painting and nook and cranny of the building.

The impressive Rotunda

After our tour of the Capitol building we found a McDonalds nearby that was jam packed with the DC government employee lunch crowd. We shared tables with a couple of business people who looked upon us and our collection of Happy Meals with bemusement. After lunch we made our way over to the Smithsonian Air and Space museum. I thought the kids would really enjoy this one but they were rather ho hum about it. The place was jam packed with busloads of school kids but our kids didn’t think moon rocks and space shuttle parts and looking up the inside of a Saturn V rocket was as cool as I thought it was back in 1982.

The one thing that Emily and Anne really wanted to see was the Holocaust Museum. We made our way over to the museum and Nancy and I took Caroline, Sam, and Diana through on the quick tour while we let Emily and Anne go slow and spend as much time as they wanted. Anne seemed to be fascinated the most – she spent time reading every display and carefully looking at every exhibit. We let Anne take as much time as she wanted up until the point that Caroline, Sam, and Diana were frustrated and cranky and ready to go home. We had planned on visiting other Smithsonian museums and possibly the National Art Gallery but by the time we were done with the Holocaust Museum everyone was “museumed out” and we decided to catch the Metro home before the rush hour crowd overwhelmed us.

More Metro

After the frustration and headache of trying to get to Virginia and getting our luggage, we didn’t do much on Monday. We decided to stick at the hotel and swim at the pool and basically just get into a vacation mindset. By Monday afternoon we were bored so we decided to go to Jamestown. I think the kids enjoyed Jamestown pretty well. We got to see the archaeologists digging in the dirt and then got to watch them filter the dirt through a screen to get the little bits of artifacts out of the mud. We spent a little time in the museum and also went to a glass-making demonstration which is one of the first industries the Jamestown colonists tried to start up. For some reason we don’t have any pictures of Jamestown but it was good enough for an hour or two on Monday afternoon.

A word of wisdom to those who travel in historic Virginia. There are two separate visitors centers at Jamestown – one run by the state of Virginia and one run by the U.S. government. The historic Jamestown settlement site is the one run by the U.S. government and the state has a Jamestown site that has a boat in the harbor. If you buy an entrance to one site it is NOT transferable to the other site so make sure you get the right historic Jamestown. We knew from our various trips in U.S. national parks and national monuments that our pass to the Fed’s site would be good for a week and would get us into any other Fed sites in the area, plus we wanted to see the settlement so we bought an entrance to the fed site (something like $20 for the whole family – not too bad). I’m not saying don’t go to the Virginia state Jamestown site – it may be fantastic for all I know – I’m just warning that there is a distinction between the two even though they are right next to each other.

On Tuesday we decided to stay in Virginia and go to Colonial Williamsburg. I remember Williamsburg from when I was a kid. I remember it being interesting for about the first 10 minutes and then boring after that. Well, not much has changed in 28 years. The prices at Williamsburg are relatively outrageous for what you get. It cost something like $125 for our whole family for the opportunity to walk around Williamsburg. There are lots of little “add-on packages” that you can buy – extra money to tour the capitol building, extra money to see the movie, extra money for a historic lunch, etc. It was interesting for the first hour for me (probably 10 minutes for the kids) but after that I was ready to go.

The Armory

The biggest issue with Williamsburg is that you can hear someone talk about making paper, furniture, bricks, blacksmith stuff, etc. but you don’t ever actually see them making the stuff. At least not on a sweltering Tuesday in late April 2009.

The obligatory stockade photo

One of the new things at Colonial Williamsburg are “reenactments” of historic moments in colonial history such as the Virginia House of Delegates deciding declaring independence. Throughout the afternoon there were actors in period costumes that acted bits of the drama out through various parts of the town. In addition to the House of Delegates drama there was a fake romance between the daughter of a Tory and the daughter of a revolutionist – kind of a 1776 version of Romeo and Juliet. These historical reenactments were interesting for about the first 30 seconds but quickly became tedious because you couldn’t hear anything and, frankly, dialog about whether or not the House of Delegates should vote for independence just wasn’t very gripping. Aside from the specific character actors in these play bits, none of the Williamsburg staff was “in character” which was a bit of a disappointment.

Lunch

The best part of Williamsburg was lunch in the shade. We found a picnic area near the parking lot and enjoyed a leisurely lunch.

Lunch

Lunch

My recommendation on Colonial Williamsburg: If you’ve never been before, it’s worth going once in your life but don’t bother to spend more than a day there. There are plenty of other interesting historical things in the Virginia and Washington D.C. area that are also much less expensive.

2009 is a “big” vacation year and this time we chose to do our vacation in the spring while the elementary kids are off track because it meant only Emily would have to miss class. We thought it would be fun to go back east and visit Williamsburg VA, Washington D.C., and Maryland where Nancy’s aunt lives. I had more United Airlines miles that I was able to use in booking the tickets. Unfortunately, when I tried to book it was impossible to get any flights out of Salt Lake City on United miles. Our only option was to fly out of Boise, ID – a five hour drive from Salt Lake City.

The Boise airport

We left Salt Lake on Friday and drove up to Boise where we spent the night in a hotel before catching our flight on Saturday morning. The other problem with flying United Airlines is that they often fly through O’Hare airport. I hate flying through O’Hare. Every time I go through there my flight gets delayed and this time was no exception. We flew in from Boise on time but when we got to O’Hare, our connecting flight to Richmond VA was delayed due to bad weather in Chicago. For some reason we were able to fly in but no flights were going out. No worries, we thought, we’ll just wait out the two hour delay and get to our hotel a bit late. Unfortunately, about about an hour’s wait I got an automated email from United stating that our flight had been canceled. I turned to look at the flight board and it was like the classic scene from a movie when all the flight statuses started changing to canceled. There was a mad rush to the ticket and customer service counters as thousands of stranded travelers tried to figure out how to get out of Chicago.

Waiting around in O’Hare airport

After spending an hour in line I finally got to the ticket counter and reviewed my options with the agent. The agent said she could put us up in a hotel that night and the fly two of us to Richmond VA the next day. The rest of us would have to until Monday or Tuesday (remember it was Saturday) because all the flights to Richmond were already booked due to a NASCAR race. Spending two or three nights in Chicago certainly didn’t appeal to me. Splitting up didn’t appeal to me. I started grasping for straws on ways to get out of Chicago that night (the storms had finally blown over and flights were going out again).

“How about flying into Reagan National?” Nope – full.
“How about Dulles?” Full.
“Newport News VA?” All full.

Finally the ticket lady said, “I can fly all of you into Baltimore. The flight leaves in 45 minutes. Do you want it or not?”. I did the math and it meant that we would get into Baltimore at about 1:00 a.m. with a 3 hour drive to Richmond so we would wind up at the hotel at 4:00 a.m. I weighed that with the prospect of spending 2 or 3 nights in Chicago on a United Airlines hotel voucher and took about 2 seconds to decide: “Book it”. Nancy collected the kids while I got on the phone and started making rental car reservations for a minivan in Baltimore. How difficult is it to rent a minivan in Baltimore MD from your cell phone in Chicago that you want to pick up at 1:00 a.m. and drive out of state one-way to Richmond VA? I’m here to tell you that it’s pretty darn difficult. We eventually found a minivan but the one-way charges were so exorbitant that we had to agree to drop it off in Baltimore before the week was over. No problem, we would just drop it off when we went to visit Nancy’s aunt in Maryland later in the week.

After making the arrangements we caught the flight and winged it to Baltimore. We picked up the car and I managed to stay awake and drive the 3 hours to Richmond where we wearily checked into our hotel to start our vacation. Oh yeah, our luggage didn’t go with us to Baltimore. We were told we would be able to pick it up the next day in Richmond. “No problem”, I thought, “we’ll have time to go to the Richmond airport Sunday morning, pick up our luggage, and still make it to 1:00 church”. Unfortunately, we were once again about to learn the nature of Murphy’s Law.

We went to the Richmond airport on Sunday morning to pick up our luggage at the United baggage office. The first problem: nobody was at the office. The second problem: there were a bunch of bags stacked up outside the office and I could only see one of our bags – two were missing. Nancy tracked down the luggage lady and she investigated where our other two bags were. “Oh”, she said happily, “they’re still in Chicago!” How on earth the airline managed to send one of our bags on to Richmond but leave two in Chicago is beyond me. I was so frustrated and annoyed at the airline that I had to leave the luggage office and let Nancy deal with it because I was afraid would completely lose my temper.

Luckily for Nancy and I, the one bag that made it to Richmond had our clothes and underwear in it. Nancy made arrangements for the airline to drop the missing bags off at the hotel once they finally made it to Richmond and then headed out to Walmart to buy some temporary clothes for the kids. Needless to say we scrapped Church plans and just ended up relaxing at the hotel trying to overcome such an awful start to the vacation.

After replacing my backflow valve last spring I vowed to remove the entire valve in the fall so that it wouldn’t have any chance of freezing during the winter. Unfortunately, good intentions in spring are often forgotten when summer and fall roll around. Even though I turned off the water I forgot to remove the backflow valve. Yesterday (Friday) I turned on the water and checked the valve and it appeared to be fine – no major leaks of water. “Great!”, I thought, “I lucked out and survived the winter without freezing the valve”. Today Nancy was working outside and noticed that water was dripping off the valve. Not a major leak but just a slow drip drip drip. It turns out that 3 of the 4 testcocks on the valve had cracked.

Can you spot the crack?

Interestingly, each testcock had cracked in the exact same location – right in the middle of the “China” stamp. Read into that what you will. I got online and ordered three testcock replacements – at $8.00 each plus shipping it came to $30. Not great but better than $250 for a completely new valve. South Jordan requires these things be above ground which is really irritating. At $250 a valve and weighing 10lbs each they are often stolen for their bronze and copper salvage value (I was smart enough to put my valve in the back yard). In addition, the testcocks on the valve provide ready access for a terrorist or some other whacko to easily pump something back into the municipal water supply. In addition the RPZ (Reduced Pressure Zone) valves required by South Jordan are supposed to be tested every year by a certified tester at homeowner’s expense.

They’re also hard to keep from freezing. If I wait until the last spring freeze to turn the water on outside it would be well into May after Mother’s day. Unfortunately, plants need water in April in the desert – even if it may still freeze occasionally – so my only options are to constantly check the weather and shut the water on and off when a freeze is likely or to somehow try and insulate the valve above ground. If the valve was underground with a cover over it the April temperatures would be much less likely to freeze it.

I like living in South Jordan but the requirement to have an RPZ assembly 12″ above ground and inspected every year is just an artifact of South Jordan’s agricultural history (i.e. industrial fertilizers, farm animal waste, and field runoff) and is unnecessary for suburban residential developments (I’m also just mad at myself that I didn’t open the testcocks to drain the valve and keep it from freezing).

Last Friday I was able to stand in for Samuel’s grandparents at the first grade annual grandparent’s/VIP day. This was the culmination of all the first graders work on memorizing poems and songs during the school year. Samuel was so excited about this day that he kept reminding me about it constantly. I got there about ten minutes before it started and the gym was already about half full. Since it was only me, I was able to snag a lone chair in the front on the side. Luckily I chose the side that Samuel was on so I could take a pretty good video of him singing. After all the fun was over everyone got to go with their student to their classroom and see all the work they have done and also get a roll and some juice. Samuel was excited to show me who he sat by and all the fun things about his classroom. I think the best part for Samuel was being able to leave school early and go and get a treat with mom. Samuel, you are the best first grader ever!

Here is Samuel getting ready to sing

Here is Samuel in his classroom

Our seeds came from Burpees while I was in Hawaii. It was a bummer too because last week was the perfect weather for early spring planting of pea seeds. This week it’s wet and rainy. I was wondering how people manage to sow seeds in early spring when the soil is so wet and then I recently read a helpful hint that said if you prepare a section of your garden in fall with rows and such then you won’t need to actually till it in the spring but you can go out and just plant right in the prepared section without really working the soil. I hope I remember this tip (and have the gumption to try it) when fall rolls around.

8 peat pots with two seeds each

Tonight was the first night I had a bit of free time so I got my broccoli seeds planted. I’ve been reading a bit about broccoli and it turns out you’re supposed to plant your transplants outside in early spring. I had been planting my seeds in early spring and then putting the transplants out when it was way too warm. Maybe that’s why I fail to ever get a single head of broccoli. Well, that and the cutworms last year that ate my beautiful broccoli plants. Unfortunately, I always read about things after it’s too late to do anything about it and it turns out that the time to start my broccoli seeds passed several weeks ago. Thus, I started them late again this year. We’ll probably fail to get any broccoli for the fourth consecutive year but I’m too stubborn to quit now. I don’t really have a strong passion for broccoli. It’s just now that I’ve tried and failed a few times, I’m even more determined to grow at least one head of broccoli before I exile it with the other outcasts to the land of “Not Worth Planting”. There it will live in infamy along with lettuce, cauliflower, zucchini, and squash.

February was a slow month for posting – only one legitimate post. Sorry about that folks. We’ll try to do better during March.

I’ve added a post to the February archives: Luppin’s Reward

Even though it snowed this morning and there’s no sign of spring, it’s time to start planning the garden again. Every year I get excited to garden as spring approaches; however, as the hot summer descends my enthusiasm wanes and Nancy ends up doing most of the weeding and watering during the summer. Every year I plan to improve and do more gardening work in the summer. “I’ll get up early and work outside when it’s not so hot”, I tell myself. I know I’ve said that in the past but this year I really mean it. Hope springs eternal I suppose.

Some things I learned from last year:

• I need to protect broccoli from cutworms. Last year cutworms destroyed all my broccoli plants. Our house is situated on an old alfalfa field (and sugar beets before that) and as it turns out cutworms like alfalfa. Cutworms are active in spring and broccoli is a spring crop so my poor broccoli plants didn’t make it. I’ll try yet again to get some broccoli this year even though I’ve never successfully harvested a single head after several years of effort
• Utah summers are too hot for ever-bearing and day-neutral strawberry varieties. Thus, all those Ozark Beauty plants we planted last year will (hopefully) bear in the spring and then not do too much the rest of the year. Oh well, strawberry plants have a lifespan of only a few years before they need to be overhauled so the next time we plant a patch we’ll go with June bearers
• We should have put straw over the strawberries to protect them from the winter. They look pretty scraggly in the picture above. Although I’m sure they’ll perk back up again when spring comes, they would be better off if we had covered them for the winter



• We need taller stakes and trellises for the beans and tomatoes. They should be about 7 feet high instead of the current 3 feet that we have
• I need to prune my tomatoes such that I don’t end up with two stems. I somehow managed to prune the tomatoes in such a way that the main stalk branched off into two stalks. This made the stalk much more fragile. I think I probably started pruning it too aggressively early on. This year I’ll wait a bit longer before I start the pruning. I really couldn’t see any difference in my tomato production after pruning them but I’ll stick with it another year – practice makes perfect.
• My kids actually enjoyed the beets we planted. I didn’t think they would eat them but they did. I never liked bottled beets as a kid but fresh beets are pretty good so we’ll do that again this year.
• If you don’t want strings in your bottled beans you need to pick the beans when they’re younger and more tender.

Of course the great thing about gardening is that if you mess things up you can always try again next year. I only wish it wouldn’t take so long in between seasons.

It’s time to go through the events of the past few months and whittle down the backlog of posts that have been stacking up. I put the posts in chronological order for purposes of archiving but I’ve had feedback from my numerous readers (all two of them) that it would be nice if I somehow also made them show up on the front page. Your wish is my command:

Christmas 2008
Snow Day
Texas’ birthday – by Nancy

I’ll update this page as I add other posts from the past few months so that you don’t have to go back through the archives wondering what you missed.

Luppin got her Blending Badge at Challenger School. The traditional reward for getting your Alphabet Crown or Blending Badge has been a family dinner at the restaurant of your choice. The only problem with this reward is that other siblings tend to start lobbying the decision-maker and promoting their own choice of restaurant. This results in hourly changes of mind depending upon who last buttonholed the chooser.

As with Texas before, I took Luppin aside and had her choose while the rest of the family waited in the car. This way she could make her decision without the corrupting influence of lobbyists. The result: Applebee’s. Applebee’s wouldn’t have been my first choice but I suppose it was better than McDonalds (which Sam and Texas had been lobbying hard for because of the Play Place).

Congratulations to Luppin on getting her blending badge! This marks the end of an era as Luppin is the fifth of five children that have gone through Challenger pre-school.