Kind of a Ride

Eliza and I (Steve) had a lovely trip last week. After a seemingly endless plane ride during the course of which Eliza jogged ~2 miles up and down the aisle, we arrived in my homeland of Utah. I still remembered the language for the most part, though the dry climate no longer agreed with me, which came as a surprise. It was wonderful to relax after a hectic couple of months at work, and to bask in the golden glow of doing nothing, like a tortilla fragment soaking at the bottom of a salsa bowl.

It's nice to be able to spread the magic of Eliza Mae into others' lives. She got to visit with lots of friends and family and explain to them precisely what it is that monsters say. She loved spending time with her Grandma and Grandpa, or "gaga" and "gaga" as she affectionately termed them. Eliza showed Grandma what heads are

and Grandma showed Eliza how to put things on them.
And together they learned of the customs of the noble Houyhnhnms.
Meanwhile Eliza let Grandpa audition for her band
and Grandpa was unable to pin Eliza in an intense, prolonged, multiple-day wrestling match.


She also got to meet some great-grandparents for the first time.
Don't worry; Eliza isn't punching Great-Grandpa in the face--she's just giving him an M&M!
Great-Grandma gets one too.
Eliza loved reading with her Great-Grandparents.
Eliza also got to see her Uncle Robby, a good uncle, a good friend and a good brother-in-law. It was fun to hang out with him.
We also got to meet Davey's girlfriend, Bianca. She at first refused to believe in Eliza's existence, but then there was a Christmas miracle and Eliza was awake when Bianca came over, and Bianca was forced to believe in the truth of her own senses. Eliza and I both liked and believed in Bianca.
I got to see one of my best friends--my cousin Ryan. We haven't seen much of each other for the last couple of years, but we both remembered how to string together a series of nonsensical words to make something like a sentence. We watched some of the brilliant films we made when we were kids, an experience as hilarious as it was horrifying.
We got to visit with some of our other friends, too--Norma and Brian, who were our friends in Charlottesville before they they moved to Provo. Now they are our friends in Provo.
Eliza also got to see some of her friends from the prehistoric past, including the infamous "Bambiraptor" (or "Raptor named Bambi" as the marquee helpfully explained). Eliza loved running around the dinosaur museum like a shrieking Gallimimus and also made some important discoveries involving the development of the maxillary bone while brushing at fossils in the Badlands sandbox.

Eliza almost got devoured by a giant shark, but it turned out to be a fake.

We attended a shindig at the pumpkin patch which involved a jolly hayride, a friendly horse (previously pictured), geological surveying, cozy nestling, and some Olympic-level pumpkin lifting.


As soon as we arrived at the patch, Eliza ran about two-thirds of the way across the field until she found her perfect pumpkin. She attempted to lift it, grunting with heroic effort.
I like her biceps in this one:
All in all, it was a very satisfying vacation.
Even more satisfying than eating a lemon.