Friday was a busy day. It started out at 6:00am as I held Mason in my arms and he cried about a bad dream he'd had. It involved being left behind as his family all left 2 or 3 at a time to return home from a vacation location until he was left all alone and he couldn't get home. This is not a farfetched dream. My youngest brother almost got left behind in a Las Vegas parking lot once. It was quite tragic. I can still see his little crying face running behind the van and the rest of us yelling to my dad "Stop! we forgot David!!!"
After we talked about the dream, he felt better. As he got ready for school he remembered about his field trip to the Apple Farm that day and all was right with our world.
When I got home from work, Grandma Donna/Gpa Mike were at our house for a visit. Our cousin Ava was getting baptized Saturday so they had come out from California for that special occasion. Our UVU college cousin Kei was on her way from Provo so we decided to check all the kids out a little early from school so we could get out to the Thanksgiving Point Gardens before it got too chilly. Happiness and love abounded with Hello hugs and kisses all around. Grandma passed out presents which raised the euphoria to en even higher level. Life was good. We got assigned to our respective cars and we were on our way.
When we go to the gardens I always get a little worried I'm going to miss a turn because they are situated a ways away from the other parts of Thanksgiving Point. I was carefully looking for signs to make sure I was headed in the right direction when I missed a rather important sign... A stop sign. I didn't even know I'd missed it when I saw the red/blue lights in my rear-view mirror. I asked Kei, who was in the passenger seat, "was I speeding?" she gave me an apologetic smile and said "I think it was that stop sign you missed." I was still trying to figure out what stop sign she was talking about when the police officer arrived at my window and confirmed that I had indeed missed a stop sign. He asked for the requisite driver's licensee, proof of insurance and registration. I was fishing around in the glove box when I realize there were tears and sobbing coming from the back seat. "are we all going to jail?" Mason asked tearfully. From her seat in the midle, Carly comforted and explained the Policeman was just reminding us we had to follow ALL the rules and Mommy had just made a little mistake. Oops.
You can imagine the Goldmine this is for Mark. He's so giddy to have something new to tease me about. Even Kei got in on the teasing calling me a wild woman on my afternoon prowl.
Well, I signed my ticket which in no way admitted my guilt and we proceeded to the gardens where we had a lovely time. Grandma/Gpa didn't think they had it in them to walk the whole way so they rented a golf cart.
The kids had fun taking turns riding with Mark on the back.
Or chasing after it....
There weren't a lot of flowers this late in the year
but there were lots of beautiful leaves changing colors, shrubs, interesting grasses
we saw frogs and lillypads
and waterfalls
and so much more. It's a place I can go to over and over and never tire of.
It always takes us a couple of tries to figure out which path leads us to the entrance to the secret garden...
Hmmm... go figure.
But it's always worth it
In the end.....
7 comments:
I still need to get over to that place... garden and all the other fun stuff. Too funny about your ticket. I was in CA once and saw a police and kinda laughed, "Man he is after someone" I told my sister. It was ME! Ooops. I also just realized on Friday that my licence expired back in Aug... your post reminded me of that. Thanks!
Beautiful. I love, love love those gardens. I also love love love that Sammy's wearing the dress I gave her. :)
We have not been to Thanksgiving Point at all, I think we need to rectify that situation ASAP! Looks like lots of fun, I applaud you for checking the kids our early from school. Another notch for you on the greatest mom ever checklist. Love you all!!!
This is Mark. Jamie has only been to the Gardens at Thanksgiving Point about 20 times so why she would still be looking for signs is beyond my understanding! However, she earned my respect when she got that ticket! When I saw that she got pulled over I could hardly contain myself! I passed them up and then parked in front of them. I told the cop that it was about time that she got caught because she's been running stop signs all day! ( I said that after I realized he was not going to give her a warning)Then 2 other cops showed up. I went over to them and ask them if they were "back up" and one of them said, "always". I then asked if we looked that dangerous. He said that they were with the "gang unit". I laughed pretty hard. I responded with, "I didn't realize that there are gangs in Lehi. He said a few. I think they need to loosen up a bit. They all took their jobs a bit to seriously. I have definitely had my run in with the law but these guys were stiff. The only thing that one cop had going for him was that he was wearing a BYU cap. He was obviously pretty cool!
3 cops for our sweet little Jamie? & a crying Mason in the back seat didn't even get her any pity? Tough crowd.
Those gardens are beautiful. Looks like the kind of place I would love too. You'll have to take us sometime.
(I hope Mason doesn't have bad dreams tonight about going to jail!)
I love Thanksgiving Point! The gardens are lovely and I never get tired of all the flora and fauna (Actually I'm not really sure what fauna is). Those dreams must be a youngest affliction-when they are so real they really get to you-Poor Mason. I hope his trip was fun. I'm sure Mark will get a lot of mileage out of this one! Endure to the End!
LOVE those T.Point Gardens - I could go 20 times myself. Jamie, I'll go with you ANY time! :-)
A word of warning about the tickie -- I got one recently for a California stop with no one approaching (darn it - the cop was hiding out -- I don't think those should be ticket-able, right?!) and I just went in & paid. BIG MISTAKE. My insurance got upped something like $300 bucks. If you can do the traffic school thing - DO IT.
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