Moore Family Vacation

Luckily for Present Me, the Past Me was very smart! Immediately after the family vacation, while we were still at Michael & Caroline's house, I wrote a letter to my family all about the Moore vacation! Now, 5 months later, I don't have to remember anything! I will now proceed to copy & paste a slightly modified version of the letter.

Hello Hyatt Family!!!!!!

It has been a fun vacation! I bet you missed me. Except for the fact that I'm never there. So you always miss me. So it's just like normal. So you didn't miss me.

Well, sadly I got sick on like the second day, and then was sick the rest of the time even until now. It started off as a red-eye infection. I was afraid it was pink eye, but it wasn't. Then, I had a sniffly runny nose and sneezing. Then I had a sore throat. Now all that is left is some coughing. I've eaten about 6 bags of cough drops. Also, several buckets of Nyquil. Also, almost all the snacks. Mentos, gummy bears, fruit snacks, and jelly beans. Yum! Almost all the chocolate chips.

There was so much food at the vacation. Like, SO MUCH. Not only were there leftovers from every single lunch and dinner, but there were also 3 boats full of snacks and treats, and desserts, sMoores, and.............89 kinds of root beer!!!!!!!! (For real.)

So apparently, Michael went to a store that carries over 100 types of root beer and bought 89 of them. Then each night, after the kids went to bed, all the adults would gather at a table and pass around about 15 or so of the root beers and taste each kind in a little plastic shot glass cup. The first night everyone critiqued each one carefully. By the last night, they just passed them around and chatted in groups about other things while gulping them down. My favorite one was:

Brownie Root Beer.

Sadly, it is $50 to order online. Oh well. Most of the nights I didn't try very many anyway, because of my sore throat.

Some other fun activities were canoeing (canoes made of aluminum), rowboat rowing, archery, and pontoon boating, and fishing. We were right by a lake. AnnaMarie and Tyler knew a nice man who rented his pontoon boat to us for the week. James even got to drive it! James was very good at driving and parking the boat. He was also great at archery. He and Benjamin were the only ones whose arrows hit the target paper. I couldn't even draw back the bowstring.

James and Michael had fun tubing.

James also said that pretty much his favorite part of the vacation was taking me out on the canoes. He's a very good canoe paddler. It was a nice big lake too. We went out all over and it was nice and quiet.

I also tried to catch a frog, but it jumped out of my fingers. I also saw a bald eagle! I also had a tiny leech on my foot for a bout 1 second, but luckily I had my eyes peeled for them since Katie got a couple much larger ones earlier. She bravely just pulled them off, so I did that too. Not to worry. I once heard that some hospitals experimented using leeches on their patients to draw blood. So it's safe.

Nobody caught a single fish except for Michael, who got a small Bass, but he let it go. The pontoon boat was fun, and it had an inner tube on the back that people could get on and it would pull them around. Sadly, I missed the chance to go. I could've gone the first or second day, but I didn't, and then the rest of the days it rained and was too cold for me. Some other brave souls still went.

One of the days, James and some of the others went golfing! There was a golf course right across the road. James has never been golfing before, but according to Tyler, he is a very respectable golfer. Below is a series of pictures depicting his excellent form:

Wasn't that fun to look at? :D

Another sad thing is that we only did sMoores one night! And I didn't even eat any! Because I was too full. The other nights, it was raining and people were too full. Like I said. So much food.

Each couple was assigned one day to make lunch and dinner. AnnaMarie bought all the food, we just had to prepare it. James and I had Sunday. We made sub sandwiches for lunch (a picnic at a park after church), and pulled chicken sandwiches and fruit salad for dinner. The same pulled chicken that we made on the fourth of July! :)

Speaking of Sunday, I was assigned to give a talk at the ward we visited! We were in Hayward, Wisconsin, and apparently, that area is part of James' stake!!! So James' dad, somehow in charge of assigning speakers, had me, Spencer, and Benjamin give talks that day. I guess the branch is so small that everyone basically gives a talk every month or something. So they were glad to have visitors. I wrote my talk about the Holy Ghost. I read from President Eyring's talk from the April conference. I felt really good about my talk. Afterward, one of the ladies in relief society told me that my talk really touched her and helped her realize something. Isn't that nice?

Wearing their new ties

The branch was really small. They didn't even have sacrament meeting in the chapel, even though it was a regular church building. The whole congregation filled a large classroom. In relief society, everyone filled chairs around one table and one row of chairs around the edge of the room. The Moore family made up about half of the relief society. They were most excited to have us there. Also, church was only 2 hours long!! It was just sacrament meeting, then "third" hour. Crazy! I didn't know that small branches did that! I guess they are just too small of a group to learn about the New Testament.

Oh yeah, and Benjamin gave a great talk. It was his first talk since coming home from his mission. In keeping with tradition, he began about 7 minutes before the meeting was supposed to end and went way over time. It was a great talk though! He talked a lot about prayer, and fasting. He talked about various prayers that missionaries say throughout their daily routine, starting with when they wake up, then a companion study prayer, a language study prayer, and several other prayers for different meetings, breakfast, etc., and then said, "That's about 7 prayers so far, and it's not even lunch time yet!"

Speaking of Benjamin, he brought everybody presents from Russia! Awesome presents! All the families got a matryoshka doll, and all the girls got a babushka scarf, and all the guys got a tie and a fur hat! And James got a special extra hat!

Sad Russians

On the vacation I downloaded my brother Josh's Android app, Chain Reaction Hex, onto my new phone. He wrote the whole thing himself, and it turns out that James's nieces and Nephews LOVE it. It really is a fun game. It's got some great features too. Here is a list of things I enjoy about the game:

• The board changes colors depending on whose turn it is.
• Players can CUSTOMIZE their own colors. 9-year-old Ryan really liked that. "This color is a mix of brown and green. I'm gonna name it 'Breen'." That's a true quote. Another true quote: "It's breen against burple!"
• You can pick different sounds.
• Different board sizes/shapes.
• Multi-player!!! The kids really liked that. I'm glad it goes up to 8 players.
• I beat EVERYONE I played against!!!! This makes me feel so much better after playing Josh. I also picked up some tips from that pro. You see, I know the secret of Wraparounds. I even beat Michael. He demanded several rematches, and each time got closer to beating me. But never did. [Note: I think he actually did after the time of my writing this letter.]

After the vacation, everyone went their separate ways. James and I spent all day Saturday at the Mall of America with Christy and their German exchange sister, Carolin. Apparently she REALLY loves shopping. We were at the mall from about 10:00 to 4:30. I got a new sweater, some math socks, and James got new shoes. We also got a jar of Cherry Butter (like jam), and one for my parents. Also, AnnaMarie gave us a groupon for a free excursion through the Amazing Mirror Maze!!!! It was actually a really great mirror maze. I got a sticker from it too. We also got to touch some little sea creatures in an aquarium. Yep. All those things are in the Mall.

Inside the Amazing Mirror Maze

Showing off my sticker with Jane

Well, I could probably tell you even moore, but that is it for now. We are flying back on Wednesday. We should arrive in Salt Lake at 1:12pm, Delta. Well, I expect all of you to reply to this email! I love you!!!!!!!

Love, James & Miranda.