2012

More day to day reporting on our vacation:

New Year's Eve- Chris gets a 90 minute massage (his Christmas gift from me). Shogatsu(Japanese New year) starts at 2pm. Lots of Japanese food, and partying w/ family. Pretty much like a Japanese thanksgiving-- except it goes all day. Me and littles made it till 11pm. Chris the older 2 went all the way to 2012. Food was sooooo good. I ate TOO much.

Brooke is saying, "Oh man, this looks good!" or maybe, "What happened to that jello?"
Don't ask. Again, it's a memory thing. I'm getting so forgetful I can't even cook anymore...
My only assignment, JELLO, and I screwed it up. I'm disgusted w/ myself.

Meanwhile, my brothers, the gourmet chef's, are making the sushi. Good thing they didn't put me in charge of that ! 

New Year's Day- back to the grind. Church starts at 1pm now. Bummer. Zeke JUST started going to nursery (only 6 months late) only to wind up there smack dab in the middle of naptime. I predict serious melt-downs. Chris predicts he is going to get a year off of church... sigh* Primary was crazy with everyone trying to adjust to new classes, teachers not thinking they had to teach (really?) and other miscellaneous crap. 

 Jan. 2- Skiing? One can only hope (please please please SNOW!) Sadly, no. No new snow. Luke goes paintball-ing w/ my brother. He had a great time getting hit by paint missiles, and didn't even come home with welts. He told us they played 'Mercy' and he never went out because he refused to give up, despite being pummeled by paint balls.  Chris changes the oil on both cars, I finish taking down the tree, the last thing still up, and dye my couch cover from white (bad bad choice- what was I thinking?) to tan. I can't seem to remember instructions that I JUST read though, because I forgot the salt, and so it just came out looking 'tea stained'. And it shrunk up so much it took me 20 minutes to wrestle it on the couch. Lovely. Chris and I went out couch shopping at 7pm. We hit 3 different DownEast Home stores, no luck. They did have a great PB sectional, but at $1500, I just couldn't pull the trigger. The hunt continues.

Jan. 3- Back to school for all. Ah! Freedom! Schedule! I love being back in the routine. I was so productive today! Got my hair cut *again*, did some laundry, found a flute teacher and got the flute into the shop, made doctors appts., and a delicious Pork burrito dinner. Went to Mutual w/ Luke (parents invited), did homework with Kate.

Chris comes home wiped out, and goes to bed by 8pm. I stayed up watching Boston Legal. My new addiction.

And that good people, is how the Johnson's spent their holidays.

ZZZzzzZZZZzzzZZZzzzzz

Hey! Wake up! It's over!

ZZZZzzzZZZzzzz


(I don't blame you. Even I was bored, writing it.) 

Merry Christmas

The perfect tree

I feel like I should record our holiday, but can't think of anything witty to write... ah, well, it will be 'just the facts', but for posterity's sake, I'll just have to plow through.

Christmas Eve- Eve-- Luke, Tess, Kate and Chris went skiing w/ Grandma/pa and the cousins. They had a good time. Except Tess. And Chris. She hates Solitude, says it's 'too steep', and can she just ski at Alta from now on? Um... no. Passes bought and paid for at Solitude. Maybe she just won't be a skier. Chris had no fun picking her and Grandma up off the slope umpteen times. Skiing just isn't the same with kids...
I spent the morning tie-ing(how do you spell that?) a quilt for Luke. His only gift, since he already got new ski clothes and a pass. And no, I didn't procrastinate it that long, the sheet I ordered for one side took TEN FREAKING DAYS to arrive. USPS SUCKS!

Christmas Eve- Gingerbread house making. Sugar cookie decorating. All courtesy of Grandma, or as we like to call her- 'Julie, your cruise director'. Christmas program, talent show, and opening of gifts from cousins. Pretty much all day excitement, and the kids made out like bandits (thanks Les).

Bed head, bed face, bed blankie.
Better go back to bed. 

Christmas Day- Kids were up at 7am, I stalled them till 7:30 when Zeke woke up (supposedly, by himself. Uh-huh. Sure.). Santa was good to all. Luke LOVES his new 'woobie'. He wanted to go back to bed just to enjoy his blanket. He's a creature of comfort, and nothing excites him like polar fleece and flannel. Chris made crepes for breakfast. We went to church at 11am. I suffered through our choir numbers with a smile. We needed about 4 more sopranos, and 4 more weeks of practice... Thankfully, we weren't the entire program, and the rest of it was fantastic. 1 hour church is HEAVEN! Oh, and we had a brown Christmas. NO snow. The inversion has been killer.

After church and Zeke's nap, we headed to the in-laws where we saw 3 of the 7 siblings and their families. Had a nice visit. Chris' family is very low key. We sit around and eat and chat, while the kids play games. It's relaxing. But soon it was time to leave for dinner at my folks, after which, we suited up and headed for Temple Square for the annual light-seeing. It wasn't too cold this year, and we made the rounds pretty fast.

All 15 Nakaya Cuzzies

Monday- Kids play with their cuzzies at Kangaroo Zoo (bounce house place).  Made a few returns, shopped a bit. All my siblings/spouses went to see Sherlock Holmes. A+, highly recommend it.

One more stuffed animal? Why not.
The other 57 are lonely...

Tuesday- Kids play with their cuzzies. Tess' primary party. Luke goes skiing again w/ cousin. Took down the Christmas decorations (I don't like to drag it out...Melissa!). Dinner w/ old friends from out of town, followed by another flick. Mission Impossible, Ghost something or other. B-. Too much. Just too much. Spent the rest of the evening hanging out w/ my siblings.

Wednesday- Bowling with all the cousins (thanks Grandma), and the annual dinner at Market Street Grill (Thanks Mom and Dad). Yummo. I passed on the Halibut, so I could order their Sabayon Dessert. Triple Sec liqueur custard over vanilla ice cream and fresh berries. I love that stuff. Only way we Mormons can get our liquor, right?

Well feed and feeling groovy...

Another doll....

Thursday- Luke goes skiing AGAIN (we're getting our money out of that pass!) Movies with Grandma, me and 9 kids. Puss in Boots. Cute. B+. Chris spends the day installing new shocks on his Cruiser, paid for with his Christmas cash. He's jones'n for a Moab trip now. I spent the morning at the Dentist getting a filling repaired. It RAINED today, 55*. Can you believe this sucky weather? SNOW PLEASE! I'd like to go skiing!

Friday- Chris and I make it to the temple, finally, after trying all week. Sheesh. This vacation is getting tiring! Lunch with old High School chums, very fun. Kids play with cuzzies, AGAIN!
I am pooped. I need a break from all this holiday reveling!

Tess modeling her new outfit, Zeke showing us his favorite new 'cuck'.  He could care less about the new bike.

What? She's almost a teenager, and she ASKED for this! 

Cucks cashing. (Trucks crashing) He's serious about his cucks people. 

Brothers gotta play cars

Time to slow down

This quote is from the December 1901 edition of the Young Woman’s Journal, by Emmaline B. Wells: 


“The olden times were the days of comparative seclusion from the outside world, and we had to depend mainly upon our own resources for amusement…In those far-off days, however, the children were as much on tip-toe with expectancy as in the present day when Santa Claus time comes round. Then we had to tell them stories to make up for the things we lacked. Now there is so much to occupy the time that mothers have no moment to spare, evidently, to tell them stories at all. They depend on church and the kindergarten teachers to do all this for them while they, the dear blessed mothers, lose all the sweetest hours life can bring. To sit at evening round the fire and listen to the children’s prattle and sing them the old-fashioned carols and tell them over and over the stories they long to hear, makes one forget care and trouble, and draws the mother and children closer together with ties inseparable that can never be wholly broken apart. The mother, who denies herself this privilege for the sake of some outside engagement, or even to do extra household work, is doing herself as well as the children an injustice….
“Children do not have too much love not even at Christmas, no, not that, but they very often have too many toys and sweetmeats. How many children there are in the world who long, more earnestly, for real love than they do for aught else? There is no comfort or luxury that will supply its place even in the heart of a little child. There is more happiness because of love than from any other gift…
“Above all else, mothers, tell the little ones stories at Christmas…”


I included it here on my blog, to remind me to dig into that huge basket of books and READ them to my kids. Christmas is almost here, and we've yet to read a SINGLE book. Pathetic. 

You want me to what?

When I first got called to this new gig, the Bishop told me two things after I'd agreed to take the calling, #1- I was in charge of the next stake baptism, in 3 weeks.

#2- The Primary would be in charge of the ward Christmas dinner along with the High Priests.

Say what? 

Since when did ward activities fall under PRIMARY?

Since this year apparently. 

Great. Like I don't have ENOUGH to do with my calling. 

But, what are you gonna do? Call people and beg them to be on a committee and help-- or do it your dang self? Much easier to do it yourself. 

So my presidency and I brainstormed menu ideas (we thought last years meal was horrible), came up with a lovely menu, and I made a call to the HP in charge. HE thought they'd just do what they did last year, because everyone seemed to like it (really?) and they already had all the notes. Hmmm. I 'suggested' a menu change. We went back and forth for about 5 minutes before he said, "Why don't we just be in charge of the food, and you can do decorations/advertising?"

SOLD!

Serve Mac 'n Cheese if you want, as long as I don't have to worry about it, I don't care! 

Here's a photo of our decorations. I had the Achievement Day girls(we have 20 of them) help out, they stamped all the table paper, made the hanging snowflakes, and stuffed the bags. My Mom let us use the cut out snowflakes from her last ward party for the walls. 

We had 8 people come to set up the day of and it took us 1.5 hrs. Easy Peasy Japanese-y. And I think it looked great. Granted, if you had seen the ward before ours the night before, you'd feel slightly let down. Fortunately, no one from our ward did see their posh decorations that must have cost a fortune and taken HOURS to set up. Lucky for us, they agreed to leave up the Christmas lights, which made ALL the difference(and, they didn't trust us to take them down, so they did that too! Suckas!). 

Anyway, I spent about $60, the girls did most of the work, and it was pretty low key. And dinner wasn't too bad. We had the local HS Jazz ensemble do a *short* FANTASTIC Jazzy program, and clean up took about 20 min. 

Ward Christmas Party--- CHECK! 

TMI... again-- Men need not proceed

Remember that really expensive IUD I thought I was going to have to pay for, and then the insurance decided to cover it? Well, it was causing me more headache than it was worth, so I called to see how much it would cost/would my insurance cover the removal? No. Not until it had been five years, and it's $160 to remove it. REALLY? To pull on a string?

So of course I start combing through the many IUD forums online to see what other women have done. Many have removed it themselves. My good friend had her husband pull hers out. I was worried about it hurting, because it really hurt going in, so I asked her. She told me her Doctor told her that she could pull it out herself, and that she didn't even feel it. One person on one forum did say something about possibly puncturing your uterus, but way more women said it was easy and no big deal. So I did it.

It was a mess, and hard to grab hold of, but I didn't even feel it coming out and it was over in about 30 seconds.

I'm back to HEAVY periods (like immediately back!) but at least they only last 7 days. 21 days of 'spotting' every month was it's own nightmare. Plus, I'm pretty sure those 'extremely low dose hormones' still messed with my psyche. I already feel better, less stressed, less hateful, and hopefully my libido will return as well.

Some women swear by them, others swear at them. I guess it just depends on the individual.

Bottom line, if your insurance doesn't cover it--- think long and hard, and read up on all the possible side effects, and from my experience, the side effects are similar to what you experience on the pill, regardless of what 'they' say about the 'low dose' hormone.

So what do you do with an unwanted uterus once it's served it's purpose? Put up with it I guess-- there seems to be no easy remedy, and all actions have consequences-- ablation, hysterectomy, etc. I should just buy stock in Tampax.

The Perfect Card

Christmas cards, I've decided, represent all that is my life. The perfect parody. I always want that 'perfect shot'. You know the one, where everyone is smiling, matching, and cute. What do I usually get? The after-thought-shot. The one where nothing is planned, no one is matching, someone is dirty, at least 2 people are not smiling or even looking at the camera, and definitely not looking 'cute'.

Admittedly, this is our life. There is rarely a time when all seven of us are happy and smiling. Rarely a moment when I planned ahead to do something as silly as match (heck, we're doing good just to be where we wanted to be, semi-clean, without being late or hungry). And yet, most of us are happy, most of the time, and the rest of the time, we take turns being grumpy-- so at least you know your turn is coming up soon.

The collage Christmas cards are my personal favorite. No forced dressing up, posing, pretending to like it, nonsense. I can look back over the year and pick the best picture of each individual- signifying a really stellar day for that one person. We all have good days, why not be immortalized on that day? Why not focus on the good days on this once a year season of love and gratitude?

Such is life though. We strive for perfection and fall short. We have good hair days and bad hair days. Fun times and crap times. Tears and laughter. My Christmas cards over the years have unwittingly seemed to reflect that theme in our life (I know, no one remembers what my cards looked like even last year, let alone further back. Humor me.).

So, while it wasn't that 'perfect temple shot' I had planned and stressed over, this photo is from one of the funnest days we've had all together in a long time. And even though Zeke was taking his turn at being grumpy, and Luke was having his bad hair day, it's a memory in time of a really good day.

Merry Christmas!

Lessons learned through Inconvenience

Stay on top of your laundry. We were all out of clean clothes one day into our power outage.

Remove Ice from your freezers ice dispenser. When it melts, it LEAKS! 

Keep a full tank of gas in your car. If we had wanted to get gas, we'd need to go to Salt Lake, where they had power.

Have some plan for alternate heat. We had to go buy a truck load of wood, and while that  did give us a little heat from our little stove, it wasn't enough.  Had we no place to go, we would have been miserable.

While a full fridge/freezer is a good thing, it can also be a big loss. Have some way to keep your perishables cold. This would have been a total loss if it had happened in the summertime. 

Have some way to charge your cell phones. I'm going to go get a solar charger. With our land lines down, our cell phones were invaluable. 

Know where your flashlights/candles are. It's hard to locate stuff buried in dark storage rooms w/o a light. 

Get everyone a pair of warm slippers. When the tile floor is ice cold, walking around in just socks doesn't cut it. 

Have a plan to keep kids entertained. Without the boob tube, the Wii, the iPods, and the option of going outside to play, they just picked at each other. It was so cold in the house, the only comfortable spot was under the big Christmas quilt on the couch. Can't do a lot from under a blanket except be bored. What did the Pioneers do I wonder? 

Be prepared! Oh how I wish I had made up those baptismal programs early! 

Keep a hard copy. If there is anything on your computer you have to have, make a copy. When that battery dies, you're out of luck. 

Listen to the weather man! When he says Hurricane force winds--- believe him. 

And the last lessons I learned;  God watches over us all, and People are good. 

We know of 2 homes in our stake that had fires. One caught fire when a tree fell into it, and the power lines. The power lines set the roof on fire. The homeowner was at the temple at the time, so no one was home. 

The other was in our ward. At 1:30am the power came back on, sending a surge through the treadmill, which then ignited into flames. The couple was asleep, but as the power came on, their lights did also, awakening them. They then smelt smoke and saw fire. They made it out in their pajamas. The house was gutted, but they are alive. 

A couple in my parents neighborhood were using a gas generator indoors. It was improperly vented. Another neighbor was walking up the street to check on her friend when she saw the door open and and noticed 2 people trying to crawl out. She ran up and pulled them out. They were almost asphyxiated at that point and may not have been able to exit the house unassisted. 

While our ward lost 30-40 trees, none did anymore damage to homes other than ripping off rain gutters. So many trees down, so very few on top of houses. 

The community spirit was strong. As soon as light broke, people were out clearing trees. My dad cut up and cleared 25-30 the first day. The second day was spent hauling all the trees off. Luke worked in our neighborhood, and then went up to help out Grandpa in his, for 3 days in a row. Today, church was canceled in a district wide service effort to clear all the piles of tree debris from the curbs before this next storm (winds predicted up to 60mph) hits tonight. At 9am we got a call to meet up and start clearing. Every pickup truck and trailer in the ward were put to use. The line at the city dump was 3 miles long as the whole city united to clean up. This not only saved the City tens of thousands of dollars in clean up effort, but it safe guards against all that debris from becoming projectile missiles in this next storm. 

One of the huge pines that came down in our neighbor's back yard.
The pile of branches after it had been cut up was as big as the garage.
And all of it had to be hauled away today.

We women helped too, we made soup and served hot chocolate to all our men/boys. I think I saw every able bodied men in the ward working today, in the snow and bitter cold, on Sunday. It was exciting, humbling, and  wonderful. Not since the floods of '83 have I seen such a spirit of community. It makes me feel that no matter what awful things may happen in the future, people are good, and they will rally together to weather any storm. 

This was a good practice run. Next time natural disaster hits, we'll be better prepared. And while it was terribly inconvenient, it wasn't tragedy or even hardship really, and for that, I'm very very grateful.

Here's the new story link: http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=18352901&title=residents-national-guard-and-business-owners-clean-up-davis-county

Just a little Wind

We had a windstorm last week. Not just a little wind. A lot of wind. 75-100mph- Hurricane force winds. We heard about it beforehand, but you know... we just didn’t think it would be that bad. 

The winds that night kept me up. Even from our cocoon in the basement, I could hear the winds, and more than that, the things that were being moved by the wind. Garbage cans falling over, and rolling down the street. The clang clang clang of the lock box we have on our porch railing. The screen door that wouldn’t stay locked, SLAM! SLAM! SLAM! All night long I listened to these sounds and wondered what I would find in the morning. 

What we found was our trampoline blown on its end and up against the fence, where it miraculously missed our neighbors car. Chris and Luke took it down- in the gale force winds, mind you- just before it blew up and over the fence and caused some real damage. Of the 3 garbage cans we had, we only found two- and they were far from where we had left them. Other than that, we escaped unscathed. 

Not so for about 1/3 of the population of Davis County. 

The heat came on at 6am and then promptly went off before 6:30 when the power went out. Drat. So much for keeping the house *cold* at night. The house was at 60*, and the temperature seemed to be falling. With the schools out of power as well, the kids and I decided to go to Walmart to do a little shopping, in the heat. What we saw as we drove through the still gale force winds, was incredible. For one thing, about every 4th yard had a downed pine tree. Huge 100 ft. tall, 100 year old pine trees, down all over the place. Some on top of houses, others blocking roads, still others, on top of downed power lines. Windows were blown or knocked out. Fences flattened. Shingles ripped from the roof and debris, everywhere. It was almost surreal and I felt this must be what a hurricane zone looks like. 

Upon entering the Walmart parking lot, we were just glad to see that the lights were on, as every other place of business we had to pass seemed to have no power. The shopping cart corrals were blown apart, metal tubing rolling across the parking lot, signs torn loose, some, torn off and blown away. The winds were still intense, so I briefed the kids before exiting the car. “Look down, away from the winds. Shield your eyes. Stay close to me. Stay together.” 

If you’ve ever stood on the Pali cliffs lookout in Hawaii and experienced the awesome force of winds that will literally keep you from falling over as you lean 45* into them, then you know what it was like traversing that parking lot that morning. Holding Zeke against my chest, with 3 girls in tow, we fought our way, leaning hard into the wind, across that parking lot. Ella was of course, crying, scared out of her wits. Zeke was just stunned as he tried to keep his eyes pressed into my chest.

Once inside, the older gentleman greeter asked us what on earth we were doing out in this weather. “Seeking heat,” was my reply. 

The winds finally stopped around afternoon and we huddled in the cold of our house, trying to keep moving, only to retreat to the blankets on the couch. Boredom ensued. Arguments arose. Well, it can’t take much longer for the power company to fix this, right? It was then that Chris called from work (where they had power, and no winds), he’d heard that the power companies were saying it may take up to 3 days to restore power. THREE DAYS!? This is not good. We’re already freezing and at each other’s throats. Time for plan B. Up to Grandma’s, where they have a fireplace that actually heats the room it’s in. 

Chris came home and hooked up our little tent sized pot bellied stove to the fireplace and started a fire. It took the chill off. A little. We pulled all the mattresses out, and arranged the kids around it with plenty of blankets for the night. They watched a movie on my lap top with the remaining 2 hours of battery life I still had. Chris, Zeke and I slept in our room under lots of down feather comforters. We were warm. Chris got up several times to stoke the fire. He woke the kids up every time. Once he knocked out the pipe, and smoke filled the room. We obviously are not used to ‘camping’ indoors. 

Day 2 with no power, it’s cold. So cold. We tough it out though, thinking that surely, the power will be on any minute. To no avail. Back up to Grandma’s. Pizza for dinner. The commercial areas seem to have their power back on. First though, I empty the fridge, putting the food out into the garage to stay cold. To the freezer I add two blocks of ice and leave the food alone. Stuff is starting to defrost, but it’s still cold.

By this time some of our ward members have power. Our street still does not. The power workers in the area seem to think that by tonight, or early tomorrow, it will be on. That promise aside, it’s just too cold, and Grandma has power, so we head up there to campout for the night. 

Day 3, we see the power men working on the line in back of our house. They have to cut down a few branches from the apple tree so they can drive their massive hole digging trucks back there to replace the power pole that snapped off when a tree a few houses down, fell, taking the power lines with it. They make a horrible mess of the grass, the tree looks pathetic. I don’t care. Just get the power back on! I thank them profusely. 

It’s now Saturday, and I am in charge of the Stake baptism that night. In all the excitement, I’d nearly forgotten, and only just get the programs off my dead computer,  with no internet, and get the copies made in time. I had to go to 2 different houses to do this. Printer compatibility and internet access were issues. What a nightmare. Why wasn’t I ready days ahead of time? Why?

In the middle of the baptism, we learn our power is finally back on. Hallelujah.