Coming of Age

There comes a time in every little boy's life when he finally becomes aware.  For Nate, it was about 2 weeks ago and he is obsessed.  He can't get enough and will watch it whenever we let him.

For those of you who can't pick out what movie is Nate glued to based on a single frame, it's Star Wars Empire Strikes Back.  He loves Star Wars and consumes it in every form he can (that we'll allow); books, toys, movies, shows. 

Nate and I spent a Saturday afternoon in my parents' garage digging up old Star Wars toys that my younger brothers and I had when we were younger, including some of the originals from '77.  To Nate's credit, he vastly prefers the 1977 Chewbacca to the absurdly beefed out 1996 Chewbacca. 

Utah, The Final Countdown!

The last thing we wanted to do before ending our trip was visit BYU.  Surprisingly, Nate had a lot of fun.  We went to the bookstore and Nate picked out a magnetic BYU flag and proceeded to be obsessed with it.  He wouldn't let it go. He wouldn't even give it to Annie so she could hand it to the cashier, he insisted that he do it himself. 

 

 

Bryan and Lisi added to the party and we all went to the Eyring Science Center where we played around with all of the experiments they have there. 

 

On our way out of town we made a couple of stops.  One of the stops was the apartment complex where Annie and I met, specifically the hot tub where we met.  Not in the hot tub of course since it was out of order at the time and, fittingly, was out of order the day we visited as well. 

Next, we stopped at the Thanksgiving Point farm.  Nate was a fan.

He road a pony he named Eight Digit Pin, an inside joke between Nate and himself.  While we stayed at Dave's we were trying to figure out his Wi-Fi password and we needed an 8 digit pin.  For some reason this phrase made Nate fall to pieces in laughter and just saying those words got him to smile for every picture for the rest of the trip.


Here is Nate riding 8 digit pin.  He was very against riding the horse when we explained it to him.  Once we got in line and saw how it all worked Nate was all for it.  He couldn't wait to get on the pony.  That changed again once the pony started moving and Nate almost immediately fell off.  A walking horse is not a smooth ride.  But we got him repositioned so he felt comfortable and he loved it. 

 

Nate was a trooper for the ride home.  Although if it weren't for his obsession with How to Train Your Dragon and his ability to watch it multiple times in a row, things may have been different.

To stay sane on the way home we spent a night at a sick-nasty casino in Reno which Nate thought was the bee's knees.  He wanted to live there and meanwhile we wanted to keep our shoes on at all times and leave as early as possible. 

When he got up in the morning he was tired and crabby and didn't want anything to do with anything we were doing.  I sat Nate down in front of the window, opened up the blinds and uncovered a train yard.  Nate stared in awe and after about a minute exclaimed "I'm having a good day now!" and spent the rest of the morning staring at the trains.


One man's trash and all that....

We were nervous about the trip and we were not convinced at all that it would work out.  Not only did it work out but it was fantastic. We loved it so much that we've decided to move to Utah and are taking this opportunity to let everyone know.

Kidding!  Any grandparent have a heart attack? 

Anyway, it was a lot of fun and we're glad we went.

 

Amazon Smile

 

 

Have you heard about Amazon Smile yet? It's a fantastic program for Amazon shoppers that enables you to give back to charities you support while going about your everyday shopping.
 

If you choose Dcipher Group Foundation as your Amazon Smile charity, the foundation will receive a donation equal to 0.5% of your eligible purchases every time you shop. This is the foundation that helps us get special therapy equipment for Nate.  All you have to do is go to www.smile.amazon.com each time you shop Amazon! It's an easy way to help Nate and other kids like him without a lot of extra effort.  Check it out!

 

Utah Part Dos

Our venture south began with a pit stop at the new aquarium in Draper.  This place has all the best animals, is totally wheelchair accessible, and all three of us got in for less than the price of one ticket to Monterey Bay.  So we were jazzed.  The penguins heard Nate was coming and prepared for him a dazzling spectacular full of swim races and high jump contests.

 

 

 This fake orca was an inexplicable highlight.

Next we went to visit our friend Presley and her family.  Presley has SMARD just like Nate.  We loved meeting them so much that as soon as we got home I started searching real estate in Orem. 

Two SMARD kids and one SMARD carrier (little sister Charlotte, who I think Nate has a crush on).

I bet you can tell what is going to happen next here...

After we got home Nate asked me a million times if Presley and Charlotte could drive to our house to come play.  I told him it was kind of far for them and he was like, well, we did it for them.  So I guess he has a point.  Mindy, why have you not hopped in the car for a visit yet??!

We stayed at a hotel in Provo and just tacked up a sheet between our two beds in hopes to get Nate to sleep at a decent hour without being distracted by the wild partying of his parents.  The first night we put him to bed and almost instantly we heard a little voice calling from the other side of the sheet to his aunt and uncle.  "Brian! Lisi!!  I need more of you!"  Nate tried to keep the party going but by the looks of it Lisi just wanted to be left alone.

Every night Nate tested the limits of his vent's ability to prevent suffocation by sleeping like so. 

 

We dined at all of our old haunts which we loved but was super boring for the kid only eats through a feeding tube.  I generously provided him with a bread basket to keep him happy at Gloria's and he found countless things to do with it, including "playing baseball". It took me a second to realize what he meant by that.

 

We visited Uncle Bryan's work and rode the company golf cart around.  A highlight for Nate and fans of wind-swept hair everywhere.

We went to the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point, which was a great museum, but for Nate it just didn't stack up to the one in Ogden.  He just wanted to rush through it to get to the outside statue dinosaurs that don't exist there.

Stay tuned for the last of our journey...

I-80 is not my friend and other tales from the American West

We decided to take a family vacation.  The idea began with us looking into taking a trip down to San Diego and somehow ended up with us traveling to Utah...you know, because that's where Mormons go on vacation every year and who are we to rock the boat.

Taking a trip makes us anxious and we never feel excited for a trip beforehand.  There is so much to prepare for and Nate requires life sustaining items and if we forgot one of them it would be a disaster.  We have taken trips to Southern California but driving across endless desert, where any hiccup could be very problematic, was more nerve racking.  Nate, after all, only has about 6 hours of battery and about 6-8 more hours of life after that.

But, at least for now, we can still do things with Nate and if we can do them then we should try.  It keeps us fit and him experiencing more life than our little apartment.  So we set out and the drive there was a fantastic worry-free experience...until about an hour into the drive.

As we were driving, one of Nate's critical pieces of equipment suddenly stopped working.  We ended up having to go almost all the way back home to pick up another one from our supplier.  With that out of the way we then hit major construction and a bad accident.  Normally it takes about 3.5 hours to get from our house to Nevada, but this time it ended up taking us about 7 hours.  So there was that.

Thankfully, the rest of the trip went swimmingly and we arrived safely at our good friend's in Salt Lake.  Nate loved it.  Like, he really, really loved Dave and Katie's house.  For days and days he didn't want to do anything but hang out with Dave and Katie at their house and maintained that his favorite part of the trip was being at their house.

Thankfully, we totally did NOT forget to snap a pic of Nate with Dave.  As evidenced by the following picture.

First stop on our "the very top of Utah" portion of the trip was Logan where we got together with some friends and Nate had a blast playing with Truman and Ava.  He was running on about half the sleep he normally gets so he was a bit moody but had fun.

We made a pit stop at the Lowe family motherland of Wellsville, UT where we hunted for Nate's great-great grandparents' home and got spooked out of taking a picture since the homeowner had just arrived home and was giving us the stank-eye.  T.G.I.GoogleMaps, right?

On our way back to Salt Lake we followed up on a tip from Katie and stopped at a dinosaur park in Ogden that we had never even heard of and it was a hit.  Inside the museum were your run-of-the-mill dinosaur fossils, which Nate gave a thumbs up.

Outside the museum was where the real magic happened.  There are fifty of these life-size, painted dinosaurs hanging out in the woods.  They did a pretty good job making them look real, especially the T-Rex who had just killed his lunch and was lapping up a puddle of blood (not that far from the truth).

Sunday brought us a day at Temple Square.  We visited the temple, visitor's center, the tabernacle, Brigham Young's house, and the conference center.  But with every new site came another request from Nate to just go back to the temple.  He was psyched on this place.

Salt Lake (and especially Dave and Katie) had treated us well, but it was time to make our way south to P-town.  To be continued...

Stormtroopers Are Not the Good Guys

 

Disneyland!!!!!!  Late one night after Annie and I had, presumably, been drinking (I don't know why else we would have contemplated such an endeavor) we thought it would be a great idea to take Nate to Disneyland. 

 

Nate is notoriously skeptical of new places and people, gets anxious around large crowds, and has a tendency to freak out if he feels like he might be doing something that could be scary (unless it is adrenaline pumping).  So naturally, we thought what a splendid idea it would to drive 6 hours south, brave the 100 degree temperatures and take Nate on one ride after another at Disneyland, with each having the potential to send him into shakes and tears. 

 

Thankfully, things went pretty well.  In fact, I'd say that if the weather hadn't been a soul-crushing 187 degrees it would have been a fantastic experience.

  

The trip down there was fine. Nate was very good the whole way.  How could anyone not be with this setup?

We took the shuttle in to Disneyland and Nate was already starting to get excited. 

 

The first obstacle, and what made us almost turn around and leave immediately, was the new handicap access program.  In order to get your limited access handicap pass you need to report to guest services and get your passes.  What we didn't realize was that, for some bizarre reason, there was a 20 minute line out the door for guest services.  What could that many people need with guest services first thing in the morning?

To make matters worse, the line was not handicap accessible.  It went up stairs and was impossible for someone who is actually handicapped to queue in.  It turns out the handicap access for the building was around the corner, but the employees didn't want us to wait there though because it was also the only EXIT from the building.

It was a nightmare and the only reason we didn't leave immediately is because a very kind couple saw our plight and allowed us to hop the line in front of them.  Without that, our trip would have been very short.

With that behind us, things improved dramatically.  Except for the weather.  Have I mentioned that it was 250 degrees that day?  No?  Well it was.  We gave Nate a quick rundown of what the park included (sadly Nemo and Pirates were closed) and let him pick. 

First up were the rockets in Tomorrowland and they turned out to be his favorite the whole day and we ended up returning to them. 


Nate LOVED the rocket ride.  However, he would not look at me for the picture.  He just wanted to stare at the steering wheel and prep for take-off.  Drastic measures were needed.


There was stiff competition though.  Nate was able to ride a real pirate boat and was absolutely thrilled.  Much more thrilled than his father who was holding him and had to spend the 10-15 minute ride adjusting him constantly so as to bring temporary relief to various muscle groups. 

On the shoulder was the preferred method but as you can see, Nate can't hold himself up so after about 10 seconds I would feel his chin stabbing me in the head and pushing my neck forward most awkwardly.

Nate loved Dumbo (who knows why), had great fun on the train, which had his dream come true.  A time tunnel that showed him giant animatronic dinosaurs.  He was amazed by all the animals in Jungle Cruise and was reserved about Peter Pan.  I think he liked it for the most part but was a little nervous.

The last thing Nate wanted to do was meet Captain America.  However, that was problematic.

The handicap pass works like a fast pass. You're given a couple of them and they let you line up through the exit.  We didn't see that option available so we entered the line normally. While I was waiting in line Annie went to go see if we could use our last pass.  She inquired at the exit and was told to bring Nate to the back.  We did.  We were then told that his fast pass was not valid for "live events" and if we wanted a pass for that we'd have to go back to guest services.

Our hearts sank.  The event was only about 15 minutes from closing and there was no way we could make it there and back.  Nate would miss meeting Captain America.  I explained that no one informed us of this and asked if there was anything he could do.  He said no.

I begged, I pleaded, I entreated, I appealed to his patriotic side and every human's innate desire to see a little boy meet his favorite super hero.

Finally, after reciting the Declaration of Independence to him, looking from me to Nate he agreed to let us in after the next family.

After a brief wait, we pushed Nate's chair up the ramp and turned the corner.  Behind the giant partition, there waiting for us, was Captain America.  Nate was awestruck.  He told Cap his name, he touched his shield and looked like the happiest boy on Earth. 

Captain America told Nate he could tell that Nate had a fighting spirit.  It's true. 

 

However, my favorite part was when two Stormtroopers approached us as we waited our turn for the rocket ride.  As they stood there saying hi to Nate, Annie said "Nate look, stormtroopers! They're the good guys."  One of the stormtroopers turned his head towards Annie and simply shook his head. 

Although he loved Disneyland I don't know that any of it compared to the sheer joy he experienced typing on Grandpa Lowe's calculator.  He would type in the same number over and over again, ask us what number it was and then fall apart in laughter.  I never got it but it kept him in hysterics for a good 30-40 minutes.

 

It was a great trip and we would definitely do it again. Our only complaint was when the Sun descended from it's celestial orbit and parked itself on Disneyland for a couple of days.  We found ourselves rushing from ride to ride hoping to do anything would could to avoid the sun and its hateful gaze. Did I mention it was a whopping 328 degrees?