Planes, vans and boats

Travelled to Ohio with good speed and good spirits. Found all well there and children were excited to see the family!

Slept poorly, woke up early (3:45) and travelled for 12 hours with several mishaps before we finally find ourselves seated on our gorgeous balcony!

Excited to cruise with the sibs!

Friday night

mimi love

I love this happy picture! I love the bright yellow walls that match Miss Tate's sunny sandals.  I love PJ's happy grin and they way they are holding hands.  You can smell the chlorine and feel the "yay! summer is coming"ness with out even being there!

Today we are getting ready for spring break.  Grace will ride and Bub will have a game, kids have school and I have the last of the piles of laundry (since Hannah finally cleaned her room).  Rob will mow the lawn and we'll make sure we have dog food, and all else that is needed. Grace and Ethan are all packed and are super excited to go to visit their grandparents. Abba's got the pool ready to go and I know he and Nana are excited and making fun plans for Camp Grandparents!  I am so grateful and glad that they love to spend time with the kids and always happily take them when we are away and make such happy memories with them.

I wish Dani and Greg would go somewhere so I could have Camp Mimi! Cute little toots!

And our weather is beautiful today! It's supposed to be 79 degrees this afternoon.  Finally some sunshiny warmth!!

That is all.  Happy Friday!

hanniebanannie

This cute girl got a part in a one act at school! She is very excited.  Han has wanted to be in acting for a long time.  She always begs us to take her to auditions and wants to be on TV.  She wanders around the house singing all.the.time. She auctions for school stuff all the time too and has been very disappointed not to get many roles.  She doesn't give up though and keeps plugging along.  I am proud of her stick-to-itiveness.  I am very excited for her and looking forward to going and watching her performance.  I am all for school/community theater and the fun she can have on the stage.  Honestly we have not been at all supportive of her pursuing a national career and have not taken her for professional photographs or gotten an agent or driven to NYC for auditions.  I always tell her if she wants to do that when she is grown that's her choice and I will be supportive and happy for her but I am not facilitating that happening now.  I think it's a tough industry to keep your moral compass in, if you even do become successful.  There are a lot better things to do with your time and talents.

crazy

It's so funny because some weeks I really don't have that much going on.  This week has been so busy though.  First of all I am getting ready for our cruise.  This feels like getting ready for a honeymoon.  We are very excited and I've bought new swim suits for us both and am doing important things like buying sunscreen, checking the weather at every port we're going to visit and talking to Val every day about what to pack, how many flip flops to bring, etc.
Also at the same time I have to get everything ready for the kids to  go spend a week with their grandparents, and the house and pets to be home alone.

Meanwhile the week has been busy with other activities too.  Monday I spent the day doing some banking.  Yesterday I went to the temple with Laura, Amanda, Jodie and Kris.  This also takes all day.  We left at 8am.  Got home at 4pm.  I grabbed Grace and we went to the barn where she had a lesson, then we went to Aubrey's barn to pick her up and Grace got to help her with her barn chores ( a super great treat!)  We got home for the second time at 6:40.

Today we drove to VA to check out our girls camp site for this year.  It's really nice and we needed to go. But again all day.  Tonight I have a girl scout meeting.  I have to laugh. When it rains it pours.  Jodie has been having the same kinds of days and she's getting ready to leave to Dubai this weekend.  

After tonight I have said no to every extra thing that is a possibility and I am concentrating on doing all the laundry, getting ready for our trip, getting everything clean and nice (in case we die while we are gone), taking Hannah and Ethan to the dentist to get fillings done, going back to the barn one more time and I don't know what else.  This weekend we actually have two stake activities but fortunately Tara and Becky will take care of that so I am just letting it go.

stories

This is one of my favorite pictures of me and my mom and dad.  I was a pretty cute little baby.  We were, I believe, and as is clearly evident by the folks casual and outdoorsy attire, "camping" at Russian River.

Tonight Tatum called us as she was having family home evening with her mom and dad and little sister Penny.  They were learning about families and she wanted to ask us some questions.  Among them were "will you tell me a story about when you were little?"  Grandpa and I both proceeded to tell her scary stories.  What is wrong with us?  I told her about man eating pigs chasing my brother and I as we scrambled up the side of a car and stood on the roof screaming for help.  They were blood thirsty I tell you.  He told of cracking his head open at the swimming pool and needing stitches.  We are fabulous grandparents.  I think he may have saved the day by recalling, at the last second, how he found "Tigger" a cute orange kitten and brought him home in his duffel bag.  Happy ending, he got to keep the cat.

It is always the drama rich, near death experience, fight to the death, nightmares and unfairnesses of childhood that are recalled first.  Why is that?

I do have a few fun stories as well.  For example: I remember mom and dad calling to tell us that Michael had been born.  Aunt Marie Jeanne was staying with us and she helped us make a welcome home poster for him.

We often played in the backyard.  We had a tire swing that we loved and a good climbing tree at our little H-7 house. We loved to watch Star Trek and would often play that we were an away crew using my barrettes as communicators and looking for aliens.  I was, of course, the Captain.

Mom wanted us to take herbs at one point.  She thought they'd be good for us.  I could not swallow a pill however so I had the brilliant idea of breaking it open into a cup of water.  I, erroneously, thought that a lot of water to dilute it would be a good idea.  It was a terrible idea.  A little bit in a quick swallow would have been much more doable.

My favorite food as a little kid was Kraft mac and cheese.  I remember going to the dentist to get some teeth pulled and coming home and sitting at the island in our kitchen and eating the cheesy goodness one noodle at a time.

I don't remember many of our toys but I have some memories of a few favorites.  I had a little people doll house that I liked to play with.  I remember laying in my bed, it was yellow and my quilt was purple with raggedy ann dolls on it which my mom had made, and wondering about the little people in the house.  Did they think they were real?  Was there some giant playing with my family like dolls in a dollhouse?  I used to think the sky looked fake, like someone threw a big black blanket across a box with twinkly lights in it.
I also remember getting a Bionic Woman doll one Christmas that I really wanted, and a pair of white roller skates with orange wheels that I also really wanted a different year.  Lana and I took skating lessons.  Our moms made us matching skating dresses and we would go to the rink and skate around with Olympic dreams in our heads.  Roller skating never did make it into the Olympic line up but were were convinced it would.

Back in the day we went to church several times on Sunday.  I remember sitting in junior Sunday school and taking the sacrament.  I don't recall if this was a weekly occurrence or if it was for stake conference or what but I do remember sitting by my friend Shelly.  We both had gloves on and she told me to take my right glove off and take the sacrament with that hand.

I remember the TV shows we watched.  First of all the TV didn't play shows all the time.  At some point the channels turned to a repeated loop of a flag waving and the star spangled banner playing.  None the less we had some favorites.  On Sunday nights our whole family would watch Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, followed by "The Wonderful World of Disney".  Each week we'd watch Little House on the Prairie and The Walton's. Of course we watched Star Trek and for some reason we watched Kung Fu.  Later on a remember my mom watching "The Love Boat" and "Fantasy Island" but were were not allowed too because it was too mature.  Sometimes Alec and I would sneak out of bed and lay behind the couch where we could see the TV but she couldn't see us.  TV was not a big part of my life growing up, I always preferred to read.  Lana and I would walk to the library every week and get a stack of books to read.  I do remember Val and Anna watching "My Little Ponies", and liking some shows as a teen like "The Dukes of Hazard", "CHiPs" and "The Brady Bunch".

When we moved to our Camolin house I had a green and white gingham bedroom with a secret safe in the floor. Lana and I both read Nancy Drews and wanted to be detectives so this was endlessly fascinating to us.  We walked to school many many blocks with a bunch of kids, and back again in the afternoon.  We walked slowly, talking and stopping.

My brothers and many strange pets.  We had a lot of dogs, many named Rex and one named Fritz before Michael eventually got Cleo and she stuck.  We had Heidi our cat forever. Then there was the menagerie.  We had Captain, the conure, many a fish, lots of snakes, turtles, a chicken (mine- who died the same summer I won him :( ) , bugs and spiders, more cats and puppies, lizards, parakeets, hamsters and I don't know what else.  Captain ate our wall paper. He also sat on Michael's shoulder while he rode his bike around the neighborhood.  One night I woke up to use the bathroom and found a snake curled up by the bathtub.  I went to wake up the boys and was asked in sleepy voices "what color is it?" and when I replied they said, "oh don't worry that's not a poisonous one".

We spent time each season working at the church farm.  Also picking fruit for ourselves.

Every year we went to the beach to camp for a week.

Hanging out in the desert was a real activity , as was riding our bikes, riding horses, laying on the grass, practicing our mind reading skills, climbing up onto the roof and other fun things.

My favorite game was Chinese checkers, favorite ice cream was mint chip (From Thrifty), favorite color was red, number 7 and music was anything by John Denver.

I remember one fun birthday party that Alec had.  His birthday was the day before Halloween and we had a costume party for him one year.  We played lots of games and ate hot dogs on a big sheet spread out in the living room.

Mom had a big black trunk with old clothes and dance recital gowns and stuff in it.  At Halloween we would open the trunk and rummage.  One year I was a pink princess and was mad because I had to wear an ugly sweater under the dress.

We had the pinewood derby in our backyard when Alec was a cub scout and twice we went to Disneyland.

Next time I'll be better prepared with a happy story!

General Conf Weekend!

Today is April 6th.  Jesus Christ's actual factual birthday and also the anniversary of the restoration of the church and general conference!  Spring has sprung and it's the season of new life, which is appropriate.

Conference watching

We love that we can watch conference at home, in our pajamas with our snacks and quite games.  The kids played marbles on the carpet for a whole hour.

The talks were AmAzInG!!!! Can't wait for the last session, and to watch the talks over again in the coming months.  I love the inspiration and the instruction we get.  

half time walk