As You Wish

New Year, New Blog

2012-01-01T15:57:00.001-07:00

I guess I’m not the kind of person that can keep the same blog address for very long. I have been here on ‘As You Wish’ for 3 years.

I wrote my first post on Dec. 30, 2008
where I introduced our family using names from our favorite movie,
The Princess Bride.

I began ‘As You Wish’ in an effort to protect my family’s privacy by using pretend names.
The blogs I had written on before used our whole names and I didn’t feel safe
using them anymore.

Yes, you noticed that I used the word “blogs” in plural form.
I’ve lost count of how many blogs I have written / been in charge of.
I started out using Microsoft Blog format @live.com
but was persuaded by a friend to come to the more user friendly Blogger.

I enjoyed Blogger so much that not only did I record my family’s activities and my own personal thoughts on a semi-regular basis, but I also started something like a gazillion other blogs:

* My Cloud Blog
* A blog all about Yellowstone Park
* I have a blog dedicated to our hopes and dreams to adopt a child
* At one time we had a blog for my siblings/parents/family
* We even had a blog for a family reunion my sister and I were planning!
* I am also in charge of the blog for our local theatre group

Even though I don’t write on here as often as I should, I obviously LOVE to blog.

And now I feel very strongly compelled to close down this blog and begin anew.

Without going into too many details,
I have decided that changing my blog address is necessary.
Max’s split with his former employer has left us with an extremely bitter taste in
our mouth. We work daily on forgiving, but that doesn’t change the fact
that there are people over there that have this blog address.
Frankly, I don’t want them to know about our life.
Yes, I could ‘go private’ and I’ve thought about that, but having a private blog
is not right for me… at this time.

So, I will be creating a new blog,
a new profile,
and using new names.

I hope to have the new blog up and running within the month.
(I’m in charge of food for another wedding reception this week, so I will have my head in an oven and my brain wrapped around my measuring cups for the next several days!)

If you would like to follow me to my new address, please leave me your email address and I’ll be sure to send you the link when I’ve got it up and running.

Thanks for your patience!

A Little Christmas Cheer

2011-12-21T10:23:00.001-07:00

In honor of Christmas landing on a Sunday this year, I thought I’d post
our family Christmas picture from 2005, the last time Christmas was
on Sunday.

Isn’t that hilarious?

This is one of our FAVORITE Christmas pictures of all time.

Buttercup was 13….
Need I say more?
You don’t need Captain Obvious to point out how excited she was to take a family picture that morning.

We went to church (we had the 1:00 time slot I believe)
and afterward we came home and got this shot.

Sure, it’s a prettier picture
but Buttercup and I love the first picture more
and we laugh about it every time we think about it or look at it.

Why?

We laugh at how silly it is.
How such a simple thing like taking a family picture can blow up into something huge.
And how we still loved each other even though we were mad and frustrated.

It’s a reminder of family bonds.
Of compromise.
Of forgiveness.
Of remembering that families are forever, even though they’re not always perfect.
(I’ve never met a perfect family, have you?)

And most importantly,
It’s a reminder that we love each other.

Boom Juice!

2011-12-14T19:29:00.001-07:00

Inigo and his best friend Bullseye were playing Wii Sports today and yelled something that sounded (to me) like, “BOOM JUICE!”

I said, “Boom juice? What’s that?”

Inigo said, “I didn’t say ‘Boom Juice’, but Bullseye, that sounds delicious! Do you want to go make some?”

The two boys are extremely creative, to say the least. Do you remember this:

The boys got together and made themselves tool belts out of copy paper, paper cups and a few staples. (circa July 2009)

The idea was 100% theirs and they had a blast with it. They filled their ~~cups~~ tool pockets with sticks and pine cones and rocks and anything else that can be imagined into weapons or… come to think of it … light sabers because Luke Skywalker and Han Solo were their heroes at the time.

These boys are two-peas-in-a-pod. Everyone needs a best friend like this. They rarely fight. They encourage each other to be their best.
They both have their individual strengths and weaknesses and where one boy is lacking in something, the other picks up the slack and either carries his friend or boosts his friend up to do better in that certain area.

I was curious what kind of concoction they would come up with.
What their vision of
”BOOM JUICE”
would be…

I stayed away from the kitchen while they ‘cooked’. I listened from afar and was extremely curious when they asked me for a lemon zester and/or juicer. They wanted milk, but settled for some old Diet Coke that has been sitting in the pantry for a year.

I was offered many sips as they stirred and combined and created.
I politely declined each offer.
The whoops and hollers as they thought of a new ingredient to throw in was slightly contagious.
I started to get excited for them.

I will admit, I felt pretty cool when Bullseye said,
”You’re mom is pretty cool to let us do this! My mom would never let us do something like this!”
Of course I love Bullseye’s mom. She’s my morning walking partner and I know that she probably would let them create in the kitchen.

But it was a nice compliment anyway.

Finally, they talked me into having a sip.
It was incredibly sweet, with a touch of zing.
But the sweetness….
Oh, the sweetness!!
I felt my insulin levels rise considerably and knew a diabetic coma was only minutes away.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t too terribly awful.

When Bullseye’s dad came to pick him up, he had to have a taste too.
Only, he didn’t know what was in the cup when he put it up to his mouth.
His eyes opened wide.
His mouth puckered.
He said, “Oh, I wish I would have known….!”
He was a good sport! And laughed after a small gag….

Finally, I asked Inigo what was in their magic drink.
He told me what the exact recipe is.
Now, dear readers, don’t go taking their recipe so you can market it!
We’ll let them make their own money off their creations.

I give you
BOOM JUICE!
by Inigo and Bullseye

A drinking cup filled 2/3 full of water
Half a scoop of sugar
The juice of a whole lemon, minus the seeds
A peppermint candy, swirled through the water until all the red lines are gone
Add 1/4 of cinnamon
(Valerie: I don’t know whether it’s 1/4 cup, 1/4 tsp or 1/4 TBSP)
Add about 2 TBSP of Diet Coke. Milk is another option if your mom lets you.
Stir after each addition.

Merry…. Uh…

2011-12-08T22:39:00.001-07:00

It seems that there is always something going on in our house… some sort of drama, both good and bad:

   * Last summer it was bona fide drama as Inigo and I practiced our singing and dance moves so we could be in our first musical.
   * Preparing for Buttercup’s wedding and reception.
   * Trying to find an affordable place to live in New Florin, while Max travels the long road between both places.

That’s just some of the drama that has happened in the last 6 months.

Last Tuesday the worst horrible drama hit our house:

Max was asked to resign from his job.

Even though we’re trying to remain positive about the situation, I will admit I get sick to my stomach when I think about it and think about the circumstances leading up to it.

You see, Max ended up being the pawn in a political game. Or, you could call him a SCAPEGOAT. Either way, he got the short end of the stick and was unfairly and horribly treated. He is taking the fall for a very BAD MAN - the former CEO of the hospital where he worked- who did some very BAD THINGS.

I’m not sure how much detail I can go into here on this blog. I’d love to tell the whole story… names, places, the whole kit-n-kaboodle, but I’m not sure if this is the appropriate time. Believe me, I’m not going into more detail to protect Max’s former employer. They don’t deserve the consideration. But I do it to preserve Max’s integrity. Also, I don’t want to hurt his former co-workers who are NOT the bad guys in this situation. They felt terrible that Max took the fall for the incompetent Management Company and Bad Man. (Oh, I wish I could name the management company!)

You know, forgiveness is HARD – very hard – when someone has walked up to a person you love and kicked them in the teeth and knocked their feet out from underneath them. This is something that I am going to struggle with for a very long time. I try not to call this company bad names, but every now and again the sailor in me comes out and I find myself calling them “Dirty {Fatherless-Sons-of Mothers}”. I’m so far from being a good person that sometimes I find I can’t control my anger and my resentment toward these people.

Max is a GOOD person. He is 110% HONEST in everything he does. He is so SMART! He is NICE. He trusts people. He doesn’t play political games and tells you exactly how things are. If you poll his employees, you’ll find that 99% of them respect him, like him and trust him. The remaining 1% are the people that are never happy and never like their job or their employers. Sure, he’s been known to make people mad. He’s the accountant that sometimes has to say no. But you’ll find that these people don’t stay mad for long. Ultimately, he’s able to make them see why he had to say no, or why he had to do what he did is in the best interest of the organization. They may not like the answer, but they understand it.

I’ve always wondered what kind of company or corporation fires their employees at Christmas time. Now I know. It’s the most heartless and cruel kind of company. I’ve always felt terrible for the people who have found themselves without a job in the “merriest” time of the year. Now I will forever feel the utmost empathy for them. And I pledge, that if we are blessed enough to have employment next year at this time, that we will do something to help out another family who has found themselves in our situation.

Don’t get me wrong. We are not destitute. We will have a Christmas. It will just be scaled down. Actually, it’s a good thing that I can’t Christmas shop anymore. We can focus more on the life of Jesus Christ. We can focus more on family and spending time together. We are getting away from the commercial aspects of the season and thinking more about the spiritual aspects. I look forward to Christmas Day and spending it playing games and spending quality time with my family instead of being bogged down in wrapping paper and ribbon.

My family has been super supportive through all of this. I was concerned that we wouldn’t be able to have our traditional Christmas Eve dinner at our house. I’ll be honest, I can’t afford to buy all that food now. But they have offered to step in and bring the food. We may not be able to eat our traditional Prime Rib dinner, but a ham dinner will be just as good. And the entertainment – singing Christmas carols around the piano – is FREE! We’ll have the BEST NIGHT EVER!

I don’t tell this story to inspire pity or to make you feel bad for us. I tell it because I need to. Because I need you to know that we’re okay. And we’ll continue to be okay. Because we have each other.

I joke around that everyone who was so busy praying that Max would come home and that we wouldn’t have to move to New Florin prayed him right out of a job. Now they need to get busy praying that we’ll find new employment! SO GET BUSY, EVERYONE! Please?

A Mouth Full of Chocolate (and mint!)

2011-11-22T10:10:00.001-07:00

I am posting this today for Mrs. Maddle Faddle Newlywed who is going crazy baking and cooking delicious things for her cute new husband. I have been impressed with her endeavors and her dedication to her culinary education. They are living in the basement apartment of an elderly couple in our ward and she has not been blessed with the best cooking equipment… the oven doesn’t hold a constant temperature and can be off by about 50°. But she’s hanging in there and I predict that by this time next year, she’ll be an expert!

She has been requesting the recipe for the Brownie Bites that we served at Buttercup’s wedding reception. And I promised to post the recipes for the treats we served… so without further ado, here it is!

Mint Brownie Bites

As I mentioned in a previous Brownie recipe, I am a brownie snob. I have only found THIS ONE brownie recipe that I like. It’s the right level of chocolate and it’s not too dense. Ugh! I HATE dense brownies! The recipe comes from a Taste of Home: Quick Cooking magazine that I got in the mail several years ago.

Brownies
2 C sugar
1 3/4 C flour
1/2 C baking cocoa
1 tsp salt
5 eggs
1 C vegetable Oil
1 tsp vanilla

In a mixing bowl, combine all the ingredients; beat until smooth. (I just use a wooden spoon. I don’t think you need a hand or stand mixer to make this recipe.)

Liberally grease a mini-muffin pan. (I used Olive Oil Pam spray at first, and the brownies did NOT come out! So I switched to regular Pam spray and had no problems after that.) Use a cookie scoop to fill each cup to about 1/2 to 2/3 full.

Bake at 350° for about 12 minutes. But -- and here I’m sorry it’s not more precise -- make sure you start checking them after about 9 minutes. My oven took 12 minutes, but my friend who made these last weekend, only needed to bake them for 9. Ovens can be as unique and different as individual people are!

When they have finished baking, and you have removed them from oven, take a thin spatula that you use for frosting cakes and run it around the outside of each brownie to loosen it up.

Using this spatula, after the brownies have cooled for about 5 minutes, you can then gently pry them out of the pan and onto a wire rack to finish cooling.

Bake the rest of your Brownie mixture. I made sure to spray the pan EACH TIME I filled it. I didn’t want to run the risk of having these babies sticking and getting ruined as I pulled them out of the pan. I needed them to look BEE-YOU-TEE-FULL for the reception!

After you’ve finished baking the brownies, you could seriously walk away and be done. They are delicious right now. That’s how good this recipe is!

But why would you just walk away? Especially when you can take them to the NEXT LEVEL?

Exactly.

Mint Frosting for Brownies
2 C powdered sugar
1 Tbsp water or milk
Food coloring (make whatever color you’d like)
1/2 C butter – softened
1/2 tsp. mint extract

Mix together until creamy. Eezy Peezy, I know!

I put the frosing into a decorating bag and used a Wilton #12 decorating tip to swirl the icing on top of the cooled brownie. Of course, that’s optional.

Again, I could have stopped there. The brownie was beautiful with just that little swirl of color on top! But, I couldn’t walk away, just yet! There is ONE MORE LEVEL!

Chocolate Topping
1 C semi sweet chips
6 Tbsp butter.

Carefully melt in the microwave. I start off by putting it in for 1 minute and then 30 second intervals after that. Stir after each time, making sure you don’t scorch and burn it.

When it’s completely mixed together you take a little spoon and carefully spread it on top of the frosting. Make sure you leave a little edge of the frosting showing! I think it looks prettier that way!

And there you have it! It sounds like it might be a little labor intensive, but it really isn’t. You can knock a batch of these out in just a couple hours and it makes a TON, so you can share it with your friends/neighbors/family/co-workers and still have plenty left at home for you to indulge in. And seriously, they are probably the tastiest thing this side of bacon.

Ballerina to Grappler

2011-11-20T19:12:00.001-07:00

For ten years, Buttercup was an only child. She was a princess. She was girlie to the core…

She wore dresses every day. If I suggested pants, she would put up a fight and refuse to get dressed.
She wore her princess dress-up clothes EVERYWHERE: to the grocery store; to her friends’ houses; to the mall. She also wore her plastic dress-up shoes. You know, the plastic open toed heels that look princess-y and come in a package with a plastic jeweled necklace and tiara?

As such, she didn’t play sports.

Well, we signed her up for soccer one year. She went to a couple practices and when she played in her first game… it was a disaster. Someone kicked the ball to her, and she ran away as fast as she could in the opposite direction. I don’t remember if she was screaming in terror or not, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she was.

It was so terrible for her, that we broke our house rule that you finish everything you sign up for and we let her quit.

One thing she loved to do was DANCE. The pretty costumes, the beautiful hair and make-up. That was her style. So we happily signed her up, year after year, for dance class.

And Max, year after year, sat through hour after hour of dance recitals. He is a cultured guy. He is always willing to go to plays and “high brow” concerts with me. He doesn’t mind a professional ballet on a rare occasion, but to sit through 4 hours of loud, blaring music, watching preteens stumble around on stage is not his idea of a good night.

But he did it, every spring, because he loves his daughter.

When Buttercup was 10, Inigo was born. When he was 3 we signed him up for a “dance class” (it was just a creative movement class) and then we had two kids to watch at dance recital.

Both kids quit dancing the same year. Inigo was about 6 and Buttercup was in high school. Buttercup started being involved in theater and Inigo? Well, there were a few sports he dabbled in, but he didn’t excel at any of them.

Until now. Inigo has finally found a sport that he LOVES. I mean…. LOVES!

Wrestling.

A sport that is the total opposite of dancing. In fact, I’d call it the anti-dancing.

And I know as much about wrestling as Max knows about dancing.

NOTHING!

I always though wresting was an insane waste of time. A bunch of guys rolling around on gross mats, trying to pin each other into obscene positions?

And, can we talk about the outfits? Those unattractive and completely UNFLATTERING singlets?

So, when Inigo came home with the sign up sheet for wrestling, I tried to ignore it. But he persisted and I finally relented. We have been trying hard to find that one sport that he can excel in. One sport that will teach him discipline and good sportsmanship. One sport that will challenge him mentally and physically.

He loves it! He loves going to practice and comes home talking about Half Nelson’s and Double Leg Take-Downs. Don’t ask me what they mean, but he’s learning and figuring it out.

Wrestling was also Max’s sport and he loved it.

But Max is in New Florin, and only able to help Inigo on the weekends when he comes home. That left me to take Inigo to his first tournament last week in Guilder.

I walked in to the school where the tournament was being held and had no idea what was going on. What’s this weigh-in? I really DON’T feed my kid before he weighs in? Weight class? I don’t know what that means.

The chaos and confusion and NOISE that was everywhere drove me BONKERS!

Poor little pre-school aged wrestlers were on the mats, wrestling their little hearts out and when the official raised the arm of their opponent as champion of the match, I watched them burst into inconsolable tears. Sometimes, even the champion would burst into tears, over sheer emotional exhaustion.
My heart was breaking.
Tears were everywhere.

I texted Max and said, “What am I doing here? I don’t want to be here!” and he texted back,

“This is payback for all those dance recitals I had to sit through.”

Ugh.

Touché.

So, I am now taking Inigo to wrestling tournaments and when Max is home, he happily takes him and helps coach him along.

Inigo hasn’t won a single match. He has had a few injuries: an elbow to his eye, a bruised collar bone and sometimes, a battered self-esteem.

He has been pinned by some of the best wrestlers from other programs, but he has also been able to avoid being pinned and timed out the match.

He’s wrestling his little heart out.

The coaches have told us multiple times they are impressed with the drive and fight he’s got in him. They say the only thing that is holding him back is his lack of experience.

And yes, he’s cried.

Buckets.

I’ve seen older, more experienced wrestlers cry just as hard.

Who knew that wrestling was such an emotional sport?

And now that Inigo is an “only child” (at home) we are looking at spending the next several years hanging out at wrestling tournaments.

We’ve switched from princess and ballet
to
wrestling and grappling about on a mat.

Enough Already!

2011-11-17T11:53:00.001-07:00

I have dragged this wedding business out long enough, don’t you think?

Today I’ll post a few shots that the photographer took at the reception. I don’t have photos from the wedding day at the Temple yet. But our photographer for that event has health issues and is confined to bed this week after receiving her monthly plasma transfusion. (I used two different photog’s) We’ll get those when she’s back on her feet…

The FABULOUS kitchen help. Biff’s dad was in a car accident several years ago that left him paralyzed from the armpits down. We weren’t sure he was going to be able to come to the reception, so we were thrilled when he showed up!

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Below are some snapshots that friends and relatives took at the Temple.

The Temple, thankfully, had this beautiful white cloak to loan to the brides. Isn’t it gorgeous?

As we were leaving the temple to go to the luncheon, Buttercup ran into an old friend from when she was just a little, little girl… aged 3 – 6. We knew this girl and her family when we lived on the Oregon Coast. (She and Buttercup have the same name even!)

Buttercup II was recently married and was going to a session at the Temple with her new husband. It was a total coincidence that we ran into them! What a treat for both of them!

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How handsome is this guy?
(He insisted that he have a bow tie and pocket square.)

*****************************

Papa is NOT usually allowed to do this. He usually gives Inigo a funky/weird hairdo.

**********************************

The cute little girls who kept the tables cleaned of dirty dishes. My sweet neighbor made
the darling zebra print aprons for them to wear!

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And finally…
this snapshot sums up our whole weekend.
Buttercup was giddy and happy and just a little silly.
I was overcome with emotion and by the time she and Biff left, I was a bucket of tears and bawling.
And there’s Max.
His life motto is “I’m just happy to be here.”
You can see by the look on his face, that he is.

*********************************

And if you have made it through these long, drawn out posts, I commend you and I thank you. Your dedication to my ramblings is admirable.
I seriously hope to be finished posting pictures and stories.

Although, I haven’t mentioned the story about how I got pulled over by a police officer on our way to the luncheon….

So…. How’d It Go?

2011-11-17T00:19:00.001-07:00

Smoooooth.

Piece of Cake.

Like a breeeeze.

Seriously.

Having the wedding and reception on a different day worked perfectly for us!

(Too bad you can’t hear my singsong voice as I say each different line. It might make this post a little more interesting.)

Setting up for the reception was so easy. No pressure.

I supervised and hung around a little. Our sweet little decorator was so patient with me, but I knew that deep down she was wanting me OUTTA THERE!

And I was happy to leave it all in her EXTREMELY capable hands: I had family at home that needed feeding. I had to get dressed and get my boys dressed. I needed to get my daughter all fancied and gussied up. There was still plenty to do.

But you know me, Miss Control Freak. I needed to see with my own eyes that everything would be done in time.

And it was!! And it was GORGEOUS!! (There’s that sing-y voice again!)

Sadly, I do not have a photo that shows the whole cultural hall all decorated.

I know! I know! Me? Not have a picture? WHAT!?!?

That’s what happens. I was busy making sure everything and everyone was where they needed to be. I handed my cameras off, but – wouldn’t you know it? – both camera batteries died.

I know! I know! Me? Not be prepared with extra batteries? I plead guilty of having a distracted mind. (Many of the following photos were taken with my cameras before they became inoperable.)

Here are a few of the pictures that I do have:

<< The beautiful cake made by Buttercup’s grandma, who is also Max’s mom. Isn’t it gorgeous?

^^^ The pictures above are the centerpieces I was in charge of. (I should explain that the decorator was in charge of all the backdrops, table coverings, chairs, etc. I had to be in charge of everything that went on top of the tables. It was daunting for me… a very non-creative person.) These centerpieces were wine glasses turned upside down with a flower under the cup and candle on the stem/base. I also put heart jewels around the candle, on the base, but you can’t tell in the picture. My mom hemmed the zebra fabric. The decorator, who is simply amazing, then took these glasses and made them pop and look fancier than the vision I saw in my head of how everything was supposed to look.
Also, on the tables were little books I printed up. The cover said, “Words of advice and helpful hints for the bride and groom.” When you open it up it said, “Dear Buttercup and Biff,” with a few lines for guests to write down helpful hints or advice for them. Then there was a place at the bottom for the advice writer to sign.

^^^ These are the centerpieces that were on 4 of the tables. The cute box belonged to the decorator and I just had to fill them.

HA! ME?!?

I don’t do flowers. So I called in reinforcements. You know, a floral “arteest” that has the designer eye: My seester, Red. She did a GORGEOUS job! She rocked the gerbera daisy look that I wanted.

^^^ These are some of the display tables. The top picture is the “display table.” IMHO, it’s the silliest table at the reception. It’s just crammed full of things/pictures/memories of the bride and groom. There was a lots of pressure for me to create a decent display on this table. All of Biff’s photos of his childhood are in a storage unit somewhere, along with all of his childhood memorabilia, so I had to use pictures I lifted off his Facebook page and printed up. Buttercup, of course, has more pictures than anyone has a right to have, so the challenge was NOT picking a photo from every age in her life. I printed most of the pictures as 8 x 10’s but there are a few 5 x 7’s on there too. I then mounted the photo on a piece of artist’s canvas, coated them in a generous covering of Decoupage and planted them on an easel…

The bottom left picture is the “Eats and Treats” table. This photo was taken early in the evening before the reception started, so there isn’t much food on it. Seriously, every time my kitchen help put food out, everyone would run up and start eating, so they had to wait or there would be nothing left for the reception.

The bottom right is the Sign In table. I found the cutest little lamp with fuchsia fringe on it to use at this table, but it was broken and wouldn’t turn on. Bummer. I like the lamp the decorator brought though.

Some details from the tables.

^^^ This shows some detail of the tables. They were triple covered with black and fuchsia cloths and made to look “swaggish” by pulling up the pink cloths and pinning them with a beautiful broach. You can see one of the broaches on the empty table in the background.

Aren’t the chairs cool? Not your ordinary LDS church/ cultural hall chair! I tried to talk the decorator out of using them, but now I’m so glad she insisted (nicely of course).

And that about sums up the reception side of our weekend.

I’m sorry this post is excruciatingly boring.

Oh well. I do it for posterity, right?

One more photo. Sorry it’s blurry. There was bad light and no time to fix the situation. This is Buttercup’s reaction when she saw the decorated room. I kept her out of it until everything was finished, then walked her in with her eyes closed…

Yep! Tears of joy! She was so happy with how it all turned out! And I’m so grateful for everyone that came and helped! There is NO WAY Buttercup could have had such a nice night without all the help that my friends and family gave. I’m so blessed to be surrounded by so many wonderful people.

THANK YOU, EVERYONE!

(Coming tomorrow… professional photos @ the reception. I know you can’t wait!)

Blood, Sweat and Flour

2011-11-14T16:00:00.001-07:00

*Editor’s note: This is the second time I have posted this. The first post had it’s formatting messed up when I opened it up in the “editing” format on Blogger to add an additional photo. Rather than fight the HTML part of making everything look nice, I opted to re-post this in a more readable format. I’m sorry for the people who already left comments on the previous post! I will leave it on my blog because your comments are important to me.

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I’m cheap.

I admit it and I embrace that part about me.

I hate spending money on frivolous things like:

FOOD!

Seriously, how stupid is it to spend a ton of money on something that is so consumable? You eat it, you enjoy it for the 30 seconds it’s dancing around on your taste buds, you swallow it and then… well… we all know where it goes after that.

Yet, I (obviously) enjoy eating.
I really enjoy putting that tasty food on my taste buds for that 30 seconds and savoring each flavor as I chew each bite
(unless it’s really good. Then I just inhale the food.)

That left me in a bit of a conundrum as I was preparing for
Buttercup and Biff’s reception.
How do I serve the tastiest morsels ever without spending a gazillion dollars?

My answer was simple:

I make all the food

1) It’s much cheaper than catering.
2) I am in control of the ingredients.
3) I am in control of the outcome and how it ultimately looks and tastes.
If it tastes great, then I win.
If it tastes bad, then I can’t blame anyone else.
Which can cause a problem
because if it tastes bad and doesn’t work,
I’d rather blame someone else…
Ahh… what a vicious circle!

I digress.

I felt that I would save a lot of money if I made all the tasty reception treats on my own.
So that’s what I set out to do.

Here’s our menu:

1) Ohio Buckeyes
2) Mini pies
3) Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread
4) Oreo Bark
5) Brownie Bites
6) Cream Cheese mints
7) Mini fruit pizzas
8) Mini cream puffs *
9) Mini cheesecake bites *

* Foods that I purchased.

I have to say that I’m pretty proud of how things turned out!

************************

I’ve never planned a wedding reception before, so I didn’t know how to plan the numbers.
I made the Ohio Buckeyes first.
(They are a peanut butter balled dipped in chocolate)
I made about 700 of them and they were the crowning jewel of the refreshment table.
I didn’t realize how many 700 really were.
That was an insane amount.
Steck and I ended up dipping only about 500.
That was an insane amount.

*****************

My mini pie shells were different. I only made about 300 of those.
I used my regular pie shell recipe and a flower cookie cutter to cut the shells out. Then I baked them in mini muffin tins. They were so tiny and cute and the crowning jewel on the refreshment table.
A serious amount of time and effort was needed in baking them. I felt like a quitter when I gave up after baking 300. I wanted to bake more, but I ran out of shortening and was too cheap to buy more.
If 300 wasn’t enough, it was too bad.

We filled the shells with pie filling purchased at Prepared Pantry. which is pretty much the coolest store in the western United States.
We used chocolate, lemon, cherry and apple pie filling. It comes in pastry-type tubes, so it was a breeze to squeeze a dollop into the shell and then top with a squirt of whipped cream from a can.
They were so cute!

(From left: Oreo Bark, Mini Pies, Ohio Buckeyes and Brownie Bites)

The mini fruit pizzas were my crowning jewel.
I saw the idea on Pinterest but used my own recipes.
I baked about 400 round sugar cookies and used my aunt’s fruit pizza recipe to make the cream cheese “sauce” that goes under the fruit.
That was topped with slices of strawberries, blueberries and kiwi.
They were so pretty and absolutely delicious.

***********************
Biff specifically requested the Pumpkin Chocolate Chip recipe. I had help on this one!
I baked the first 5 loaves….my recipe makes 3 at a time.
BUT WAIT!!The math doesn’t work out on that!

When I baked the first 3 loves, I didn’t put parchment paper in the bottom of the pan, so when I dumped them out, the bottom of the bread stuck to the bottom of the pan.
It’s not attractive.
And you can’t serve “unattractive” to your guests.

Sadly, my family had to consume the ugliest loaf that refused to be separated from its baking dish.
It was definitely a burden, but we sacrificed. ;-)

(The recipe is called Better Than Great Harvest Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread.
I promise it wasn’t a burden to consume that destroyed loaf.)
My wonderful seester, Red, made another batch of the bread, so that gave us a total of 8 loaves.

***********************

Remember when I posted my brownie recipe last summer?
That’s the recipe I used for my brownie bites.

When I was baking the mini pie shells, I looked at that cute little mini-muffin tin that I borrowed from Steck and had an epiphany.
I wanted to use that pan to make brownies!
Brownies that were cute, and colorful chocolaty goodness.

So how could I do that?

I held on to the pan and slept and pondered and brain stormed (with myself) on how I could make those bites yummy and memorable and pretty.

And then it came to me!

I have a recipe for mint brownies.
You make a mint flavored frosting and frost the brownies.
Then you slather the top of the frosting with a chocolate coating to seal it up.

I’m pretty sure the brownie bites were the crowning jewel of my refreshment table.
I bought fuchsia food coloring from Prepared Pantry and colored the icing, hoping it would match Buttercup’s color theme.
(It was close… which is pretty good when it comes to food.)

When I finished making them and putting them together, I was very relieved to take 300 of them over to my neighbor’s freezer.
Otherwise we would have taken only about 75 to the reception.
They were so good and extremely tempting!

*****************

The Oreo Bark was not planned. I made it the night before the reception.
Biff loved it.
I tried making a cream cheese and Oreo cookie to fit the color theme, and they FAILED!
Dismally.

This left me with 3 packages of left over Oreos. And I wanted to do something with them.
I remembered seeing a picture on Pinterest where you take crushed Oreos and mix it into melted white chocolate and pour it onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.
When it’s cool, you break it into small pieces and voila!
A delicious sweet treat is born!

I liked how the black and white of the Oreo and white chocolate looked on the table.

****************
Also on Pinterest, I saw a recipe for Cream Cheese mints.
I remember my mom made these when we were little.
I LOVED them!
So I asked Steck if she would make them for me, which she graciously agreed to do.

I was really bummed for a couple days because I couldn't find the left-over mints.
I searched high and low and I couldn't locate them. But today I started cleaning out "Command Central"
-- which is Mom Talk for "The Extra Bedroom Where All the Wedding Stuff is Stashed" --
and lo and behold! there they were!

I was pretty excited!

They were beautiful and matched Buttercup’s color theme as well.

I also found the left over pie shells, so put them together and took a photo so Buttercup and I can always remember what the treats looked like.

*****************

My last two dessert treats were purchased at Sam’s Club. Mini cream puffs (which I hear are quite tasty) and cheesecake bites. I didn’t get a taste of either.

************************

It was a lot of work doing all that baking.
But I had a BLAST!
I’m sure my hands will eventually recover and stop cracking and bleeding from all the washing (dishes and hand washing) that I did, but it was all worth it.

And I’d do it all again.

To save money.

To have fun.

To create a beautiful memory for my child.

**********************

P.S. I will post recipes for these treats, eventually.

Blood, Sweat and Flour

2011-11-14T10:49:00.002-07:00

I’m cheap.

I admit it and I embrace that part about me.

I hate spending money on frivolous things like: FOOD!

That left me in a bit of a conundrum as I was preparing for
Buttercup and Biff’s reception.
How do I serve the tastiest morsels ever without spending a gazillion dollars?

My answer was simple:

I make all the food.

1) It’s much cheaper than catering.
2) I am in control of the ingredients.
3) I am in control of the outcome and how it ultimately looks and tastes.
If it tastes great, then I win.
If it tastes bad, then I can’t blame anyone else.
Which can cause a problem
because if it tastes bad and doesn’t work,
I’d rather blame someone else…
Ahh… what a vicious circle!

I digress.

I felt that I would save a lot of money if I made all the tasty reception treats on my own.
So that’s what I set out to do.

Here’s our menu:

1) Ohio Buckeyes2) Mini pies3) Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread4) Oreo Bark5) Brownie Bites6) Cream Cheese mints7) Mini fruit pizzas8) Mini cream puffs *9) Mini cheesecake bites *

* Foods that I purchased.

I have to say that I’m pretty proud of how things turned out!

************************

*****************

My mini pie shells were different. I only made about 300 of those.
I used my regular pie shell recipe and a flower cookie cutter to cut the shells out. Then I baked them in mini muffin tins. They were so tiny and cute and the crowning jewel on the refreshment table.
A serious amount of time and effort was needed in baking them. I felt like a quitter when I gave up after baking 300. I wanted to bake more, but I ran out of shortening and was too cheap to buy more.
If 300 wasn’t enough, it was too bad.

We filled the shells with pie filling purchased at Prepared Pantry. which is pretty much the coolest store in the western United States.
We used chocolate, lemon, cherry and apple pie filling. It comes in pastry-type tubes, so it was a breeze to squeeze a dollop into the shell and then top with a squirt of whipped cream from a can.
They were so cute!

(From left: Oreo Bark, Mini Pies, Ohio Buckeyes and Brownie Bites)

***********************
Biff specifically requested the Pumpkin Chocolate Chip recipe. I had help on this one!
I baked the first 5 loaves….my recipe makes 3 at a time.
BUT WAIT!!The math doesn’t work out on that!
When I baked the first 3 loves, I didn’t put parchment paper in the bottom of the pan, so when I dumped them out, the bottom of the bread stuck to the bottom of the pan.
It’s not attractive.
And you can’t serve “unattractive” to your guests.Sadly, my family had to consume the ugliest loaf that refused to be separated from its baking dish.
It was definitely a burden, but we sacrificed. ;-)
(The recipe is called Better Than Great Harvest Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread.
I promise it wasn’t a burden to consume that destroyed loaf.)
My wonderful seester, Red, made another batch of the bread, so that gave us a total of 8 loaves.

***********************

Remember when I posted my brownie recipe last summer?
That’s the recipe I used for my brownie bites.
When I was baking the mini pie shells, I looked at that cute little mini-muffin tin that I borrowed from Steck and had an epiphany.
I wanted to use that pan to make brownies!
Brownies that were cute, and colorful chocolaty goodness.
So how could I do that?
I held on to the pan and slept and pondered and brain stormed (with myself) on how I could make those bites yummy and memorable and pretty.
And then it came to me!
I have a recipe for mint brownies.
You make a mint flavored frosting and frost the brownies. Then you slather the top of the frosting with a chocolate coating to seal it up.

I’m pretty sure the brownie bites were the crowning jewel of my refreshment table.
I bought fuchsia food coloring from Prepared Pantry and colored the icing, hoping it would match Buttercup’s color theme.
(It was close… which is pretty good when it comes to food.)

*****************

The Oreo Bark was not planned. I made it the night before the reception.
Biff loved it.
I tried making a cream cheese and Oreo cookie to fit the color theme, and they FAILED!
Dismally.

This left me with 3 packages of left over Oreos. And I wanted to do something with them.
I remembered seeing a picture on Pinterest where you take crushed Oreos and mix it into melted white chocolate and pour it onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.
When it’s cool, you break it into small pieces and voila!
A delicious sweet treat is born!
I liked how the black and white of the Oreo and white chocolate looked on the table.

****************

Also on Pinterest, I saw a recipe for Cream Cheese mints.
I remember my mom made these when we were little.
I LOVED them!So I asked Steck if she would make them for me, which she graciously agreed to do.

I was really bummed for a couple days because I couldn't find the left-over mints. I searched high and low and I couldn't locate them. But today I started cleaning out "Command Central" -- which is Mom Talk for "The Extra Bedroom Where All the Wedding Stuff is Stashed" and lo and behold! there they were!

I was pretty excited!

They were beautiful and matched Buttercup’s color theme as well.

I also found the left over pie shells, so put them together and took a photo so Buttercup and I can always remember what the treats looked like.

*****************

My last two dessert treats were purchased at Sam’s Club. Mini cream puffs (which I hear are quite tasty) and cheesecake bites. I didn’t get a taste of either.

************************

It was a LOT of work doing all that baking.
But I had a BLAST!
I’m sure my hands will eventually recover and stop cracking and bleeding from all the washing (dishes and hand washing) that I did, but it was all worth it.
And I’d do it all again.
To save money.
To have fun.
To create a beautiful memory for my child.

**********************

P.S. I will post recipes for these treats, eventually.

The Final Countdown

2011-11-08T23:00:00.001-07:00

It’s 9:30 pm -- two days before Buttercup’s reception --and I have two choices of what to do with my time:
a) Go to bed.
I don’t need to explain this, do I?
b) Keep cleaning my house.
Yes, the house that has been sorely neglected for the past 6 weeks while I have been feverishly crafting, painting and baking.
I won’t go into the sordid details, but I will confess that the spiders from town saw the neglect and brought their U-hauls and have been escaping the sudden temperature drop outside to take residence in the cozy comfort of my dusty corners.

What’s my choice? What am I going to do with my time?!?

Why, I’m going to start blogging of course.

Sometimes, it just feels good to do something that you don’t HAVE to do, right? I’ll let those spiders have one more night of frolicking frivolity before their demise at the sucking end of my Hoover. (I’m benevolent that way sometimes.)

We got Buttercup’s bridal pictures back from our photographer and I wanted to share a couple.

That’s a good reason for a blog post, right?

(The photo below is actually a photo I took. The photographer was very gracious and let me practice while she was working.)

I am ready to choose option “a” now. My eyes are feeling so heavy. But before I go, can I tell you how excited I am that we chose to have the reception the day before the wedding?!? (Gelly, you know I got the idea from you, right?!) I am excited to spend one whole day doing each event individually. I feel so busy and swamped with all the reception details that I am afraid I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the reason we’re celebrating… the actual wedding. By having the reception over with, we can just sit back and enjoy the wedding and celebrate the fact that these kids decided to make sacred covenants and enter into an eternal marriage. Saturday (actual wedding day) is looking to be blissful and calm and completely peaceful for me…. maybe…. Hopefully….. Keeping the fingers crossed.

Oh, and another wonderful thing has happened: Buttercup and Biff chose to be married in the Guilder Temple, which is the same Temple that Max and I were married in 24 years ago. I started to get curious about our sealer. Is he still working at the Temple? Could he actually perform the wedding ceremony for my daughter? I contacted the Temple secretary and found out that yes indeed he is still a sealer in that Temple! All we had to do was call him and see if he would be willing to come in on his day off.

Well, I knew we had that one in the bag. See, this man is an old family friend. He has been a friend of my family’s for decades. He was my mom’s bishop when she was a teenager (he was the youngest bishop in the church at that time); he was my stake president when I was born; we all lived in the same ward together and I’m sure some of his children used to babysit my siblings and I; he gave me and my siblings our patriarchal blessings; he married Max and I; and when my seester, Wees, was sealed to her husband and children, he performed that sealing. He has been engrained in our spiritual milestones!

I gave his phone number to my dad and said, “Dad, do your magic. See if he’ll come marry Buttercup and Biff.” Without hesitation, wonderful President said yes.

So… the same man that married Max and I will be marrying our daughter and her new husband. How cool is that?!?

It makes me happy.

And now, Option A, I CHOOSE YOU!!!

Dear Mom, I’m so sorry…

2011-10-24T23:08:00.001-06:00

… that I got married one week before Christmas.

Yes, I did that to my mother.

Max and I thought we were acting in the best interest of everyone by getting married between semesters at Ricks College. That way I wouldn’t lose money on my housing contract, we wouldn’t be too distracted to get our school work done (that part of the plan didn’t work so well) and – well – we would be “on break” after all, so it would just be easier if we got married on Dec. 19.

Obviously, I was NOT the person planning my wedding.

And now I understand what a terrible thing I did to my mother.

I’m planning a wedding – I don’t have a huge holiday looming that I also have to plan and prepare for – and I feel like I’m about to lose my mind. People warned me about the intense work that is involved, but I didn’t fully comprehend what they were saying.

It’s like having a baby. People tell you that you can experience moments of being uncomfortable, but they don’t spell out the details of how uncomfortable you can actually be.
They tell you that labor and delivery are painful, but somehow they don’t communicate that it really IS similar to pulling your bottom lip up over the top of your head… pain-wise.

Holy cow!!

The days are winding down…. we have just under 3 weeks until the reception (remember, Buttercup’s reception is the day before the wedding) and my goal is to have EVERYTHING put together, completed and baked in two weeks.

TWO WEEKS?!?!?

If you think I’m crazy now, just give me another 10 days and I’ll be completely bonkers!!

But even though I feel like my life is totally out of control, I should recognize that I actually have a lot accomplished. The dress is bought and we will pick it up from the alteration lady on Wednesday. We have most of the clothing we’re providing for the members of the bride and groom party. I have the centerpieces organized and ready. After searching long and hard for affordable, GOOD photographers, I feel confident in the ladies we have hired… and can I tell you that I feel we have them for a STEAL? Seriously, don’t ask how much we’re paying. It’s embarrassing. I feel so cheap!

Wait!

We’ll call it FRUGAL!

I have decided in an effort to save moola, I will make all the refreshments for the reception. I’m still working on that, but so far I have between 500 & 600 peanut butter balls rolled and frozen, waiting to be dipped into chocolate the week of the reception. I have about 400 sugar cookies baked and frozen (for mini- fruit pizzas). I’ve only made two loaves of pumpkin chocolate chip bread, because I had a slight disaster baking them, but I will finish baking them tomorrow. Also this week, I will be making about 400 mini pie crusts. Here’s hoping they turn out! And a few more items.

Yep,

Crazy.

Certifiable.

But I haffta do it! I only have one daughter. I only get one shot at this – unless Inigo marries a girl from across the country. Then I get to plan another reception, but on a much smaller scale, I’m certain.

Here’s an observation I recently made: Remember when I was Camp Director? The first year I planned camp, I was a basket case. I worked myself to the bone trying to learn everything, organize everything and make it the best camp EVER!

The second year was easier. I still worked hard, but it wasn’t as scary. I was a lot more confident in my abilities and had learned that whatever we had planned, would be fun and the girls would all say it was their “best year ever!” (Don’t they say it every year?)

The third year (yes, I was camp director for THREE YEARS!!) camp planned itself. It still required a little effort, but I had learned enough and had things left over from previous years that it kind of just fell together.

Planning a wedding/reception is exactly like camp. At first, I planned NOTHING. I was scared, overwhelmed and didn’t know where to turn or who I could ask for help. Little by little, people approached me and said, “Do this,” or “Look here” and I began to see that I actually can plan and prepare. Slowly, things began to fall into place and I gained a vision of what to do and where I can turn for resources and ideas. (HELLO PINTEREST!)

And now, I really believe that if I had to, I could plan another wedding reception. Yes, it would still require work and effort, but it wouldn’t be nearly as stressful. But, I don’t get to plan another one. Not for a long time anyway – at least 13+ years.

(Someone told me that if you’re the mother of the groom, you wear beige and SHUT UP! Meaning: leave it all up to the bride and her mother. It made me laugh!)

So anyway, in all my camp/wedding analogies, I was trying to decide which is more work: A week at girl’s camp with 10+ girls, or a wedding reception.

The race is close… very close… but I think the wedding reception wins! After all, when you’re planning camp, the bishop calls someone – an assistant – that HAS to help you. As it is, I’ve done most of the work for the reception on my own. HOWEVER!!! Let me add the disclaimer that I have had MANY offers of help. I’m not sure where to have people help, so I haven’t taken a lot of people up on their offers, but there’s still time… so all you friends and neighbors who read my blog, BEWARE!! I may have said no to you last week, but you may not be so lucky next week! :)

And if I have been neglecting my blog lately, please understand, because my daughter’s getting married and I’ve been otherwise occupied!

Communicating…

2011-09-23T11:52:00.001-06:00

Last night I caught Inigo in a lie.

A full on, outright lie.

To be fair, this kid is usually extremely honest.

Painfully honest.

I haven’t caught him in a lie in months.

Last night was one of those times where he felt it was easier to “stretch the truth.”

(The kid IS human, after all!)

He was being punished and dealing with the consequences of his actions
(non-violent of course)
and he said,

“But mom, it was just a miscommunication!”

Oh really?

Is that the “new” way of thinking these days?
Just like “new math”,
telling untruths/lies can be construed as
”miscommunication?”

Nah.
Not in this house!!

Dumpety Dump Dump

2011-09-15T19:09:00.001-06:00

I’ve got a lot of things running around in this old brain of mine…. time to clear them out and make room for more. Plus, I’ve decided I’ve had enough wallowing in my own self-pity… So, my daughter moved out of the house! Get a grip, Valerie! It happens! So, we’ve had a few flat tires this year? Hello! At least we have a car that can get flat tires! I’m ready to stop feeling sorry for myself and ready to face life with a smile again….

Walking:
I have found a trail in Florin that I have started walking on every morning! It’s amazing and wonderful! I have always said that if I can find someplace interesting and not boring that’s outside, I would walk it every day! AND I FOUND IT!! This trail is in the dry farms and it’s got a fairly steep incline, a gradual incline and then a beautiful downhill portion. Since it’s in the farming area of our town, I’m walking in the fields of potatoes and wheat, along with patches of sage brush and wild grass. I hear the grasshoppers hopping around in the dry grass and on the dirt of the trail I can see hundreds of footprints: people, dogs, bunnies, and birds. Lots and lots of birds. I wonder what kind they are? Sage grouse? Pheasants? Quail?
I also hear that there are lots of skunks up there. I take Lola Dog with me, so I’m hoping that they are sound asleep from their night of carousing by 8:30 when I’m up there.

I think the loop that I normally walk is only about a mile, so the other day I walked it twice. Today, I went with a friend and we walked a new (to me) portion of the trail, which I believe is just short of two miles. I’m working hard at getting faster so I can go farther. I’m happy to have found this trail. Sad that I found it after living here in Florin for 13 years!

This is the only tree along the trail. There are always LOT of birds singing their early morning song from the branches of this tree as I walk by.

You can see my faithful walking companion, Lola, chasing something… a magpie perhaps?

(The other day a crop duster was flying over and spraying the potato fields while I was up there. Lola tried her hardest to catch that plane! It was hilarious watching her run – at top speed – through the fields, with her little cocker spaniel ears flapping in the breeze. I wish I had the presence of mind to video it!)

Just some of the footprints I see on my morning journey.
Both of these pictures were taken with my phone, so they’re not the greatest quality

Wedding Planning
Seriously. How do you plan a wedding??!? I have been feeling completely lost and in the dark. I really didn’t plan on Buttercup getting married so soon and so young. I really thought I’d have another 3 years before I had to start thinking about it, so I didn’t pay attention when I went to receptions. She’s been engaged for a month, getting married in two and what do I have to show for it? Not a lot! I have a couple crafty things completed and she’s picked a color scheme. We have the dress on lay-away and I know which ties to purchase for the groom and his co-horts.

I have needed serious HELP, but I’m not the kind of person that calls someone up and says, “HELP!!”

Finally, I realized that that’s exactly what I needed to do. So I called for help today. I contacted a friend in my ward who offered to help with food. She says she’s very good at planning food for large gatherings. Well, I don’t know how to plan food, so I’m going to use her. I called a local person who has a business in decorating for weddings. I wanted to do most of it on my own, but finally realized I simply can’t. I’m here alone and I can’t do all the planning, organizing, assigning and everything else required for a wedding in addition to packing up the house, keeping the house clean, keeping up with Inigo and helping out with his activities, etc. etc. We’ll meet with her on Monday and I can’t tell you how GOOD it feels to know that I have help in that area!

Now, I just need to find an affordable photographer….

Television
We turned off network TV. We realized that we were paying a lot of money each month to only watch about 3 hours of TV a week. (Love my Judge Judy and Jimmy Fallon!) We watch Netflix a lot more, so we opted to get rid of TV and keep both Netflix plans.

So, now that I don’t have Judy or Jimmy, what am I watching? Let me tell you, I have gotten reacquainted with Sam and Diane, NORM! and Cliff… Yes, at that place where everybody knows your name. I just finished Season One of Cheers and have laughed my head off. I have also gotten reacquainted with the good folks flying out of Cape Cod on Wings and both Inigo and I are totally and completely in love with the Huxtible Family. Inigo has even said that he wants to have 5 children so he can name them all: Sondra, Denise, Theo, Vanessa and Rudy. If he’s lucky, he’d also like to have a Cliff and Claire. If I’m upstairs in the kitchen and I hear him downstairs watching TV, giggling madly, I know he’s watching The Cosby Show. He’s made it all the way into Season 4.

I will admit I watched the British comedy, The IT Crowd and found myself laughing so hard that I thought I would disturb my neighbors, but in the middle of Season 2 (I think) it turned raunchy and when the “F Bomb” started being said at least once in each episode I stopped watching. BUT, before that, it was simply hilarious. Why they ruined it with such foul language, I’ll never know.

I will miss Modern Family on network TV, though. It starts next week and I’m excited for the season premiere. It was filmed in Jackson Hole and I’m so excited to watch it! Hopefully it will be on my ABC app for my iPad soon.

Houses
Inigo and I are still in Florin. There are still no houses available in New Florin. I don’t know how we’ll ever get over there. Poor Max. Poor, lonely Max. (The rental that we thought would work only had one bathroom. I’m sorry, it may sound snobby, but we need more than one bathroom in our home! Even if we are living out in the sticks, I will NOT allow the men in the house to relieve themselves in the yard if the commode is already in use!)

And that’s it… for now at least. It feels good to get all this stuff off my chest. It makes room for other frivolities and nonsense. So I say, BRING IT!

Grown Don’t Mean Nothing

2011-09-14T22:50:00.001-06:00

░ │ ░ │ ░ │ ░ │ ░ │ ░ │ ░ │ ░ │ ░ │ ░ │ ░

Buttercup is gone.

Outta here.

Removed.

Missing.

In other words:
No Longer Living At Home.

She thought (and we agreed) that she needed the experience of living away from home and her mommy before she committed herself to living with another person for eternity.

So, she found an apartment and moved out!

I’m proud of her for making this decision, but I miss her terribly:

I went grocery shopping the weekend she left and I realized I don’t have to buy her favorite cereal any more. (Okay, I still choose to buy it because she doesn’t have a lot of money to buy her own groceries yet!)

In the morning, I still wake up suddenly when I realize that I can’t hear her getting ready for school. There were many, many times I’d frantically run down to her bedroom to wake her up because she overslept or missed her alarm.
I still have that impulse to bolt out of bed at 6:30 if I don’t hear her.

I listen to Pandora Radio through my BluRay DVD player and one of the channels I have programmed is Broadway music. (It also plays a lot of Disney and Glee songs.) I can’t tell you how many of those songs remind me of my girl!
The song that plays that most, that can make me sit down and bawl because I miss my girl so much is You’ve Got a Friend in Me by Randy Newman.
It’s from the first Toy Story movie.
That song was from her first dance recital when she was in kindergarten.
Even after all these years, I can see my sweet little girl, in her white tu-tu with silver stars and pink ballet slippers dancing while the teacher told them the steps:
”Heel….
Toe….
Heel….
Plié ….”

Even though she spent most of her days and nights at school and work, and she hasn’t spent a lot of time at home in the past year, the house seems unnaturally quiet.
She was never a real chatterbox or an “in-your-face” kind of girl, but I can feel that she’s not here anymore.

Someone said to me at church on Sunday:
”Motherhood. It’s the career that if we do it right, we work ourselves right out of a job.”

So, here’s my question:
Is it this hard on EVERY mom who says goodbye to a child when they move out?
Is it a secret “Mother’s Code” to not talk about it, and how sad it leaves you?

Or am I just a big cry baby?

Do I notice it more because I don’t have a house full of kids?
Do I notice it more because it’s only me and Inigo in this house that once seemed too small but now seems too big?

One mom I was talking to said her mom rejoiced when a kid moved out, because she had 8 kids and it made life so much easier at home when they left.

I guess I don’t understand that.

I recently found this quote:
“Grown don't mean nothing to a mother. A child is a child. They get bigger, older, but grown? What's that suppose to mean? In my heart it don't mean a thing.” ~Toni Morrison

(Well said, Ms. Morrison!)

I read to Inigo every night. And when we get done reading, he climbs into my lap to hug and kiss me good night.
When I say good night and I love you to him, I find that I’m reverting back to saying it the way Buttercup said it when she was little.

”I’ll You!”
was the way she said “I love you,” until she was about 4 and starting to talk more clearly.

“I’ll You, Buttercup!!”

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Still Gloomy

2011-09-07T10:07:00.001-06:00

Remember in June when I wrote this post about all the bad luck we’ve been having?

Well, the bad-luck-sisters are still playing with our life string!! And they are having
waaaaay too much fun with it!
At night, when I go to sleep, I can hear them cackle and laugh while they wad it up and throw it back and forth to each other.
They are tying it in knots and lassoing each other with it.
They play jump rope for hours with it.
They are displaying too much gaiety if you ask my opinion.

Let’s fill you in on what’s happened since my posting on June 29:

* Buttercup ended up in the ER with severe abdominal pain. This was only an hour after an emergency visit to Community Care in Florin.
(Max and I were out of town, so we didn’t have a lot of control over the situation. We probably wouldn’t have taken her to ER. We would have waited to see if the previous dr.’s diagnosis and treatment worked. They diagnosed her with an intense bladder infection.)

* Buttercup ends up having a CAT scan and having more blood work taken. The ER docs think it’s appendicitis. (Sound familiar?)

* Finally, about 2 am I get a phone call that says she has a cyst and that’s what’s causing her pain. It should burst on it’s own and no further treatment is needed.

I’ll sum up:

In two months time, two people in my family had two separate ER visits with two separate CAT Scans.

And here’s the kicker:

Our insurance, that I was so happy to write about on June 29, has DENIED all our medical claims. The medical care we sought was “out of network” so they are refusing to pay. But they are so generous in applying all the costs to our deductible, which IMO is incredibly high for an employer sponsored insurance program.
GREAT.
Super.
Nice Insurance people.

I have to ask the question:
”WHAT IS THE POINT OF PAYING MY INSURANCE PREMIUM EVERY MONTH IF THE STUPID INSURANCE PEOPLE WON’T PAY MY MEDICAL BILLS?”

I could go on and on,
but I won’t.

There’s even more bad luck.

Back in June, I wrote that we had accumulated 6 flat tires during the course of this year.
Now that it’s September, I am “happy to announce” that we can add

(drumroll please…..)

TWO MORE
flat tires to the count!

Seriously.

We had the 8th flat over Labor Day weekend while we were up at my parent’s cabin in Montana.
It wasn’t a total on-the-ground flat, but air was leaking enough that Max and my dad were worried that it would be completely flat by the time I made the 2 hour drive back to Florin. And with holiday traffic, it wasn’t worth the risk to go totally flat on the highway, so we put the spare on before I headed home.

While we were there, my dad noticed his tire was looking low, so he got out the air compressor and filled it up. While he was putting tools away, I could still hear air coming out of the compressor and I thought that was weird since the compressor was completely turned off.

Turns out it was his tire that was leaking air.
There was a HUGE hole in it!

So, before we left the cabin, we had to change another tire!

(This tire is NOT added to my totals, even though I feel our bad luck is starting to rub off on other people.)

Add to this list:
Buttercup’s car.
She drives an OLD (1991) Chevy Corsica.
Yes, her car is older than she is.
She likes to point that out.
But, I say, at least she has something that has 4 tires and a steering wheel!

She has had some trouble with it.
The “serpentine belt” broke and all the equipment that goes along with it had to be replaced.
Also the alternator.
$400 in repairs in a car that cost $800.
Oh, she had a flat tire too.

(It’s included in the flat tire total.)

We are also having some mechanical problems with the Tahoe.
* We need new shocks
* The battery is wearing out
* Something is up with the fuel injector
* The catalytic convertor needs replaced

WILL SOMEONE PLEASE GRAB THE BAD-LUCK-SISTERS AND KNOCK THEM IN THE FACE?!?!

************************

I usually try to be upbeat and positive.
Sometimes I just need to vent.
I’m still trying to follow Max’s
”LIFE IS GOOD!” motto.

*************************************************

Max has found two houses in New Florin to look at.
One (to purchase) is a new home they are in the process of building.
It’s very small and probably cheaply made, but it’s the only thing in our price range.
The housing market there hasn’t been hit hard like everywhere else and home prices are still very high.

The other home is a rental that is about 3 miles out of town in the country. Rent seems reasonable. But we don’t know what the inside of the house looks like and what condition it is in. Rentals are a rare find, so if we want it, we’ll have to move fast. The house is available October 1.

Looks like we’ll finally be making the move.
I’m scared and a ~~little~~ LOT sad.
I knew the day would come when we would leave our happy town and our great friends,
and I’ve had more than ample time to prepare,
but it’s going to be hard to leave.

**************************************************

My next post will be happy and upbeat.
I promise!

Engagged To Be Marred

2011-08-28T22:51:00.001-06:00

I decided to save money and take the engagement photos of Buttercup and Biff (his own nickname… I didn’t give it to him). As always, I struggle with lighting, but thankfully I have some fun actions on my Photoshop and I can fix some of the problems. Also, it’s still light in the evenings and the weather is still nice and warm (HOT!) so we can get outside and take pictures all the time.

This is the best one I’ve come up with so far.

What do you think?

I think it brings out the best in them…. ;-)

Okay! To be fair, I’ll post a real picture:

We’re just getting started, but I hope to get some great shots!

Hello 3rd Grade!

2011-08-28T22:41:00.001-06:00

You Are… My Biggest Fan

2011-08-26T16:12:00.001-06:00

(For all you That Thing You Do fans out there, this is twice in a row I’ve quoted this movie. I think maybe it’s time to pop it into the DVR and watch it!)

It’s no secret that Inigo is a HUGE fan of Michael Jackson.

I mean HUGE!!!

So much of a fan, that when we went shopping for school clothes, the one and only thing on his list was to find a Michael Jackson t-shirt.

We scoured the mall, up the halls and down. In the stores and out. JC Penney, Sears, Old Navy and Hot Topic (I made him hide his eyes in Hot Topic).

Nothing.

Nada.

Zilch.

Ok, so maybe Michael Jackson fashion is a year or two old. He died two years ago, after all. It’s sooooo not the happenin’ thing anymore! :)

But my boy is -and remains- a die-hard fan. He goes to sleep listening to his music, he practices the moon walk, he reads books about MJ. You get the picture.

Anyway, Inigo was terribly disappointed that we couldn’t find a shirt for him. And I felt bad that he felt bad. That was just too much bad feeling in our car on our way from Guilder to Florin! So we devised a plan. We decided we would design and print up our very own MJ t-shirt.

Inigo gave me suggestions, told me what he was envisioning and I opened up Photoshop and Google Images and tried to implement his plan. The next day we took the jump drive with the saved design on it to our local screen printing shop and ….

VOILA!!!!

I think we came up with a pretty decent shirt!

And the best part is, it’s one of a kind, original, designed by Inigo. It doesn’t get any better than that.

(I took this picture with my phone in the glare of the morning sun. He tried his hardest to keep his eyes open, but he just couldn’t do it.)

Blue Ribbon!

2011-08-23T15:00:00.001-06:00

In the movie That Thing You Do (one of the BEST movies EVER, IMHO) there’s a scene where Lenny says, “I’m not with them, I’m with the piggin’ competition down at the pavilion and I’M GOING TO WIN THAT BLUE RIBBON!!”

Well, at our county fair I won a blue ribbon too… only it wasn’t in the piggin’ competition.

Inigo and I entered a couple photos in the photography exhibit.

Inigo got a new Nikon point and shoot camera for his birthday a couple days before the fair, so we went out and had a quick lesson in composition and holding still while you press the shutter release and took some pics that we felt were good enough to enter.

I went through my files (I have thousands) and picked two pics that I liked.
We had them printed up and mounted them on mat board and submitted them to be scrutinized by the critical eye of judges and the community.

And then we waited….

Judging was supposed to take place Thursday night, but it happened on Wednesday night.
A neighbor stopped by on Thursday afternoon and said, “I saw your picture! You won a ribbon!”

SWEET!!

It’s what I was hoping for.
Having a stranger judge my picture, telling me they like it feels very good.
(Having my friends and family tell me they like some of my pics
is gratifying, but they kind of have to say they like my pics.
Right?)

Anyway, when we went to check things out on Friday, I was expecting a ribbon, but was expecting a white, Third-Place ribbon.

Inigo was expecting nothing but blue, because he is young enough he
doesn’t have any self-doubt built into his self esteem.

We both squealed in delight when we finally found our photos.

Inigo won two third place ribbons!
We’re pretty excited since this was his first competition!!
(He wasn’t disappointed at all that he didn’t win a blue.)

I won a blue ribbon and a (very) small amount of money for this shot.
I’m so glad I did. This is one of my favorite pictures I’ve ever taken
and I felt validated that the judges liked it too.

This is the second photo I entered. No awards with this one. :(
Oh well.
You can’t win ‘em all!

The End

2011-08-22T00:39:00.001-06:00

School starts this week.

BOO HOO!!!

I have friends who count down the days from May to Sept. They can’t wait until their kids step back on that school bus in their fancy new clothes, carrying their backpack and lunchbox. On the contrary, I spend that first morning in deep mourning: total depression and utter loneliness crowding into my thoughts. I also have thoughts (or reminders) of all the fantastic adventures we were able to accomplish and crowd into the summer months, as well as think longingly of the many activities we didn’t quite get to. I ALWAYS wish we had two or three more weeks before starting the grind again.

This year is different. Buttercup is at the END of her schooling adventure. September marks one year since she began cosmetology school and Oct. 1 marks the day she walks out of those doors for good. Inigo is starting third grade here in Florin, but probably won’t finish it here. He’ll finish it in New Florin with a whole new group of friends and adventures…hopefully all positive and wonderful.

Max was in town for the weekend, so he gave the traditional start of school year blessings. Yes, that’s a plural. Even though Buttercup isn’t beginning a new school year, she’s beginning a new phase of life (moving out, getting married, starting a career) and we thought a father’s blessing would be highly appropriate. Inigo LOVES getting father’s blessings, so he was first in line. It was a good way to end a Sunday evening and a nice send-off as he heads back to Florin for another week of work.

This post shows some of the fun things we did this summer:

╚ ╚ ╚ ╚ ╚ ╚ ╚ ╚ ╚ ╚ ╚ ╚ ╚ ╚ ╚

(No camping pictures because we didn’t make it out! :(
We’re hoping to finally sleep outside over Labor Day weekend!)

J-j-j-j-jealousy

2011-08-03T14:02:00.001-06:00

Approximately 9 days ago, Inigo challenged my 22 year old neighbor,
T-man, to a race with RC cars.

The date was set (8/02/11).

The time was determined (6:30 pm).

The racetrack was determined (across the street).

Inigo invited friends and family to come watch the duel. He practiced for hours beforehand.

6:30 was looming closer and closer.

Anticipation.

Electricity.

Suspense was hanging in the air.

Ooops.

Everyone was still eating dinner at 6:30.

The race was postponed until 6:45.

Anticipation.

Electricity.

Even more suspense.

You could cut it with a knife.

T-man’s cousins were in town. A family with 10 kids to cheer him on.

Steck came over to help me cheer Inigo on.

As the race began, 15+ people began chanting “T-man! T-man! T-man!”

2 people began chanting, “Inigo! Inigo! Inigo!”

AND THEEEEEY’RE OFF!!

OFF AND RUNNING!

GO INIGO!!!

GO T-MAN!!!

And the results?

Inigo won of course.
By a landslide.

Poor T-man’s car would go sideways and backwards as much as it would go forward.
I’ve never seen a RC car like that before.
It was just too much car for him!! (he he he)

To be fair, when they switched cars, T-man won the race.

Winning boosted Inigo’s ego a lot.

Maybe too much.

Later, after we went inside Inigo (who was in a jubilant/winning mood) ran up the stairs and yelled at me,

“YOU KNOW WHAT I THINK?
I THINK YOU’RE JUST JEALOUS!”

I yelled back in a questioning tone of voice,
”Of what?”

He yelled back as if the answer was completely clear,

“ME!!!”

Please Sir, May I Have S’more?

2011-08-03T11:42:00.001-06:00

Some people tell me I’m a picky eater.

I guess I am. It’s easier and faster to make a list of foods that I like as opposed to the list of foods that I don’t like.

Fish – UGH!! If something filters air out of water to survive, it doesn’t cross these lips.
Pizza – I know!! Who doesn’t like pizza, right?
Spaghetti – Ditto to the pizza statement. I honestly think it’s the red sauce/marinara sauce. Blech.
Vegetables – I like some vegetables. Only the extra starchy/carby veggies though.

Just to name a few.

Monday night I had some friends take me to a Thai restaurant here in town. They have tried for YEARS to get me just to walk through the doors. Chinese/Asian food doesn’t sit well with me, plus I heard that Thai food has a lot of spicy curry in it… NO GOOD!! But since the parade we were attending was getting rained out and we needed to get dry, I agreed to go.

When the server came to take my order I just asked for a glass of water. But they brought me a small plate so I could do some taste testing. I was very brave and tried a few bites. I will admit, some of it was good, but there were also several bites that sent shivers down my spine. :)

Let me reiterate: I AM A PICKY EATER!!!

Brownies are something I am very picky about.

Call me a “Brownie Snob.”

I DO NOT and WILL NOT eat brownies that are made from a packaged mix.

Auck. Gack. ARGH!

I like brownies that are a little more “cake-y.” Meaning I like them fluffy and light. I don’t like brownies purchased from a bakery, or a grocery store bakery. They always look better than they taste and they are always thick and dense.

When I came up on this brownie recipe (Taste of Home) I was THRILLED with it! Not only is it fast and easy, but the brownies are light and fluffy… just the way I like them.

But a plain old brownie gets boring after a while. I needed to change them up. And I came up with what I think is a WINNER!!!

S’more Brownies!!

I know…… right?

Man, oh man….. they were a little bite of heaven right there in my kitchen. Seriously. They were gobbled up in a FLASH!

I encourage you to give them a try.

S’more Brownies
2 c sugar
1 3/4 c flour
1/2 c cocoa (I use Dutch cocoa)
1 tsp salt
5 eggs
1 c vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla
1 c chocolate chips

In a mixing bowl, combine the first seven ingredients; beat until smooth. (I just use a wooden spoon. I don’t think you need a mixer to make this recipe.) Pour into a greased 13x9” cake pan. Sprinkle with chocolate chips. Bake at 350 ° for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.

(That is the basic brownie recipe that I got from Taste of Home. This is where I changed things up. S’mores made with Hershey Bars are good, but in my opinion, the best s’mores are made with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups!! So I decided leave off the chocolate chips and top 1/2 of the brownies with Hershey Bars and the other 1/2 with Reese’s.)

3 Hershey Chocolate Bars
1/2 bag of Reese’s Miniature Peanut Butter Cups
Chopped into small pieces

1/2 bag of miniature marshmallows
3 – 5 graham crackers, broken into small pieces

BEFORE BAKING the brownies, liberally sprinkle the graham crackers and candy bars on top.
Start baking the brownies for 20 minutes.

The last 8-10 minutes of baking, however, carefully sprinkle the miniature marshmallows on top and finish baking. (You don’t want the marshmallows on top for the full 30 minutes of baking time. It makes them too hard and crunchy.)

If you decide to share these yummy treats with your neighbors and friends, I can GUARANTEE instant popularity.

You will be everyone’s
favorite friend!!

New Look

2011-07-27T00:08:00.000-06:00

Ha!

I changed the look of my blog.

I HATED the purple background I had before. So I decided to do something about it.

Some of you may think the new look is random.

But those of you who know where we're moving to, will know differently.

THERE'S A METHOD TO MY MADNESS!

Lonely Living

2011-07-26T16:14:00.001-06:00

Max and I text A LOT. It’s our main form of communication.

Frequently, I get a text from him as he leaves work and he says things like,
“Going back to Loneliness.”

What does that mean, you ask?

“Loneliness” is what he named his apartment.
His bachelor pad.
His place of dwelling.

Sad, huh?

It’s been awful for him to be away from his family this long.

Believe me, we miss him too, but our situation is different:
a) we are in our own familiar house
b) we have each other
which makes the separation somewhat easier to bear.

Since Inigo and I finished our production last week, we decided that since we have so much free time on our hands, we’d jump in the car and drive to New Florin to surprise him.

And we actually would have gotten away with it, if
a) we had left Florin a little earlier, I could have driven straight to his office and surprised him there
or,
b) if I actually knew where he lived.

He had to move out of the house he was renting, so he’s in a new apartment and I didn’t know where it was.

We texted Max when we were nearing New Florin and said, “Don’t go to the gym tonight because we want to Skype with you.”
So, he waited and waited for us to get to a computer
(we told him we were en route to Florin from Guilder)
while we drove up and down the streets of New Florin looking for the new apartment.

Finally, he said,
“I’m going to the gym now. I won’t be gone very long. We’ll Skype when I get back.”

Uhhhh……
”Please don’t go to the gym,”
I had to text back (or have Inigo text since I shouldn’t be texting and driving)

There was a short pause and the reply was,
“Are you in New Florin?”

He got up that morning with a feeling that we might be driving over to surprise him.

Seriously?
Can I EVER surprise that man?

In a nutshell, we had a FABULOUS weekend and spent some WONDERFUL time together!

In a desire to better acquaint ourselves with our new area,
we drove over two large mountain ranges that were around 10,000 feet in altitude.

We played in creeks, and walked through snowbanks to get to sacred Indian ground.
We gazed with awe and wonder at some amazing waterfalls, wondering where ALL THAT WATER could be coming from.
We went swimming in the local swimming pool
and walked up and down the Main Street of the nearest
”Tourist Trap” town.

And I took photos.
Tons and tons of photos.
So many photos that Inigo started yelling at me.

”STOP TAKING MY PICTURE!!! YOU’RE SUCKING THE HAPPINESS OUT OF ME EVERY TIME YOU DO!!”

But eventually he started smiling for the lens again.
Because he was having fun.

He didn’t want to drive over the big Bruin Bicuspid Pass
(don’t you love how I change the names?)
but in the middle of the teeth clenching drive said,
“Wow!! This is amazing!”

We missed Buttercup.
But she was down at the Shallows
(an amusement park south of here)
with Biff (her new fiancé) at his family reunion.

Hopefully Max’s life was a little less lonely while we were there.
And while I’m finding it difficult to leave Florin, I know that being with Max is more important and I’m anxious for our own reunion!

Looking forward to the many new adventures that await!

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Waterfall in the Large Antler Mtn. Range

There is a Native American medicine wheel in these mountains and these are some of the religious relics that you find there.

On top of the Bruin Bicuspid Pass.

To prolong our time together, we also stopped and walked through a geyser basin in
My Park.
(Max drove his own vehicle, so he could drive himself back to New Florin while I drove Inigo and I back to Florin. We each got to our respective domiciles at about 11 pm.)

Okay.
Here’s the end of all my clever names. :(

I wanted to take a picture of Inigo at the same place we took a picture of Buttercup.
This was the last time we had driven over this pass – 2002 – and I was only a month or 6 weeks away from delivering Inigo when we drove over.
(I can’t believe we drove it that close to my due date! What were we thinking?)
You can see our dear, wonderful dog, Bandon in the windshield of Buttercup’s picture.
Sadly, he passed away in November of that year.

Slipping Through My Fingers…

2011-07-21T00:02:00.001-06:00

Not only is this song by the best musical group EVER, but they perform this song that sums things up PERFECTLY for me.

Today, Buttercup announced that she’s engaged.

I’ll get used to the idea.
It’s just that right now, I feel my baby slipping away, and I don’t know how to hold on.

Going Live!

2011-07-15T11:46:00.001-06:00

How do I describe how I felt last night when we finally performed in front of a live audience?

Exhilarating!

Thrilling!

Exciting!

Fabulous!

I asked myself a gazillion times…

“WHY HAVEN’T I DONE THIS BEFORE?!?!?”

Seriously.

The adrenaline rush amazing. When we were on stage for our final bows, I found myself crying because:

1) our first night is over and you can’t ever repeat opening night

2) we only have 3 more performances left and I want MORE!

3) WE GOT A STANDING OVATION!!!

The theater wasn’t full… opening night usually has sparse attendance… but from where I stood, it looked like everyone on their feet.
That totally makes all the hard work, sweat and exhaustion worth it.

We put together a show that is full of fun and entertainment that our community LOVED!

That’s Oliver sitting to the right of Inigo. ^ Do our orphans look hungry?^

“The Artful Dodger” is front and center. ^ This dance is “Consider Yourself.”^
She did an amazing job!

I can’t wait for tonight’s performance!
(We will be playing to an almost full house.)

(Photos provided by Steck)

Testing

2011-07-12T09:23:00.001-06:00

I downloaded/bought a new app for my iPad that allows me to write and post directly to my blog. I've waited a long time to find an app that allows me to do this.

I am sitting at my kitchen table, reading glasses on (!) typing away -- hoping this app actually works!

While I'm sitting here, I'll just mention that our play opens this week!! We are so excited but every time I think about it, I get butterflies in my stomach. I'm torn with wishing it would just be over so we can get on with our life, yet, wishing it would go on forever because we are having such fun. Each time I've participated in a stage production, I have found it to be life changing.

Here's to blogging on the iPad!

Inigo’s Newspaper Article

2011-07-05T11:18:00.002-06:00

The article featuring Inigo was finally printed in today’s newspaper! I am putting it on here, with obvious changes to protect our identity. However, for copyright reasons, I think I need to leave the reporter’s name as is.

Local youngsters portray paupers in Florin musical

By LINDSEY BUSH

Boys and girls throughout Florin have won the battle against the wide-tooth comb and trimming shears -- at least for a while, anyway.
Though doting mothers typically don't allow their children to abandon personal grooming standards, the kids say it's all for a good cause.
Tangled locks frame the faces of more than 80 eastern Florin youngsters as they channel their inner paupers in preparation for the Florin Community Theatre's performance of "Oliver!"
The musical features about 145 cast members, the majority of which are "orphaned" children.
"The boys don't have to cut their hair for a long time," 8-year-old Inigo said.
That's his favorite aspect of the production and many other young actors agreed.
"We don't have to comb it either," 10-year-old Girl Orphan said. "We get to let it go all ratty. Sometimes I'll wash it, but I don't have to brush it out."
After months of learning songs and dances -- along with growing out the perfect hairdos -- the children are ready to bring "Oliver!" to life.
The production runs July 14, 15, 16 and 18 at the Florin High School Performing Arts Center.
While children make up a majority of the play, adult community members round out the cast and production crew.
"We really wanted to do something this year that would involve a lot of different ages from the community," director A C said. "I think it's fun to watch co-workers, neighbors, church members and family members share a talent that you didn't know they had."
The stage production is based on Charles Dickens' classic novel, "Oliver Twist."
It follows a young orphan as he struggles through life on the streets. Despite Oliver's sad situation, he's able to find happiness in the end.
"(The moral) is that you'll always be loved and you'll never be forgotten," Inigo said.
Though coordinating a play isn't easy, training a cast of young actors can be especially difficult. Production organizers must ensure that each child can perform and remember their parts, even when rehearsals conflict with summer sports and music lessons.
The children have worked to learn songs, dances and stage placement at each rehearsal.
"It's like a patchwork, it's a little of this and a little of that, and to put it together is really exciting," Director said. "We showered (the kids) with the fact that they are what this show is all about. They're just delightful to watch; the kids have been awesome."
Despite the time and personal grooming sacrificed to perfect the production, 8-year-old Boy Orphan said it's been worth it.
"It's a good experience to be in this," he said. "I'm glad to be in it."
If you go
When: 7 p.m. July 14, 15, 16 and 18
Where: Florin High School Performing Arts Center
(Photos courtesy of RBower)

(You can see Inigo on the far left of this photo)

(Inigo raises his hand to talk to the reporter)

I think it was a very nicely written article and I'm hoping that it will generate a lot of publicity so people will come see our show. Woo hoo!

Inigo… Look over here! Inigo… a word with you, please?

2011-06-30T23:49:00.001-06:00

Inigo had a cool experience the other day. He, along with some other “orphans” from the play, were interviewed for the newspaper that is published in Guilder.

(We have our own newspaper in Florin, but it’s published only 3 or 4 days a week. The paper in Guilder is the paper that most people in our area receive for their daily news. It’s readership and coverage is quite large.)

I contacted a reporter there and told her about our production. She was very interested in doing a feature article on us because of the extremely large cast of children that we have. (We have approximately 65 orphans and 20 kids in Fagin’s gang.) She wanted to write an article about activities that kids are doing in the summer.

I love the exposure this gives us and I knew our director would love it too! Free P.R. is something you should NEVER frown upon!

So she came up with her photographer and gathered the kids for a sit-down chat.

I think the article will appear in Friday’s newspaper (July 1). We’re looking forward to reading it and we can’t wait to see what pictures they choose to publish with it!

Gloom, Despair and Agony on Me

2011-06-29T23:58:00.001-06:00

I think the bad-luck-sisters have gotten a hold of our life string
and are having fun playing cat’s cradle with it.

At first the bad luck was almost comical,

We could find the silver lining in it:

1. Max had severe pain in his abdomen/back… heck…. he couldn’t define where it was.
Let’s just call it “torso.”

2. Severe pain lands him in the E.R. in the middle of the night.
Doctors don’t know what’s wrong with him. One doc says kidney stone,
maybe appendicitis or even an infected prostate.
CAT Scan is ordered. Comes back clean. Nothing definitive.

3. Second doctor (surgeon) is called in for a consult in ER.
Diagnosed as “a crazy virus that has kicked Max’s butt.”
We are sent home.

4. Pain gets worse.
ANOTHER doctor appointment. (No ER. It was an office visit.)
This time diagnosis is reflux (I’m sure it was more technical, but I can’t think of the word and it’s late.)

5. In the meantime, I have an appointment with the doctor. I need a prescription renewed and need an office visit to get that done.
In the middle of the exam, the doctor notices an enlarged thyroid.
I’m sent immediately to radiology for an ultrasound.
Diagnosed with Multi Nodular Goiter (benign).
Oh yeah. That’s a sweet sounding diagnosis!
(If I was single, I doubt that would get me any dates.)

6. Max finally feels well enough to drive back to New Florin. After being there a few days, has to go back to Urgent Care due to pain.
This time he insists they do an ultrasound/gall bladder test.
Comes back positive.
(In defense of all the other doctors that saw him, his symptoms were NOT typical of a bad gall bladder. It was an easy diagnosis to miss!)
Surgery is required.

Okay. so what is the silver lining in all of this?

Hello!!

Health Insurance!!

Yeah. All the medical issues stink,
but if any of this had happened 8 months ago,
we’d be SUNK!
There would have been NO WAY we could have paid for any of it!

With Max’s employment, we are VERY BLESSED that we are covered for the major portion of all of the medical care we’ve needed.

Soooo……

The silver lining in THAT portion of the story has been found.

I’m desperately trying to find the silver lining in the next bout The Bad Luck Sister’s have heaped upon us:

The tires on our vehicles.

Seriously.

We have had 6, zes, sei, seis, έξι, 넘버 식스, sechs….
No matter how you say it,
it means
SIX
flat tires on our vehicles
SINCE JANUARY!!

And…
here’s the kicker…
It’s been a different tire each time!

Three of the tires have been shredded with no hopes of repair.
(We’re waiting for a verdict on the newest flat that happened to Max today.)

One tire was even on the airplane he rents to fly home in over the weekend.
That was scary.

So, help me…..

What is the silver lining?
Where is the “positive” in all of the “negative” tire popping experiences?

I’m looking but I can’t find it!

And until I do,
will someone PLEASE
take our Life String away from the Bad-Luck-Sisters?

I think they’ve been playing with it for far too long!

(Really…. we’re okay. I just think it’s funny/weird that so many negative things have been happening to us lately. We really haven’t lost our sense of humor about any of it. We just shake our head and ask…
“WHAT NEXT!?!?”)

We still live our live by Max’s motto:
”LIFE IS GOOD!!”

Summer Grounding

2011-06-29T10:49:00.001-06:00

Finally.

Finally!

Finally!!

It’s warm outside!!

It’s safe to say that summer HAS arrived!

For this week at least.

Sadly, in all this beautiful weather, Inigo got GROUNDED.

He’s such a good kid that he doesn’t usually need punishments that take away his privileges, but he lost them yesterday.

No friends. No electronics.
i.e. No TV or computer.
(We don’t own any hand held computer games.)

That left him with the choice of
wallowing & feeling sorry for himself and sweating inside the house all day
-or-
going outside to play.

I think he made the best choice.

He hooked up his new Slip-n-Slide.

And had a blast.

While he was slip slidin’ away, he said to me,
”Mom, this is the BEST GROUNDING EVER!!”

(For some reason he felt the need to wear his wetsuit. I guess it kept him from getting sunburned.)

Out Of The Blue…

2011-06-20T23:17:00.001-06:00

The most amazing thing happened tonight.

I’m still scratching my head wondering how the heck it happened.

Because, things like this don’t happen to us.

We’re not particularly “LUCKY” people.

Sure, we feel like we have a very blessed life. We are sincerely grateful for everything we have and acknowledge that Heavenly Father has given us everything.

But, nothing has ever just fallen out of the sky – or walked up to our door – for us.
We have worked (hard) for everything we have.

Tonight, a blessing “walked up to our door.”

8:30 p.m:
I had just returned from my “piglet” ride with Buttercup. I was getting ready to start cleaning the dinner dishes.
Inigo is watching his favorite “Avatar” TV series.

The doorbell rings.

I’m thinking it’s Bro. Opie.
Inigo left a piano book over at his house and he said he’d return it to us tonight.

(Note to self: I need to go over to Opie’s house and pick up that piano book!)

I opened the door and there was a stranger there.
A safe enough looking man.
Clean, nicely dressed.
Trim haircut.

He says to me,
”I see you have a Ford Ranger in your drive-way. I’m wondering if it’s for sale.”

{Cue angels in heaven singing the Hallelujah chorus.}

See, this Ford Ranger that is in our driveway is a P.O.J.
(Piece of Junk)
We actually call it P.J. for that reason.

We tried to give it to Buttercup for her 16th birthday,
but she didn’t want any part of that vehicle.

“You’re giving me P.J.?”

° It’s ugly.
° There is no A/C in it.
° The radio doesn’t work.
° There are some pretty major dents in the body.
° It runs, but it we don’t drive it often enough that it starts when we need it to.
(Translated: it always needs a jump)
° And the best part, when we drive it “long distances” (out to the dump) it backfires
when we shift it into 3rd gear.
° It’s always humorous to watch people hit the ground when you drive by.
It sounds like they’re getting shot at.

So, P.J. always sits in our driveway. Waiting to be driven, but never getting that opportunity.

I’m sure the neighbors love it.

True, we always leave the keys in it, in case any of them ever need to haul anything to the dump. We say if they can get it started, they can have it!

But it’s not the most attractive thing to look at.

That’s why I was surprised when this nice gentleman asked if it was for sale.

A few months ago, when Max purchased his GMC pick-up, we decided we didn’t
need P.J. anymore.
He put an add on Craig’s List and generated a little interest.
Someone even contacted him and said if he had a pay-pal account, they’d deposit the asking price and send someone over to haul it away… sight unseen.
No dickering over the price.

It felt fishy.
And weird.
Max declined.

And P.J. stayed in our driveway.

I talked to this man for a few minutes.
I tell him the price Max had it listed for and follow it with what I think it’s worth, which is 1/2 of Max’s asking price.
I also tell him everything that’s wrong with it. (See above list.)
I realize that I would never survive as a car salesman.

The man offered $150 less than my price.
He said he’d write a check right then if I’d take his offer.

True, the offer is 1/3 of what Max originally wanted, but really…
it truly is a good deal!!

Before anyone thinks I was taken advantage of, I will tell you why he was so interested in our little Ford Ranger:

He’s a farmer.
He has other Ford Rangers on his farm.
They seem to be reliable trucks for him and even if this thing doesn’t work, he can take it and use it for parts.

I felt good about it and about the honesty of the man.

But I can’t make a deal without first discussing it with Max.
I can’t get a hold of Max on the phone.
I realize, after getting Nice Man’s phone number and Nice Man leaves, that if I need to contact my husband in a hurry, I need to call him on his cell phone – not his office phone. (Apparently I wasn’t paying attention to what number I was dialing.)

Duh.

Max agrees to the deal, calls Nice Man and shakes hands over the phone.
Nice man will send someone over to pick it up in the morning. And they will even take the “junk” that is sitting in the back (an old broken plastic swimming pool, yard debris, etc).

And JUST LIKE THAT
by 9:30 p.m.
our little pick-up was sold.

Without even trying.

Things like that don’t happen to us!

It’s truly a blessing!!

Too bad I don’t have a picture of it to put on here. It’s in the background of a lot of pics I have, but I have never taken a picture of the truck alone.
I’ll have to do that in the morning, before it drives off into the sun.

Good-bye, P.J.!

Remember This?

2011-06-20T21:38:00.001-06:00

This is my 2009 Mother’s Day present.
We had a blast driving it that year.

Amazingly, we all survived. :)

The subsequent winter wasn’t great for our little “Piglet”, however.

We didn’t winterize it properly, so when spring 2010 came,
it wouldn’t start.

It sat in storage all last summer. We didn’t know who to call to fix it and
didn’t know how to fix it ourselves.
(It shared storage space with our boat and every time we went boating, I’d gaze
longingly at it, wishing I could drive it once again.)

This year Max decided he’d just start calling and harassing everyone to see
if there was a repair department that would even look at it.

HE FOUND ONE!!

Yippee!!

He took it in and they fixed it!!
Well… they fixed the carburetor problem and something else, but they weren’t
able to find the parts needed to fix the right brake.

But it runs!
And, as long as you don’t need the right brake,

IT RUNS PRETTY NICELY TOO!

So, tonight I took it for the first ride in a year.

Scared?

Oh yeah.

Terrified!!

But I stuck to the side roads and kept it at 30 mph
and before too long I started to feel pretty
COOL!

Next up, I’m going to purchase a nice little retro-helmet (I want to be safe) and before you know it,
they’ll be calling me

Va- Va- Voom Valerie!

“I’ll Just Fast, Mom.”

2011-06-03T00:35:00.001-06:00

A couple weeks ago, my neighbor – who is an instructor and coach at The University – gave a talk about one of his former athletes. She was on the track team and worked very hard to be good at her sport. She came to every practice, gave her best effort and afterward, would always come up to the coach and say, “What more can I do? What can I do to be better?”

She did very well at her various meets and eventually ended up competing at a national level.

She knew her competition was tough, so before her specific race started, (once around the track, running hurdles) she walked up to the coaches and asked, “What can I do to win this race?”

They decided that her strategy would be to start off fast and hard at the BEGINNING of the race, run it hard all the way, and that hopefully that would give her enough of a lead to win. She knew it was going to be tough, so after they made their plan, she disappeared for a few minutes, presumably to gather her thoughts.

The race finally began. While the other runners in her competition started off gradually, planning for the sprint at the end, she took off like a bolt of lightening. Crossing the first hurdle, she was a step ahead of everyone. When she got to the second hurdle, she was a hurdle length ahead of everyone. By the third hurdle, she had a significant lead.

She was able to keep that lead for a while, but then she started getting tired. My neighbor said he could see she was losing her stride. Her legs began shaking, she was losing her rhythm. The other runners started catching up to her.

Finally, at the end of the race, it was a photo finish. Enough people had caught up to this young lady that it took a couple minutes to determine who the winner actually was. It was finally announced that this girl had won and not only was victory hers, but she had set a new national record!

Everyone was so happy!

When things had calmed down a bit, my neighbor took this girl aside and asked her, “Where did you go for those few minutes before your race started?”

She told him that she found a quiet spot underneath the bleachers where she could pray. She said she told Heavenly Father that she had done everything she could do to prepare for the race that day and that she couldn’t improve anymore. She asked Heavenly Father to take over and help her win the race.

She then told my neighbor that at the end of the race, she had nothing left in her. She had run out of energy and stamina and that there was no way her legs could have kept working. She said that she KNOWS that Heavenly Father carried her the final steps of the race and gave her the push over the finish line to win.

It was a nice story.

My son DRANK IT UP. He loved it!

Last week was his piano recital.

His FIRST piano recital to be precise.

He was ready. He practices 1/2 hour, 5 days a week (heavily encouraged by me.) :)

He had his pieces memorized the second week after he got them. By the 3rd or 4th week, he had them mostly polished. He was tired of them and bored by the 5th week.

Translated: HE WAS READY!

But, he was still nervous. It was his first time to play the piano in front of an audience. (“Did Michael Jackson get nervous, Mom?”)

A couple hours before the recital I said to Inigo, “Let’s eat some dinner, then we’ll say a prayer so you’ll feel more calm.”

His response was, “No, Mom. I think I’m just going to fast. Remember that story that Bro. W told in Sacrament Meeting? I need to fast so I can show Heavenly Father that I have enough faith so he can help me play my songs in my recital.”

(Then he asked if he just held his hands over the piano keys, would Heavenly Father just make them play?)

This kid amazes me.

He. Just. Has Faith. It’s second nature to him.
I don’t teach him.
He teaches me.
I don’t know why we were so blessed to have this child in our home, but I am very grateful that he is here.

Once we got to the room where the recital was, he seemed calm. He told me he felt okay, but told Steck that he was a bit nervous.

When it was finally his turn (that’s a long story: Max was flying to Florin so he could be here for the recital, but there was a pretty brisk headwind, so it took him a bit longer to arrive. He landed about 20 minutes after the recital started. Inigo’s wonderful teacher moved him around on the program, so that once Max finally arrived, Inigo got up to play his first song!)

ANYWAY,
When it was finally Inigo’s turn to play his first song, Star Wars Theme Song, he walked up to the piano, sat down and aced it!

He played it BEAUTIFULLY!!

We were so proud!

His second song was just as nice. (The teacher had gotten distracted by then, and we had to remind him that Inigo had one more song to play.)

Afterward we asked him how he felt.
He said he felt calm and that he wasn’t scared at all.
Did he feel like Heavenly Father helped him?

YOU BETCHA!

Did I learn another lesson from my 8 year old son?

YOU BETCHA!

Little Miss DooLittle takes from the same teacher.
She did an amazing job as well!

Here they are with their teacher
Brother Opie.
I’m so sad I couldn’t get this picture to turn out better.
(I think the white board behind them was messing my lighting up.)

Sharpening Up My Cockney Accent

2011-05-31T23:49:00.001-06:00

Inigo and I are having a very good time going to our play rehearsals every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights. Some nights are boring and there isn’t much to do, and some nights are full of choreography, singing and “blocking.” (As a newbie to this whole live stage experience, I have learned that “blocking” is where the director walks us through a scene to show us exactly where we are supposed to stand and how we’re supposed to look.)

As a “non-principal” actor in this production, my official role is “Londoner.” But in that role, I have a few choice parts I have been asked to play:

In the song Who Will Buy?, I am a school teacher, marching across the stage with 6 children. I pretend to write on an invisible chalk board while the children are misbehaving behind my back. That will be fun. The school kids are cute and full of life. We’re already having fun hanging out together.

My next part is new to me. Last weekend I got a call from the director and she actually gave me lines! At the end of the play, when Bill Sykes has beaten Nancy to death I get to first whisper his name, “Bill Sykes” and then when the shock of hearing his name has reverberated around the stage, I then SCREAM, “It’s Nancy! He’s killed Nancy!”

Of course, I have to say it in my best Cockney accent.

Whatever that is.

Inigo has a line in this scene too. When Bill Sykes stumbles on stage, holding Oliver as a hostage, Inigo – with all the shock and horror he can muster – points and yells, “Look! There he is!”

I’m trying to teach Inigo to keep looking scared, horrified, etc. after he delivers his line. Tonight, he said his line – perfectly I must add – and about 2 seconds later, scratched his behind and looked back at me to see if he’d done a good job.

I tell ya, he doesn’t need to worry. He did an amazing job. He’s been practicing that line for a month and he’s got that accent PERFECTED!!! I knew that having a house full of drama queens would eventually pay off.

(ME? Dramatic?!?!? NEVER!!!!!)

I know, to a lot of people this isn’t a big deal. But this is something I’ve always wanted to do. And I’m so glad I get to have this experience, with a director I love and respect, before we head off to New Florin.

However…. (and now is the frustrating part)…..

COSTUMES.

Blah!

Our production company is using the costumes that the high school uses. Yes. Teeny tiny teenagers. Kids that have no hips, no guts and certainly no boobs.

It was HUMILIATING going to the costume fitting tonight to try to find a skirt that would pull up over my massive hips. And I will admit that I actually ripped one of them trying to get it off. Why don’t people sew with elastic?!?!?

I brought home a couple skirts, but I am thinking that sewing a skirt can’t be too hard. I think I’ll just buy some cheap fabric and make my own. I can get it done in an afternoon, I think. And I’ll put ELASTIC in the waistband. DUH.

Of course, I’ll need to find my sewing machine and dust it off first….

♫ ~ ♪ ~ ♫ ~ ♪ ~ ♫ ~ ♪ ~ ♫ ~ ♪ ~ ♫ ~

We had another wonderful Saturday in My National Park over Memorial Day Weekend. This time we went with my sister, Red, and niece, SaJo, who came up to visit from Happy Valley. Thankfully our good fortune held and we were able to see three more bears. That was especially nice since SaJo has never seen a bear in the wild and the last bear Red saw was 16 years ago.

I took another gazillion photos. My hard drive is getting FULL to the brim with pictures of My Park.

Shackie has the same problem.

So we got together and decided we needed to create a blog dedicated to our photographs and our experiences of the Park.

And so, we give you,
THIS.
Our blog dedicated to the one place on earth that we love the most.

We hope you enjoy it! Because we enjoyed going there and taking the pictures for you!

That Alarm Button is TURNED OFF!

2011-05-26T10:13:00.001-06:00

Wow.

Today is May 26.

The last time I wrote anything was May 3.

Well, that’s not entirely true. I actually wrote a post about 2 weeks ago that didn’t get published. It wasn’t very fun or exciting, so I put the ax to it and sent it away…

Not that today’s post will be any better.

I’m simply too exhausted to be witty and clever.

Tired. Tired. Tired.

It feels like I’ve been running 100 mph in a gazillion different directions, helping with this and that and that and this.

I need to learn how to organize my time a little better.

Don’t get me wrong!

I’m not complaining…. at all.

I have a good life. We’re all happy here. Just a little tired.

But today is THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL!!!

Yippee!

Hurrah!!

We made it through!!

And I’m turning off my alarm. And I’m sleeping in tomorrow.

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The past several weekends, when Max comes home, have been refreshing and fun times. We’ve been to My National Park twice since my post on May 2 and have had fabulous times.

Max whisked me away for Mother’s Day weekend while Steck stayed home with Inigo. (Very grateful for her!) It was a wonderful weekend even though we were plagued with terrible weather and ANOTHER flat tire (up to that point it was our THIRD this year!)

(And yes, I said, “up to that point” because we had ANOTHER flat last weekend. Yes. It’s true. We’re having terrible luck.)

(Oh. and two of the tires were unable to be repaired. They were shredded.)

The last two trips to “The Park” we’ve been fortunate enough to see bears. Both black and grizzly.

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This is our “selfish bear” from Mother’s Day. We were the only people that saw it on the hill and we didn’t tell anyone that walked past us it was there. We pretended that we were looking at a small herd of bison that are just to the right of the pic (you can’t see them). We fooled a few people too!

hehehe

But then some students from Quebec walked by and saw it and we were doomed.

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We saw three bears last weekend. We went up just for the day with Shack and Little Miss DooLittle. Poor Stinky was stuck at home because he was sick.

This is OBVIOUSLY a grizz. What’s crazy is that he is walking through a campground that is currently under renovation, so the road into it is closed. About 30 minutes previous WE were walking around this same campground –down that same road - looking for restroom facilities. I’m going to try posting a video of the bear walking across the same log that Inigo had walked on.
We need to remember to carry bear spray with us….

These next pictures tell a story. Can you tell what the story is? Look closely….

In the center of this picture, do you see the coyote approaching the mass of brown on the ground ?

Well that mass of brown is a carcass of something big… an elk or bison… and the coyote is hungry.
It wants a bite.
But why isn’t it getting closer?
Why is it moving farther away?

Look again! Where is the coyote?
What do you see popping up from the carcass?
Is that a big brown head with ears on top?
(I believe you can click on the image to get a closer view.)

Oh! A bear has already claimed its prize!
And apparently the bear didn’t go to kindergarten because it’s NOT willing to share any of the nourishing, rotten meat it’s chewing on.

The bear has returned to his feast.
You can see the coyote is trying his approach from a different side now.

This poor coyote is going to have to find a rabbit or mouse or something else to eat. The bear has finally chased it away!

Who knows?
Maybe the coyote can find a meal in this…
A Yellow Bellied Marmot!

This is the 3rd and final bear we saw as a group last weekend:

Look closely.
Can you see it?
We made a joke that we were looking at
“BEAR BUTTS.”

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha

Here’s a better view:
He’s obviously a black bear.

What’s sad/scary/extremely gross is that right after we were making jokes about “bear butts” we came upon a car that was pulled over to the side of the road. We thought the occupants were looking at this gorgeous creature:
(Can you see the velvet on his antlers? What a treat for us to see it that close!)

We quickly realized that that’s NOT why they were pulled over. A woman from the car was crouching on the side of the road, and RIGHT AS WE DROVE BY stood up to reveal her pants were down around her ankles.
Yes, she decided to take a potty break right IN FRONT OF EVERYONE!!! She wasn’t hiding behind any trees, or bushes or even along side her own car.

Now, that’s gutsy and obviously disgustingly gross for those of us who were forced to witness her exhibition. (Also, it’s not like My National Park doesn’t have strategically placed facilities throughout the Park. You know…. something that has walls, doors that lock, etc. etc.)

It gave a new meaning to our previous joke.
”Bear Butts” quickly (and sadly) became “Bare Butts.”

UGH!!

On Sunday evenings when Max has to drive back to New Florin, he can now drive through The Park and cuts about 2 hours off his driving time. It’s quite pleasant and it means he gets a weekly trip through.

Yes, I’m jealous.

Sunday night as he was driving in the rain and dark, two more black bears ran across the road, in front of his truck.

That brings his weekend bear total up to FIVE!!!

Amazing!

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Somewhere in the middle of all this wildlife viewing we also took a trip to State Capital to see the musical, Wicked.

We also went with Shack, Little Miss and Stinky.

It was everyone’s first time to see it and they were thrilled. Everyone loved it.

Me?
Can you believe I’m going to say this?
It was just okay.
I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t as thrilling as when I saw it before.
I guess you can’t compete with the first time.
Maybe it’s because I knew the story and I knew what to expect.
Maybe it’s because the stage was so small.
The auditorium is just a bit bigger than the auditorium in our new high school.

Don’t get me wrong.
I was happy to go and happy to have that experience with my family (Inigo went to a friend’s house during the show) and friends.

It was just….
DIFFERENT.

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With school ending here are a few things we are looking forward to:

* Inigo’s first piano recital. He’s so ready he’s bored.
* Finishing up baseball season. At least half the games so far have been cancelled due to rainy/terrible weather.
* Helping my parents move. This was a quick decision. It’s happened in the matter of about two weeks. Sadly, I haven’t had enough time to help the way I’ve wanted to or they’ve needed me to. Here’s hoping for more free time!
* Continue with rehearsals for “Oliver!” We’re spending a lot of time learning choreography and lyrics as well as playing piano for Wednesday’s rehearsals, but we’re having a LOT of fun!
* Work on marketing for the play. My job is to create posters, fliers and contact media to make sure word gets out that we’re performing it. Oh. I’m also in charge of our theater company’s blog.
* Pack the house. Yes, I’ve still got to go through the entire house; clean it; pack it and plan on a fairly massive garage sale later in the summer.
* A quick trip to OR for our niece’s graduation.

Here’s hoping there will be time for an occasional blog posting too!

Nostalgia vs. Practicality

2011-05-03T22:51:00.001-06:00

Wow. I didn’t know cleaning out a closet would hit me SO HARD!!

I have started packing in preparation of our move. My Dad has been volunteering at the LDS Cannery in Guilder and has been saving boxes and bringing them by the truckful to me. I figure I might as well start sorting through things in my house while there is no pressure, so I can take my time deciding what to keep and what to send to D.I. (or possibly garage sale).

Yesterday I packed some books.

Today I began working in our extra bedroom where I’ve been storing a lot of Buttercup’s youthful memorabilia. For some reason I saved ALL her dresses. Almost every (church) dress from newborn till age 6 or 7. I originally saved them in hopes that she’d have a little sister to pass them down to. Then when that didn’t happen, I saved them out of nostalgia. Then I thought, well maybe when she grows up she’ll want the dresses for her own baby girl.

But now we’re moving. I don’t know where we’ll be living once we get to New Florin. I don’t know how big our house will be, how much closet room we’ll have. I have to stop and make a decision: do I carry these dresses around with me for another 10 years? Is it really practical?

As I was going through each dress, remembering how beautiful Buttercup looked in each and every one it struck me (again) how quickly time passed. Wasn’t it just yesterday that I was her whole world and she was mine? Well, she is still my world, but I’ve certainly lost my top spot in hers. She’s so busy with school and work and planning for her future that sometimes I wonder if she even thinks of me at all. (Although, I like to think I’m still in her top 5… )

After I went through each dress --and only kept about 5-- with tears flowing down my face, I dug deeper into the closet.

Oh mercy.

That’s where I found her little pink elephant wind-up musical plush toy that we got when she was my newborn baby. The song it plays is When You Wish Upon A Star. That was chosen because she was my first miracle baby. Because I wanted her so badly. Because having her was a wish come true.

Of course I’m keeping that!

Underneath her elephant, I found her TWO woobies (blankies). Yes, my daughter had TWO! And she loved them so much. She slept with BOTH of them till she was 8 or 9.

Of course I kept those.

I found the pink ceramic teddy bear that held the flowers that my parents gave me while I was in the hospital after she was born. I found her Achievement Days Banners and book. I found her Girl’s Camp Manual.

*SIGH*

I found her childhood. And it made me miss her.

And it made me cry.

(You can see her two woobies wrapped around her in this picture above ^)

Bison, Elk and Wolf…. OH MY!!

2011-05-02T11:30:00.001-06:00

As per what the calendar says, IT’S SPRING!!

BOO YA!!

Well, the calendar says spring, but where we live that doesn’t mean that we have a lot of spring-like weather. My neighbor’s daffodils have finally bloomed. My tulips are a couple inches tall… no buds on them yet though. I am thinking that one day soon I need to get out and mow the lawn for the first time this year. But I’ll have to mow in between snow storms or anchor myself with a rope to the trees in my yard to keep me from being blown to Kansas in the 40 mph wind gusts. (Also, I need to dodge the shingles that are being blown off everyone’s roofs!) We are under a constant advisory for heavy frost (it was 24° when I got up this morning).

So, what I’m saying is that “spring” is a subjective term.

However, the Powers That Be have decreed that my National Park needs to be open to vehicles again and have plowed out the roads and thrown open the gates! Actually, they opened it two weeks ago, and we couldn’t get there until last weekend. I felt like such a slacker… I felt that I was neglecting my furry animals and bubbly geysers after such a long winter.

It was such a happy moment when I flashed my All Park Pass to the still friendly Park Ranger (she admitted she’s not as friendly in July) and crossed the border into my Happiest Place On Earth. Can you hear the big, satisfying sigh escape my lungs as I think about it? Ahhhhhhh…… home again!

We were surprised by a few things: First of all: There’s still a TON of snow up there! Yes, it’s melting quickly, but there are still a couple feet left on the ground. We’ve been there with snow in the spring before, but the depth was very unusual. (Check out my CLOUD BLOG to see one of the mountains I snapped a picture of. The snow still looks so deep!)

Our second surprise was in the form of best friends. Right after we entered The Park we drove past one of the pull-offs along the river and whaddaya know? There was Shack, Little Miss DooLittle and Stinky parked and hanging out with some of Stinky’s co-workers! We hadn’t called them to see if they wanted to go together like we usually do because… well, why didn’t we call them? I don’t know! But it was a wonderful surprise and when we invited ourselves along with their party, they very graciously said we could hang out with them. (Before Max quit at the hospital here, he worked with these same people as well. So it was a little “co-workers reunion.” They are good people.)

Our agenda was kind of limited. Many of the roads are still closed and the back country is closed due to grizzly bear activity, so we had to skip hiking and stick to the “touristy” areas. i.e. geyser hotspots, visitor’s centers, etc. But those places aren’t bad in the spring when tourist numbers are down. Going into the new Visitor Center at Old Reliable was pleasant because we had the run of the place to ourselves and could see and interact with the awesome new displays they have.

(This is an “indoor” geyser display. It shows how hot water starts to boil and build up pressure before it finally releases through a hole at the top.)

The third wonderful surprise was that we actually saw 3 brand new baby bison! We thought we were still about 2 weeks away from birthing season so when we saw these darling little things we were thrilled!! We probably sat here for 15-20 minutes just watching them.

I’m sorry….but as many times as I’ve driven by and watched bison, I still love them. I still love to stop and take their picture as they walk past my car. I love to listen to their hooves clip clop on the pavement. I love to watch their heavy head swing back and forth. I love, most of all, to hear their little grunt and snort as they communicate with each other. They are such massive, powerful animals.

The bald eagles are back and soaring through the skies. They aren’t nesting yet… at least not what I could see… but they’re there and we were happy to get reacquainted with them!

Per our tradition, lunch was spent in the parking lot of Old Reliable. It was about 38° with a chilly breeze turning our sandwiches into frozen weapons that could chip a tooth.

(I wonder where Max’s coat is?)

Sadly, we had to part ways. When you travel with National Park Newbies, they have tendencies to get bored more quickly and since Shack and Stinky were their hosts, they needed to leave too. So Max, Inigo and I kept driving up the road and sadly waved good-bye in our rear-view mirror.

You’d think these kids had never seen snow before!

We really didn’t want to leave, so we pointed the car toward another geyser basin. A HUGE area that is chock full of geysers, hot pools, mud pots…..

What an adventure that was! See what this sign says:

Well, they meant it! Some parts of the boardwalks were completely clear of snow and ice and others…. well, just look at the athletic training we experienced:

Balance Beams galore

OR….

Mountaineering.

And don’t forget to check out the awesome shoes my son wore! Yes, Good Mommy of the Year award goes to me. I grabbed his coat, gloves, hat and earmuffs but didn’t check to see what he had on his feet. Yeah for sandals!

But it was all worth it for views like this:

And fun shots like this:

To gain perspective on just how much snow is left in parts of The Park, look at this:

The entire day was a highlight, but the truest highlight of the day was this:

This little beauty was out hunting in the grasslands. Now, I’m no expert, but this seriously looks wolfish to me! It was pretty awesome watching it pace back and forth across the surface of the icy snow and then suddenly pounce and shove its head down through the crust. We didn’t see it catch anything, but the process was pretty amazing!

Sadly, we didn’t see any grizzly bears this trip. But we almost did! We saw it’s tracks in the snow across the river and someone saw a carcass it had been feeding on. But when you’re tabulating sightings, an “almost” doesn’t count. :(

An otherwise uneventful drive home completed our first trip of the year. There is a rumor that we might go again next weekend…. I’ll hold my breath for this one. Because that would be the ultimate Mother’s Day gift for me!

(Thankfully, while we were there we didn’t run into idiots like these people. They were there two days before us.)

***************************************

UPDATE:
Since I wrote this post this morning, I have experienced a true spring!! I got the lawn mowed for the first time…. which was amazing! I didn’t think I’d get the mower started without the help of Max, since it hasn’t been run in at least 6 months. BUT IT STARTED ON THE FIRST PULL!! (I have to say another BOO YA!!) And while I was mowing I noticed that the tulips in my back yard have buds as well as my Violets have bloomed.

*sigh* LOVE IT!

True Story

2011-04-20T00:29:00.001-06:00

The following narrative is absolutely, 100% true. I remember the events like they happened yesterday. I learned a major life lesson from this and I have tried my hardest to never repeat this misfortunate experience again.

Let’s flash back to the previous century…

Remember the 1900’s?

(Inigo acts like the 1900’s was more like the 1600’s… “Mom, were you really alive in the 1900’s? What was it like back then?”
I always try to respond, “Well, I remember back when dirt was just being created….”)

Let’s not make it sound like it was that long ago. Flash back to the last decade of the 20th century. Specifically fall of 1994.

Max, Buttercup and I were living in Portland, Oregon. Buttercup was a darling little 2 year old.

(Yes, she was a true “Princess.” )

We were incredibly lucky that we lived only 10 minutes away from the Portland Temple and equally lucky that we had a new church house built just up the street from our rented townhouse. That meant that we could actually walk to church! We were so excited!

Our ward boundaries were quite large and we had a fairly young ward. There were many young couples with young children. So many in fact, that there were TWO NURSERIES with about 20 kids each in them.

I felt very lucky to have a lot of friends in that ward. One girl, Margie was a particularly good friend (sadly, we’ve lost touch). I remember one day we went to lunch together, and on the way home it was just the two of us, and we were talking about church callings.

Here is where I made my fatal mistake and learned my life lesson:

I said (out loud): “You know, I think I would be able to accept any calling in the Church, except being a Relief Society Teacher. ESPECIALLY, THE SPIRITUAL LIVING TEACHER!)

(They don’t have that specific calling in Relief Society anymore)

Margie agreed and we shuddered together at the horrific thought that that calling brought to our minds.

Margie dropped me off at my townhouse and I went on with my life. I didn’t think about that conversation again for about 3 weeks. AND THEN IT CAME BACK TO HAUNT ME!!

One day I was at the church. I don’t remember why. It doesn’t matter. I was standing in the meetinghouse library when someone came up to me and said, “Valerie, the bishop would like to speak with you.”

Now I found that interesting. Never in my adult life had I been issued a call from the bishop (I had always served in the Primary) so I wasn’t nervous. Maybe I didn’t realize that the Bishop could actually extend a calling to me.

I went like a lamb to the slaughter.

“Sister Valerie, we’ve discussed this and we’d like to ask you to be an instructor in Relief Society, specifically the Spiritual Living Teacher.”

For the love of….. WHAT!?!?!?

All of a sudden my conversation with Margie came crashing back down on me. How in the world did the Bishop know? Was he hiding in the back seat? Did he pay the Elder’s Quorum to secretly bug her car? Was Margie a secret Bishopric informant?

Nah. It can’t be. surely this was a joke!

But the Bishop’s not laughing.

In fact, he almost looks serious.

My heart jumps out of my chest. Tears fill my eyes. I realize HE IS SERIOUS!!!

My breath starts to come in short, rapid bursts. NOW I am crying.

For the love of everything good in the world, PLEASE DON’T ASK ME TO DO THIS!!!

I will admit, it got ugly. I began to beg. Yes, I groveled. I’m not proud of it, but that’s the way it was. Do you know what I begged for? Instead of a Relief Society calling, I wanted to be the Nursery Leader. It would have been so much easier for me to be in charge of 40 toddlers than to stand in front of a room full of my peers trying to teach them a spiritual lesson.

The bishop was cruel and calloused. My tears did NOTHING to affect him. He was a cold-hearted man. He insisted that it wasn’t HIM that wanted me in this calling, but that Heavenly Father wanted me there. And that he believed that I was exactly what they needed and it was exactly what I needed.

He sent me sobbing out of the door to my home. And believe me, I cried buckets the entire walk home. (I even remember that I was wearing a denim jumper. That’s how vivid this memory is.)

As soon as I got home, I got on the phone and called the only person I could think of that could help me. My mommy.

My body was wracked with sobs. The big gulping kind. My face was red, my nose had swollen up to approximately the size of a grapefruit, my red eyes were now puffy slits in my face.

I remember that my brother, Googenheimer, answered the phone. “Googen (gulp) heimer (gasp), is mom (sob) there?” I remember that I heard him run frantically to get my mom (those were the days when we still were tied to a phone with a cord.)

My mom came rushing to answer my call. I could hear the panic in her voice as she said, “Val, are you okay? Were you in a car wreck?” (Googenheimer, thought that my panic was so severe that surely someone has passed away in a car accident.)

“No, Mom. But I have some equally terrible news.”

“Val… what’s wrong?”

“MOMMY!!! THEY ASKED ME TO TEACH RELIEF SOCIETY!!!”

That pronouncement was met with stunned silence for about 10 seconds. Then, instead of the compassionate sympathy and empathy that I was expecting, I received an earful of laughter.

Oh no!! My mother’s against me too?!?!

She lovingly explained to me that everything would be okay. That the calling really is an inspired calling and that she believed in me. She calmed my sobs down and quieted my hysteria. I still didn’t want the calling, but she made me think that it would actually be okay.

Flash forward a couple weeks to my first lesson.

I was so nervous. I was a wreck. Remember, I had spent all of my married life – all 6 1/2 years of it– teaching Primary or being Primary pianist. I had no idea how to engage the class or how to lead a discussion. My experience was, “Johnny, stop hitting Steve!” and “Marsha, please use a tissue not your finger.” Or, “If you can be quiet and we can finish the lesson, I promise we’ll play a game of hangman!”

Because of this, my first lesson ended 15 minutes early.

(You should have seen the look of panic on the Relief Society President’s face when we looked at the clock and realized what time it was!)

Thankfully, this calling was short-lived. The poor sisters in that ward only had to endure about 3 of my lessons and I moved with my family to the Coast, which is where I began my career calling in the Young Women organization. Whew!

I’m sure the Relief Society wasn’t too sad at my departure.

The preceding has been a true story. It has not been embellished or dramatized in any way.

I tell it for a reason.

I have been able to avoid Relief Society for the past 16 years. I have only had to teach one other lesson, in a Homemaking Class (another program that is gone) and I remember it as being a dismal failure. (I was asked to teach on how to mark scriptures using color codes… It’s a system that still confuses me.) That lesson was at least 8 years ago.

But now, Relief Society has come back to haunt me. Tonight I have been asked to teach a lesson/class for… what do they call it now? It’s not Enrichment, it’s not Homemaking… is it mid week MEETING? I have no idea, but I’ll be teaching one of the classes.

I guess I’ve grown up a little, I didn’t cry when they asked me to teach. But I’m seriously stressed. I can teach kids. I can teach teenagers. But teaching women is seriously scary business!! Thank heavens it’s only one class and one night.

The class is only supposed to be 15 minutes long. It makes me think of my first Spiritual Living lesson… it would be BAD if I ended this one 15 minutes early!!!

Devastated

2011-04-14T01:27:00.001-06:00

As most of you know, this is NOT my first blog. When I originally started blogging it was on an MSN Live Spaces blog. I was there for a long time. About 2 1/2 years.

When I was convinced to move over to Blogger, I came kicking and screaming. I was comfortable with Spaces and had it figured out. But the move was necessary.

My first blog with Blogger had all my vital information out there. All our first names. I didn’t ever fully disclose the name of the town where we live, but I gave enough hints that it was fairly obvious. I’m sure I didn’t hide our last name either.

I became concerned about safety, so I shut down that blog and began writing here, using the movie Princess Bride as the theme. So, this blog is my THIRD personal blog that I have posted on. (I also have my cloud blog and the blog of the community theatre group I’m involved with that I manage.)

However, my first blog was precious to me. It documented all the funny things Inigo said and did when he was just little. And believe me, there were a TON!!! It recorded all of Buttercup’s personal triumphs over the hard things in her life. It was my place to write funnies as well as serious posts. It was a great place to practice my creativity.

A year or so ago, I decided I needed to start printing off those blog posts and I began the arduous task of copying and pasting each entry into Microsoft Word so I could take it to the printer and have it copied and bound.

It was a pretty big task. I wrote a LOT back then. So I decided to print it off a year at a time. It saved money doing it that way as well. This was going to be an expensive task.

I got that first year printed and bound. I loved it. And was ready to start on the second year, but our finances got tight, so I put it off. When Max started his new job in New Florin in January I said to him, “Now that you’ve got a regular pay check I would like to finish printing off my old blog.’ We agreed that it was something I should do.

And then I got busy. I became a single mom. I became an art mom and a music mom. I became a Cub Scout Leader. But all that’s okay because my blog would be there waiting for when I could find the time…

NOT!!!

I received a horrifying message from Steck tonight. She had been reading some of my old blog posts and when she went to look at them tonight, she found out that Live Spaces had turned everything over to another blog host, WordPress and my blog was gone.

ABSOLUTELY IRRETRIEVABLY GONE!!!

MSN failed to notify me… they have my email address… I would have made the transfer to WordPress to protect my memories. Instead, they deleted EVERYTHING on March 16.

Steck and I have spend hours on Google trying to find cached versions of my blog posts. I have been able to find and recover about 6 months worth of entries. That leaves me with a year’s worth that I can’t retrieve. That’s a year’s worth of memories. Of good times. Of laughs. Of hilarious Inigo-isms. (I am SO GRATEFUL that the post detailing his adventure with our Temple Dedication and Inigo’s subsequent meeting with President Monson wasn’t completely deleted! I was able to find it on Google.)

I sent an email to the people at WordPress asking if there is anyway I can retrieve my posts. I can’t find any way to contact the people at MSN. I take that back. I found one place where I can get tech support…. for $38! I don’t think so!

I’m devastated about this. I’m praying that in the morning I’ll have a happy email from someone telling me that all is not lost. That I can have my journal and my memories back.

And I’m going to start transferring my posts from my first blog on Blogger to Word. I can’t have this happen again!

What We Saw

2011-04-13T12:35:00.001-06:00

Spring break around here is pretty pathetic. This year we got… sit down for this … Thursday and Friday off.

Sad AND Pathetic.

I’m sure it’s because we have a week and 1/2 off in the fall. It’s called Spud Harvest. I call it Potato Vacation. I’m not sure why the schools close. They say it’s so teenagers can go work in the spuds and help harvest, but I don’t know if enough kids participate to warrant closing the entire district down.

Since we have that huge block of time off in the fall, it means we don’t get anything in the spring. As a mom who doesn’t have a kid working spuds and never had a kid working in the spuds, I’d really prefer having a longer spring break. By spring, we’re tired… and having a few extra days sounds HEAVENLY!!

For our two day break, Inigo and I packed up Max’s new pick-up and drove the 6 hours to New Florin. (My National Park opens to road travel this weekend! We are so excited! That means our 6 hour drive can be cut down to 4!!! Yippee!!)

In a few short months, New Florin is going to be home. I have to accept that and embrace it. I’ve only been there a few times… November (job interview); January and last weekend. I have to say that I’ve seen it at it’s worst. No color. No foliage. No growth. (Plenty of deer and antelope playing though! ♫)

Blah!

So this weekend Max drove me around to teach me that there is beauty all around. And honestly, I think New Florin could be pretty. Pretty in a different way than what I’m used to… but pretty in a desert/sage brush/rocky/desolate sort of way.

I took this on the drive to New Florin. It was cold, snowy, and miserable.

In this town of 5300 people there isn’t a LOT to do. The community pool was closed for maintenance… I can’t think if there is anything else available. Is there a bowling alley in town? Hmm…. I don’t think so.
But there was a park. So we bundled up, more than once, and hung out there while Max was at work.

We had some excitement one day.
This was 3 houses down from Max’s rental.
Inigo was excited to see a member of a S.W.A.T. team.
We still don’t know what was going on.
I told Max he’d better start locking his doors! But I’m pretty sure he hasn’t.

We are excited that there are a couple reservoirs close by, but I don’t ever plan on being crazy enough to take my boat out at 35•!!!

Holy Crud! there are a LOT of deer around there! There was a large herd on the side of the road, and since we were the only car there, I decided I’d stop and talk to them. I felt like I needed to remind them that playing by the highway was dangerous and could lead to a death of one or more of their herd.

They listened! And moved back behind the fence!

Either that, or they thought I had bad breath and ran away!

I thought this was interesting. Max wants us to buy/rent/move out here. It’s a teeny tiny “town” that has a population of about 50 people (10,000 antelope). It’s about 1/2 hour away from New Florin.
We were driving through… well, look at the picture. Flat. Brown. Sage Brush was the only vegetation.

It was UGLY!

Then BOOM!!!

We came upon these huge granite mountains.
It seriously took my breath away. (This was a former entrance road into My National Park.)
But I talked him out of moving to such remote desolation.
Such a place would only serve to enhance my insane tendencies.

I’m excited to live closer to this. It’s named after a predatory animal’s cuspid.
I think I can have fun taking pictures of it. When I’m not in a moving car. When it’s not 35• outside.

I think when I look at it, I can pretend that I’m somewhere in the Alps and I’m looking at the anemic cousin of the Matterhorn.

More deer.
We saw some elk too, but they were far away.
They’re smarter than their cousins. They don’t want to be run over.
We looked for bears.
We looked for moose.
Apparently deer rule this area!

I took this picture of Inigo on the way back to Florin. We were the only car traveling in our direction for about 120 miles (2 hours). It was so nice not having to pass anyone or be passed. I could go whatever speed I wanted.

AND…. I could stop IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD without fear
and take a picture of Inigo next to a particularly tall snow drift.
I know… tall, right?
Well, this wasn’t the tallest one!! We drove past drifts that were taller!!
I’m pretty sure spring is going to hit the mountains in July.

I had to take a picture of my parent’s cabin (the top cabin). We can’t drive up there.
The roads aren’t plowed.
But we want to keep track of the snow levels to know when they’ll be able to move back up there for the summer months.
Maybe I should say “month.”

And that is what we saw! I’m anxious to see more of this when it’s green and growing!

Whatchyoo Lookin’ At?

2011-04-12T00:29:00.001-06:00

As you know, I’m the ‘Art Mom’ in Inigo’s second grade class.

HA HA!!!

Seriously, every time I say that I bust a gut laughing, because I ALWAYS have to follow it with “THERE AIN’T NUTHIN’ ARTISTIC ABOUT ME!!!”

Thank heavens for websites like this. They give ‘Art Duds’ like me inspiration and HELP that I desperately need.

The last time we had an art class was on April 1. I thought it was extremely convenient that I found the PERFECT art project for April Fool’s Day!

Seriously, how great is this?

(Inigo and his besty, Bull’s Eye)

(I think it’s okay to post D’s picture because you can’t really see her face!)

This Is Intense Work!!

2011-04-11T00:34:00.001-06:00

Inigo and I spent our "Spring Break" (all TWO DAYS of it!) in New Florin with Max. (Again, Buttercup couldn't go with us due to her school schedule. )

WE MISS YOU BUTTERCUP!!!

As per normal, the weather was less than desirable. But we made the most of it.

One of the things Inigo really wanted to do was go to the park and play a game of catch with his dad. Baseball season is starting and he knows he needs to work on his game a bit. So they bundled up and headed for the park.

When I initially started taking pictures of Inigo catching the ball, I was just looking for a fun "action shot." But after I snapped about 8 or so, I realized that Inigo sticks his tongue out, every time the ball comes his way.

It made us laugh pretty hard.

However, he IS getting better at catching, so maybe the tongue thing actually works!

Knock, Knock

2011-04-08T09:25:00.003-06:00

Now we've done it....

Inigo and I have gotten ourselves involved with Florin Community Theatre.

I have signed on as a member of the board. My official title is "Marketing Director." I'm not sure really what that entails, but here is what I did: I designed a poster for our upcoming production of "Oliver!" and hung them in every business/restaurant/city building/grocery store/hair cutting store in Florin. I also designed a lot of fliers for school aged children to take home to their parents telling them that we need them to audition for our production. "Oliver!" you know is swarming with children in its cast. We handed out approximately 3,000 fliers to 250 different schools/grades/classes in our county.

Inigo has decided he wants to audition. It doesn't matter that this would be his first stage production and other than a few dance recitals and a skit at Pack Meeting, has no experience on a stage. He wants the good, juicy part.

Not Oliver.

That's boring and a little wimpy.

No, my boy wants to be Dodger. The Artful Dodger to be precise. Dodger is a tough, worldly, scoundral that my boy has identified with. I don't know why...

I bought the "Oliver!" soundtrack on iTunes and burned a CD of it. Inigo puts it in his CD player every night -- on repeat -- and goes to sleep to it. You can hear him in his room, asleep with his eyes half open singing either "Food, glorious food...." or "Consider yourself.... at home...."

Oh!

And I signed on to be the practice pianist for the vocal director. My piano playing skills have declined in recent years -- proof that practicing EVERY DAY is essential -- so I'm working my guts out to bring them back up to where they should be by practicing 2 (or so) hours EVERY DAY!

We're consumed with "Oliver!"

On that note, Inigo has come up with his very own Knock Knock joke. Usually his jokes consist of

"Knock Knock"

"Who's there?"

"World."

"World who?"

"In the world there are a lot of people."

****crickets chirp****

Eh?

So I'm kind of proud of him for coming up with this one

"Knock Knock"

"Who's there?"

"Oliver"

"Oliver who?"

"Oliver the world people are cutting the cheese.

BA HA HA HA!!! (Remember he is 8 and just learned how to arm pit fart!)

These Generals Went To Conference

2011-04-06T11:18:00.001-06:00

We were lucky enough to score a few tickets to Saturday afternoon’s session of General Conference. Lucky, because our bishop was only given 3 tickets to hand out and by the time we requested ours, he only had two left. But, he is a good man and found an extra ticket, so Max, Inigo and I made the trek to SLC to experience our first Conference Session. (Sadly, we couldn’t take Buttercup due to her school schedule. I’m hoping we can get tickets again this fall and we’ll take her along with us for that!)

Conference totally rocks!! It was such a blast being there. I think it was almost a sensory overload. There was so much to see, hear and smell.

Since this was our first time to go to General Conference, I thought I’d write down my perceptions/experiences of the afternoon:

First of all, we parked too far away. We thought the parking downtown would be heinous, so we thought we’d park at Trolley Square and ride the train to Temple Square. We left my sister’s house in Orem fairly early... something like 11:30 and drove to Salt Lake. We parked in the free area of Trolley Square and hoofed it over to 4th South where the train stop was. Wouldn’t you know it? The train was just leaving when we got there! If I had been able to run in my lousy shoes, we would have made it, but I couldn’t, so we had to sit 20 long minutes to wait for the next train. It made me glad that we had left Orem that early.

Once we arrived at Temple Square I was amazed at how many people there were… all dressed up and happy. We were warned about hecklers, but I didn’t see many and they weren’t really making a lot of noise. No one was paying any attention to them. If anything, there were more pan handlers there, wearing signs asking for money.

I also thought I’d see a lot of people I know, since Florin becomes a ghost town twice a year during Conference time. I believe 90% of our population migrates south every Conference weekend. But we only ran into T-Man, my cute next-door neighbor, who attended the Saturday morning session.

When we got to the Supernacle (aka Conference Center) we had a little extra time, so we stayed outside and took a couple pictures.

Don’t my boys look nice all dressed up in their suits?

There was a lady to my left who watched us take the pictures and asked us if we wanted a family picture... Max is goofy (we all know that) and said, “Actually, I’m not with them. I just met them on the street. But if you want to take our picture, that’s okay!”

I think she believed him. The look on her face was hilarious. So I kept it going, “Yeah. He looked nice, so we thought we’d bring him along.”

I think she realized we were kidding... at least she hoped we were ... and took our picture. When she handed the camera back, I said, “Well, it looks like he’s stuck with us now. I’ve got proof that he was here!”

Going into the Conference Center was hilarious! Of course we had to go through security... metal detectors as well as have our purses looked through. I have a fairly small purse and it was packed: my huge wallet, a water bottle, my camera, and my cell phone, as well as various pockets crammed full of lotions, hand sanitizers, lip glosses, etc. The poor security lady who had to search it was laughing as I opened each little pocket to show that I wasn’t bringing in any weapons... the line was backing up behind us.

We arrived just as the choir from BYU-Idaho was sitting down and warming up. Of course, it would have been nice to listen to The Choir – Mormon Tabernacle – but this choir did a GREAT job! (I even recognized a few people in it!)

Soon after, members of the Quorum of the 12 came in and sat down. First in was Boyd K. Packer who came in a wheelchair. You didn’t know he was in a wheelchair? Neither did I!

And did you know he was sitting down in a chair at the pulpit while he was giving his talk? It was very inspiring seeing him act with dignity, while he had to be helped to and from the pulpit. What a great man!

Of course, we all love Elder Bednar... not only was he president of BYU-Idaho for a long time, but he looks very much like my brother-in-law! :)

I love this picture. I love that L. Tom Perry is helping Elder Packer with his microphone. That these men have close relationships with each other is evident.

Here they are... almost ready to start.

Of course Inigo was most excited to see President Monson. We hoped he would look right up at our section, see my red-headed boy and wave, but of course we were too far away. But it was very special for him to see, again, his beloved Prophet.

Inigo made us laugh... after President Monson sat down and after we had settled back into our seats, Inigo said, “Mom, I’ve shaken the prophet’s hand before. And if you’ve shaken it once, you’ve shaken it a thousand times!”

I had to tell him I didn’t think it really worked that way. That each time you shake the Prophet’s hand it’s a very special experience and an experience that needs to be treasured.

“Oh yeah. You’re right. I’m pretty lucky, aren’t I?”

Here are my observations from inside the Supernacle:

I was amazed how many empty seats there were at the start of the session. Conference had actually started and people were still filing in. People kept coming in clear until the first speaker began. I didn’t know that “Mormon Standard Time” applied to Conference!"
I was amazed at how noisy it was during the opening prayer. All the doors to the foyers were still open and it was LOUD!!!
In our section, there were very few people around us who spoke English as their native language. The people right next to me were from Africa. I tried to have a conversation with them, but their English wasn’t good enough. The people behind us were from New Zealand and Fiji, next to Max were Spanish speakers, in front of us were Norwegians. It was a melting pot, but we were all brother’s and sister’s in Zion.
(Don’t hate me for this) But having that many different nationalities means there were that many different hygiene habits. There were times during the session, when the air would start moving, and body odors totally overcame me.
I loved actually being there. I really enjoy watching Conference every 6 months, but there’s nothing like being there. My mind didn’t wander. I didn’t get bored. I felt like I was just soaking it in. The two hours zoomed by!
Who doesn’t love the congregational hymn? We all sing it at home (or the Stake Center) but singing in the Supernacle was AMAZING!!! Raising my voice in song along with 20,000+ other people sent chills down my spine. I will admit, I sang pretty loudly. I may have even cried while doing it. Maybe...
I thought Inigo would get kind of bored, but we downloaded all the scripture picture books on my iPad and he read the entire Old Testament and started on the New Testament. He quit reading about 1/2 way through and just sat and listened. I’m pretty sure he knew that he was where he was supposed to be.
Don’t hate me for this either, but I was a little sad that while the choir was singing the closing song, throngs of people stood up and left. I know they thought they’d beat the crowds by leaving early, but were they really missing the crowds? Did they forget what was waiting outside? I just think it’s rude to stand up and walk out before a meeting ends. There! I said it! Don’t hate me.

Once the session ended, we walked back to the train. Of course when it arrived it was standing room only, so we decided that it would be just as easy to walk back to the car. After all, it wasn’t that far away... right?

HA!

We walked from Temple Square to Trolley Square. It was a mere two miles. In bad shoes. Through scary neighborhoods. In scattered rain. In fairly windy conditions.

Bah! Who cares that we walked past a couple guys sitting on their porch smoking weed? Who cares that we walked past several crack houses? We were having fun!

Who cares that I grew a nickel sized blister on the bottom of my calloused, dry foot? WE WERE HAVING FUN!!!

Thanks Cheryl!

2011-04-01T09:55:00.001-06:00

Yesterday, I was complaining a bit about having to use HTML coding to give my post a hard return… meaning that if I hadn’t used the coding, there would have been no paragraph breaks visible when I published. It was a pain in the patootie typing everything and every time I hit “enter” I’d have to add < br > .

Darling Cherylcame to my rescue, via a Facebook message.

She had problems with Blogger as well and found a wonderful alternative…. Windows Live Writer. She sent me the link, I downloaded it and here I am, writing in it. Let’s hope it won’t make my computer blow up!

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

In the spirit of trying to figure out a new program, I thought I’d post a couple of pictures from last weekend. We took Inigo and his best friend, Bullseye to a wildlife refuge that is near by. The snow geese are migrating. We had such a great time watching them last year that we thought we should experience it again. Who knows when we’ll have this opportunity again?

Even though we went the same weekend as last year, the geese numbers were down. Way down. The weather was a lot colder too! We were hovering in the mid 40• with a pretty brisk wind blowing. The boys really needed to bundle up.

We took our new-to-us truck that Max bought (if you’re going to live in cowboy country, you have to have a pick-up!). Since we were on dirt roads with no traffic and travelling at a mere 10 mph, we thought it was okay for the boys to sit in the very back. (Don’t hate me! We all remember doing that as kids and it was a blast!)

Bullseye was just trying to be cute. Believe me when I say he was being 100% silly for this picture!

Inigo, on the other hand, has decided that spitting is more important than being cute. (Spitting, burping, under arm farting, etc.)

(The vehicle was not moving when these pictures were taken!)

We spent a great couple hours out on this preserve! We saw a wild dog -- Max thought it was a fox, but I think it was too grey and TALL, I personally think it was a wolf – because in my thinking, all wild dogs are wolves now – but most likely it was a coyote. (It was a BIG coyote, though!)

We drove and drove out to the middle of the preserve, trying to find a new exit. At the end of the road, we found it was gated and locked and had to drive back out. While out there, we found the weirdest sight… We were literally in the middle of no where. No houses to be seen. The only road was the road we were on. It was as flat as Nebraska… and sitting there on the side of the road was a mailbox with a broken sign indicating it was a parking area. Huh?

I call it the “Lonely Mailbox”.

The boys just call it “Empty.”

A couple more pictures and we’ll end….

(and I think I’ve figured out this new program! If it publishes the way I want…. I think I owe Cheryl a big plate of cookies! Thanks Cheryl! I think this might work!!)

Love Is Overflowing

2011-03-31T09:14:00.004-06:00

Since I wrote my previous post about things I love, I continue to have loving thoughts run through my brain. I'll see something, hear something or eat something and I think, "I absolutely LOVE this! I should have blogged about it!"

Well, why not?

I give you the second half of the Things That I Love and Adore

♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥

I LOVE Judge Judy! This is not a new declaration or a new love. I have enjoyed her show for a really long time. Every day at noon, you will find me folding laundry or making my bed or doing some sort of task in my bedroom in front of the TV, so I can have my 'Judge Judy' fix. I enjoy watching her yell, "ARE YOU STUPID?" or "ON YOUR BEST DAY YOU'RE NOT AS SMART AS I AM ON MY WORST DAY" or "I'M THE BOSS APPLESAUCE" or "ARE YOU ON ANY MEDICATION?"

Seriously, how can you go wrong with a woman like her around?

I was sad when I read in yesterday's news that she had been rushed to the hospital. This world would be a sad place without her sharp, acerbic wit.

♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥

I LOVE chocolate covered cinnamon bears. Again, this is NOT a new declaration or a new love. I LOVE that Winco sells them in bulk.
Thank heavens Florin doesn't have a Winco which means I have to drive 1/2 hour to Guilder to purchase them, which means I don't consume them as often as I would if they were right here ALL THE TIME!!!

Of course I'm a little concerned about my move to New Florin. The town is very small (population 5300) and what if there isn't a store that sells them? I may have to resort to making them myself.....

♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥

My newst love: I LOVE the TV show Modern Family. Call it my 'guilty pleasure.' It just makes me laugh. Out loud. LOUDLY!! I love the characters... Sofia Vergara is HILARIOUS as the gorgeous wife of Al Bundy from Married With Children. Whenever she opens her mouth, I just know we're going to get lambasted with hilarious lines! Her comedic timing is genius.

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I LOVE (as well as the rest of my family LOVES) Nestle Quick chocolate milk powder.

I buy the BIG TALL container of this... 72 servings... and it disappears within a month's time. That's how much we drink! I usually have a glass every morning with my extra-crispy sourdough English Muffin (another LOVE) and Buttercup and Inigo will have a glass every day.

Buttercup has never been a regular milk drinker, and I encourage her to drink this so she can maintain her calcium levels. I'm just happy when Inigo puts anything in his mouth. He's so skinny that anything he eats or drinks will help keep him from flying away in a strong wind storm!

♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥

I LOVE my new Alfie Boe CD Bring Him Home. I loved seeing him in concert. The music was so stirring and emotional. I was worried that the audio CD would be flat and leave me wishing I could just live in Alfie's bathroom so I could listen to him while he sings in the shower. That would make me seem slightly perverted, so I'm pleased to announce that the CD fully satisfies my Alfie listening pleasures. The CD just came in the mail yesterday and Alfie show tunes are filling my house.

My next purchase will be the Les Miserables anniversary CD. (Can I admit I'm hesitant to purchase it? I really don't know if I can stomach listening to the Jonas Brother singing the part of Marius. He is certainly NOT Michael Ball... why they cast him is beyond me.)

♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥

I still LOVE clouds. And now that winter is releasing her grip on the skies and the ground, I'm finding more and more interesting cloud formations. I hope to increase photos on my cloud blog (clicky on the top link on the right sidebar).

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I LOVE having perspective! We've had some personal struggles in our house the past week and 1/2 and I have felt nervous and stressed. But when I have left home, and started talking to others, I realize that I'm not alone. There are a lot of people who are going through hard times right now... situations that would make me buckle under the pressure...and (for the most part) these people are handling their situation with grace and cheerful attitudes. They are an inspiration to me.

I also LOVE that Heavenly Father hears and answers prayers in the most amazing ways. And the comfort He can give at the most distressing time has made it possible to move forward with finding the help that is needed in our situation. Our struggle is not going to be fixed immediately, but through the power of prayer I know that we will be able to endure and find the solutions we need.

♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥ ○ ♥

Note: If you follow this blog using a Reader, you may see that there are several posts titled "Test" or "Testing" that have been deleted. I am struggling with Blogger right now. I had to type this whole post under the "Edit HTML" tab because Blogger is not adding any hard returns right now.

For example: I would have written this under the "compose" tab, hitting the "return" button for my paragraph breaks and when I push "Publish" all the sentences would have run together and there would be no visible breaks in the text.

I'm hoping that using the HTML code put the break between each paragraph and fixed the problem.

Is anyone else struggling with this?

Love and Adoration

2011-03-23T15:55:00.004-06:00

It has been a long time since I have done a post of the things that I love and adore. Tastes change over time and so do the things that catch my fancy, so let's enumerate them now:

♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥

I love that my husband wasn't found dead on the roadside last night. Sounds weird I know, but he had been travelling on icy roads at midnight; I was sitting home worrying and the reassuring text he sent me to tell me he made it back to New Florin alive and well got jammed up in his phone and wasn't delivered to me. Needless to say I was a wreck when I woke up this morning (pun intended). (Sometimes he sends the texts late, after I go to sleep.) My frantic-ness was only enhanced when he slept in and didn't hear my repeated phone calls - I dialed somewhere in the area of 10,000. I had given myself the deadline of 8:30 am before I called the police. At 8:00 I got his sweet text, "Good morning."

Ahhh.... music to my ears (or eyes as the case may be).

♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥

I Love Great Harvest's Potato Dill Bread. I bought it on an impulse one day and haven't looked back. I usually eat toast or an English muffin for breakfast each day and this bread makes the yummiest toast you'll probably ever eat.

Seriously. Try it.
♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥

I Love that the two feet of snow I had in my back yard melted in the space of about a week and 1/2. I Love that I can see my grass again. Sure it's brown and matted down and covered in a winter's worth of Lola Dog's lawn bombs, but it's GRASS!!! And there's something else that's cool popping up in my yard... the very tips of my tulips are poking through the wet dirt!! Glory Hallelujah! Spring really might come.

♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥

I Love that I get to see my sister Wees and her family at my sister Red's house in a month's time when we all converge for my niece SaJo's graduation from the Blue University. You know... that school that coined a new VERB: Jimmer. I Love that we will also get to go through the Temple with my nephew JackO as he prepares to serve in the Salt Lake City Spanish Speaking Mission!! Time with family Rocks!!!

♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥

I Love that when my young adult daughter comes home from school/work, she'll sit down and have a conversation with me. It's been a long time in coming, and now that she's opening up, it's FANTASTIC!!!

♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥

I Love that my 8 year old son practically sits curled up on my lap every night as we read the Fablehaven books together. It's so wonderful that he still is so openly affectionate towards me. I cherish the evenings we have together, knowing they won't last forever.

♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥

I Love Paint the Moon action sets for my Photoshop Elements. They have helped me so much as I edit my photos. These action sets take a mediocre photo and make them look a step up from mediocre. Thank heavens or my friend Leo would have had to get married all over again (and hire a real photographer this time!!)

♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥

I Love that we were able to get tickets for General Conference this year. Can you believe we have never gone? When the bishop stood up at the pulpit and said he had a few tickets, I whispered to Max that we ought to see if we could get some. It would be fun to go while we still live only a few hours away. (Next Conference we'll live SEVERAL hours away!) When we asked if we could have some, we found out that the Bishop was only given 3 tickets and he only had two left. Well, we need 3. The reason we hadn't requested tickets before was that Inigo wasn't old enough to go. Now that he's'of legal age'(8 years old), we want him to go.

Since there weren't enough, we shrugged our shoulders and said that we'd try another time. No big deal.

A week passes and the Bishop approaches Max in Priesthood Mtg and gives him an envelope with 3 tickets!! Apparently he went to the Stake President and asked for more! Woo hoo! Thanks Bishop Love!
♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥

And mostly, I Love that I can go to bed tonight. After a short night last night, worrying about Max's mortality, I'm finding that I'm getting increasingly short tempered and grumpy as the day goes on. Inigo has a friend over and I can't tell you how many times the little boy has rang the doorbell to come in and ask me a question.

DingDong DingDong DingDong DingDong DingDong DingDong DingDong DingDong DingDong DingDong

ENOUGH WITH THE DOORBELL!!!

Alfie Part Deux

2011-03-19T09:55:00.005-06:00

Inigo.

Born under a lucky star, I guess.

I wonder how it would feel to actually be him.

We went to our second Alfie Boe concert last night. This time we decided we'd try to sit closer to the front. Since the concert was open seating, as soon as the doors to the recital hall were opened, we rushed in and grabbed seats in the middle of the third row.

(Really, in this recital hall, there are no bad seats. The venue is small enough that you can sit on the back row and still see the performer's face. So even though we sat in the back on Wednesday night, we weren't disappointed.)

But.... the perspective from being this close is completely different. We were close enough to see the sparkle in Mr. Boe's eye; a clearer view of the emotion on his face. Our eyes could actually meet and he could actually see me hold my camera up.

And he could actually see Inigo sitting between Max and I. Inigo who had been fighting a headache and was a little tired and who looked a little zoned out.

So after Alfie sang his third song, he looked out into the audience and said, "Is that your son?"

Ummm.... wait.... are you talking to US?!?!?

Apparently, he was!

He had noticed Inigo and thought that our boy was totally bored out of his mind. He didn't know that after the first song, Inigo turned to me and said,

"Mom, this is AWESOME!"

He bantered back and forth with Max for a moment, much to the delight of the 700 people in the audience. (Alfie Boe has a great sense of humor and is a genuinely NICE person.) He made sure to tell Max that Inigo "looks like a nice chap and you need to make sure to take him out for a burger and fries after this is over." Max said he thought a piece of pie would be better! :)

He went on to sing another song and noticed another little girl, about Inigo's age, sitting on the front row that was displaying the same lethargic attitude. He promised her that the next song he was going to sing would wake her up a little more. She then stuck her tongue out at him and... believe it or not... he stuck his back out at her.

(In defense of these kids, however, the first half of the concert was in Italian. Of course they're not going to show a lot of enthusiasm!)

After finishing the first half of the program, Mr. Boe and the Sinfonietta left the stage for intermission. The audience was standing up to stretch and chat with their neighbors about the wonderful program we were enjoying. A very few left for a potty break. We looked up at the stage and the girl who said the prayer at the beginning of the concert walked out carrying a microphone.

She announced, "I'd like to have the little boy in the middle of row three come up on stage. Alfie Boe has a little gift for you."

She was carrying a handful of candy bars.

Again, the audience roared. Again, we were stunned. My boy was in the spotlight again!!

She may have said something else, I don't remember. I just remember Inigo scrambling to get out of the row, everyone standing up to let him by; patting him on the back; smiling at him. I remember Inigo not being scared at all to stand on stage and say his name into the microphone. We all laughed when she asked him what his favorite song so far was and he stood there shrugging his shoulders... Duh! It was all in Italian! (Although, now he would say it was O Sole Mio.)

She also had some candy for the little girl on the front row, but for some reason she wasn't invited on the stage.

Inigo was pretty stoked. He got a Heath Bar, some Swiss chocolate and a couple of locally made candy bars.

After intermission was over and Alfie walked back on stage, he looked at Inigo. Inigo gave him a thumbs up. Alfie quickly returned the signal with a warm smile and those sparkly eyes.

The second half of the concert was Show Tunes and it was so fun to listen to him sing.

However, when he was singing On The Street Where You Live, he messed up the lyrics! It was hilarious. And the great thing was that he laughed about it, which made us all laugh about it without feeling bad. (You'll see it in the video.)

Another funny moment in the concert was during the second half: He was getting ready to sing one of the Broadway songs and the Sinfonietta had started playing the intro. It was just about time for him to start singing and he says into the mic, "Stop! Stop! I'm sorry! I just noticed that there is a woman out there who wants to take my picture and we can't let a moment like that pass by." (NO....it wasn't me! Amazing, eh?)

So he walked out on the stage and posed and let her take the picture. (Of course I wasn't going to let that moment pass me by either!) After the pose, he went back to the mic and wowed us some more with his amazing voice.

Having Alfie notice Inigo was the most amazing thing of the night. The second most amazing thing was at the end of the show, when he sang Bring Me Home. Since we were sitting so close, we could really see and feel the emotion of the song. Many members of the audience were wiping tears from their eyes as he sang and we noticed that Alfie's eyes were rimming with tears as well. It was simply amazing and breath taking.

I wish I had the money to fly across the pond to London where I could see him play the part of Jean Valjean. Inigo has expressed that wish as well.

Who knows? Inigo seems lucky enough. Maybe if I let him buy a lottery ticket.....

I put a bunch of clips together of some of the songs he sang. The first song, O Sole Mio was Inigo and my favorite of the Italian songs. I got nervous videoing though, so turned it off in the middle. The rest of the songs were videoed on my knee. You can't see Alfie very well, but you can hear him. And that's what's important, isn't it?
Oh, and I'm still learning how to edit videos together. I have a long way to go. :)

(Notice that on about second 25, he looks directly at me! Eeek!)

Groupie. Groupy. Groopy.

2011-03-17T08:36:00.006-06:00

I thought I knew how to spell the word 'Groupie' until I typed it in.

Then it just looked weird.

Kind of like when you say the words 'toy boat' 7 times fast, you all of a sudden think, "What? ...Toy boat? Those are a couple of the weirdest words in the English language!"

When I type in 'Groupie,' it all of a sudden looks jibberish.

Which is why I typed in other phoentic spellings of the word. Maybe if it looks weird to me, it looks weird to you too and you won't know if I'm spelling it right...

Weird looking or not, I think I may have just become a 'Groupie' (the correct spelling.)

Last night I went to a concert. It was a cultural event. Some might call it 'high brow.' It wasn't a concert that you wear torn jeans and skanky tank tops to. People definitely didn't throw their undergarments on stage, or bring their lighters to raise above their heads swaying to the rhythms (did that just date me or what? I think people use their cell phones now).

It was a concert of beautiful Neapolitan (Italian) opera music, mingled with Sinfonietta performances, mingled with Rogers and Hammerstein, mingled with show tunes, performed by an amazing tenor voice.

Alfie Boe is the newest and greatest tenor that is making headlines these days. If you happened to catch the Les Miserables 25th Anniversary Concert at the O2 Theatre (recently broadcast on PBS), then you happened to catch Alfie Boe. He was cast to play the part of Jean Valjean. His rendition of Bring Him Home is stunning, breath catching and simply phenomenal.

And when he sings in the Jean Valjean quartet.... well, watch it for yourself!

Every time I watch it, it takes my breath away. And since I'm known locally for being a cry baby, I will admit that it makes me cry. Especially when Mr. Boe starts singing... Holy cow.

Isn't music wonderful? Isn't it amazing how it can move you? How it can touch your heart and uplift you? Music soothes my soul and brings peace to my life. Especially music like this. Especially talent like this. (I really hope that I can have a beautiful singing voice in the next life. I feel so gypped that I was born with a love of music and I can't sing it the way I want to!)

Anyway, I found out that Mr. Boe was coming to MY LITTLE TOWN to perform a concert at the University.

Really?

My little town of 25,000?

After performing on a stage in front of THOUSANDS with some of the best talent in the world? He's coming to Florin to perform a concert in front of a few hundred?

What the heck?

That gift horse wasn't going to get kicked in the teeth. I was going to take advantage of it. I called my parents and asked if they'd like come up from Guilder and go to the concert with me. No hesitation on their parts -- even my dad -- and I had a date!

We got there early, settled in our seats and the minute Mr. Boe came out on the stage, we were blown away. He started off by singing 7 Italian operatic songs and after a short intermission he sang show tunes from his current album. My mom cried, I cried and (amazingly) my dad had a smile on his face.

Afterward, I really felt bad that Max hadn't been there with me. I know he would have loved the concert. And I also knew my children would have enjoyed it as well. (I'm so grateful that they were born with a love for good music!)

Good news!!

Lucky, lucky me. Mr. Boe is performing TWO CONCERTS here!

Yay for the groupie!!

The next concert is on Friday night, which is the night Max comes home. So I called him and asked him to commit to leaving early enough to get here on time -- and I bought 3 more tickets. Yep. I'm going to make Inigo come along as well. Poor Buttercup.... always working. (I'm probably not telling her that we're going. She felt bad she couldn't go last night.)

I apologize that the video moves so much. I didn't want anyone to be bothered by the LCD screen of my camera, so I held it on my chest. Yes, the camera captured my breathing.

So does this make me a 'Groupie'?

Maybe.

But I promise NOT to throw any unmentionables on the stage!!! :)

"How's Your Dog?"

2011-03-10T22:57:00.002-07:00

Most people don't like Monday.

I have never been like "most people."

As a matter of fact, I try hard NOT to be like "most people." Being normal is kind of BORING!!

So what day of the week don't I like?

THURSDAY!!!

It's a hard day for me. I have been a single mom for 4 long days, and I know that Max will be home in 24 hours (or less) and I'm just READY for him to be here.

And it's Cub Scout Day.

I love those little guys, but HOLY COW they wear me out!

I have "sole custody" of 5 little Bear Scouts (we're working on getting a second leader for me, but until then, to keep the "two deep leadership" rule, we share a room with 8 equally rambunctious Wolf Scouts. It's NOISY and CRAZY!!)

Today was a little more work. Two extra boys showed up for our meeting. One of the boys is 10 and should be going to Weblos, but the Weblos leader is not holding meetings. This poor kid was craving some scouting experiences! His little brother, age 6, came along and really added to the noise and confusion. (He is really excited to join Cub Scouts.)

I really need an assistant!!!

Before Inigo and I left to go to the church for our Den Meeting I noticed the neighbor's dog sleeping under some pine trees. I was impressed that this dog actually found a spot in the yard where the snow had melted and grass was showing. I was impressed that she was able to recognize a nice soft place for her afternoon constitutional.

I love this old dog. Her name is Bandit.

Yes.

HER name.

She's a big, OLD, black lab that has a heart of gold.

She defends her family as well as she can with her old bones. But she also recognizes a friend and will knock you over with her wagging tail, offering you doggie kisses while she waits patiently for a pat on the head.

I was happy her old bones had found a comfortable spot.

I silently wished her a happy rest and we left for our Den Meeting.

After Cub Scouts, Inigo and I had a bunch of errands to run, and we returned home about 2.5 hours later.

Bandit was still sleeping under the trees.

At first I thought, "WOW! She really is OLD! That's a long nap she's taking!" and went in the house to put groceries away and start cooking dinner.

Then I realized exactly how long a nap it was and she hadn't changed position.

And my heart sunk.

So I went outside. I stood at my garage door and I whistled. She didn't move.

I yelled her name.

Nothing.

But she could have bad hearing, right? After all, she's OLD!!

I whistled again. This time louder. (Which really isn't a problem with me. I have whistling skills. Most people go deaf if I whistle while standing next to them.)

Bandit didn't even stir.

I debated putting on snow boots and trudging through snow drifts to go take a look at her (we still have substantial snow drifts in our yards)... and I will admit, I got scared. I have a very tender heart and I didn't think I could handle it if she truly was deceased.

So I got on the phone and called her owners.

Jewels answered the phone.

"Hey Jewels, it's Valerie. Please don't think I'm weird, but I have to ask you a question."

"Okay, Valerie. I love you and you can ask me anything."

"Jewels, how's your dog?"

Jewel's voice got soft and she asked me, "Is she dead?"

"Yes, Jewels," and I started to cry, "I think she is."

This poor dog, who had been a member of their family for over 12 years (I think it was 14) had gotten into some poison -- they think it was antifreeze -- and they had tried to help her, but her poor old body couldn't fight the poison, and she went to the warmest, most comfortable spot available in our neighborhood to rest her weary bones and leave her earthly existence.

Little did I know that when I wished her a "happy rest" that I was wishing her a "happy eternal rest."

Sleep well, Bandit!!

(It's silly of me to weep over a dog that doesn't belong to me, but I can't seem to help it. I have always had a tender heart when it comes to pets.)

Bah! Thursday!

• • • • • • • • • •

I did feel a little better later this evening when I went to Roundtable for Scouts and I won a box of TWINKIES!! Who doesn't love a frozen Twinkie now and then?

• • • • • • • • • •

I put this on Facebook today, but it was so sweet I need to write about it here.

This morning when I woke Inigo up to get him ready for school, the first thing he said to me, with sleep still in his eyes was,

"Mom, where's your favorite place to drive to?"

I originally said, "Disneyland," because I REALLY want to go back there, but then I revised it to "Yellowstone."

Then I asked him where his favorite place to drive was.

He sat there for about 3 seconds thinking, then he answered,

"Home."

• • • • • • • • • •

I finally finished Leo's wedding pictures. They are on the jump drive and ready to mail.

Why am I so nervous?

I hope she likes them!!

So Excited

2011-03-02T17:01:00.003-07:00

Psssstttt.....

I have some news!

We were able to get tickets to this:

We go in May.

Color us GREEN with excitement!!!

Get This Albatross Off My Back

2011-02-23T15:06:00.003-07:00

I have had some people ask how the pictures for Leo's wedding are turning out. I will admit, I've struggled with them. Most of the original pictures turned out VERY DARK due to the extreme light of the Arizona sun shining directly in everyone's faces. I have Photoshop Elements on my computer, and know how to do a few things on it, but I have struggled making these photos look finished with a professional touch. I got so frustrated that I haven't even looked at them for about 3 weeks. And now I'm ashamed to admit that we're moving closer to the bride and groom's two month anniversary and they still don't have their pictures. I tried to put it off forever... but knew that one day I was going to have to see their smiling faces.... and knew that I had to get working on them again!!!!

Enter Paint the Moon Photography. This wonder woman has designed a bunch of "action sets" that I can add to my Elements program that makes editing soooo much easier!!! I bought only one action set last weekend and I have had such wonderful results!! I am so excited to send these pictures to Leo now... (I was dreading it before. I felt like I had ruined her wedding memories.)

(I'm saving my money to eventually purchase all of her sets. This woman is a GENIUS!!!)

Here is a small sampling of a few of the finished pictures. Please remember as you view them... I don't have any illusions that I can be considered a wedding photographer. I still assert that I won't do another wedding... and if I do it will be YEARS down the road after my HUGE learning curve has been straightened out a bit.

I just hope Leo and JS like the pictures that I've gotten done so far! (I still have HOURS ahead of me with at least 100 more pictures to edit. I hope my carpal tunnel doesn't render me completely crippled when I'm done!)

Create your own slideshow

N = What?

2011-02-16T10:13:00.004-07:00

I wasn't going to do this, but I have to. My blog is for me and is my journal, so I like to put things on here that I can't save anywhere else. A lot of Inigo's school work goes on here. I wish I could save each and every creative thing he brings home (and believe me, I save a LOT) but the logistics of having box after box of his writings and art work just doesn't work out.

So, here I am -- AGAIN -- on my blog posting something he wrote that made me laugh.

For Valentine's Day, his teacher used Dye Cuts (Die Cuts?) and spelled out the word VALENTINE and then had the kids glue them all together to make a verticle banner. On each letter they had to write something that starts with that letter that is about Valentine's Day. It's fun to see how a second grader's brain works:

V = Vacations are really fun.
A = Awesome things make love.
L = Love is a reward.
E = Excellent is a good reward.
N = Narwhales are good lovable things!
T = Telescopes can look up to the stars!
I = Italy is a loving place.
N = Next year Happy Valentine's Day.
E = Ears can hear love.

NARWHALES? That's what he came up for the letter "N"?

*********************************
(I added this after I orginally posted this blog.)

These are the valentines he handed out this year to his classmates! I would love to take credit for coming up with the idea, but I found it on the web... (sadly I don't remember where).

They were supposed to have Tootsie Pops as the suckers, but I thought they were just too big, so we agreed that Dum Dums would be better.

Tap Dance

2011-02-15T16:17:00.002-07:00

I think I've posted a lot of videos of Inigo playing the piano. Oh well... here's one more.

He's been taking lessons since he was in kindergarten. I was his first teacher, getting him through books one and two. He sailed through them pretty quickly, and to me (a very UNTRAINED teacher) he seemed to be grasping the concepts of both playing ability and technique.

This year, I wanted to make sure that he started getting taught on a higher level. We signed him up with the same music teacher that Buttercup and I went to for our vocal lessons. Bro. Opie has a Ph.D. in music from University of Utah. He directed their show choir for years and years. I asked him once why he never joined the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and he said he always wanted to, but he just didn't have the time. Now he's here in Florin, teaching religion classes at the University. And he teaches music at home (mainly piano). (He also happens to be the bishop of Buttercup's single's branch! He can't get rid of us!)

He has a unique style of teaching. Well, unique to us. His lessons are an hour long. There are 30 minutes of instruction, then the kids move to a computerized keyboard with earphones and practice for 1/2 hour what they just learned in their lesson. Bro. Opie also had us purchase a computer device for home practice. The lesson books we use come with a computer floppy disc that you insert into the piano computer, and it has orchestration for each song. You can speed up or slow down the song as you learn it. You can also take out the orchestration and just play the piano part. You can play right hand alone or left hand alone. It helps with rhythm/counting and it also teaches the students how to play with orchestras. I think Inigo plays better because of this piano computer.

Oh yeah.... and it's fun!!!

(Inigo plays the song Tap Dance.) (Then attacks the videographer.) :)

Mish Mash

2011-02-14T16:38:00.009-07:00

The weather has been so gorgeous lately!! It's such a treat to see the beautiful blue skies and have the outside temperatures climb above the freezing mark. I actually saw GRASS today--on the edge of someone's driveway. It was a GLORIOUS sight!

I know it's only the middle of February, and the forecast says that we have 70% chance of snow on Wednesday, but it's days like this that give me hope that spring will come and that we've moved closer to the end of winter than the beginning.

I can hold on!

Not that I entirely HATE winter. I don't! We chose to live in this area specifically because it has 4 distinct seasons -- as opposed to the Oregon Coast* where the seasons were raining or not raining. Sure, here in Florin, some seasons are longer than the others and sometimes it even seems that we will totally skip an entire season, but the reality is that we do have amazing and beautiful springs; summers that have moderate temperatures so we don't melt into puddles each day; and while fall seems to be the shortest season, it's also lovely!! Winter.... well, that makes up the majority of our year, so I've learned to tolerate it. However, I do wish it would be a little shorter. (This year we've had a constant cover of snow on the ground since Thanksgiving.)

*Disclaimer: Don't get me wrong! I LOVED living on the coast!! It was a wonderful time in my life and I cherish the memories and friends that I made while I was there!!!

So, as we move closer to the end of February, I look longingly to the coming months ahead and the coming of spring... I think I can... I think I can... I think I can.... SURVIVE!!! :)

*********************************
Today is Valentine's Day. For years I have blogged my opinion on this terrible day. Last year I told myself I wouldn't need to say it again. If you'd like to re-read my rant, click here.

'Nuff said.

********************************
A week ago we got new phones and I got this sweet little piece of technology:

The Droid X.
I have heard that it's a "smart phone" and agree with that. It's much smarter than me. But I am determined to conquer it!! After all, I have TWO YEARS to figure it out!

Some have asked why we didn't buy the iPhone (since we switched to Verizon). I will admit, it was a temptation. The cost was about the same. And since I have an iPad, there would be a smaller learning curve. But after thinking about it, I realized that we have already given enough of our money to the iGods. We have iPods, iTouch, iPad and iTunes. Isn't that iNuff already?

****************************************
Buttercup had a wonderful moment at school on Saturday. She finished cutting a 5 year old girl's hair. It was a shoulder length, pixie bob and I guess it turned out wonderful! The instructor who was supervising the cut -- who is also the same instructor who screamed at her (in front of the client and the entire school) that she picked the wrong profession because she made a mistake in a woman's haircut -- praised her in public and in private, telling her that she was proud of Buttercup and proud of how well she's doing. After wanting to rip this woman's hair out and teeth out, I now want to give her a big kiss and tell her thank you. That's all Buttercup needs... a little positive reinforcement goes a LOOONG way with her!!

****************************************
Inigo was diagnosed with The Influenza last week. Poor little guy was pretty sick. Steck heard that he was feeling down and did the nicest thing! She came over and "Heart Attacked" him!

Have you heard of Heart Attacks? Nah... I'm not talking about the killer kind. There was no numbness in his arm or a heavy feeling in his chest. No shortness of breath. These Heart Attacks leave you feeling all warm and fuzzy and totally loved.

Usually, they are done in secret and anonymously, but we just happened to be home and Inigo just happened to be in the living room when she came over. I felt bad that we caught her. She even parked her car up the street to be even sneakier!!

And what's even nicer than caring enough to cut out a bazillion hearts and write nice things on them? THAT SHE DID IT IN 14• WEATHER!!!!

Now, that's love.

(Here it is, several days later, and the hearts are still up! They haven't fallen off yet! But I think I'm going to have to take them off tomorrow. Especially since it's supposed to snow again.)

THANKS AGAIN, STECK!!!

(Hey, Andy, I'm pretty sure we'll be calling Eth this spring to make those dingy windows sparkle!! I didn't realize how bad they were until I looked at these pictures! UGH!!)

*****************************************
Inigo and I were supposed to drive to New Florin and visit Max over the weekend. But since he had The Influenza (that's just fun to say... not fun to have though) the doctor advised that we stay home. Influenza is highly contagious and we didn't know how long Inigo would be feeling terrible. Since Max has just started a new job, he hasn't built up any PTO and (I'll be honest) he doesn't do well when he gets sick. Max always needs TLC when he feels bad and I wouldn't be there to give it to him. We just didn't want Max to get sick.

So we followed the doctor's orders and decided to stay home. We were very disappointed that it would be TWO WEEKS until we got to see Max again.

We got up Saturday morning and over texts (on my cool new phone) I asked him what he was going to do that day. He went into work for a while and said that if the wind died down, he might go flying.

We have house rules in regards to flying: He always has to call before take-off and always call when he safely lands. A text while he's in the air is a good idea to let me know how things are going, but there isn't always coverage at 14,000 feet.

We talked about the rules and I told him to be safe and have fun.

Well, Inigo and I went to the movie (Tron) and when we got out I didn't see any texts from Max. I wondered if he had gone flying so I texted and asked what he was doing. (Of course, I was getting geared up to be mad if he went flying and didn't follow our rules!)

I didn't hear from him for a while, then I got a text that said he'd be home in 20 minutes.

WHAT!?!?!

Yes, he said. He was flying over a prominent landmark east of town and he'd be at our airport in about 20 minutes.

Holy cow!!

So Max flew home and surprised us for the weekend! It was pretty cool!! And so, so nice to have him here!!

He didn't have a lot of time with us, but he took the kids flying Sunday after church. Ever since he updated his pilots license, Buttercup has been begging him to take her to the skies... so he did. It was a very nice day for them. (I can't go flying in small airplanes. I get TOOOOO SICK!!! So I stayed home and they flew over me so I could wave at them from the driveway.)

The pictures in the air were taken by Buttercup!! Nice job, sis!

My house is down there! Can you see it?

The lovely town of Florin

Ready to go!!

(For a GREAT shot Max took on his flight home, make sure you check out my cloud blog!!)

As You Wish

New Year, New Blog

A Little Christmas Cheer

Boom Juice!

Merry…. Uh…

A Mouth Full of Chocolate (and mint!)

Ballerina to Grappler

Enough Already!

So…. How’d It Go?

Blood, Sweat and Flour

Blood, Sweat and Flour

The Final Countdown

Dear Mom, I’m so sorry…

Communicating…

Dumpety Dump Dump

Grown Don’t Mean Nothing

Still Gloomy

Engagged To Be Marred

Hello 3rd Grade!

You Are… My Biggest Fan

Blue Ribbon!

The End

J-j-j-j-jealousy

Please Sir, May I Have S’more?

New Look

Lonely Living

Slipping Through My Fingers…

Going Live!

Testing

Inigo’s Newspaper Article

**The article featuring Inigo was finally printed in today’s newspaper! I am putting it on here, with obvious changes to protect our identity. However, for copyright reasons, I think I need to leave the reporter’s name as is.**

Local youngsters portray paupers in Florin musical

Inigo… Look over here! Inigo… a word with you, please?

Gloom, Despair and Agony on Me

Summer Grounding

Out Of The Blue…

Remember This?

“I’ll Just Fast, Mom.”

Sharpening Up My Cockney Accent

That Alarm Button is TURNED OFF!

Nostalgia vs. Practicality

Bison, Elk and Wolf…. OH MY!!

True Story

Archives

Devastated

What We Saw

Whatchyoo Lookin’ At?

This Is Intense Work!!

Knock, Knock

These Generals Went To Conference

Thanks Cheryl!

Love Is Overflowing

Love and Adoration

Alfie Part Deux

Groupie. Groupy. Groopy.

"How's Your Dog?"

So Excited

Get This Albatross Off My Back

N = What?

Tap Dance

Mish Mash

The article featuring Inigo was finally printed in today’s newspaper! I am putting it on here, with obvious changes to protect our identity. However, for copyright reasons, I think I need to leave the reporter’s name as is.