Old “best” friend: “Dude, you haven’t called in so long, what is going on?”
me: “huh? Haven’t you been reading my blog?”
You may be asking, “do they normally do an ultrasound at 10 weeks?” No, that’s all part of the drama. We have been planning a camping trip for months. My older brother Jared planned it as “a Fenn family reunion.” Not going was not an option. Camping isn’t as easy as it used to be when Fletcher and I could grab our sleeping bags and go to Jewel Basin. Now we have SUVs and SUV tents, propane heaters and LED Mag lights; guns, air mattresses, stoves, fold-out picnic tables, special hotdog roasters, hot water pots, fire rings and firewood, (yes, we had to buy freakin wood to burn). Then you add wives, babies, weather, three wheelers, trailers, and in my case, pregnancy. This trip included, to say the least, weeks of total anxiety and stress.
Two days before we were ready to go, a storm rolled in, making our original destination in Canyon Lands out of the question. So we decided to forget the guns and ammo, and head to a state park by St. George. Jared, Laura, Kamryn, James and Whitney left Thursday night—the same night the freeway was closed due to a 22 car pileup. (Their trip was NOT drama free, but if you google them you may be able to blog stalk them and read all about it.) Tyler, Jenn, Connor and Carmen left in the Durango, with my wife and me behind them in the Murano, at 5:30AM. Yeah, I know, but we wanted to get to our campsite by 10:00AM so we could have the entire day to vacate. About 70 miles into our adventure, we hit some icy roads. If they was any question the roads were icy, the six cars in the ditch over about a quarter mile gave it away. We approached a van in the ditch where no one had stopped to see if they were ok, so being the good people we are, and feeling pretty good about being on vacation, we decided to pull over and see if everyone was ok and to attempt to help push them out.
As we pulled to the emergency lane, I thought, “you know, with as many idiots on the road, I’m going to pull WAY over to avoid any accidents.” We rolled down the window to chat with Tyler who had jumped out to assist the van. Then BAM. One of those idiots traveling, at least what he admitted in the police report, 60-65 MPH, lost control of his vehicle and slammed into the back of the Murano. Sigh. Did I mention it was Friday the 13th? (If the driver of the other vehicle, or his insurance company decides to blog-stalk, I apologize for the idiot comment. But seriously, 65MPH when there was six cars in the ditch before you saw us?)
Mariah’s head was part way out of the window so the impact made the door frame hit her head. We pulled into the ditch and up the other side to the off ramp; which still makes me wonder how come a wrecked Murano could drive in the ditch when those guys couldn’t get a full size delivery van out of it. Well, as you all now know now, my wife is pregnant, holding her head in pain, and crying, and I was really ticked off. The ambulance came, I told them Mariah was pregnant, and hit her head. The four large farmer volunteers quickly sprung into action—a lot of action. Neck brace, gurney, spider straps, IVs, they even tried to cut a Jim Fenn Construction sweatshirt, fortunately for them, Mariah wasn’t about to let them do that. We sent Carmen with them and they rushed her away to the Nephi hospital, leaving me with the UHP to fill out reports—three hours of reports.To make the long story shorter… We decided to go on with the trip. The Murano was beat up, but seemed to drive safely, Mariah needed a vacation, and I REALLY needed a vacation. It will behoove me to tell my mother-in-law, if she is reading this, that it was I that tried to call it off and come home, not just because I thought you would try to kill me, but I wanted Mariah to rest. She is the one that convinced me to continue. We ended up making it to our destination around 6:00PM.
It was amazing, a little cold at night, but we had heaters and motorhome just in case. The sand dunes in the back ground are a popular destination for fourwheelers. We decided to take threewheelers. James and I decided to put them to the test and took them straight up the rocks. I wrecked. Bad. The sad thing is that I didn’t even roll it sideways, which is what makes threewheelers dangerous; their notoriousness for rolling over. I flipped it endo. It would have been cool if I would have landed the front flip, but instead I caught the bike on my chest and head. My head had a helmet, but my ribs didn’t. The doctor said they aren’t broken, I only ripped the muscles that hold them together and to my sternum, no biggie if you don’t plan on sleeping, lifting, moving, or breathing.
It wasn’t all drama. The whole time we were dealing with insurance companies, hurt heads and ribs, morning sickness, etc. Mariah and I bought a house. A drug house; it tested at 45 times the meth levels than what the health department deems as “you should clean that up.” Despite the advice from my brother-in-law to just put up a new sign: “UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT” we decided to clean it up, fix it up and start the appeal process to get it zoned duplex to rent it out. The picture below is me on the phone talking to our Real Estate Agent trying to schedule a closing.
We closed on the drug house after several strange days with title companies sending docs back and forth and we are now battling silly zoning laws with Provo city to even get the power turned on.And the battle continues. As Mariah and I look back on this month, It istn’t that much different from any other drama filled month. But the pregnancy compounded February 13th. If you’re friends or family, thank you for reading and staying in blog-touch with us. We are doing fantastic and staying busy remodeling a house, fixing threewheelers, throwing up in the mornings, and looking for good deals on baby stuff. For all you other blog-stalkers, I hope you found what you were looking for.
One of the many cool things in the museum... part of the Berlin wall.
James on the last stretch of the bike portion.
All of the above pictures are of the little town Curtis grew up in called Bigfork. If you blink you'll miss it while driving through. It's so beautiful and fun. The metal bridge pictured above is a favorite. Curtis and his best friend Fletcher, used to jump off that bridge for fun...and not only just the part where you walk by...they would climb to the very very top of the metal bridge and jump. My husband is so cool! :) Below is a picture of the beloved Huckleberry ice cream. One of my very favorite parts of visiting. Fortunately this trip, we froze six gallons of it and brought it home. Wahoo!
On our way home from staying with Curtis' family, we took a slight detour to go sapphire mining. Curtis went when he was younger, but I never have, and it sounded like so much fun. So, for about 3 hours, we went and mined our own blue sapphires. We ended up leaving with about 66 total carats of sapphires, but only 7 of those carats were big enough to be cut. The experience was awesome, and I would recommend it to anyone traveling up that way.
