Ed Week/teaching like the Master

This class was awesome! I loved it. The first day the teacher talked about what it was like in Christ's day. For instance did you know that the average life span of a Jew was 21!!! That takes into account the extremely high Infant mortality rate, but most men died in their 30's from malnutrition. Apparently they only ate meat once or twice a year, and whatever produce they grew locally. The average male height was only 5'1". Small sickly people basically. A man of 45 was considered an 'Elder'. So when we think of Christ dying in his youth, they probably thought, "well, he wouldn't have lived much longer anyway." There was no middle class. You were either rich or extremely poor. All artisans, craftsmen and laborers were poor. Christ was a carpenter, which meant he could have been a wood worker, or a stone mason, but he was basically poor. This is why all his parables speak to the poor and lowly, and portray the rich as the oppressor. He knew who his audience was, and spoke to their needs and concerns. That's point one of being an effective teacher. Christ also championed a cause and taught a doctrine at the same time, such as in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16).
Point #2: Teachers should be humble. If Jesus, knowing that He was God and could move heaven and earth against His enemies, could still be humble, shouldn't we? He doesn't call Himself the Christ, He referred to Himself as the Son of Man (84x in the Bible). He also refers to Himself in the 3rd person a lot, which may have helped Him to remain humble. An arrogant know-it-all teacher seldom has any impact upon his students.
Point #3: Teachers should be prepared, but also show restraint. It's a sure way to lose the pupil's attention by mocking him for his ignorance.
I also learned that whenever there is an italicized word in the Bible, it was added in, and was not in the Greek translation. So John 10:30 reads; I and my Father are one, OR, I and Father are one. Oh, and here's an interesting story, the teacher(Thomas A. Wayment) got his doctorate at another college besides BYU (I forget which) but he was sitting in on an argument of several Professors on the correct meaning and translations of certain Greek words from Christ's teachings, when an Atheist professor got up and said, "This is a wonderful discussion on Greek words. Christ didn't speak Greek." Christ spoke Aramaic, and there are only 9 words in the Bible that are Aramaic. Makes you wonder about the whole translation thing doesn't it? I think the Muslims got it right in never translating the Qur'an.
So, I'm trying to be more Christ-like in my teaching, with my children, in my Sharing times, and basically whenever I try to teach anyone anything. It's a good goal. Oh! and here's an interesting story from Ed week. My friends dad went to this class on marriage. The teacher said, the #1 cause of divorce was selfishness, and then proceeded to give examples of selfishness, "like fat people. Fat people are selfish. They eat too much. Look around the room at all the fat people. They're selfish." CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?! Yeah, I'm thinking THAT guy needs to go to THIS class, TO LEARN SOME HUMANITY! Needless to say, half of his class got up and left at that point, I mean, who can take a person like that as any kind of an authority on anything-- except on being a jerk? The nerve. Well, that's Education week at BYU. Full of surprises. Fun fun.

5, 4, 3, 2....AAAAHHHH!!!

I am canning beans today, in a pressure cooker. I've never used one before. It's making an awful lot of hissing noises. I'm having visions of the thing exploding, sending bits of shrapnel, glass and beans everywhere. I think I'll make the kids stay outside for the duration. Seriously, I'm a little nervous. If the pressure cooking goes alright, there's still the off chance that I won't have done it just right, and my family will die from Botulism toxins. I don't know man, this 'storing up' for the winter is making me a little crazy. I did 28 qts. of peaches and some jam, and since the tomatoes are coming on so slowly, about 3 pints of those every other day, and a jar of pickles every week. What a pain. It's a good thing that I 'learned' so much at Ed week about not stressing, otherwise, I'd be a raving lunatic about now. Can you picture it?
"and then the beans blew up, JUST BLEW UP! and then an army of moldy peach pits attacked my house and the garden came to life--the tomato plants started chucking green tomatoes at me and THEN...."
"There there Mrs. Johnson, it was just a nightmare, you're safe. Here, just take this pill and you'll be just fine. You can tell your therapist alllllll about it tomorrow."

Another poach from Emily, and too long to go in my quotes section, but still worth a good look, 'cause he's our favorite comedian.

I never get enough sleep. I stay up late at night, cause I'm Night Guy. Night Guy wants to stay up late. 'What about getting up after five hours sleep?', oh that's Morning Guy's problem. That's not my problem, I'm Night Guy. I stay up as late as I want. So you get up in the morning, you're ..... (?), you're exhausted, groggy, oooh I hate that Night Guy! See, Night Guy always screws Morning Guy. There's nothing Morning Guy can do. The only thing Morning Guy can do is try and oversleep often enough so that Day Guy looses his job and Night Guy has no money to go out anymore.
-Seinfeld

Well Read

I stole this from Emily's blog, who stole it from Meagan's blog, who knows where she got it, but I thought it was interesting, and I was delighted to see that I am fairly well read, well, 43 out of 100 isn't bad is it?

The National Endowment for the arts estimates that the average adult has read only 6 of the top 100 books..
How about you?
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Star the books you LOVE.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen*
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien*
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte*
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling *
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte*
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell *
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens*
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (most of them)*
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien*
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy*
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky*
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck*
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis*
34 Emma - Jane Austen*
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen*
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis*
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini-ick ick ick!
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown*
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen*
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas*
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray*
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens*
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince- Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas*
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl*
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Ed Week/Brain Chemisty

This class was fascinating. My degree is in Zoology, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I actually retained a fair amount of my Chem/Anatomy/Microbiology classes. The whole point of Education week though, is to help people spiritually, so even this class had parallels drawn to the scriptures/gospel doctrine.
For instance, depression is an illness that affects your Prefrontal Cortex, the area of your brain where you reason, make decisions, interpret emotions, etc. Serotonin controls this area of the brain, and depression causes a decrease in Serotonin, which after time causes the death of the nerve cells to your Prefrontal Cortex. Hence, people who are depressed can't 'think' straight, they have a hard time making simple decisions (should I water the plants or vacuum first?), organizing, and putting their emotions into proper perspective. Dr. Dean Belnap taught this section, he's one of 3 church psychiatrists for all the missionaries. He said that because the prefrontal cortex is not working properly, depressed people have lessened free agency. The brain re-routes everything to the Basal Ganglia, which is the part of the brain controlling basic survival instincts. Depressed individuals actually revert to a lesser state of being, because their higher thought centers are cut off.
Drugs termed SSRI's help patients by getting the Serotonin to the Prefrontal Cortex in the first year, and in the second year, the drugs actually start regenerating those nerve cells that died. He maintains that a minimum of 2 years on Anti-depressants is necessary to achieve the normal brain state ( I have tried almost all of them, and suggest Effexor, but everyone's different).
Now, contrast this with another class on Christ-centered healing for depression that my friend went to. The teacher maintained that instead of drugs and therapy, we should just turn to the Lord, give our problems to Him and let Him heal us... huh. I think I've tried that, and it didn't work, so does that mean the Lord wants me to suffer with this? or that I'm not being 'good' enough? Possibly. Quite possibly.
Now for the causes of depression: Genetics, stress, bad things happening to you. My life is pretty great, no apparent reason why I should have depression, except that it runs in the family. Big time. Suicides and all. Some people have a horrific event happen and it throws them into a temporary depression. Some people get it from constant stress, and no outlets, ei: exercise. This leads us to the next point. Exercise has been proven to help. I myself can maintain w/o the pills if I'm working out frequently. The problem is, when you're depressed, that's the LAST thing you feel like doing. I have to be on the pills to feel good enough to exercise, and then go off the pills. Well, right now, the pills are just easier. I'm lazy. There. I said it. Other things that help, massage, yoga, therapy, meditation, etc. And something that makes it worse. Caffeine. Dang it. I'm 'off' again (And yes, I know it's not meth, but it feels like it sometimes, and I like to talk about it in these terms, you know, to make myself feel better for having so little self control. Or something like that).
In the second day of class Dr. Marleen Williams, a neuropsychiatrist, talked about prophets in the scriptures who dealt with depression, SO, for one thing, righteous people can get depressed, even IF they are doing EVERYTHING the prophet tells us to do (even if they are prophets), and people who have had depression/trials are more empathetic to those who are also in a similar boat (ei: Christ!). Trials help us develop wisdom and compassion for others. I have found this to be particularly true in my life, the fact that I am not afraid to tell people about my 'disorder' has led some to seek help in their own life, or at least feel that they are not alone in the struggle.
So here's the sum up: If you are feeling down, read your scriptures more, pray more, serve more, AND IF THAT DOESN'T WORK, for heavens sake, there's help. SEEK IT!

Ed Week/Connie Sokol

So this was probably my favorite class, not because I learned anything new, we've heard it all before... slow down, don't sweat the small stuff, be nice to your kids and hubby, exercise, eat better... blah blah blah. But it was the WAY she said it. Seriously, peeing my pants every class. Like this quote on motherhood: "If the children are still ALIVE and not duct taped to the wall when my husband gets home, I'VE DONE MY JOB!!" or this one on marriage: "So what if he keeps a small mountain range of clothes on his side of the bed? It's HIS side of the bed! He's entitled to have a smelly pile of dirty clothes on HIS side of the bed if he wants. That's why HIS side of the bed is against the wall, where I. Don't. Have. To. See. It."
It's nice to have a reminder every so often. I don't HAVE to be a mean angry mom, I can just chill. So what if the kids look like trailer park trash, and the house is a federal disaster area? So what if the dinner tonight is cereal, AGAIN. It's not every day, and I'm not winning the mother of the year award by stressing the small stuff, which makes me yell and scream at my kids like a maniac. So the gist of what I gleaned from this very funny mother of 6, RELAX. Take time to enjoy life, and don't feel guilty for doing it.

Ewwww! A walrus!

You've gotta love being a mom on days like this. Who knew the 2 yr. old nose could produce so much snot? It's seriously been a full time job keeping these boogers under control. Pink eye last week, THIS today, I'm starting to feel like the captain of the green snot brigade. Did I really sign up for this?

Ed Week/Qur'an

So we got home Thursday night, just in time for me to go to Kate's preschool back to school night, and since then it's been non-stop catch up. The landlord came to look at the house, and you know what 3 days without mom can do to a house! It wasn't too bad, (Chris did a great job, thanks babe!) and after all my classes on 'letting go', I just couldn't get too worked up about the whole clean thing. Soooo, the house was not nearly as clean as I normally would have liked it to be, but for the 10 minutes my landlady was here, I doubt she noticed the oversights (I did an especially good job of standing in front of things I didn't want her to see), and I didn't kill myself getting it done. I missed a peach canning party whilst away, and thus, had 2 boxes of peaches to can before they went bad. My friends are so great, they picked peaches for me! Which means they had to put in an hour of service picking (for the church cannery), before they could pick for us, so it was double duty. I am sad I missed the canning party though, canning alone is a drag. I did 14 qts. today, and still have a box left for later. I love fresh peaches, I've been making peach smoothies every day, and peach cobbler, and peach pie....yum!
But I digress, back to my excuses for not reporting on Education week...tomorrow is my turn to host our monthly book club, so, more cleaning and baking to do for that, and then laundry day is Monday's around here, and since I spent half the day canning, I'll be playing catch up with that. Almost seems like a few days off is more work than it's worth? Well, it was worth it. I learned some fascinating things at BYU.
I took a class on the Qur'an, one on Brain chemistry, one on Christ's teaching style, and one that kind of just hit all my life issues (marriage, guilt, children, health). That teacher, Connie Sokol, was HILARIOUS. So funny, I cried in every class I was laughing so hard. I think that was worth it alone, because we all know a good laugh is therapeutic.
Today, I'll just tell you what I learned about the Qur'an. It is the scripture for the Islamic faith, and Muslims believe it was revelation given by either God(Allah) or the the angel Gabriel (Noah) to Mohammed (2 schools of thought on this). The main point is to SPEAK the text, not to UNDERSTAND it. A translated Qur'an is not considered scripture, because it has to be spoken in Arabic for it to be of value. They believe that just by speaking the words, you are communing with Allah. This was interesting to me, because of all the reading I've done about the Law of Attraction. Words have power, and just speaking them causes change to occur in your life. This is along the same lines as what the Muslims believe. They also believe the Qur'an is holy, so they don't touch it with unclean hands, they never write in it (they don't believe we Mormon's have respect for our scriptures because we write in them so much) and it never touches the ground. The original teachings of the Qur'an are very much about peace and love and being a good person. I can't understand how the fundamentalists fell so far from that, and still profess to be Muslims, the Qur'an I heard, clearly says nothing about Jihad. I missed the day they talked about the Sunni's and Shia's, so I'll have to study up on that more. And now you know, what I know, about the Qur'an.

BYU

Well, I'm off to BYU today. Going to Education Week. Can't wait. Can't believe I'm actually going. Planning to leave the kids and actually doing it are 2 different things. I waited till the deadline to register, just in case. You know, anything could happen, Chris could have an emergency out of town meeting, someone could become deathly ill, the sky could fall. You never know, but I've learned that getting away is never cut and dry. But not this time. Chris is working from home all week (with the perfect excuse, they don't have an office for him temporarily), Luke and Tess will be in school, Ella's pink eye is clearing up, the stars have aligned. I'm off to gain insights and wisdom galore, I'll be showering ALONE for a 3 whole days, I won't have to cut up anyone's food before I eat, I won't have to think of what to make for dinner, just go to whatever sounds good. I'll be with a dear friend, and see others. It's basically an extended GNO. Bliss. Heaven.
I'm still undecided as to my class schedule, there's a few classes on gardening I may hit, some family relationships and child rearing--couldn't hurt, but nah, I'm thinking more along the lines of political and economic situations in the Middle East, or ballroom dancing. You know, something strictly for ME. It's all about ME baby. I could probably stand to take a few religion classes, but I'm waiting for inspiration to divine the one(s) I truly need.
There are some on depression, but really, I feel like I've beat that dead horse to death. Besides, my magic pills have it under control. I could take the one of Menopause, but it seems a little premature, what with there being one more kid to have. Oooo, here's one, Critical Keys to Mastering your Memory. I should definitely take that one. I forgot that my prego friend has gestational diabetes this week, when I picked her up a package of her favorite candy, to cheer her up, you know, because she has to stick herself every day, BECAUSE SHE HAS DIABETES!! Duh. I didn't even realize what I'd done till I was smuggly driving away thinking, "I'm such a nice friend to remember my poor suffering friends." Ha!
Here's one titled, "Overworked and Overwhelmed". That's me and about every other mom in the world. But here's the thing, do I want to take classes that focus on my daily life? or do I want to FORGET my daily life and just learn something new? Tough decisions, tough decisions.
I'll brief you all when I get home, you know, to share some of my enlightenment, I'm sure you're all dying to know more about the Middle East conflict. Don't anybody waste precious time checking my blog (I know you all sit on pins and needles awaiting new posts ;) till at least Friday, and have a great week everyone! I know I will!

Darling, you look fabulous!

Tess and Kate got haircuts this week. Well, so did Luke, but he's a boy, and nobody cares about their hair. I think they turned out really cute, until Kate decided to add her own touches the next day. Why she thought she'd get away with it is beyond me.
Kate, did you cut your hair?
No.
Why is there hair all over the bathroom?
Um....
KATE!!!!
(at this point she bursts into tears) I'm sorry momma!
You think you are, but I'll show you what sorry means!
I didn't kill her. But I did yell. For a long time. In front of her poor little friend who is now afraid of me. He was so funny, he kept saying, "I didn't cut my hair!" Not that I'd have noticed what with him being a toe-head and having a buzz. Good thing actually, or he might have tried!

GPA

No, not your grade point average, but Gateway Prep Academy,Luke and Tess' new school. We went today for the open house. It was fantastic. Both kids have some great teachers, and everyone we talked too seemed totally committed to the Montessori Method. The kids will have Latin and Spanish lessons, and Luke will be in the orchestra. He wants to play the violin (after piano and guitar, I hope this one will stick!).
Tess is in Level one, which is 1st-3rd graders, mixed. They are in "pods" consisting of 3 classes of 25 kids each. Within the pod, they rotate between the 3 teachers and 3 TA's. They had all the manipulative's out for the parents to see. I think the kids are really going to love it.
Luke is in Level 2, 4th-6th graders. I think this will be a great setting for him, since he likes to be the smartest one, but his friends are all basically in 4th grade. It's the best of both worlds for him, and will hopefully (fingers crossed) resolve his 'issues'. His teachers are very cool, they haven't been in public schools and so they won't have problems changing philosophies. (A real problem for public teachers).
School is supposed to start on Monday, but due to city water pressure issues, they can't pass the fire code inspection till Thursday, and good thing, the school is not quite done. It's a gorgeous new building, but the contractor is still trying to finish up, and Monday would have been a stretch. Gratefully, the staff is holding activities at SUU for the missed 3 days, AND they are feeding the kids, so GREAT for me! (Because it's all about ME!)
Since the kids aren't allowed inside the building yet, they had a carnival set up outside for them during the open house. Bouncy house, bouncy slides, popcorn, cotton candy, sno cones---all free---they were in heaven.
Never has a parent been MORE excited for school to begin. Well, maybe just none that will admit it... come on! I can't be the only one who needs time away from my children?! I know, I know, mother of the year.

Picaso, eat your heart out

My little 'arteests'

Ella likes to paint in the nude, well, in heels. But, she likes body art, she's painting Kate here.

The finished masterpiece.

Pulp can fly BABY!

More fun from our family reunion trip. Chris had some speed going on this run!

HB BFF

Today is my BFF Diana's Birthday. It is also Melanie Griffith, Deion Sanders and Whitney Houston's special day. Hey, we should organize a group party. Antonio Banderas would be there, I'd love to see him pop out of a cake... oops, daydreaming here, anyway, she and I turn 29 again this year! We are just so grateful to be 29 and not OLD like all you old folks! Hope you have a great day Di! (and your card is in the mail. Late, as usual, sigh*)

Mobster party

My little brother Dru turned 30 this month, and to celebrate, he wanted a theme party. Mobster themed. Girls in flapper attire, men with tommy guns, red and white checked table cloths and a spaghetti dinner. I spent the better part of 2 months stalking all the thrift shops in town, trying to find the perfect costumes for Chris and I. Many of you know that we like to host a costume party for Halloween, so we are no strangers to dressing up. I could have gone as Miss Piggy, a witch, a pumpkin or a Geisha girl, but not a flapper girl. Price was the deterrent, I just didn't want to spend $50 on costumes. I even resorted to making my dress, but just the fringe was $7 a yard. And you need a lot of fringe! So I gave up and decided to go in my usual attire, until a stroke of pure genius hit me, about 5hrs before the party... I went as the mob victim. You know, the one who crossed the mob, and got a new pair of cement shoes? I had one 'cement' shoe, some 'seaweed', 2 black eyes, a fish and a smashed can hanging off my shirt, and the real kicker, I was soaking wet, as if they just pulled me out of the Jersey river. Pretty clever eh? All for the bargain price of...$0. Well, needless to say, the competition was pretty steep in the fringe department, but as for originality, I think I won hands down.

Home at last

On the way home, we stopped by to see my grandma. She's getting pretty old, so I really should spend more time with her. You'd never guess she was in her 90's though, she's still spry as a chicken. Luke is almost as tall as her, and I'd say the weigh about the same too. I hope I get those good Japanese genes.
When we pulled up in our driveway, it was raining, lightly, and the sun was shinning. This is the first rainbow I've ever seen in Cedar City. The kids were thrilled, and I found myself wishing I were back in Hawaii, where you'd see two or three every day.
And the first thing Luke did was run back to check on our garden. That's my butt in the background, I couldn't be bothered to pose, there were weeds to pull! We had quite a few things ready, the pumpkins are 3x the size they were a week ago, and the zucchini plants are taking over. Today we had pasta primavera, with all our fresh garden produce. The kids were so happy about eating our own veggies, they didn't even complain about the fact that they were veggies.
Love going on vacation, but I also love coming home. That's a good thing right?

Happy (belated) Birthday Ella!`

Our little 'ducky' and her ducky cake. She blew, actually it was more like hissed at the candles, but Kate was there to help.

One of the many new birthday outfits, thanks Aunts Brooke, Leslie and Melissa!

And she got a monkey. Who doesn't have a monkey on their back these days?

Loves the cake, and all things sugar. Two is a good year. She's really started talking up a blue streak lately. On the drive home she was pointing out all the horsey's to me. When I tried to tell her they were cows, she kept insisting 'horsey'. No....cow. "Oh, horsey-cow?" Whatever you want Ella, it's your birthday, and you can call a cow a horsey-cow if you want to.

Family Reunion...the saga continues

So we start off the next morning from my mom's house at 10 am. We think we are going to be late, because Chris' family planned on leaving at 8 or 9 am. We get 30 miles before *BOOM!* Tire blowout on the pop-up trailer (yeah, it was still worth it, not having to sleep in a tent). We pull off the freeway, because the trailer is not registered, and we don't want a cop to see us and add a ticket onto the price of a new tire. We are in the dirt of the off ramp changing to the spare, when who should pull up behind us? Uh-huh. A cop. But he was just seeing if we needed help, and despite glancing at the place where the registration sticker should have been, he gave us directions to the nearest Wal-Mart, and went on his merry way. Yeah. After another hour of repairs we make it back onto the road when we receive a call from Chris' family, "What? you're where? Behind us? Ok. We'll pull over and wait." I knew we'd still be first. We are now 60 miles away from home, and we've been on the road for 2.5 hours, that's how long the entire trip was supposed to take. Well, at least we are all together now. It's nice to be in my brother's new Land Cruiser, which has THREE TV's in it, AND XM RADIO!! He was nice enough to let us borrow it so we could pull the trailer, and I figure, it's worth the extra gas to have some comfort. (Thanks Dru, and NO, he does NOT BEAT HIS WIFE!) We are loving it. So, let the road trip continue. Back on the road now, and 60 miles later, the air conditioner stops. Hmmm, that's not good. We pull over ---AGAIN--- and find a broken belt. Well, we are now in the middle of BFE, I mean Idaho, and there are no Auto Zones for miles. We roll down the windows and continue the last 30 miles of the trip in the heat. But really, it wasn't that bad, for 30 min. you can do it. We pull up to Steadman's Ranch, our destination, and the kids can't wait to get out and start playing with the cousins. There are 49 of us present, out of 66 members of his immediate family, yep, 8 kids, 4 generations, it adds up. This is no ordinary backyard, ther's a zip line, a water slide, volleyball, in ground trampoline, skeet shooting, fire pit and best of all, no dirt! It's all grass. Well, they own a sod farm, so grass is a no brainer for them. It was literally like camping in someone's big back yard. A little weird to tell the truth, but the family hardly ever came out, and we just pretended we were in a private camp ground. We had a great time with everyone for the next 2 days, mostly the adults just sat around and watched the kids, and talked, I got some reading and crocheting in, it was good. A little cold one night, and Ella didn't take a nap for 3 days straight, but you're supposed to be tired after a vacation right?! Time flew and now it's time to go. Now, Raft River ID is 30 miles between Pocatello and Burley, those being the closest places to find a new A/C belt, we just didn't bother. Soooo still no A/C, we braved (what choice did we have?) the heat for the 3 hr. ride home (by the time we could get w/in any city limits, the engine would be too hot to change the belt) that, was not so fun. We were dying. It was horrible, but, we made it back to Bountiful alive, and after a really cold shower, I felt much better. All in all, a much more costly trip than even I had planned, but fun, and we're glad it's over. Ooops, I mean, we can't wait to do it again next year!

Family Reunion Saga, Part I

I am still not home, and blogging from my brother's, so I don't know how to put pictures into his computer. Still, this first story does not require a photo.
We left Cedar on a Tuesday at 10 am, stopped in Provo for some acupuncture (for my allergies, works wonders!) then proceeded to Chris' folks house. His dad just got out of the hospital (again) so we wanted to see him. He is finally on the mend after his bladder cancer surgery, btw. We left their house at about 4:20 to make the last 20 min. leg of the trip to my folks house. We are on the freeway for all of 5 min. when we run dead into a parking lot. I am not kidding. The. cars. were. not. moving. Horrible. Apparently a propane tanker, which technically was not even allowed to be ON the freeway at peak travel time, overturned, and so they basically, SHUT DOWN THE FREEWAY. Well, being rush hour, people started looking for alternative routes North. There are ONLY 3. All of them were backed up to Salt Lake. There is literally NO PLACE to run. We just had to bite the bullet and sit on the freeway. It. Was. Maddening. It's the hottest time of the day, and the temp was over 100*. Now, this would be ok if air conditioners worked properly when the car is not moving, they do not, however. The vehicle must be moving, or at least have the engine revved. Ella is in the way back, facing backwards, and she was literally sweating out all of her body fluids. We had to unbuckle her *gasp* so she wouldn't DIE! She spent the rest of her time driving us all INSANE. Guess how long it took us to reach our destination, where btw, Ella's birthday dinner and my family were waiting for us? TWO Freaking HOURS! The kids did pretty good, but keep in mind we had basically been in the car all day. The last 30 minutes was sheer HELL. And no, I will not apologize for cussing. It was that bad. Luckily, the dinner wasn't done on time, so we made it, which was good, because we were all starving, and eating cold food just would have been too much. Happy Birthday Ella.