Insanity is washing your hair at 5:30 in the morning in a dirty shallow sink in the woods with ice cold water and a bar of soap. It was Dove soap though-with 1/4 moisturizing cream. So it worked pretty well.
Yes, it was time for the annual family camping trip. I can't sleep camping. I wake up fifty times hearing sounds in the woods, usually bears I'm certain. However, the first night I, we all, slept great in our tent. I think it was because conditions were optimal. I went to bed at a proper time (midnight, usually it's to early). The air mattress was inflated properly. I didn't sleep on the wrong side of Brent as I usually do camping (I usually take the side closest to the kids which isn't the normal side at home). I had plenty of blankets so I didn't have to wake up from dreams of sleeping in a meat locker sandwiched between two large slabs of frozen beef. So it all worked out amazingly well the first night. The second night was another story. This time I was too hot and nearby campers had a small child that kept howling in the night. At five I was hot, sticky, grubby, tired of lying awake, and felt it was probably the ideal time to go get my self clean with a towel and a bar of soap in the restroom (this campground is awesome for it's flushing toilets and sink with running water). So that is how I ended up washing my hair with a bar of soap at 5:30 in the morning. I did because I was there, the soap was there, the sink was there. That is all. Oh, and the towel was there, of course.
Other than that it all went great and we had a great time. Brent's mom, Cathy, joined us in her little RV so that was new and fun. We saw a moose, or moosette rather. And then we saw her again, making her way through the campground. Missy the Moose, we named her. We took a vote and everyone said Aye, in favor of Missy. Some said Missy wasn't a very Moosey name but they didn't offer any alternative suggestions so Missy the Moose it was. We hiked, played in the shallow part of the creek, the kids were happy 90% of the time, it didn't rain like the weather said it likely would. Good times at campout 'oh-ten!
I made a stop at Victoria's Secret a while back. I'm married, I'm an adult, and this wouldn't be announcement worthy. But I have a reason here. I paid with my credit card and I DO NOT recall just giving them my address. So yesterday I get a mailer addressed to our address with the name Cynthia and no "S" like my last name should have. First of all, of course, my mind automatically drifts to what it would be like if I was actually named Cynthia with no "S" at the end of my last name...Hmmm...what would I be like? Would I be different? Mysterious?
Digressing here. So now I'm on Victoria's Secret's list. I know what it's like to be on their list. Back in the early '90s, before I was married, I bought some clothes from a catalog of theirs that showed up at my dad's house addressed to my step mom. A cute, long sweatshirt and leggings to go with it. Incidentally, a roommate of mine later stole the sweatshirt and I saw her wearing it around the house. I was stunned, who steals another persons clothes and then wears them in front of them? So I never said anything to her (she also owned the house, maybe she would evict me for calling her a thief?) I actually ordered the sweatshirt again. I know, what a chump. Weird story. Not nearly as weird as the time I made all the power go out in Magna, Utah though. That's a story for another day.
Anyway, back to being on their list. I then received their catalog at least once a month for the next six years or so. Finally, when half a decade went by without ordering anything they removed me from their list. I also had heard something about them streamlining their mailing list to weed out the pervs who weren't ordering stuff. So I guess I didn't make the cut. Not that I'm a perv or anything. So now I'm going to be receiving their mailings with emaciated teenagers posing in their underwear, showing off their fake lips and fake other things. Coming to my mailbox where my children occasionally like to get the mail. I'm gonna have to send some emails, make some calls I guess. Oh, man!
Man, I miss the days when I could write a good blog. Where have you gone, inspiration? Well back in May, Brent and I celebrated fifteen years of marriage. Crazy, I know. At the time we were busy with end of the school year stuff and such and we didn't have any money to go on a proper trip to celebrate since we'd just gone to California with the kids a few weeks prior, thus we didn't do much. So we arranged to go on a weekend getaway this past weekend. The kids went to spend some quality time with Grandpa Richard and Grandma Karen. (Thanks guys!) I guess Noah entertained himself and anyone else he could when he went to church with them. He decided to spend his time staring down everyone he could who was sitting up on the stand in front of everyone. I guess he got a twelve year old boy who was going to give a talk to start laughing, and the Stake President came down and shook his hand after the meeting closed. That's my boy.
Anyway, we weren't sure what to do for our weekend getaway until we accidentally stumbled upon news that Ben Folds would be performing with the Utah Symphony at Deer Valley Resort. After we found out it was kind of like, duh! Cause I'm like Ben Folds's biggest fan and all. So we headed to Park City and we decided we would also try our hand at mountain biking at Deer Valley. We rented our bikes and got our helmets and water bottles and rode two chair lifts up to the top (near the top?). There I received confirmation that once again I stink at all athletic endeavors. I cannot help it that I am tall and awkward and clumsy. (I probably tripped on my way out of the womb.) So I slipped and fell and walked my way down the mountain path, yelling out at certain points, "This Sucks!" Twenty minutes into biking on the easiest course we could find, I was resigned to walking my bike down the mountain for the next couple of hours. But then the path got a little less steep, a little less rocky and I traded bikes with Brent (because as a tall, awkward clumsy person I am a magnet for faulty equipment rentals) and I got used to the whole operation just a bit. We made it down the first trail, much slower than Brent would have without me holding him back, and I only fell once and I only almost started crying once. Not bad. Then we made our way down the second half and were on a path that was even easier than the last and even though it sucked for a while it was a lot of fun.
As a side note I'd like to point out to all of those bikers we had to pull over for and let pass us by that maybe if you're going to go out and buy the fancy, shiny mountain biker outfit with all the fancy, shiny gear, that maybe you shouldn't be on the easy, beginner course. And if you need to be on the beginner course then maybe you should hold off on the fancy, shiny outfits and gear until you're ready for the intermediate course. Just an idea.
So we conquered the mountain and cleaned up and got lunch and headed out to stand in line for the concert at around 4:00. I figured if we were going to sit in the non-reserved section on the grass then we better get a good spot up front cause I wasn't going to be stuck in the binoculars section with no binoculars. So I figured the best plan would be to show up three and a half hours before the concert started and sit in the 95 degree heat for three and a half hours. And that is what we did. It actually wasn't too bad, we brought water and games and even an umbrella and got a good spot about four rows of blankets back. The concert was great, of course. The symphony did a great job backing up Ben Folds. Fun, fun, fun. The funny part is that a lot of the people attending this concert were season ticket holders for the Utah Symphony at Deer Valley, many of whom are in their fifties and older. Possibly, some were a little surprised to be at rock concert. The people sitting next to us fell into this category. They were sitting there with their picnic basket and their wine (sophisticated folk) and we over heard one say it was the most entertaining concert he'd ever been to for someone he'd never heard of before. So who is this Ben Folds anyway? You may be asking. Because many haven't heard of him. Well the perfect combination of piano genius and obnoxious. It's fun music.
This isn't from the concert we were at. I couldn't find any good footage from our concert. Ignore the stupid advertisement at the end.
Great weekend and an awesome way to celebrate fifteen years of happy times together. Looking forward to the next fifteen!
I guess I've been taking some sort of blogging vacation. Well, it is summer. It has been busy. I spent the month of June working like crazy to get projects around the house done. You should have seen the pile of junk I took to the D.I. (a store like Goodwill run by my church). When I was done I had an organized storage closet in the basement that was a thing of pure beauty. I also once again had a walk in closet that I could actually WALK INTO. No longer do I trip and break things when I try to find some pants to wear. I found those sneaky little extension cords that are always hiding out, never to be found when you need them. I found things that were needed for other projects I was working on that I didn't even know I needed yet!
We also had a broken dryer so I spent some quality time either dragging baskets full of wet laundry to the laundromat or hauling it all to the backyard pioneer style and hanging it up wherever I could find a spot. I love crunchy laundry. Thankfully a dryer-less home is once again nowhere to be found here.
The best part of my project list was finally getting Isabella's new room done. She'd been wanting her own room for a while so I agreed she could have the guest room this summer. So we decided to redo the whole room. That led to deciding to redo Zoe's room too and some minor changes in Noah's room as well so he wouldn't feel left out.
Before: Rarely used Guest Room
and...
After: A really cool, fun room for a soon to be teenager! She's still got plenty of room to add her own posters and what not above her bed there. She picked the bedding and we picked the paint together. (I'm trying to get over my control issues here.) I love the molding and the white paint at the top, it makes the low ceiling feel higher, I've done this in all the kids' rooms now. I love the desk! $25 from Ikea! Funny thing, though not surprising, she actually misses Zoe a little. Actually she doesn't anymore, we moved Zoe's bed in there the other night until I finish painting her room. Which I've admittedly started to get a little lazy on but it will be done before summer is over, hopefully before July is over!
Now, Noah...
Noah's Room Before
and...
Noah's Room After! Not a huge change, got some things moved around, got a bigger table and got the girl's bunk bed. I figure someone should enjoy the bunk bed while he is still young enough to have fun with it. What boy doesn't want to sleep on top of a bunk bed? (And the ceiling is low enough that he can't possibly comfortably try to jump off the bed. :)
It's been one of those weeks where you just look back and think, Dang I love those kids!
First of all, Noah. Noah uses his foot as a break for his bike. His bike has a couple of perfectly functional breaks so I cannot be blamed for this. Unlike so many other traumas in my children's lives. This time he was unfortunately wearing his flipflops and it all ended in bloody hysterics and Noah later hobbling around like a spazy old man.
Big bandaged toe there on the left foot
Zoe had her end of year piano recital. She struggled and it was touch and go there for a minute but she didn't quit and she ended up doing quite well. She was a trooper and I was a proud mama.
Isabella graduated from elementary school! I can't believe she is off to Jr. High in the fall. She has worked so hard and I'm so proud of her.
First day of kindergarten
Last day of sixth grade and elementary school. Ready for Jr. High. Help us all!
I've thought about this long and hard since my birthday a couple of weeks ago and I've come to one plausible conclusion: 39 can suck it. *dot dot dot* Stay Tuned.
Yes it was time for another vacation not to Arizona (by the way, Arizona, I think it's your turn to come here) and we decided to see California, and as much as we could of it in one week. So we headed to San Francisco first. I don't know why, but every time I head anywhere in the Northwest I just feel at home. (Is San Francisco considered part of the Northwest?) Maybe I do know why a little. Maybe because the coast is so beautiful up north and the architecture is great, the people seem so nice and laid back, yellow isn't the primary landscape color, environmentalism isn't a dirty word. (I could go on and on about how impressed I was with the environmental measures taken in the hotels in San Francisco and Cambria and how San Francisco must be the Prius capital of America.) I've just had this thing for the Northwest since my first trip to Seattle in the early '90s. Maybe someday...
So we had a good time exploring San Francisco for a couple of days. The girls decided somewhere in western Nevada that the car game they would play would be Count the Obama bumper stickers. So they kept that up all through San Francicso and down to Los Angeles. Apparently San Francisco is more Obama friendly territory than in these parts. Ha ha. The final count was 17. We took a boat tour around the bay and the kids were all very disappointed we weren't going to take the tour of Alcatraz. I should have listened to Brent I guess. Here are some more pictures of the first leg of the trip. Too bad I still don't know how to put pictures on here in a better way:
Alcatraz
After San Francisco we drove down the coast and stopped in San Simeon to see the Heart Castle:
We also ran into a beach full of elephant seals. There were hundreds of them hanging out on this beach where they are protected.
Next came Southern California. We are now well acquainted with the infamous traffic of Los Angeles after three hours of freeway driving and three more through the city while trying to see the sights. But it was still a great time. Disneyland lived up to it's reputation for the kids, we all had a great couple of days there and we are even considering returning some day. Not bad for people who aren't die hard Disney people. It was a great week away with the family. Now if we could somehow move the east coast a little further west so we could explore that region next time around.
I have now left the land of denial and am staring into the laughing face of reality. When I went in to talk to the academic advisor last summer I was all, "Yay me! I have 50 credits! How cool am I!" Even though as I said this to myself I was looking at the yellow paper with all the classes I need to take but a part of my brain wouldn't let what I was looking at fully register. Although it's true, I had 50 credits, they would only work with five classes. Yes, five classes. So I basically had one semester under my belt. No wonder it's going to take me four years or so to get through school (guess I should stop taking one or two classes per semester, huh?) So now that I've accepted the world of reality, what to do? Well reality isn't so bad I guess. I've registered for three classes in the fall and one in the summer. I'm not so sure about the summer class. Chemistry. It's online and for non science majors so that sounds a little less threatening. I also feel like I have something to prove after that debacle in high school, junior year. Did I ever show you my chemistry lab scar that is on my left hand? It looks like those paper doll cutouts where they're all holding hands. It's kind of cool actually. But the biggest thing is I'm wondering if I should take it, it is only one class after all. Or should I free up all my time to hang with my kids and get all OCD about organizing my house? I could probably do all of those, or at least hang with the kids and clean the house, along with the one class. Who knows. I've got a week to decide.
Anyway so spring semester is done. I really liked that art class. Fun times. Now onto domestic things. Our dishwasher broke about a year and a half ago. Well, halfway broke really. The heating element broke and we've been using it with the hot water from the furnace but that isn't working so well any more so I've taken up washing dishes by hand. Let me tell you, my sink has never been so clean on account of I'm a slight germaphobe and all. But I'm starting to get the dishpan hands, especially since I feel the need to put bleach in the water along with the soap. So what to do? Do you save up for three new appliances? Because they are all at varying levels of falling apart. Or do you just go out and get the new dishwasher and live with mismatched appliances for the next year or two or so? Because we have white appliances right now and I don't see the point in buying new appliances if they aren't going to be stainless steel and look pretty.
Either way the dishpan hands are here to stay for a while. It'll probably be a couple of months since we were in the position of realizing last week that our Subaru Forester wasn't worth the money it would take to fix it so we decided to go for the new car for Brent to get to work and back. If you have to buy a new car it is a good one though. A 2009 Toyota Yaris. 38 mpg freeway, baby! Ironically, it's white. Maybe we should have gone with a stainless steel car. We've named him Junior, because he looks like our Mazda MPV's small child, sitting next to it in the garage.
So every once in a while I'll be perusing Mormon blogs on the internet or checking facebook or something like that and I'll read something about Sacrament Meeting at church. I'll be reading along and all of a sudden I'm lost, something about this story doesn't make sense. Then it hits me: Oh they don't go home after Sacrament meeting, they go to their classes! Now the story makes sense! My ward is among the .00005% that has Sacrament Meeting last instead of first (don't quote me on these highly exaggerated statistics). Our whole stake has had Sacrament Meeting last since the dawn of time I guess, or at least the dawn of the Stake, and the Stake we split off of before it. So we've been going to Sacrament Meeting last for the last 8 1/2 years. Which was a DELIGHT when the kids were little of course and needing a nap after almost two hours at church already. Now that they are 7, 10 and 12 we could care less. We don't understand why most everyone else is complaining about it still.* The seat saving still bugs me on occasion but I can get a seat in the Chapel a couple of times a month these days so it's fine. There was a period of about three years when I could rarely get a seat in the chapel so it was hard chairs in the cultural hall for me every week. Not very fun for my never completely healed from that one trip to the bouncy house with the kids for Family Home Evening one night in 2001 tailbone injury. I don't know why I didn't just abandon all pride and get that doughnut already. Now when I hear people talking about Sacrament Meeting being first (once I figure out that is what they are talking about) I think, You have Sacrament Meeting first? Well that's weird...
I'm glad the president and congress have finally stepped up and stopped listening to those who oppose them. Those who say, Who cares if this is what you campaigned on and got elected on (among other things). You can't do anything you set out to do! I'm glad they have finally stepped up and got to work. Nothing is perfect but health care will not bring on socialism. (Just ask a socialist and watch them laugh at you. By the way, I am not a socialist, I maybe lean toward democrat but never have made anything official.) If we can survive such atrocities as the public library, fire fighters and public education, we will survive this to. When I read things like this: “We’re coming to a Europeanization of America. And the American people feel it,” (Orrin) Hatch said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” I think, when did Europe become our enemy? Europe is not my enemy. It seems like a lovely place. Silly.
I'm not afraid for freedom. You won't be able to convince me to be afraid. I live in a country where I am blessed enough to be able to return to school at 38 years old. AND take guitar lessons. Pretty nice if you ask me. Go ahead and be afraid if you want, you have the right to do that too. I have other worries to occupy my time. Like how to get a ten year old to go to school every morning without becoming overcome with anger because her capri pants don't fit right or the head band feels weird. That's where I get to direct my energy. Is it summer yet? I'm busy, I don't have time for fear that would be irrational to me. I used to spend too much time consumed by irrational fears. It was exhausting. I'm not saying it isn't rational to you, follow your own heart. I've got my own moral compass to follow. Fortunately it is based in a world that is not black and white but full of beautiful colors. I need to workout now. I'm tired. I think I need some protein. And I need to finish reading A Midsummer Night's Dream.
