Family Trip ABCs

Matt was able to take one month off before starting his new job at Paraveda. We loved having so much family time since Matt had been so busy with school. His last day at Exxon was Aug. 15 and we flew out that night to begin our month of travels. We returned Sep. 8, then promptly left again thanks to Hurricane Ike. So, finally, here is a long awaited post about our family trip. Since our travels (pre-hurricane) took 24 days plus a day for packing and a day for unpacking, I decided to summarize using the 26 letters of the alphabet.

Animals at the Eastern Idaho State Fair (EISF) petting zoo


Buddies from high school - Leslie, Becky, Amy, and all our kids
Cousin fun in Utah and Idaho with Timmy, Kaya, Isabelle, Olivia, Sarah, Lisi, and Luke
Danny Hong finally meets Danny Murphy in UT
Eating loads of scrumptiously unhealthy food at the EISF
Fish shopping (Danny chose a new one for Papa Couch's tank)
Gardening with Grandma Couch in Washington
Hiking in hailstorms through the Rockies with Uncle Chris and Aunt Stacey
Ice cream breaks on long drives

Jaunt to BYU
Kaya time while moms and dads worked the Teriyaki Booth
Luke and Lisi on parade at the EISF
Mares and Stallions in Colorado









Navigating a hydroplane through Richland, WA
Olympics, museum lunch, and laughter with BYU friends, the Horsleys, in Denver
Parade riding at the EISF with Grand Marshall Grandpa Hong, Grandma Angie, & cousins
Quiet time with Grandma Hong
Reflections and reverence in Salt Lake City
Splashing with new friends in Herriman, UT
Train rides with cousins at the EISF

Uncle Chris, Uncle Tim, Uncle Aaron, Uncle Kerry, Uncle Lance . . . all in one trip!
Volunteering to get bumped on the way home and snagging 2 free airline tickets
Waterfall hikes with Isabelle in Utah
eXamining bubbles with Grandpa Couch
Yee-haw!

Zzzzz . . . .

Thanks to all who provided vehicles, food, and lodging for us - what a wonderful, memorable trip!

Pura Vida

The Costa Rican beaches were AMAZING. I've been to Hawaii, California, Mexico, Bahamas, and Florida, but Manuel Antonio topped them all. I don't know if it was because of the quiet seclusion, the breathtaking view, or the friendly monkeys, but it was one of my all time favorite beach days. Kaya and Danny had fun playing in the sand.









Matt played in the waves, buried children, and hiked around a cape with me. Mindy ventured out on the rocks for some photo ops (thanks for letting me steal some of your amazing wildlife pics off your blog).Lance surfed. Mom read and watched the kids while we played in the big waves. Mostly, we all RELAXED.
After so many days of bumpy travel, steep hiking, ziplines, horseback riding, and going, going, going, 2 carefree days were exactly what we needed. Hooray for coconut shave ice, body surfing, sandcastles, and sunny days.

Tea Party

Who says little boys can't have tea parties?

Go Astros!

Earlier in the summer we took Danny to his first baseball game courtesy of Matt's work. We were a little nervous how he'd do with the late hour (the first pitch was about Danny's usual bedtime), but he LOVED it. During the pre-game festivities we caught a little stuffed ball that was thrown into the crowd. Danny did what he has learned to do well and threw it right back. He was a little bummed that the strangers on the level below us didn't make any effort to throw it back to him . . . don't they know how to play catch? We stood out at the home run corner (I'm not sure what the actual name is) during warmups and Danny was amazed to watch all the balls being hit - "High, high, high." Before the night was through he was even saying, "Ba-ball." He had a great time clapping, eating popcorn, clapping, eating chips, clapping, and eating ice cream. Another highlight for Danny was seeing the Jeff Bagwell wall of balls. His eyes were enormous . . . so many balls in one place. WOW! We left about halfway through the game, but Danny was pretty wired from all the fun. Maybe he would have lasted all 9 innings, but I don't know if I would have. I think he's looking forward to his next baseball game.

Safe in Dallas

Truthfully, I feel a little guilty sitting in this air conditioned hotel room with lights, posting this blog on the internet, full after a delicious, hot breakfast, knowing my friends and family back in Houston are still powerless. As of Monday afternoon there was still no power in our neighborhood and rumors were that it would be a week until it was restored. Let's hope the rumors aren't true! Sadly, Anne and her family had to return to a powerless home so that Rex could report to work. Danny and I are enjoying the hotel, city park, and pool here while Matt attends his Paraveda training.
Here is some post storm footage. I took the video from our porch at the very end of the hurricane, after the winds had died down and it wasn't raining sideways. I'll have to post some other video later, but I didn't bring our video cord with us to Dallas.


You'll notice many of our neighbors boarded up their windows for the storm. We did not, nor did we do the useless duct taping that many people do. I guess when you have 24 hours to prepare though, you feel like you have to do something. While the storm was quite frightening during it's peak, overall it felt a lot like a bad summer storm. The major difference is that most summer rain storms in Houston last about 20-30 minutes. This one went on, and on, and on hour upon hour. It was raining 14 hours straight - not pouring the whole 14 hours, but a constant rain. Upon initial inspections from our porch, we really didn't think it had been that bad. It wasn't until we started walking around our neighborhood that we realized just how significant the damage had been. There were tons of trees down and many roads blocked just in our neighborhood. On our street there were 3 or 4 houses with trees on top of them.

The tree in Anne and Rex's front yard toppled over. Fortunately, and miraculously, it fell right between a mailbox and fire hydrant and landed just short of the across the street neighbor's garage. The only damage it left is a patch of yard for Anne and Rex to fix up.

As mentioned previously, we are grateful for the unimpressive damage Ike left at our house - just some minor water damage around the chimney which we still have to inspect more closely.

We have this hotel room and work until Wednesday. Our plan is to return home Wednesday afternoon, depending on if power has been restored and if Matt has to be at work Thursday.
Thanks for the many thoughts and prayers! We've felt them for sure!

We are safe and are staying in Dallas

We will be here until Wednesday. I was supposed to get up here to start my new job tomorrow anyway. I had not planned on Carrie and Danny coming but since our home was still without power they are here with me. The storm was scary. The winds were intense and several trees are downed in our neighborhood. Our home escaped with only very minor water damage and a broken exterior light. Hopefully power will be back up before we get home on Wednesday. Our hotel here in Dallas is very pleasant. There is a park across the street and a pool for Danny to play in!

Thanks again for all of your thoughts and prayers.

2:21 AM. It's getting a little scary

The winds have picked up and the rain has started. We are all safe and the house seems very secure. However it is unnerving being in the middle of this storm and knowing that we have several hours of this left. I am sure that we will lose power as more than 1 million folks in the area have already lost power. It seems a miracle that we still have power at this point. Galveston is being devastated by the storm surge and regardless of what happens up here our community has quite a clean up ahead of it. We are being careful and staying safe. Danny is sleeping right through all of it.

11:00 PM and all is well

We are just getting ready for bed and besides some gusting winds things don't seem too out of the ordinary. We still have power and there are no trees down in the neighborhood. From watching TV is seems like the storm may be weakening some as it makes landfall and we may not get the very high winds.

We are going to try to get some sleep and it is likely the power will go out in the next few hours. Thanks for all of your prayers and concern.

Nothing yet

We are happy that so far we haven't had anything exciting. We're all too tired to wait up any longer for the storm, so we're heading to bed. The winds in our area are still not very bad - we've had worse summer lightning storms. Also, we have yet to get a drop of rain here in Spring. Both the projected hurricane paths and the local news keep reminding us that things could change drastically in the next few hours, but fortunately at this point the storm is falling short of the high expectations meteorologists had for it. Likely, as the winds strengthen we'll wake up and check things out again, but for now we're off to get some sleep.

Hunkered Down

It's about 8:15. Though you may be seeing images of high winds, rain, and rising waters along the coast, up here in Spring we still haven't had a drop of rain. The winds are starting, but you can still comfortably go outside. It was loud enough that during his bath Danny kept asking, "What's that?" about the strengthening winds outside. "That's the wind. There's going to be a big storm tonight." "Boom boom boom." Evidently he's related the big storm to the volcano. Close enough. We put him to bed in our closet so he's on the first floor with no windows. My sister and her kids headed up to Dallas to stay with friends, but Rex had to stay close because of work. Their A/C went out last night (unrelated to the storm) so he's staying at our house. The majority of people in our area have stayed - we are far enough north and inland that there was not a mandatory evacuation. We are planning on some power outages, but in our area don't anticipate flooding. Winds will probably be the most frightening part of the storm up here - we are grateful that there aren't any large trees near our house. Likely Matt, Rex, and I will stay up late to keep tabs on what's happening. Maybe we'll play a little Wii while we wait for Ike to truly arrive.

IKE

Matt and I returned from our marathon trip to the Northwest just in time for Hurricane Ike. We thought, having missed Hurricane Gustav, that we were good to go. Guess we were wrong. After our experience with Rita a few years ago (see earlier 2005 blogs), we decided this time we'd just bunker down and stay. We do not live in a flood zone, nor have local officials recommended evacuation for people who live as far north as we do. We have plenty of water, food storage, batteries, and flashlights to get us through the weekend. Also, our gas tanks are full, so we are prepared to evacuate if something drastic changes. We'll keep you posted via blog.

Costa Rican Caballos

The highlight of my trip to Costa Rica was our horseback ride in Monteverde. I had only been in touch with El Sol via email, but our driver arrived at our hotel right on time. When we discovered our two guides only spoke Spanish, they were equally surprised to discover we only spoke English. I had to dig deep into my BYU Spanish 101 roots - it'd been several years. Unlike any horseback riding I have done in the USA, there was no helmets, no safety lessons, no liability waivers, no anything. We arrived, they helped us climb on, and we left.

The terrain through the Monteverde countryside was beautiful. Danny and Kaya had fun riding with me and Mindy. We went across hillside pastures and then down into the forested valleys. The trail was steep and difficult, but the views were beautiful. We galloped through trickling waterfalls and streams and trotted up steep muddy banks. I felt a little guilty since I'd set this up, and none of us were expecting such a challenging ride.
Mom Hong was a trooper, but I knew she was feeling particularly miserable when she said, "I hope there's a van at the end to take us back." Nope. We had to ride back. Sorry mom.
We all agreed it was worth the tiring two hour ride when we arrived at the secluded waterfall. It was breathtaking.



We changed into our swimsuits behind the horses and jumped right into the frigid water. Lance, Matt, and I even jumped off one of the cliffs into the pool at the bottom. Sadly, since I was jumping I didn't get any pictures of us jumping off. I'll have to steal some from Mindy.

The guides brought out the lunch they had prepared that morning - beans, rice, sweet lemon, and the most delicious pineapple ever. We all relaxed and enjoyed the scenery while the guides tried their hand at some fishing. Danny had some lessons in skipping rocks. So far he's got the pick up a rock, throw it in part down pretty good.























The whole experience relaxing at the waterfall with just us was wonderful - so peaceful and rejuvenating. The ride home was as fun for me as the ride down - even a little more fun because I knew how long it would take.










Danny was exhausted from the waterfall fun. The rhythm of the horse's walk lulled him right to sleep in my arms. The whole experience was AMAZING! I guess I'm more of a cowgirl than I thought. :)

Danny Humor

We are still alive! We've been having a wonderful whirlwind of a trip these past few weeks. Thanks to all of the many friends and family who have housed and fed us as we travel the Northwest. It's been so fun to see so many people we love in such a short time. Aside from Danny's poor sleeping (or rather, preferring to sleep with mom or dad such that they can't sleep well) and a couple flu days (which we managed to pass on to the rest of the Hong family), we've had a blast. Highlights include Olympic viewing, lunch at the Denver Natural History Museum, playing with new friends, watching horses, Cherokee and Stacey, hiking in a hailstorm, helping set up my brother's classroom, Chuck-a-Rama,hiking to waterfalls in the Utah canyons, mother-may-I with nieces, walking BYU campus, playing with 3 old high school buddies, their husbands, and our 9 children!!!, temple session in Salt Lake, Raffi sing-a-longs and ice cream car breaks, fast food playlands, bocce ball, Canasta, dog agility, running, playing in the fountain with "papa," watching a biology lecture with my mom as the professor, playing hide the balloon and legos with Kaya, Toy Story (Buzz and Yee-haw, as Danny likes to say), teaching Sunday School, lunch at Blackfoot High School with cousins, helping mom Hong in her classroom, painting the fair booth, feeding the animals at the petting zoo, train rides and horsey rides, closing shift with cool cousins. Now our days are filled with fried food, balloons, farm animals, and all you can eat Teriyaki. 4 fair days left and then we'll head home on Monday.

We are so glad Gustav did not turn at the last minute, because we are anxious to have our home back soon. We not only miss our bed and our beagles, but we miss all our Houston friends and family TONS!! Splashtown has really been calling!

So, for anyone who hasn't seen Danny in a while and misses his great personality, here's classic Danny humor. He's talking a lot more all the time, but still has many sounds that he uses in place of the words. Instead of train - choo choo. Cow - moooo. Cat - meow. Car - beep beep. volcano - boom boom. Monkey - eee eee.
Tonight just before bed I was trying to nourish him a little after a dinner of fair lemonade, caramel, and french fries. He was munching on an apple, some yogurt, and milk, but not acting too hungry. I was surprised when he pointed at the bananas on the table and said, "Dat mommy. Dat."
"You want a banana Danny?" I asked doubtfully, pointing directly at the banana.
"Dat," he pointed again to the bananas.
I pointed again, touching the bananas. "This is what you want to eat Danny? A banana?"
"Yes!" he smiled with a firm grin.
I peeled one for him and handed it over."OK Danny, here you go."
He smiled, took the teensiest nibble ever and then pushed it away. "No."
"Danny, you told me you wanted the banana. You need to eat it." I tried a little more forcefully and grumpily to get him to eat more.
"No mommy." Another smile and push away. Didn't he understand how wasteful he was being? Now the banana would get brown and yucky! Why did he demand something he didn't want to eat? Doesn't he know how many children are starving?
"How sad. It makes me sad when you ask for food and then don't eat it." To really get my point across I looked at him and said very seriously. "Danny, who is going to eat this banana now?"
Without even a pause for thought he looked right back at me with a huge grin and said, "Eeee eee."

Of course I had to laugh. But don't worry. Since there are no actual monkeys here in Idaho to eat the banana, my Danny monkey will get a slightly brown banana for breakfast.