There Was a Complication When We Cured the Industrial Disease. The Vaccine had an Unintended Side Effect: Sterility. Only One More Generation of our Species Could Survive

I wish I had videotaped Ash last night. Especially the dance. Oh, the dance. Alas, I did not, so I'll attempt to describe it.

Drek and I took Ash into the doctor yesterday to get her first ever vaccinations. I waited until my child turned two before giving her vaccinations because, obviously, I've been worried that she will have an adverse reaction to them.

She got her shots around three in the afternoon. By six, I was wondering if I was seeing a reaction:

(Ash is sitting on my stomach. She bounces hard, then hits me in the face)
Me: Ow! Don't hit mommy!
Ash: (laughing) Sorry, mommy.  (She bounces again and hits me in the face)
Me: Ow! Ash!
Ash: (laughing) Sorry, mommy. (She hits me again)  Sorry, mommy.
I grab her hand as she goes to hit me again and lift her off my stomach. She runs over to her bed, laughing and doing a crazy-dance, then gets up on her bed and starts jumping.
Ash: One two fwee fow five six seven eight nine ten yeven twelve firteen firteen firteen firteen...
Drek: Did you get stuck on thirteen?
Ash: (Still jumping) FIVE! five five five five five five. (Now she starts doing hand motions and bobbing her head side to side as she jumps) Open and shut them open and shut them open and shut them open and shut them.
Me: Wow, okay, I think it's time for bed.
Ash: NO BED! DANCE! No mommy bed! Yes mommy bed, mommy sweep. Yes, no, yes mommy sweep.  Ash DANCE! (she jumps off the bed onto the floor and does the CRAZIEST dance I have ever seen. And she just keeps going.)  A B C D E F G H I J K M N O P M N P M N O P M N O P. (I stand up and walk toward her)
Ash: (all in one breath) NO! No sweep. No! Yes no yes no. Yes mommy bed. Yes mommy bed, mommy sweep. Yes no yes mommy sweep. Finger hurt! Daddy, finger hurt! Bandaid! Mommy sweep, daddy bandaid finger.

She finally fell asleep and hour passed her normal bedtime, leaving me with the question: "What the heck was that?!"

I Couldn't be Fonder of My Big Home. The Bees are Buzzin' in the Tree to Make Some Honey Just for Me

Okay, guys, here we go. I'm holding my breathe and diving in to a new and adventure-filled apiary hobby.

Yeah, I'm getting honey bees.

The hives and equipment arrived a few days ago: we unpacked them today. We'll order the actual bees this week, although they won't arrive until April or May.

I'm reading books, blogs and websites. I've joined the local beekeeping society and I've sunk quite a bit of money into this new pursuit. I'm very excited.

I'm doing this jointly with Anna. Basically she's the brains behind the operation and I just provide the land. I want the bees to amp up my tree's fruit production. Honey is a nice bonus. Actually, truth be told, I'm not really a fan of honey. I like it for cooking, but I find peanut butter and honey sandwiches to be less than appealing. Drek, on the other hand, is a huge fan of honey, so I guess it will even out.

But the real point of getting bees is the bees. I'm so excited to welcome those girls into their new home!

Did He Say Limo? Wait a Second, I'm His Translator. Hold Up!

Remember how I used to have a big party every month? I miss that. I need to plan more parties for the upcoming months...

Last January I started planning a surprise birthday party for my wonderful Sister-in-law, Anna. I didn't know exactly what we would do, but I did want it to involve formal dresses, a limo, and a surprise.  I told my friend, Jen,  and we both were pretty excited about the idea.  Last month Jen and I nailed down a few more details and then I emailed a few other friends for input. It didn't take long for a great plan to form: We would dress up in formal and semi-formal dresses, rent a limo and drive over to Anna's house where her husband would somehow have gotten her all dressed up in a formal. We would surprise her and kidnap her and eat birthday cake in the limo while we drove to a very fancy restaurant to eat dinner. That was the plan, anyway. 

After I talked to Anna's husband, the plan fell apart pretty quickly; he was leaving on a business trip on her birthday, so he would be unable to get her dressed up and he wouldn't be there to watch the kids while she was kidnapped. 

After a flurry of emails of working out everyone's schedules (no easy feat) we finally decided to just do it without the help of the husband. We allotted thirty extra minutes to a surprise make-over  and thought that was a better idea anyway. 

And so, a week before her birthday, the plans were cemented. The limo was reserved, the reservations for the restaurant was made, and the dresses were picked out. 

Things went quite perfectly. To be honest, I was expecting a few problems. In that regard I was very pleasantly surprised.  The limo showed up exactly on time and to my surprise it wasn't just a limo, but a beautiful white stretch limo. It was way more fancy than I had expected!  We rode it over to Anna's house where we met the guest who had made the birthday cake. Again, I was surprised by the lack of problems: She was on time, the cake was absolutely amazing, (and later I discovered it was delicious) and for ease of eating in a limo, she had made five little individual cakes and put them each on their own little plate with their own fork and carried them all on a tray. It was brilliant! 

It was time for the birthday girl! We rang the doorbell and even got the whole "Surprise; Happy Birthday!" yelling and the surprise reaction on film. We bustled in and did the make-over while Drek finished preparing dinner for the kids and volunteered to stay and watch them while we went out. 

When the birthday girl was ready we went outside and surprised her with the limo. The last guest arrived and we all we got in to the limo and ate the amazing cake. We went to the restaurant and got one of the best waiters I have ever had. After a wonderful dinner he brought Anna a Creme Brulee with a lit candle in it, on the house, with enough spoons for everyone. 

We took pictures in front of the limo and then went back to Anna's house. We arrived exactly on schedule. It was amazing. 

So that party went well. I'm excited to start planning the next one! Happy Birthday, Anna!

Okay, Rule Number One Out Here: Always... No, Never Go Out in a Blizzard

I'm visiting Homeland for a few days. Mei-mei is getting ready to go on her mission and I wanted to be with her when she went to the Temple for the first time.

Saturday night was the big event. I left Ash with her grandparents and drove down the mountain to the Temple. Usually it's about a five minute drive, but I happened to be driving through a snow storm, and sliding down most of the hills, so it took about fifteen minutes.

But I still made it on time. It was wonderful to be there with both my sisters and my parents. Our whole original family, together in the temple! It was very nice.

And then it ended and I had to drive back up  the mountain. The snowstorm had only gotten worse and of course now it was dark and the roads were slush and ice. That drive is probably the most terrifying drive of my life. My tires were spinning about sixty miles and hour, but  I was only going about fifteen miles and hour, if that. But I was going forward, which was good. I was terrified of sliding backwards down those steep hills. And I did mostly stay in my lane, although there were a few times when I was driving in the middle of the road.

Finally I was only one turn away. I turned from a semi-busy road onto an all-white road. I could see my in-laws house four houses away. I turned, and just kept turning. The road was sheer ice. I gently glided into the curb, then put the car into reverse to try again. Alas, I was stuck. Just then the snow plow drove by, clearing the road. If only he had driven by one minute earlier.

So I called my wonderful mother-in-law, who sent out the boys, and girls, and the girl's dates. They got me unstuck and in front of the house, and then my mother-in-law pulled some pretty impressive NASCAR stunts to get the car into the driveway.

A few minutes later we were drinking hot chocolate and eating popcorn. It ended well, but I am so ready to get back to driving  Astro on the warm roads of Sunland.

That's a Post Holer. You Dig holes. For Posts

In fixing up our yard, we've planted twelve trees in nine months; Last week we planted a Macadamia tree to add to the collection of new trees on our property.

I use the term "we" lightly. I've picked out most of the trees, but I've only dug the hole and planted two.  Drek's the one that's dug most of the holes and done the hard labor. Drek planted this last tree. He did it while I was away from the house. When I got back I looked at the new tree in our yard. I also noticed that he had tended to all twelve of our trees and there was a bag of fertilizer next to one.

"What did you put around all threes?" I asked him.
"Huh?"
"That stuff around all the trees. It looks like straw. What is it?"
"It's straw."
"Ah. That makes sense."

I hope this coming year we'll be able to eat a few freshly-picked fruit and macadamia nuts!

Live Every Week Like It's Shark Week

During the break between Christmas and New Years, Drek's family came to visit and we all went to the beach. It was a perfect beach day; the sky was blue, the sun was shining the temperatures hovered around 76, and the beach wasn't crowded at all.

I sat on the beach by the towels while Drek did a little bit of boogie boarding. I was trying to get a good picture of him, and it was then that I noticed something beside him.

I couldn't tell right away what it was. I thought it might be a really big fish. I saw it's long beautiful body swimming right next to Drek with a fin coming above the water for just an instant.

I was so excited, I jumped up with the camera to get a closer shot. In my excitement I tried to describe what I was seeing, In my mind, I thought "Sea animal." the but the word that came our of my mouth was "Shark!"

Here's a little tip for you beach goers: It's not really the best idea to yell "Shark!" on a beach while there are several swimmers, boogieboarders and surfers in the water, and a crowd of people on the sand next to you. Jumping up all of a sudden and frantically snapping pictures with your camera after yelling "Shark!" instead of explaining what you are seeing, isn't really a good idea either. Especially if you are excitedly yelling things like "Right next to Drek! It's like a foot away! It's so close, it's close enough to bite him!"

It was not a shark, but a sea lion. I saw that almost right away, but it took several minutes for everyone else on the beach to realize that. Oops.

That Station Wagon of Yours Doesn't Exactly Look Like a Sailing Ship. It's a Rocket Ship. My Mistake

We got a new car. It's a salvaged car, just like Jasmine was. Actually, it was rebuilt by the same guy that built Jasmine. 

It's a Saturn, it has a sunroof, the console is super fancy and the engine is whisper quiet. The doors open in opposite directions and there are only two seats in the back. For those reasons, this car is my spaceship. I named him Astro: 

If Anyone Gets Nosy, Just, You Know... Shoot 'em. Shoot 'em? Politely

Today was the first Sunday School class of 2012. I'm not teaching the same class. This time I'm teaching thirteen, fourteen, fifteen and sixteen year olds. I have nine kids in my class; five of them were in my class. As far as I can tell, there is no logical explanation for how the Sunday school classes are divided up. Officially, I am teaching the fourteen/fifteen year old Sunday school class, but that's two children, so they added the older class, and three kids from the younger class.

You may think that they took those three random kids out of my old class because my old class was so huge (fourteen teenagers) and no one wants to teach a class that big, but you would be wrong. For reasons I cannot fathom, they took five kids out of my old class and moved them up, and then they combined that class with the younger class, making that class include twenty kids ages eleven to fourteen.

TWENTY. And I thought fourteen was out of control. I am so glad I am not teaching that class.

You Know, I Was Born in the Wrong Millennium

It's been a week and a day since our car accident on the freeway. The insurance called yesterday to let us know that Jasmine is, officially, totaled. Repairs were estimated at over six thousand dollars. I told them  six thousand dollars worth of repairs was well worth it for that little car, but they said no. They said they would give me a check for a thousand dollars instead.

Sadly, I can't buy a used car for a thousand dollars.

I'm so confused by this...why do we have insurance again? Isn't is so they will pay for things in the case of an accident? Um, hello, I was in an accident, why aren't they paying to fix my car or to get me a new one? What was the point? Instead of paying for insurance every month I could have put it in a savings account. After five years that money would be more than enough to buy me a new used car.  To top it off, they said now that they have offered us the money (but we won't get the check for two to three weeks) they will stop paying for a rental car. So, we need to buy another car like, now.

I've tried to convince Drek that this is the perfect opportunity to ditch the car altogether. We can ride the bus! We can bike! We can just stay home! But since the buses here don't really go a lot of places and biking isn't really feasible with the long distances and the hills, he said no. I tried to sweeten the deal by telling him we'd buy him a motorcycle, so he could still get around. But that still leaves us with no way to get to church on Sundays, so he still said no.

So I've spent all day today trying to get us a car loan. I'm so irritated by the whole thing. I don't want a car, but I have to buy one. I don't have money to buy a car, so I have to borrow the money. And then I'll still have to pay for insurance on that car that I didn't want.

It's days like this when I truly wonder if I wasn't born in the wrong millennium.

The Truth Is... I am a Member of a Joint NSA CIA Black Ops Team that is Stationed Here in Burbank. I Have a Level 6 Clearance and My Code Name is Charles Carmichael. I'm a Spy, Buddy

Is there anyone, in the entire United States, that lives somewhere where only mail addressed to them is delivered?  It seems like everywhere I have lived, more mail is delivered addressed to non current residents than mail addressed to actual current residents of the house.

This house is no exception. We get a lot of mail for other people. I've gone through all the standard channels: marking it and putting it back into the mailbox, actually calling the post office, but the mail keeps coming.

Today UPS delivered a package for a Steve Smith to our door. I found it so odd: I can see USPS mail coming to us but a hand-delivered package to our doorstep marked "Time Sensitive Material?" This wasn't someone forgetting to change an address in some database, this was was someone ordering something off the internet and specifically shipping it to my house.

Right under the name was a phone number to reach Steve Smith. I glanced over the package but no where was there a number to call UPS. What was I supposed to do? Leave the package in my mailbox? It wasn't USPS's problem.

I sighed and dialed Steve Smith's number, hoping he would tell me he'd have UPS come back and pick it up. Besides, that way I could ask him why he used my address.

But what would I say? Was the phone number even real? Would he answer? Would his secretary answer? What if his wife answered and he had mistaken my address for his mistress' address and I was about to be caught in the middle of a very messy ordeal?

I decided I would act very business-like and ask for a Mr. Steve Smith. I would inform them that I was in possession of a package and ask the best way to return it to him. That sounded good. I dialed the number.

The phone rang a few times and then a familiar voice picked up the phone. "Hello, my love." It said.

I paused.

"Drek?"

"Yeah?"

"Is this your phone number?"

"This is my google number."

"Oh. Uh... do you know why we just got a package from UPS to a Mr. Steve Smith?"

"Yes. That's a name I use online sometimes for odd websites."

"Oh. Well, you package arrived."

"Great! Thanks!"

"Sure...so, you have an alias and a secret phone number?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"Oh....are you a spy?"

"I can't tell you that."

"Huh"

So, case solved. Now if only I could figure out to stop getting credit card offers for Michael Samor, that would be great.

But Behind That Fair Façade I'm Afraid She's Rather Odd

2011 was, in a word: odd.

I went to the beach wearing flip-flops and short sleeves in winter. I bought a house instead of renting and did all the odd things that come with home-ownership.  I came face to face with a cheetah, a wolf, and a panther. I discovered I love blood oranges. I learned how to iron. I swam with leopard sharks and a sea lion. I discovered I love hanging laundry on a clothes line. I found myself in yet another manipulative relationship (how do I get myself into these things?) but actually managed to get myself out. I got chickens. I went scuba-diving. I bought an ocean kayak. I went to a horse polo game. I got beaten up by a goose. I ate several goose eggs. I drove an all-electric car.

Acouchi died. Chicken Juliette died. Jasmine died.

I've had two major life crisis this year. One in May, in which decisions were made that I don't think I will ever get over. It's odd to think that the big "If only" moment of my life happened this year. The second major life crisis happened, well, last week. I'm actually still working through it. I'll let you know how that one turns out.

I know this sounds odd, but I feel like my frontal lobe finished developing this year. Really. I've had a millions and one epiphanies this year. I've come to understand so many things about myself and those around me. I feel like I can finally see the big picture. I really feel like I've made tremendous progress this year. 

I didn't complete all my 2011 New Year's resolutions. I didn't published a novel and sell more copies than the seventh Harry Potter book. I didn't save the CEO of a major international airline from a burning car and get a golden tickets to fly anywhere in the wold. But I did win NaNoWrimo. I did make some new and wonderful friends. I did buy a house, make a clothesline, foster a litter of kittens and travel quite a bit.

I can't decide the word I want to be able to describe 2012. Maybe I just want 2012 to be a surprise. Okay, 2012: surprise me. 

You Have a Good Heart, Kenneth. I Hope You're in a Car Accident so That I Can Have It

Yesterday Drek and I dropped Ash off at a babysitter's house and headed down to the temple with Drek's parents. As is common on Sunland Freeways, the traffic was moving at normal speeds, then stopped, then moving at normal speeds, then stopped. During one of those "stopping" phases, the car in front of us didn't think he could stop in time (I assume) and moved over into the shoulder. Drek saw the cars stopping and so he came to a gradual, gentle stop. The car behind us was not so alert. After a very angry squeal of tires and brakes, we were slammed from behind. Because that car in front of us had moved off to the side, and because Drek had stopped to give him plenty of room to get back on, we didn't hit the car in front of us. It was a simple two-car accident.   

But it was still a nasty accident. Everyone was "fine" (I put it in quotes because most of us had headaches and my neck was on fire yesterday and today I mostly wish I had been decapitated, but no broken bones, no blood, you get the idea...) but both cars were totaled. 

It's the best of a terrible situation: no one was seriously hurt, Ash wasn't in the car, and everyone has good insurance coverage. So hooray. 

And yet, Jasmine is dead. She would have lasted at least two more years. She was such a good car. And now we have to get a new car. If buying Jasmine five years ago taught me anything, it's that I HATE car shopping. Seriously. 

If you ask me what I want, I'll tell you I want an electric car. Or a car that runs on water. But I'm forced to buy a gas powered car. Which is stupid. 

I have no preference as to which gas-powered car we get. They are all gas guzzling, world polluting, money draining, death traps. 

So, anyone have any suggestions? Jasmine was a Saturn, but they don't make Saturns anymore. I grew up with Toyaotas, but I hear there was recent scandal with Toyota brakes? I do have a preference for Fords. Does anyone have a car they love that they can suggest? 

Happy Christmas

We had a party on Christmas Eve Eve; a simple potluck with delicious food and lots of games of stuffed animal dodgeball. We sung some hymns just to make it Christmas-y and called it a night. It was a great party spent in wonderful company.

Christmas Eve was also wonderful; we had a delicious dinner and had a beloved family over for dinner. We opened a few gifts and then Drek Ash and I got in the car to go look at Christmas lights. We came back and put Ash down for bed, then snuggled up for a game of scrabble. We fell asleep around ten, looking forward to Christmas Morning! 

And midnight Ash woke up unable to breathe. She had a terrible cough. Ben got up with her and I looked up Insurance and Emergency Room info. Her breathing wasn't great, but it wasn't quite bad enough for a trip to the ER. We went back to sleep, but she woke up about every thirty minutes. Every time we decided it was bad enough to go the hospital her breathing would get better and she would fall back asleep. And then thirty minutes later she would wake up again. It was a miserable night. Finally, around six, she fell asleep and stayed asleep. So did Drek, but I was up. I made a big Christmas breakfast, cleaned a little bit, watched a Christmas movie, read a Christmas book and then sat around going "now what?" 

I called Ash's on-call doctor. He said it was croup, and it sounded like a mild case. He told me what to watch for and that was that. 

Drek and Ash finally woke up around nine. We had a very low-key Christmas which ended early do Ash could take a nap. 

I did laundry. I talked to my family. That was about it. 

Ash is doing much better now. She'll still bark every once in a while, but she's sleeping at night and she's no longer contagious. 

And there's always next year. 

You are Hereby Called to Serve as a Missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You are Assigned to Labor in the Boston, Massachusetts Mission

Two days ago I was setting up a portable heater in our house (It gets very cold at night and not only do we  not know if our furnace works, but we're not sure we want to find out) when it bounced back and hit be in the face. My tooth went through my lip. That was the extent of the damage; a swollen, bloody, cut lip.

Until four in the morning, when I woke up with some severe nausea. I spent the next twenty four hours with  flu symptoms; freezing to death while running a high fever, muscle cramps, not being able to move...

Drek stayed home from work to take care of me and our little one. He is so great. He read a book to me. In the book was a women with polio who had spent the last thirty years inside an iron lung. She had contracted polio at seven months pregnant and actually gave birth inside the iron lung. Amazing, no?

Anyway, instead of being inspiring as was intended, it scared me to death. "Drek!" I moaned. "What if I have Polio? What if I have to spend the rest of my life inside an iron lung?"

He wasn't very sympathetic to my wild ideas. "How in the world would you have gotten polio?"

"From the heater! My tooth! My cut lip! I must have contracted the virus on the plane coming back from Hometown, harmless enough, until my tooth cut my lip, giving the virus direct access to my bloodstream! It just happened to be the one single virus that bypasses my polio vaccine! I'm dying!"

But, this morning I woke up just fine. My fever had broke and after easing my tummy back on to solid foods, I'm feeling great.

I was finally able to call my sister, Mei-Mei, and tell her congratulations on her mission call! She got it yesterday and opened it while I was on Skype, but I wasn't very responsive because I was dying of not-polio.

So, Congratulations, Mei-mei! We are so excited for you!

You Know What Would Pick Up the Morale in Here? Flip-Flop Fridays. You Can Feel the Breeze in Your Toes

I just got back from a visit to Hometown. Mei Mei graduated with her associates degree so I also took a trip up to Burgville to see her walk.

I didn't stay long and had very little time, but it was still fun. Fun but cold. Very very cold.

After my flight landed in Sunland I stood on the sidewalk waiting for Drek to pick me up. The sun was shining and it was warm enough for me to be in a T-shirt and be comfortable. "Oh. This is why we live here." I thought to myself.

I went to the store and bought myself a new pair of flip-flops. I wore them around all of yesterday, along with a T-shirt. It was that warm. It's so worth the exorbitant milk prices.

Now, Before we Learn How to Build the Latest in Extreme Graphic Chipset Processors, Let's Recite the Code of the Elves, Shall We?

I love how Drek's family does Christmas presents. The focus is always on the thought; not on the money. They draw names and the point it to give a thoughtful gift, not an expensive gift. Usually, the presents need to be homemade to emphasize thought over price. 

This year the gift needed to be an ornament. My sister-in-law came over last night and presented us with our gifts: 

A Christmas card holder she made: 

And little baby Jesus ornaments made out of nut shells and cloth. This picture isn't very good, but trust me, they are DARLING.

She is so creative. 

Anyway, back in November I was told I needed to ornaments for my in-laws. I loved this idea in theory, but soon I remembered a vital fact: I am not a craft a person. AT ALL. 

Remember how to years ago my brilliant idea for a a homemade gift was to make a hat and a scarf? And I worked on it for two months before giving up and handing it over to Krisling who finished it in five minutes? 

Remember how last year I tried to paint a board for my niece and failed miserably, so I had to go out to Toys R Us on a night in December to buy a last minute gift? 

So, just in case I am tempted next year to do the same thing this year: DON'T DO IT, K LA! It doesn't matter how easy Pintest makes it look, you will FAIL! 

This year I decided to collect sea shells from the beach, glue pictures inside and ribbons on top and call them Christmas ornaments. Alas, after two trips to the beach, we decided large or even medium size seashells were not "in season." We couldn't even find one and we needed six. 

On to Plan B: Buying shatter-proof clear plastic ornaments, glue the pictures to a sparkling ocean-blue glitter paper and put it inside. Add sand and tiny seashells. 

Alas, I could not find the plastic ornaments that came apart, only the ones with the removable top: There was no way to get a picture inside. 

Plan C: I returned to the craft store, bought ocean blue glitter glue, returned the ocean blue glitter paper, and spent twenty minutes arguing with the clerk who would not give me the eighty cents in change because I didn't have my driver's licence with me. 

Still, I returned home optomistic: I would write the names on the outside of the ornament in the glitter glue and fill it with sand and seashells. The name-writing went great, but the sand I got turned out to be more pebbles than sand. I decided to return to the beach. 

Three trips later, I still hadn't found the fine white sand I envisioned, so I gave up and went with fine gray sand. Not as pretty, but it would work. Alas, the seashells wouldn't stay on top of the sand, so instead of a picturesque beach snow-globe, it looked more like a ball filled with gray sand. 

Plan D: okay, start from scratch: look for ideas on Pintrest. I found a very easy-looking recipe that made Christmas smelling ornaments. The recipe only required cinnamon, elmer's glue and applesauce. It's supposed to smell wonderful, even years later. And since it looked more like baking than crafting, I decided it couldn't fail! I borrowed Christmas cookie-cutters, bought the ingredients and set to work! 

The dough was not turning into dough, so I added flour. Then more flour, than more flour. When it finally looked more like dough and less like pudding, I rolled it out in between two pieces of parchment paper. Pintrest said the top piece of paper should peel right off, and then I just had to cookie-cutter the dough and bake! 

No. Very No. The dough was way too sticky and still too liquid. I tried to peel off the top, but it just stuck together and created a mess. Exasperated I threw the whole thing a way. "Let's just buy them a nativity set," I told Drek. "No, no!" he replied. "I still like the sand-ornament idea." 

Plan E: Let Drek do it. He poured glue into the balls of sand, and then sprinkled the seashells on top. This worked great, except for some reason the glue created condensation which made the glitter-glue fall off. "Hey, I have an idea." he said. "Let's just buy them a nativity set." 

Plan F: Buy a nativity set. 

But a lot of thought went into that store-bought nativity set.

How Blessed the Day When the Lamb and the Lion Shall Lie Down Together Without any Ire

I'm a vegetarian and I'm a Mormon. No, the LDS church doesn't teach vegetarianism, and no, the vast majority of Mormons are not vegetarians. I've posted before about how my choice to be a vegetarian was a very personal, very important choice to me. It came about through a long series of events. I understand that it was MY choice, and might not be yours. If you are not vegetarian, that's ok! I really don't see a problem. I don't feel the need to preach vegetarianism all over. I don't feel the need to try and convince others to make the same choice. In fact, Sometimes I'm afraid to bring up the fact that I am a vegetarian; while it's no longer a big deal to me, it can be a huge deal to others. I don't want to cause a scene or anyone to make a huge deal out of it. I don't want to offend anyone or have them think that I'm snobby or something. I really don't like to bring it up at all in church; because once you mix in the gospel, it goes from opinions about life choices to opinions about the scriptures, and that gets complicated. I try really hard to avoid the subject when I am in a teaching position because I don't want to distract from Christ by arguing about diet. When I am in a teaching position, I even try to stay from Doctrine and Covenants 89:12-15, because I think that if I read it, they will dismiss it as a biased opinion, rather than actual doctrine.

But, I still have strong opinions about it. And I think I'm right (I wouldn't have the made choice if I thought I was wrong!). If you get me started, I do have arguments and points and facts, but mostly, I just don't get started.

Today I taught my Sunday School class a special lesson. It was a lesson several months in the making, and it was a entitled "Super Plan of Salvation Super Lesson". The kids knew it was special and even prepared for it weeks beforehand. During the lesson a few of them even reminded the others to be quiet because it was a super lesson. 

We were on topic. The kids were involved, I was teaching, they were learning, things were going great! They were raising their hands and asking such great questions. We were having some really great discussions and then one kid raised his hand and asked: "Will we eat meat in the millennium?" 

I stopped dead. "Uh, you know..." I had my answer. I thought of a few quotes to back up my answer. I wanted to argue the point of eating meat before the millennium. But all I said was "you can't get an unbiased answer from a vegetarian." 

Which I knew was a mistake as soon as the words left my mouth. The kids immediately gasped and asked if I was vegetarian, to which I responded yes and suddenly we were WAY off topic. Questions rained down about why and how and what I ate and if my child ate meat and on and on. Oh dear. 

I managed to steer the conversation back to the lesson. And I managed not to voice my strong opinions. So I'll call that a win. 

The lesson itself was a huge success, I think anyway. You'd have to ask the kids. 

That's Tom Wolfe. He Uses More Exclamation Points than Any American Author

Ever since my laptop died and was replaced by a desktop with a plug-in keyboard, I have noticed an increasing number on uncapitalized I's in my emails and posts. I blame this on some weird keyboard quirk.

Last week I finally complained to Drek about it and he added that the keyboard drove him crazy because of the positioning of the arrow keys. The next thing I knew Drek and purchased a new keyboard for us and my I's were back to their regular capitalization.

Sadly, yesterday Ash decided that our new keyboard needed a bath. We dried it out best we could, but now I am noticing that I cannot type an exclamation mark or an at symbol. I can type the number one: 1. I can type the number two: 2. but when I add the shift key, nothing is typed. I never realized how much I use exclamation points.

This has created a small problem in that tone isn't expressed in written form, so when I say something like:

Great We can't wait to see you

It comes across as more sarcastic. Huh. Is

Great exclamation point We can't wait to see you exclamation point exclamation point 

any better? Maybe we just need to go back to uncapitalized I's for a while.

I Don't Know Half of You Half as Well as I Should Like, and I Like Less Than Half of You Half as Well as You Deserve

My wonderful husband turns thirty years old today! A big happy birthday to my wonderful Drek! 

I wanted to make this birthday especially special. All the gifts were thirty-themed: 

So he got the three movies of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, the first movie of the Star Wars trilogy (Thanks to my wonderful parents who decorated the package below!)a thirty dollar gift card to his favorite store, and thirty thirty-minutes massages. I also wrote out thirty cards, each with a reason why I love him and a one dollar bill. I hid them around the house. He is looking for them right now! 

 

I also made eclairs. From scratch. They turned out so very perfect: 

I made them for him to take to work to share with his co-workers, but he forgot them and was too busy to come back home during lunch. So, sorry co-workers. I tried.

Ash and I made him a banner with a lot of help from my nieces and nephew!

And tonight we are going laser tagging and eating birthday cake! Proving that just because you're thirty, doesn't mean you still can't act like a college kid. 

Why Would a Child Go to the Zoo?

The end of November means the end of our season passes to the zoo. We got them as Ash's Christmas present last year. We've gone about two dozen times and boy, was it worth it! We have loved every zoo trip! Sadly, we will not be renewing, as it's just a little too far to keep driving twice a month. 

We went for the last time today. It was an amazing experience; we happened to be there when they were walking a cheetah, but this time the staff actually stopped to talk to us. I was only two feet away from a cheetah for about five minutes. I could hear it purr. It was AMAZING. 

But it hasn't been my only amazing experience at the zoo. So, for this post, I present my top zoo moments (not necessarily in order): 

Baby Hippo water ballet: 

The best exhibit in the zoo: The otters. I LOVE this exhibit:

Actually seeing a red panda. Because every time I go to the zoo it's always hiding. When this one was actually out and eating it's lunch, I nearly had a heart attack:

Watching a Cheetah run seventy miles per hour

When Your Opponent's Sittin' There Holding All Aces, There's Only One Thing Left to Do: Kick Over the Table

Thanksgiving vacation was wonderful!

It started off on Wednesday; Drek had to go into work and I wasn't expecting him hope until five or six (that is not the wonderful part). Ash went down for a nap around noon, so I sat at the computer, furiously typing away a scene in my novel. I was in the zone; thoroughly captivated by burglars breaking into a dark house, guns abounding, and people being locked inside dog kennels. Right in the middle of this, the back sliding door opened and a man walked into my house. I must have jumped five feet. I gasped at flailed around.

Drek paused for a second: "You okay?"

"You scared me! I thought you were a burglar with a gun coming to lock me in a dog kennel!"

"I just came home from work early."

"Well, why didn't you use the front door?"

 Drek shrugs. But hey, he was home from work early! We played for the rest of the day. That night I went off to a girl's musical night. We watched Robin and the Seven Hoods.

Thursday morning we got up and played some Frisbee golf. I didn't actually start cooking until an hour before dinner. We went to a wonderful dinner over at our wonderful neighbor's house. The food was wonderful and the company was fantastic. After dinner we went over to a friend's house to eat pie and play games: We had twelve pies: Banana Cream, French Silk, Lemon Meringue, Cherry, Cherry Cream, Buttermilk, Pumpkin, two pecan and three Dutch Apple. For more variety we had a Pumpkin cake and little sweet potato tartlets, plus ice cream, whipped cream, and cool whip. Sadly, everyone had a huge dinner (and we had eaten a few slices of pie already) so the pies were mostly left for the next day. Still, the night was wonderful. We played some great games and had a wonderful time! 

Friday morning we played some Frisbee golf, then went on a short hike for the most spectacular view! Then we decided it was time for Christmas; we bought a tree and Christmas lights for our house. The rest of the day and most of Saturday was spent decorating our house for Christmas, listening to Christmas music and just having a great time together. My good friend came down to visit for a few hours and that was wonderful. Ash was sleeping and Drek was out at a movie with friends so we had a lot of time to talk. It was wonderful. Saturday we went to the beach and spent a lot of time outdoors because the weather was just so perfect!

I am so thankful for the wonderful time we spent together! I am thankful for my family and for such good friends.

Thirty Days and Nights of Literary Abandon

And I'm done. 

With NaNoWrimo, not my novel. My novel is coming along nicely, but is not yet finished. I think I'm a bit more than half-way. 

I'm going to admit right now; I cheated just a little bit.  During NaNoWriMo you're supposed to write 50,000 words of your novel. Most days, I was in the flow and the frustrating thing was that I couldn't find time to write. However, there were a few days (towards the end, or course) where I was hit with Writer's block. So, to get my word count for the day, I wrote character description. These really helped me to solidify a few plot points. it also really helped clarify things and bring more character to my characters. It was also a good cure for writers block so I could keep writing in my novel. However, on November 23, when my word count his 50,090, I took out those character descriptions and realized that I had just lost 8,000 words. 

But, it was only November 23. You can't officially win NaNoWrimo until Nov 25, so I thought I'd keep writing and replace the 8,000 words from my character descriptions with 8,000 words of my actual novel. 

Yeah, since then I've averaged 500 words a day. And now Thanksgiving is over and everything for Christmas needs done NOW, so I'm out of time. That's okay though. I did end up with a final word count of 50907, and if some of that is character descriptions, that's okay. I'll keep working on my novel, but right now I need to do the things I've been neglecting all November. Like: cleaning my house, eating vegetables, actually talking to my husband and yes, posting on my blog. 

I am going to give myself a new goal: I need to write 5,000 words a week until the first draft of my novel is completed. That's not a lot compared to what I've been doing (my goal was 2,273 words a day) but it's still enough to make me sit down and write during my toddler's naptime. 

We All Do Extol Thee, Thou Leader Triumphant, And Pray That Thou Still Our Defender Will Be

Last year I started thinking a lot about why I hate Thanksgiving so much. I love Holidays. I use any excuse to throw a party and often make up Holidays just because I want to. So why don't I like Thanksgiving?

There are many, many reasons, but I wanted to focus on what I could to like it more. What could I do to make Thanksgiving fun not only for me, but for my child, whom I don't want growing up hating Thanksgiving.

Last year I made a Thanksgiving themed meal a few days before Thanksgiving. I decided to do that again this year. I did it on Monday. We had the missionaries over for dinner, so it was a good excuse to do a really fancy dinner.

We had Rolls and stuffed mushrooms and cranberry sauce. Everything was from scratch except the cranberry sauce, which Drek loves from a can, in the shape of a can. 

I made a delicious juice drink made with apple juice, cranberries and pumpkin pie spice!

Dessert was an amazing lemon meringue pie made from real lemons from our friend's tree. So delicious! 

The main course was Orange You Glad It's Thanksgiving soup. I made a few modifications from last year, but had problems because I didn't follow the recipe last year and didn't write down the changes I made. So, for my use in future years, I will include my own recipe in this blog post. 

The dinner was great. Like last year, I had a wonderful time both making it and eating it. It didn't take tons of prep time and, while I was in the kitchen for a few hours, it wasn't ALL DAY.

I also wanted to focus on what I think Thanksgiving should be about; That is, being thankful. At the beginning of November my toddler and I made this:

Everyday at dinner we each wrote something we were thankful for on a leaf and taped it up to our tree.

While I cooked in the kitchen, I made a you tube playlist of songs about Thanksgiving; hymns, melodies and such. I enjoyed that quite a bit.

I liked my little way of celebrating: No pilgrims, no turkeys, no traveling. Lots of good food (but not too much) lots of good music, more gratitude and more family time. I'll try to improve on it next year.

The other interesting thing is since I did the dinner on Monday, I feel like Thanksgiving is already over. it's odd that people are still preparing for it. Another benefit is that since Drek has Thursday off from work, I can spend the day with him instead of in the kitchen. And actually, we are still celebrating Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving, but I put Drek in charge of Thursday, so we'll do whatever he wants to do.

Orange You Glad It’s Thanksgiving Soup 
2 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 medium onion, finely chopped
3 carrots, finely chopped
1 sweet potato, peeled and finely chopped
1 baby butternut squash, peeled and finely chopped
1 orange
Salt and pepper
1 cube vegetable bouillon
3 cups water
Grated nutmeg

Heat a soup pot over medium-high heat. Add butter. When butter has melted, add the onion, squash, sweet potato and carrots and cook until vegetables are soft, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Deglaze with the juice from the orange and simmer for 1 to 2 minutes, scraping the bottom of the pot with a wooden spoon. Transfer the mixture to a food processor or a blender. Puree the mixture until smooth, then put into crockpot. To mixture, add water and bouillon and stir to combine. Adjust the seasoning. before serving, grate some fresh nutmeg and stir to combine. Ladle soup into bowls and garnish with chopped  orange zest.

I'm Calling to Celebrate a Momentous Occasion. We're Now Officially Moved In

Yesterday was 11/11/11 and it was quite a magical day. First, I hit the 25,000 words mark in my novel, meaning I am halfway through NaNoWriMo, so I can post on my blog, right?

It also marked a momentous occasion:  I finally unpacked the last box. Now, it's official. Ha, ha, ha.

The last box had been sitting in a corner, all by itself, ever since I finished unpacking all the other boxes. What was in the last box? Books, of course. I couldn't unpack them because I had no where to put them. That is, until yesterday, which is reason number three yesterday was such a magical day:

I got bookshelves! I got two matching ones off of Craigslist. They are seven feet tall and three feet wide and can hold a lot of books. They can hold so many books, after putting them up and stuffing them with all the books we own, there are still a few empty shelves. Hooray!

From what I could tell from the women I bought them from, she inherited the bookshelves when she bought the property that used to be a library in a neighboring town. So I guess my bookshelves used to be actual library shelves. That's pretty cool, right?

Well, See Ya On The Other Side

And it's November! I'm off to do NaNoWriMo again this year.

Two years ago I wrote my first novel, last year I edited  (read: rewrote it) it. A few months ago, when my laptop exploded, so did the novel. So it's gone and lost forever, which is good, because they always tell you your first novel should be tossed anyway.

This year I'm writing a new novel, the first in a trilogy (Or that's the plan anyway, we'll see how reality pans out).

Wish me luck!

I'll blog again when I win, or in December, since this is my first NaNoWriMo with a toddler (gulp).

If You Think Being a Ninja's Hard Work, Try Being a Mom

Happy Halloween! 

On Saturday we went to a Halloween party. They had a place for us to take pictures in our Halloween costumes. This year we are a Ninja family! Here we are using our ninja skills and posing for the picture: 

Giggle giggle. Get it? Because we're ninjas you can't see us. Actually, Ash and I went trick-or-treating at some local businesses. We went into a chocolate store (that was NOT giving away chocolate to trick-or-treaters but plain old tootsie rolls. So sad) and the girl behind the counter said "You! Ninja! I can see you! You're not being very ninja-y!"

Oh, but I suppose you really do want to see our costumes. Well, ok:

The downside of being the shutterbug in the family is you have tons of pictures of other people's costumes, but none of your own. Just take my word for it that my costume was cool. 

You Actually Go Outside in These Things? Well, What Would You Prefer? Yellow Spandex?

Have I mentioned how much I love Halloween? I LOVE Halloween. My favorite part is the costumes. I love homemade costumes the best, and I love themed costumes even more. This year so far, I've mostly loved toddler costumes, as it was a big part of my life this year. I've also noticed that here in Sunland, people dress up their dogs for Halloween. A dog in a costume is always adorable: no matter how store-bought or homemade. 

This year i made our Halloween costumes. Here we are: 

A family of ghosts!

Bawahaha. Ok, ok, these are actually homemade Halloween decorations I made for our house. They look pretty scary at dusk!

What? You didn't actually think I would unveil our costumes before Halloween, did you?

This is War, Peacock. Casualties are Inevitable. You Can Not Make an Omelet Without Breaking Eggs, Every Cook Will Tell You That. But Look What Happened to the Cook!

I do love CLUE. It's my favorite board game: it always has been. I love it so much I have four variations of the CLUE game. I read all the books when I was a twelve or thirteen and I haven't just seen the movie, I have it memorized.

I also love How To Host A Murder parties, and have been dismayed for several years that there was not a CLUE version of How To Host A Murder. So this year, I decided to write my own. This was do mostly to the fact that Rissy and I have been wanting to do another Saboteur game, but we are not in the same state, which makes things difficult. So, instead, we decided to write a How To Host a CLUE together.

At first, we tried to make it so it had the same element as How To Host A Murder; namely, enough real life, real time facts that through logical thinking and the process of elimination, you could reason the identity of the murderer, but also have it be like the board game clue; namely the murder weapon, location and murderer would change each game.

This brought be a whole new respect for the board game CLUE. It is such a perfect game. it's so simple, yet very complex. It's efficient, yet fun. It's... unrepeatable. After puzzling over it for a month, we gave up. We'll keep working on it, but I'm not sure there IS a way to merge the two.

So, we settled on a set murderer, weapon and location and went about writing the game.

I played it with a wonderful group of friends last night. The party was awesome. Not only did the game turn out rather well, but the players were just wonderful. I wish i could have given out awards: best dressed, best hair piece  best reaction, best thinking-on-your-feet, best line, best answer, best cover-up. But then I would have to think actually did those things best, and I wouldn't know.

There were some great lines. I had a hard time falling asleep last night, re-playing all of it in my mind. Everyone just did Such. A good. Job.  I had a wonderful time, I hope everyone else did too.

The Presidents of the Church Lesson 30: Preparing for an Eternal Home

Remember how I was complaining about needing a forum to help me with my Sunday School Lesson Plans? I still haven't found such a forum, but I did discover more reasons why I need one:

I came across lesson thirty in which it gives a great idea:

Activity
 Have the necessary items ready to use in the activity, including the wordstrips. You may wish to give the wordstrips to class members, and, as you name a particular “ingredient,” have the class member holding that wordstrip bring it to the table and place it in the mixing bowl.  Put on the apron and hat, if you have one, and act out the following recipe using the large bowl, mixer, spoon or spatula, and ingredients (wordstrips). As you mix, say the following: 
 These are the ingredients for a heavenly home. First, at the very beginning, invite the Holy Ghost to your home to stay. Crush Temptations and Sin and set them aside outside the bowl. Blend in one Temple Marriage, one Mother (who loves Dad), one Dad (who loves Mother). Gradually add Children. Quickly stir in Living the Gospel: Scripture Study, Prayer, and Meeting Attendance. Sprinkle liberally with Courtesy and Communication. Garnish with the Word of Wisdom: Exercise, Proper Diet, and Rest. Pour Love over everything. Serve with Unselfishness. 


When you have finished with the ingredients, uncover the cookies or other food that you prepared before class. Let each class member take one. Tell them that just as the good taste of the cookies (or candy, etc.) can last, the success in a marriage can last forever if the ingredients are all included. 

 What a delightful idea. But it's kind of sad to put wordstrips into a bowl. How about I put the wordstrips on actual ingredient containers and put real food into the bowl?! We could actually make cookies! What a wonderful lesson to keep the attention of teenagers!

So I searched the internet for an actual cookie recipe that goes along with this lesson. I needed a cookie recipe with the same amount of ingredients, two eggs, and that didn't take much time to bake.

I could not find a recipe. I cannot be the first person ever to change this lesson into an actual cookie-making session. I cannot possibly be the first person to make not-pretend cookies. I found a few blogs referring to family home evening activities where the above lesson was used but none of them actually made the cookies out of the recipe. They just read the recipe and then brought out cookies. Again I cannot be the first person to want to connect the two.

And yet I found myself making up my own cookie recipe to fit the above description and even tweaking the above description to fit my recipe. SO: For all you twelve and thirteen year old Sunday School Teachers who find this blog post because you want to make actual cookies: YOU ARE WELCOME.

I printed out the recipe card for each student. The recipe said this:


Recipe for a Happy Home
 “It’s possible to make home a bit of heaven. Indeed, I picture heaven as a continuation of the ideal home.” David O. McKay 


First, at the very beginning, invite the Holy Ghost to your home to stay 
Mix in Scripture Study, Prayer and Meeting Attendance 
Create a temple marriage by blending together one Mother (who loves Dad) and one Dad (who loves Mother). 
Beat together the Temple marriage and unselfishness. 
Add Word of Wisdom. 
Crush Temptations and Sin, and add. 
Stir Temple Marriage mix in with dry mix.
Gradually add Children 
Sprinkle with Courtesy and Communication 
Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets and bake in Love 

And on the back I had this:
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour = Holy Ghost
1 teaspoon baking soda = Scripture Study
¼ teaspoon baking powder = Meeting Attendance
1 teaspoon salt= Prayer 
1 cup (2 sticks, 1/2 pound) butter, softened = Unselfishness
3/4 cup granulated [white] sugar = Mom (who loves Dad) 
3/4 cup packed brown sugar = Dad (who loves Mom) 
1 teaspoon vanilla extract = Word of Wisdom 
1 teaspoon nutmeg = Courtesy 
1 teaspoon cinnamon = Communication 
2 eggs = Temptations and Sin 
2 cups Chocolate chips= Children 
1 small mixing bowl = Temple Marriage
Bake at 375-degree for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown = Love

 I did have class in the kitchen and we did actually make the cookies. Beforehand I had re-labeled the ingredients to look like this:

 At the beginning, I had each student pick out an ingredient (or two or three). I read the recipe out loud and every time we used an ingredient the student read the label out loud and then added it in. To make the labels I used what was in the manual but sometimes I thought the manual was dumb. Other times the manual didn't have anything so I made it up. Had I had more time (read: Had I not had to make everything else up on my own) I would have had a scripture or David O. McKay quote on each label. As you can see with some labels I just got lazy (Meeting Attendance is labeled: It's important)

If I had my forum where I tell other teachers how my lesson went I would say something like this: WARNING: You know how you are not supposed to use the church ovens to bake anything? I thought that was just because they didn't want you to burn the church down so I baked the cookies in the oven anyway. As it turns out you're not supposed to bake anything because the wonderful cookie smell goes through THE ENTIRE CHURCH and your whole ward will come in asking for cookies and asking if you actually baked in the ovens even though there is a sign right above them telling you not to.

But this activity really did hold the kid's attention. And they did listen and have a great discussion. And the cookies were delicious.

Trying To Make Breastfeeding Normal

A girl in my ward had her baby shower today. She kept telling me she'd send me a list of things she still "needed" for the baby, but she never did. The day of the shower I still had no gift, so I was left to my own devising. 

I devised this: 

It's a Breastfeeding Basket. I saw the idea on Lactating Girl's blog. It's a great gift for baby showers to help the mom-to-be prepare for breastfeeding. in my basket I included a water bottle (to stay hydrated) lots of protein bars (for easy snacks) Mother Love nipple cream, Mother's Milk Tea, Fenugreek pills, and these things called Booby Tubes I found that help with engorgement and mastitis. I also included a flyer for a free babywearing class in the area, and a breastfeeding support group. I wanted to include LLL's paper on breastfeeding after a C-section, but I don't own a printer. So, instead I emailed her that information and stuck in a little index card with her local LLL group's info.

I don't really think she liked it: She's not really big on breastfeeding (she is, after all  electing to have a C-section. It's already been scheduled and she's already hording the baby formula samples the hospital and her OBGYN office gives out). Usually I spend around ten or fifteen dollars on gifts, while this collection cost me almost fifty dollars.

It would be more normal for me to give her a set of baby bottles or pacifiers. But that's why I wanted to give this gift so badly. I want supporting moms to breastfeed be a normal thing in our society, instead of setting up all the booby-traps.  I would have LOVED a gift like this and I felt good giving it. And maybe it will help her to choose to breastfeed, or at least help normalize it in her mind.

One Thing is True of All Governments - Their Most Reliable Records are Tax Records

I got our first Property Tax bill yesterday. Property taxes are weird. The government sets a fixed percentage for most taxes, then sees what revenue flows in, but for property taxes the city government sets the exact revenue it wants to collect, and then works out what percentage to charge each existing property to get that revenue. It's weird.

Also weird are the odd fees added on to my bill. The actual amount I'm paying in property taxes is about a thousand dollars less than the total bill. That's because I have so many added fees: Unified School fee, Community College fee, both of which I understand, but are useless to me. Then all the charges for water: Metro water fee, not to be confused with the metro water standby fee, and different from the water availability fee. All these are separate from the sewer service fee. And keep in mind I pay the water company twenty dollars a month on top of my actual water bill, for things like "water cleaning" and "pipe maintenance cost."

But then we get to the fees I can't figure out: Mosquito surveillance fee? Vector disease control fee? Rabid Raccoon Zombies prevention fee? Ok, I made that last one up. But the other two are actually on my bill. Do I really pay some guy to sit around watching mosquitoes? Is that a good job? Does he make enough to own a house? Does he pay a Mosquito surveillance fee with his property taxes?

Transformation Central! Reformation Central! Transmogrification Central!

Remember how out house is twenty-five years old? The garage door is just as old. It's been estimated that the springs were replaced about fifteen years ago, and the bottom board of the garage door was replaced when we moved in because it had became a favorite meal of termites, but other that than, our garage door was wooden, manual, creaky, and according to some, likely to collapse at any time.

Today marks the momentous occasion of our new garage door! It was installed a few hours ago. It looks awesome. It makes our house look less... abandoned. Really, it makes the outside of our house look so much better. Now all we need is a lawn! And a new exterior, but those are minor details.

Jasmine has been living in the garage for a few months now, and last month Drek was awesome enough to clean and organize the entire garage, so Jasmine had a very comfortable home. Now it has the much-desired accessibility feature: we can open and close the garage door with the touch of a button. I could not be more thrilled.

Don't you just love when you've been saving and looking forward to something for months, and then it happens and it's even better than you expected? Hooray!

You Know How it is When You Get Those Manly Urges and You Just Gotta Kill Somethin'... Fix Things, Cook Outdoors...

Last Sunday in Relief Society we had the Elder's Quorum secretary come in to make an announcement:
"Yes, so...the Elder's Quorum is having a camp-out this week, Friday night to Saturday morning. We leave at four so if your husbands come rushing home at three thirty yelling for a sleeping bag and claiming they have a ward thing, it's legit. You might want so set out their sleeping bag for them. Maybe even remind them."

A woman raised her hand and asked if they would be taking the kids. The Secretary cringed and said something along the lines of "Elders only. There are absolutely no  children allowed. We'll be shooting guns and driving around cars and have fires." He hinted at things exploding.

So Drek left yesterday for the camp-out. I stayed home with Ash and fixed my clothesline and re arranged the furniture. I got to babysit my little niece for a few hours. She is only four months younger than Ash and they are good friends. I packed them in the bike trailer and went for a ride. One of them would laugh because the bike trailer is a fun ride and then the other one would laugh because the first one was laughing, and then the first one would laugh because the second one was laughing. It was a wonderful and very giggly bike ride.

After putting the babies to bed I stayed up way too late watching stand-up comedian routines. It's wasn't things exploding, but I still had fun.

Drek came back this morning with all his digits intact. He said they picked up a car and turned it to face a different direction. He also said part of his sock turned to powder. Hmmm...

It's Been Momentarily Misplaced...

I found my keys; they were in my apron. They must have been there since the last yard sale. I also found ten dollars and a bunch of coins. Hooray! 

Today I went to the zoo. I took a backpack filled with snacks and water. We saw a few animals: 

I took my phone out to check the time. I rearranged a few things and we headed off again. While Ash was occupied at the playground, I searched for my phone once again. I could not find it. I searched through every pocket, dumped out all contents and repacked it, but there was no sign of my phone. I sighed, thinking it had to be by the gorillas. I was too lazy to walk back there, so we just came home.

During lunch I heard my phone ring. It was coming from my backpack. I quickly dumped everything out to find it. As it turns out my phone had buried itself in my bag of chips.

Mmmmm, cell chips.

And I Just Can't Wait Until Next Halloween Cause I've Got Some New Ideas That Will Really Make Them Scream

Oh, how I love October! I love Halloween, I love Halloween parties, music, movies, books, decorations, food, costumes and especially traditions! One of my (many) favorite Halloween traditions is painting pumpkins together as a family! We did it early this year because I'm SO excited for Halloween! Drek brought home pumpkins a few days ago and I went out and got some new paint supplies yesterday. Last night we listened to A Nightmare Before Christmas and sat around the table painting our pumpkins!

Here is Drek's: 

Mine:

 And Ash's:

They Pitched their Tents Round About the Temple, Every Man Having his Tent With the Door Thereof Towards the Temple

We just finished a wonderful General Conference weekend! True to the form of King Benjamin, we set up our tent facing the prophet. 

It was set up inside out living room, and by facing the prophet I mean facing the computer, but it worked out quite nicely: 

I had a grand idea to live off of nothing but our 72-hour kits during the 48 hours of General Conference, but after the first two meals I discovered something starteling: MRE's are gross. Which is good to know. I now have a shopping list of what we need in our kits (things like forks) and what we need to replace (MRE's with edible food). Not that the MRE's aren't fantastic food storage, I just think if we are ever in need of our 72-hour kits, we'll want comfort food, not survival food.

I thought Conference was especially amazing this year, and the announcement of a second temple in Provo is particularly exciting! I can't wait for the talks to be uploaded to LDS.org so I can listen to them again!

Take it From an Old Spectator. Life's Not a Spectator Sport. If Watchin' is All You're Gonna Do, Then You're Gonna Watch Your Life Go By Without Ya

Last night Drek took me to to live performance of Stephen Schwartz songs (isn't he the best?!). We've been on several live-theater dates before, but this one was definitively the most...odd.

Their performances were about what we expected; not professional, but fun and the variety of singers made it better. The songs were a little surprising: They sung almost every single song from Wicked (including As Long As Your Mine. I'm not going to lie, I love listening to that song, but watching it performed is...awkward. I had a hard time watching that scene when we went to go see the professionals perform Wicked. I had an ever harder time watching this performance. Why would you chose THAT song?) and had a huge chuck left over for Children of Eden. One song from Pippin, One song from Pocahontas, one song from Prince of Egypt, one song from Godspell, one song from Rags and one song from Hunchback of Notre Dame (Stephen Schwartz did Hunchback?!). So why did Schwartz do so many religious-themed musicals? Anyone know the history there?

But that wasn't the odd part. The odd part was the audience. It was clearly comprised of friends and family of the performers. There was a surprising number of cheers when certain people were on stage and even a few catcalls. When one girl finished a solo someone in the audience started selling her autograph.

During intermission, the theater sold plastic cups of wine and raffle tickets for an enormous bottle of vodka. The winner of the raffle and he broke open the bottle during the second half of the performance. Since most of the audience had those plastic cups left over, it was easy to share. Needless to say the audience during second half was a bit more rowdy than the first. I didn't realize an audience could be that vocal.

I think the audience cheered up the performers a bit: they were a lot more energetic during the second half than in the first. But really, I thought they did a good job in both. I highly enjoyed the night and liked all the performances.

Walking back to our car we saw a raccoon scamper across the street. Yeah, a raccoon. A real one. That was possibly my favorite performance.