Ferias are for the week

Brig: My Peeps, I've missed ya.

Cali: Ya, I missed 'em too.

Brig: So we've been on vacation.  It was awesome and we need to tell you all about it.  About a month or so ago Mom and Dad tossed me and my little brother in the car and started driving.  And drive we did.  I'm not as good as my cousin Max or anything but I can do pretty simple Arithmatic.  So let's see, Calvin was about 4 months, 4 days, 3 hours and 17 minutes old.  That's 125 days 3 hours 17 minutes, or 180,197 minutes old...give or take a few.  So if you add the total time during the entire trip that we were in the car...12 hours here, 11 there, 8 here, 10 there add 4 plus 10 another 8 and finally 10 to boot and we come up with like 73 hours in the car - not counting the around the town stuff.

Cali: Ya, it was a really long time.

Brig: So if you do a little simple long division in your thinking machine...180197 divided by 4380...that goes 4 times...carry the 6...move the decimal...then, wait carry the 5 then the decimal...multiply by 100 and you come up with something like 2.43067% of the little mans life has been passed by on Americas amazing Interstate road system.  

Cali: Not to mention 6.17% of all my bowel movements.

Brig: So drive we did, all the way to Denver, then through the beautiful Rocky mountains to Salt Lake City.  We spent a few hours in Heber at a Hicken Family reunion and then a couple days at Grandma Susie's house.

Cali: She's nice.  She has big soft arms that are really cool to be held in.  And her teeth weren't nearly as sharp as Brig has been telling me for half my life.

Brig: They were too.  There we got to play some serious tackle football, tag, make believe kitchen and best of all we got to be there when our cousin Ava LolaBelle was blessed by her Grandpa Richard.  

Cali: Ya, Dad made faces at her the entire time.  

Brig: OOOh, I'm tellin mom you were lookin' during the prayer!

Cali: I wasn't either, I could just hear it.  And besides I was just keeping my eyes open a little bit like you told me to do because, and I quote, "during prayers is when Grandma Susie likes to eat little babies the most."  I was just watching your back.

Brig: Good call, thanks man.  

Cali: What are brothers for?

Brig: Wrestling practice.

Cali: Ya, then we jumped in our car again and drove to Idaho.  It's a really long ways away, but not a drive I minded too much.  There were mountains and rivers and lakes and all manner of wicked awesome things.  In Idaho we hung out with all the Idaho Bagley cousins, the New York Ransom cousins and eventually even the Washington Ransom cousins.  They were so cool.  We all played games and Wii and ran around and did tons of cool things.  Dad and mom even went boating with the big kids.  

Brig: Then we hung out with MeeMa and Buhpa at their cabin.  

Cali: Ya, it was way fun and I loved the Cousin's Club room.

Brig: I loved it more.

Cali: Only because your bigger.

Brig: Don't forget it either.

Cali: (Biding my time...biding my time...biding my time...)

Brig: One day Buhpa took us all to Yellowstone.  We saw buffalo, a forest fire, Old Faithful, a huge canyon, a coyote, an elk, and coolest of all when mom and dad were hiking around they saw a bear.

Cali: Ya, contrary to popular urban myths, Grandma Susie is neither larger, hairer, nor scarier than a bear in the wild.  

Brig: Definitely scarier than the bear we saw at the Abilene Zoo though.

Cali: Definitely.

Brig: So anyways, that Bear just sat there while dad took pictures of him forever.  Mom told me she was scared but then realized that there were tons of people around and though dad was closest to the ferocious man eating beast, he was probably the fastest of all the onlookers.

Cali: Ya, like Susie, once a bear catches the slowest prey in the pack they usually stop to eat on him for a while.

Brig: Dad took me on a couple of sweet 4-wheeler rides.  I felt like an honest to good ole country boy.

Cali: You really look the part too.

Brig: Thanks. On our second trip to Utah we went the long way through Wyoming and Flaming Gorge, stopped in at Cousin Colby's wedding at the cabin and then swung through Pleasant Valley to play on the farm with Grandma Ruth and Uncle Dale and Uncle Tim and everybody.  I've heard tons about the farm, it was wicked cool too.  Hey do you know why they called it Pleasant Valley in the first place?

Cali: Not really.  Because it's pleasant?

Brig: No and you are kind of thick.  It's because back in the day when Grandpa Dave found the place he could hide out there from his little brother and not be bugged by him all the time.  

Cali: Really?!

Brig: Ya, and then they invented Cozy Coupes, brothers could keep up and that ruined the whole damn deal.

Cali: I can't wait till I get my Cozy Coupe license. 

Brig: Onward and northward.  Back to Salt Lake to Grandma Susie's Lair.  While we were gone, cousins Max, Sophie and Peter stayed at Grandmas house.

Cali: Peter?

Brig: You remember Peter...the skinny kid.  Susie ate him.  Playground rumor has it that she  finished him off and then went after Ava.  Only got through her feet though because she's pretty chubby and two kids in one day is almost too much even for Susie.

Cali: What are you talking about.  Ava's got feet.

Brig: Have you ever seen them?

Cali: Ya, well...no.  But that's just because her baby fat rolls roll over her ankles.

Brig: ...and hides her stub legs.  Trust me it's special olympics for this chick from here on out.

Cali: What kind of monster eats kids feet?

Brig: Good question.

Cali: Aunt KK and Uncle Paul as well as Auntie G, Max, Sophie, Ava and Aunt Kellie all took us camping up Alpine Canyon.  We got to ride KK's kayaks in the lake, talked tons with Aunt Kellie and they all took us to the Gateway Mall in Salt Lake City.  We messed around at the Discovery play museum and ran through the water jets in the plaza.  Friggin amazing!

Brig: We spent a few days before camping with Grandpa Joe.  That was one crazy party.  With that one, we saw every cousin we have except Asher and Hazen. And Dad pinned uncle Jonathan...again.  Sometimes he makes it look so easy I think he's not really trying.  Hope springs eternal with uncle Jon though because he just seems to keep coming back for more.  I think he should start drinking formula; that's really when I really started putting on the weight.

Cali: Ya, me too.

Brig: Dude...you're still like 6 pounds and suckin on the boobie.

Cali: Ya but I'm drinking milk and I'm not always gonna be this big. 

Brig: That was a shameless plug for the dairy industry.

Cali: I'm really surprised you caught on to that one.

Brig: I wasn't born yesterday, dork.

Cali: So then we left and went back to Texas.  We spent the night in Denver with Grandma, the morning in Colorado Springs with the Osgards, and the evening at a hotel in New Mexico because Mom said we had to stop for the night and Dad refused to press another twenty minutes just so he could stay in a place called Dumbass Texas.

Brig: It's pronounced Du-maaahs.  And I'm telling mom so you're gonna get your mouth washed out again for swearing.

Cali: Ya, I meant what I said and soap doesn't bother me that much 'cause mom is still using that No More Tears stuff on me - so it's not that big of a deal and I kind of like the taste.

Brig:  I'll show you no more tears.

Cali: Oww! Quit it.

Brig: Make me.

Cali: I'll cry and you'll be sorry.

Brig: You were born--I already am.

Cali: MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

Brig: Nancyboy.

Cali: I like Nancy, she shoots guns and she's nice.

Brig: Well that's a story for another day.

Cali: MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!! 

Mom: My goodness, what's going on in here?

Brig: umm...Cal is poopie and I gotta run.

Cali:  *Chicken*