Month in a Minute

Today we had the amazing opportunity to go to church and listen to an Apostle of the Lord speak to us. Those conducting also randomly called some people from the audience (heart attack) that luckily weren't me--to speak-- so it was a really awesome meeting. This apostle ( and those few people from the audience) taught us humbly but so powerfully the gospel of Jesus Christ. As the Apostle was speaking I literally KNEW that everything he was saying was true. I knew it with my entire body-- heart and mind. As we sang together the closing hymn I just could not stop the tears. It was a beautiful feeling.

"Fear not, I am with thee; oh, be not dismayed, 

For I am thy God and will still give thee aid.

I'll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,

Upheld by my righteous, upheld by my righteous,

Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand. 

(Hymn #85 How Firm a Foundation, verse 3)

I know God lives and loves me just as he knows, and loves each one of us. I know where I came from, who I am, and where I am going. Nothing else really could be more important. Nonetheless, here is what else happened lately:

1.  Brandon and Cannon got rear ended on their way home from the hardware store. They were in our old paid for-white car. (the one that's not the minivan so the kids think it's a real joy ride)  The brakes on this poor guy's truck apparently didn't work. It smashed up our trunk pretty good but nobody was hurt except for a little whiplash. 

2. We had a wonderful family getaway to St. George to celebrate my birthday #36, but who's counting? and an early celebration of our anniversary #16. I got to do all the things I love to do and don't get to do very often: shopping, going out to dinner and a play, swimming, reading by the pool, and exploring nature. The Shakespeare Festival's production of Peter and the Starcatcher was highly entertaining. Loved every minute of it.  We came home late to a clean condo and all the kids in bed. Thanks Kate! Lastly, we enjoyed a fun-filled hike to Kanarraville Falls, where the trail crosses through the creek so many times we finally resigned to sloshing right through the water in our shoes. We passed through slot canyons, hiked up a waterfall, and slid down another one. How refreshing!  Not one, but two rattlesnake encounters on the trail back, had us feeling very alive and jumpy.

3. The kids all started school! What do I do all day, you are wondering, with my kids all in school now? I clean up all the messes they made before they left! Cannon declares Kindergarten, "awesome!" Kate is loving all the social interactions that another year of middle school brings. Adrie and Brynn have great teachers and everything is going swimmingly. Two changes have made this year better already. a) No carpools. My kids either ride the bus or their bike.   b) No home lunch--No longer do I have to bust my brain thinking of lunches that are not only healthy and budget-friendly but also require no heating or refrigeration and still taste delicious.  I gave up!  Except for Fridays, when they can come home early, they are all eating school lunch and it is worth every penny.

4. Besides, domestics I also am getting back into the routine of doing my own learning-- reading, music, French. Brandon says learning French is the nerdiest thing I do. I prefer the term C'est Magnifique, especially because it is fun to say. Besides, I am going to France someday and I don't want to be a total ignoramus. 

5. I have loved, loved, LOVED, getting to know all of my foreign exchange students and their wonderful host families. It's been exciting to hear about all their American firsts--first dream in English, first date, first time at IHOP. I love hearing their observations about where we live. Anna from Finland said, "Everyone in America is so happy and smiling all the time!!"  Renato from Brazil observed, "Americans don't eat very healthy food, everything is too sweet!" Maren from Norway said we have this weird stuff called peanut butter and it is in everything!    It has been very rewarding for me to hear how the students feel like they have the perfect family for them and the families feel like their student is one of their own. I am so excited to host our own student next year. A French girl, perhaps? Oh la la!

I feel really grateful that living in a little town, I can have, with these students, a connection to the great big world. Plus, they are just so darn cute!

Well, I think that's a wrap until next month, or week, or whenever I get my durned basement put back together...carpet coming soon!

The Crazy Month that was July!

Holy smokes! July was CrAzY! My house has looked about how my brain works and how this post is going to be: scattered.

1. We had the C family reunion! I can't access my pictures because my computer crashed but just imagine a ton of nice people in blue shirts sitting on the steps of the historic Manti temple. I can now put on my resume that I cooked dinner for 70 people. We stayed in cabins, played games, went swimming (my favorite), had a ladies lunch, music video night starring each family (my other favorite) and lots of food and devotionals in between.  On the other side of the family....

2. Our WA cousins (boy age 13 and girl age 11) came to Utah to stay with us as their part of the '"cousins" exchange. We got to play tourist every day for 2 weeks and when I am a tourist I am in my element!  They experienced some of our everyday country fun like floating down the canal in an inner tube. And some not so everyday things for us like horseback riding and river rafting. We took them on our favorite local hike to Bullion Falls, our favorite campground, Maple Grove. We had shaved ice at least a couple of times, Took a trip to Seven Peaks water park and played some mini golf at the Fun Center. We couldn't leave out  the nitty gritty of our life which meant morning and evening jobs and the occasional moments of me losing my sanity and screaming for everyone to get to bed already! We took introduced them to In-n-Out Burger and Cafe Rio. I taught them to make Kettle Corn right on the stovetop and how to assemble taquitos.  They got to join in our regular routine which was not so routine to them to do things like church,  family prayer and scriptures. Church for 3 hours? They couldn't believe it they and they couldn't believe they survived it. All that fun but what they will probably remember the most?....

3. The FLOOD. What a doozy. The main water line to our house decided to bust not 2 days after our visitors arrived and sent water gushing into the basement. Could it have picked a better time? At least we were home and caught it early--if you can call 3 inches deep of water in the basement, early. The neighborhood volunteer brigade was called in stat and went right to work moving furniture and ripping up carpet. The worst part? All the boxes of photos and papers I inherited when my mom died. My "to do" pile suddenly became like a salvage pile. We painstakingly dried them by individual sheets all over the upstairs. Maybe that was my mom's way of getting me to go through her stuff.  On a good note it was heartwarming to read all those old family letters back when people used to write letters. The bad note? well that's a big list starting with the smell of wet paper and ending with Insurance agents. Lessons learned??

4. Store your stuff in plastic people! And make sure you have good homeowners insurance. I can't say they have been fun to deal with but they are sending a check for carpet and repairs.

5. The resulting flood has had us all sleeping upstairs. Sleeping bags have taken over the living room. The kids are literally living out of suitcases. It's like being in a hotel--except one that I have to clean. Also it doesn't have a pool:(  The TV has been moved upstairs and we are watching way too much of it. It's come to this...

6. I CAN'T WAIT FOR SCHOOL TO START!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Proud to be Americans

Our Independence Day got off to a running start...

 Brynn (age 10) trained for and ran her first ever 5K!!

Here she is with her training partner and friend...and they ran it all without ever stopping.

 Next it was Parade Time on Main street where 2 of our kids were involved in different floats.
Adrie has loved her summer Cheer Camp.

 Brynn marched by with her gymnastics group doing tricks.  She insisted on this funky hair-do. 

 Go ahead and tell Brandon what a cool shirt he's wearing because it was the best Father's Day present ever. We kind of think he's super.
   Cannon was in kid-heaven with it all. Especially, because of all the candy being thrown out for the gathering.

 We are darn lucky in our town to have our own locally written and produced patriotic musical, "A Field of Stars" It really is a clever and well-written play that celebrates the true meaning of Independence Day and how it came to be. If you haven't seen it you really really should! We were glad Brandon's parents could travel over to see one of the 4 performances.

 Brandon and Adrie rocked the stage in their roles. Brandon was Paul Revere and the SchoolMaster, which is like the narrator. Adrie was a cute and happy little Bostonian.

 It's a real tear jerker in the end when the kids lead us all in singing "God Bless America."  Lots of time and talent were put into this year's production...it will be nice to have a break until next year...when I'm sure we can get a few more our kids or maybe even myself  to catch the acting bug.

We barbequed with our good friends.or local family as we call each other. We all live far away from family so we are glad to have each other for babysitting, emergency contacts, and for celebrating holidays like this one!
 We missed Kate! She has been visiting the space needle, and Pike's Place, the ocean, Canada, and all kinds of other fun things with her Washingtons cousins. The Cousins Exchange is going pretttty well, I think. She is coming home tomorrow.

Of course, we ended the whole thing with a bang. The fireworks display over the red hills of Richfield was ESpectaculAR! 

A Whirlwind Week in the Big City

Here we go again...the annual U of U Drug and Alcohol Conference week, where Dad simmers in meetings while me and the kids go off and play all day.
We enjoyed a nice Father's Day dinner and visiting with the extended family before heading to our SLC hotel. This was our 3rd year staying at this particular hotel, and while we love all of its' amenities--like the free breakfast and the hot tub,  it does seem to be situated smack in the middle of a thriving homeless community. As always, those wanting our money were the first to greet us on our trip.  This time, a fairly attractive young lady approached and explained that her car broke down...something about needing to get to her son....could we just help out with $40???  Brandon immediately refused her to the shock of our tender-hearted children.  He identified her as a typical "meth" mom with a bogus story. The gobs of makeup to hide the deteriorating effects of drug use...the car that broke down in some vague far away location...  See, you just can't fool a therapist. Especially one that is heading off to a week of boot camp.
And so began our exciting week in the big city:
DAY ONE:  Shopping at the Gateway

 You can tell the girls are getting older when shopping replaces the zoo as the #1 city attraction.

The fountains were a welcome relief on a hot day!

We spent the afternoon back at the hotel pool, then drove Brynn to provo for gymnastics camp, got snow cones for the way home. We finished the day with some spicy Indian takeout and some more hotel swimming. 

DAY 2:  MillCreek Canyon 

 We met my sister, niece, and her little kids for this jaunt up memory lane. From my neighborhood growing up, we had a beautiful view of majestic Mt. Olympus looming up from all the other mountain peaks.  All these years we thought we were hiking  Mt. Olympus when my mom took us on this trail. That is what she called it after all. It wasn't until many years later that I found out hiking Mt. Olympus was much more involved than a 3 hr. event. Nonetheless it felt like we climbed the whole mountain and the view from the top was spectacular,so the tradition continues...

We found this "peace" shrine along the way and added our own trinket of happiness, a Disney ticket leftover from our trip to Epcot in March. There's Mickey right above the fairy door. 

Along the trail, our fellow hiking companions started dropping off like flies and heading back to the car. It was hot and moderately steep for little legs. Kate and I booked it as fast as we could up the trail and were rewarded with this grand view of the whole Salt Lake Valley. We did it! We hiked Mt. Olympus! The serenity of being on top of a mountain and overlooking God's world is something so peaceful I could have stayed up there for hours.  But Kate and I had to meet the others eventually. We ran almost the whole way down and joined the rest of the crew for a picnic at the trailhead.. 

Once again, we were glad to have a pool to come home to as well as fresh towels and clean sheets! We ended the day with pizza and swimming. 

DAY 3: Goodbye Kate, Hello Brynn and sore legs from yesterday's hike.

 I did a LOT of driving this day. Dropped the youngers off at my niece Annie's, took Kate to the airport, went downtown to meet them for lunch at the bakery, drove to Provo to pick up Brynn from gymnastics and back  downtown to pick up Brandon and over to the East side for dinner at Annie's.

 We sent Kate on an airplane for a "Cousin Exchange" program for 2 weeks in Seattle, WA. We hope she will get to know some of her faraway cousins better and have fun exploring a new place. Later this summer, our WA cousins will get to visit us for the same experience!

In between dropping off Kate and picking up Brynn we had lunch, or dessert rather, at the most fabulous bakery on 3rd and 3rd in SLC, "Gourmandise."  Adrie chose a raspberry mousse cake, Cannon some cookies, and I enjoyed a delectable slice of marzipan cake.  My mom has definitely passed on her love for the finer confections in life. 

As if Annie hadn't already exceeded the bounds of generosity by watching my younger 2 all day, she invited us all over to dinner! She is so like that! We had a wonderful evening with her good cooking and lots of happy visiting. 

DAY 4: Hogle Zoo, Iceberg, Silver Lake

 We met Annie and her cuties again for a morning at the zoo.  We saw elephants, learned the difference between seals and sea lions, and had a picnic by the Primate house.  The best thing of all was the weather!!--didn't even get to 80 degrees and a cool breeze blew down from the canyons.

What a treat! After the zoo we headed over to our old friend, "ICEBERG" for the world's best shakes. These things don't come small. Brynn and I shared my classic favorite "peanut butter oreo" which you will gain 15 lbs. just by saying aloud.  

We still had energy after all that so we joined my sister Rayanne and headed up Big Cottonwood Canyon to her friends cabin for an afternoon/evening of mountain reverie.

 Our plans for an outdoor picnic at the cabin were interrupted when I turned the corner and found a MOOSE! We slowly retreated indoors and let the moose be.

 Walked the trail around beautiful Silver Lake

Our husbands joined us in the evening for tin foil dinners deluxe. We made it back to the hotel before dark but the windy canyon road had an ill-effect on Brynn. She lost what looked to be 3 whole meals in the parking lot.  The rest of us went to the hot tub.

DAY 5: Air Sports, Trumbolt

Our final day of city life we packed up and picked up Dad from his last session at the U. got lunch and did a little more shopping. 

Dad and I would have liked to spend the afternoon relaxing at the movies but the kids won and we ended up here.

 Lowe's Extreme Air Sports in Provo where Cannon flipped into a giant foam pit

 Adrie scaled the climbing wall

 and Brynn did a dozen dizzying back handsprings in a row.

We joined Brandon's family for the end of the trip with a barbeque at Trumbolt in beautiful Santaquin Canyon.

A fun filled week for sure and almost free thanks to Brandon's work!   I sure do love our time visiting family,  experiencing the serenity of the mountains and going back to the city I used to call home!

Summer Hair

It was Brynn's turn to choose an activity for the week.   She came up with this: Hairstyles from the local Beauty College. Little Brother wanted no part and happily went to a friend's house.  $3/each hairstyle and some quiet reading time for me was a pretty sweet summer deal!

Meanest Mom on the Block

Kids have been out of school for a week and lest they thought the words "summer" and "vacation" were synonymous, I formulated a plan.  The plan involves chores, practicing, reading and some field trips.  All of it rings with an air of order, discipline, edification, and it has earned me the dubious title,  "Meanest Mom on the Block "

If only my kids knew I am capable of so much more...
We could form a family Bluegrass band * Label all the items in the house and only speak Spanish to each other * Read Anne of Green Gables together under the sun.
 Like a tea party set with stuffed animals and plastic vittles, those are the things I will be doing with my imaginary children.

Last Day of School 

 With my real children, I have taken them to the park, the library, the bakery, and really just let them run like riff-raff through the neighborhood on their bikes, roller-blades, and those rip-stick things that I can't ride for the life of me.  It's summer--just a different kind of crazy--but I love it.

3 Beaches and a Wedding

What could be happier than a beautiful couple getting married in a beautiful place for all eternity??

  My niece got married! It was a great reason to take a road trip to visit family and spend some time at yep, my favorite place in the whole world...the beach!!

 We drove extra speedy like so we could spend the afternoon here at Laguna Beach.  We relived favorite memories with Nana, like visiting the Candy Baron, and sharing nachos at Las Brisas.  One thing is for sure, a lot of people here were talking to themselves--and they weren't using wireless headphones...

  The next day we visited our most favoritist beach of all Crescent Bay. Sun, sand, waves, tidepools, frisbee--surely there was not a lovelier day --and a more stark contrast from fighting and biting on the car ride over!!! . I do believe I have thought of the BEST Mother's DAy present EVER?!! It's not too late is it?? a DVD player installed in the van.

Kate must have some animal attraction.  In Florida it was manatees. Here, it was a seal, bobbing it's sleek head and swimming right in her vicinity not 5 minutes after she swam out to sea.  So fun!  We explored the tidepools and found starfish, urchins, anenomes,  California blue mussels, gooseneck mussels, sand crabs, hermit crabs, sculpins, and yes, I am a real beach NERD who also loves to boogie board. 

 We played until we had sand in every crevice and then called it a day! I can pat myself on the back for remembering everything from beach chairs, boogie boards, even People magazine, and of course sunscreen, but OOps! forgot to APPLY it on that winter white skin.   We were totally fried for the next day's special event... (where the slightest Pat on the back would have all of us screaming in pain.)

The wedding at the lovely Newport Beach Temple....

 Our girls were asked to be the Flower Girls for the event, a title they have been waiting their WHOLE LIVES to fill.

 And here is the lovely couple after being married for TIME and ALL ETERNITY. Aren't they smashing?!

 The bride's family, which is my family--sister, nieces and nephews. I love these guys.

 Flower girl duties included handing out wedding mints and flitting around. The reception was a beautiful backyard celebration in Mission Viejo. There was great food, a DJ, and some late night dancing. Dancing is FUN! we should do it  more often.  . The whole reception was perfect. There was the cutting of the cake, the bouquet toss, and the garter toss and there was no line. Gotta love that!  We wished the couple adieu with bubbles and off they went on a honeymoon that was so top secret even the bride didn't know where it was. Ooh la la!

So, yay. What a happy great time. But, wait a sec, here we are at the end and  I know you're thinking "Hey??  what about the 3rd beach, we've only covered two so far???"   Good job! That is where our family  went BETWEEN the temple and the reception because we had 1 1/2 hours to chill.

Here we are at DANA POINT, still in our Sunday best.   We're having our own ooh la la moment because it's the BEACH--romantic, fun, and will always be my favorite place in the whole world!