Catch-up

Lately, it seems as though everything is a game of catch-up. Catch up with the toddler, catch up with the laundry, catch up with Derek's work/Jessica's school. And after a 10 days in Utah with the Grandparents, there seems to be even more to catch up on.Yes, Juliana and I just got home this week from a 10 day trip to St. George, Utah. With the intense ship schedule at work, Derek couldn't take the time off to join us, and Jessica is in school until mid-June. Considering that the last time they saw Juliana was when she was only a few months old, a visit is long overdue.

Juliana got reintroduced to the grandparents and to Nikki:

They got along swimmingly (My German language teacher in high school loved to use that adverb).

We went for walks around the neighborhood... with Nikki:


And some without:

Met some of the locals:

But mostly, we just visited with Omi and Pocky:

Oh... I guess I should explain. Before going to Utah, Derek and I thought it would be appropriate for Juliana to address them as Oma and Paqua. Oma, quite simply, is German for Grandma. Paqua (PAW'-kwah) comes from Mitch. When Mitch was learning to speak, back in the day, he couldn't say Grandpa and it came out Paqua. Having some Native American ancestry, it seemed to fit him and the name stuck... until Mitch followed in the footsteps of the other grandkids and started calling him Grandpa. We decided to resurrect the name... but since Juliana's pronunciation is still developing (some words get an "Eee" sound at the end), Oma became Omi, and Paqua became Pocky.

One of Juliana's highlights was climbing into their golf cart.


As was typical for Juliana, it was difficult to keep her indoors.


Except when she was hungry.

She realized that she could slide the dining chair from the table to the island and reach the pistachios (Stashees) all by herself. From what Omi tells me, Derek was the same way when he was a child. And that my last bastion of keeping things away from her will be the top of the fridge, and not even for very long. Derek denies all this.

We got to see some petroglyphs not too far from there:


At the end of the week, Pocky drove up to Lehi to pick up the boys for the long weekend.

Yes, Mitch had his head shaved. Apparently, his neighbor paid him $100 to do it.

We went swimming one day and spent another day at the Splash Pad in St George.


Jonah kept his hair longer.

After the boys left, and before we had to leave for home, Omi, Pocky, Juliana and I drove down to Zion National Park. It was a little over an hour drive to get there... Here's the view from Juliana's carseat:



When she started to get restless, she inspected the camera and took shots of the back of the driver's seat and ones like this:


We rode the shuttle and listened to the recorded bits of trivia.

Juliana got a bit restless on the shuttle and wanted to stretch her legs, so we got off at the lodge and grabbed a bite to eat, and also at the furthest stop on the route seen here:

On the ride back to the park entrance, Juliana started to show signs of tiring:

And promptly fell asleep in Omi's arms.

Didn't even bother waking up on the way back to the car:

All in all, it was a great trip, and we're looking forward to the next visit. So, until next time:

"Bye-bye!"