From A to Z

Ready to create

2012-01-30T22:48:00.000-08:00

After a busy 2 months of taking care of things and kids, I've got the bug to start sewing. I made a few projects over Christmas, as my niece got a sewing machine and I taught her how to sew while she was in town. We made pillow cases, pajama pants and owl skirts. All I have been able to sew since then was an emergency letting out the waist of Noah's church pants Sunday morning, and a super easy school bag for Savanna. I need a picture of that one, it is pretty cute.

But here is what I have planned to sew.

Curtains for the kitchen (10 years later....)
A dress using this tutorial, an old shirt from DownEast and a yard of cute fabric I just found at Joann.
Another dress--something red
A school bag for Aubrey to match Savanna's
A quilt for Zack's teacher's baby
Pillows for my couches
A cushion for the loooong bench we have in the basement.

I have been busy organizing cupboards and closets and getting rid of stuff this month so that I can have some space to create in. Tomorrow I will get my sewing table all set up in the exercise room now that Noah's race car set from Christmas has been safely moved to another room and is not in the middle of the floor. Also up tomorrow: assembling new bookcases to make a home for the 2,000 books that are all lined up across the loooong bench in the basement and stacked up in the back of my bedroom. I love books. I am addicted to books. But I have never been able to find bookcases I wanted in our house--and I have been looking for 10 years. I finally found what I wanted, and now it's time to load the books onto shelves.

Today I took Zachary on some errands after I picked him up from school. I parked in front of a used book store, which I never would have even noticed if Zack hadn't seen it and insisted that we go in because there was a snowman reading a book painted on their front window. He was so excited about it. We found the kids section, and I couldn't help but think that I had more kids books, and a much better collection, than this book store did. The store was huge, but they sure had a bunch of dumb books. We left the store empty-handed, and headed home to our own book collection. As a mom of 7 and a school teacher in a former life, I have definitely amassed a very large collection of children's books. Zachary found about 10 books in our basement to read with me, and we snuggled up on his beanbag chair and read for the rest of the afternoon.

This is why I have to get a lot done while he is at school--it is too much fun to snuggle up and read with that boy. What is the most fun to read with Zachary? The original Joel Chandler Harris "Tales of Uncle Remus." Maybe not PC for some people, but I have always loved the stories, and so do my kids. Luckily, my dad does an excellent Uncle Remus voice, so I know how to say all those fancy words that don't look like words when they are printed. Zachary will often stop and compare something going on to an escapade from Br'er Rabbit or Br'er Fox. One of the words his kindergarten class came across in a reading story last week was TAR. Zack was the only kid who knew what tar was. When he described what it was to the class, his teacher asked him how he knew that. He said, "from the TAR baby!" He was shocked that every kid did not know that story. He talked about it all the way home. But as much as the kids like it when I read those stories, they tell me that Grandpa tells them better. I agree with that. He is the master of storytelling. That's how he earned his nickname from Zachary of "Story Grandpa." And "Story Grandpa" is married to "Tickling Grandma."

My new workout buddy

2012-01-27T19:22:00.000-08:00

To get things going back in the exercise groove, I bought a few Jillian Michaels workouts on DVD to do on my easy run days. I have a few strength routines I have done over the past year, but they are kind of monotonous now, and I need someone yelling at me to keep going and give it my all. Otherwise, I get bored and cut things short.

I started out pretty well with the Yoga Meltdown DVD. That was fantastic. I have been doing yoga for the past 2 years, but I liked the twist she put on things, and I felt like a champion when I finished the workout. I was sweaty and tired, and then next day just a tiny bit sore. Not sore where it hurt to move, but sore in the good way where you know you pushed yourself hard.

I decided to try 6 Week Six-Pack DVD on Wednesday. It was a crazy workout, and my heart rate was through the roof for the entire time. It was great. Even for such an un-coordinated person it was pretty easy to follow, and I loved Jillian telling me to keep going.

However, I had forgotten about my unique ability to use the wrong muscles to accomplish basic movements. I have been diagnosed by two physical therapists, my doctor and a trainer as the most unusual person they have ever seen. I get things done, but my brain tells all the wrong muscles to move, and I make things harder than they should be, or work entirely different muscles than I should. I even use the wrong muscles to breathe. No wonder I sucked at every sport as a kid. It's a wonder I can even walk.

Well, the whole time I was doing the Abs DVD, Jillian would say something about how "Your abs should be burning right now!" And I would yell, "NO. I don't feel anything in my abs at all! What kind of workout is this?" Still, lots of plank positions and such, so I knew something had to be happening in my abs, and at least my arms should be sore the next day. But no.

When I woke up yesterday, I realized what kind of workout it was. I had somehow torn up every muscle in my butt and inner thighs. I can barely walk. I have no idea how I did this. How did an ab workout entirely leave my abs alone, and make my butt and legs so sore that I am walking like a 95-year-old lady? The answer is simple. I am Jill.

There is no way I can run tomorrow with how sore my butt and legs are from my "abs" workout, so I am going to try out Jillian's Killer Buns and Thighs DVD tomorrow to see if I might be able to get an abs workout after all. The way my body works, it might just work.

A business deal

2012-01-24T21:11:00.000-08:00

Noah is quite a business man. When he got in the car after school today he pulled out $2 from his pocket. The kids never take money to school, so I asked him where he got $2. He very simply said, "Oh, I sold my snickerdoodle."

I knew that kids sometimes traded things at lunch, and that if the kids have one of my cookies to trade they can usually get anything they want. But this was the first time (that I am aware of) that one of the kids actually SOLD a cookie to a classmate.

I told Noah that he has to give the kid his money back tomorrow.

But it makes me wonder if opening a bakery some day could be a profitable venture for me. If a 5th grader would pay $2 for a snickerdoodle, what would an adult with a job pay for one?

Catching up

2012-01-24T11:21:00.000-08:00

December disappeared quickly. And January is about to do the same thing. Life has been so crazy between home, kids, church and the dental office, that I have not sat down at all to write a post in a month!

So, here's a bit of what has happened this month.

The two boys recovered miraculously from their surgeries. They couldn't move their arms for a couple of weeks without intense pain, which meant that I had to feed them and help them do lots of other things I didn't ever really think I would help teenage boys do... But they dealt with the pain quite well. The surgery is excruciating to recover from, so at first I was waking myself up every 4 hours to make sure they kept the pain under control with their oxycodone. But after about a week they were down to just a few a day, and then after 2 weeks I took the hard stuff away and left them with Tylenol and Advil. They did really, really well with their recoveries. When I told them we were done with the oxycodone, they kept teasing me about giving them arthritis medicine when they are teenagers, but they did great. One funny thing is that during their recovery time we moved Joel's bed upstairs into Jacob's room to make it easier on them and on me. Now that they are totally fine, they don't want to move! Joel's stuff is still all downstairs in his room, but they like sharing a room. Odd for teenage boys, but I'm not complaining.

Everything was pretty much back to normal by Christmas Eve when we had Mark's family all here for dinner and a party. I started a tradition last year of feeding the kids and teenagers pizza for dinner, and then banishing them all to the basement while the adults sit down to a nice quiet meal. This year I made London Broil, which is one of my very favorite meals. Not quite traditional for Christmas Eve, but I was in charge, so that's what we had. And every last bit of beef was gone, so it was a hit.

The cousins did their traditional nativity play.

Noah and Savanna played some pieces on the piano.

And we all sat around our big tree and enjoyed the evening together with lots of noise and lots of cousins.

Christmas day in a house full of 9 people is always exciting, but when Christmas is on a Sunday and you need to get to church it makes things even more hectic. Typically we get Christmas morning started at 7AM, but this year we moved it up to 6:00 to make it possible for us to get to church--especially because Mark was conducting the meeting!

Aubrey got a guitar for Christmas. Secretly, this was my present to myself....I play it while she is at school.

Three kids got big bean bag chairs. Mark and I were a little worried when they arrived in these little boxes, but after prying the cardboard off of the vacuum-packed bags, which was not an easy job, the bags expanded to their full 4-foot size within minutes.

Jacob got a video camera, and he and Joel are working on a production called "Teens in the Wild." It's a documentary about teens in their natural habitat.... In true "Jill" style, the first camera we bought Jacob was broken--something inside was loose and loud. So we had to replace the camera after Christmas with a functional one.

Joel was excited to get EPIC Perplexus to challenge his big brain.

Noah got the disco light of his dreams.

Savanna learned what a Cricut was. I found a deal on Black Friday I could not pass up. I had a hunch that this would be the best present we could possibly give Savanna, so we threw her Christmas list in the trash and went with the Cricut. Turns out I was exactly right. She told me later that night that even though she didn't get any toys for Christmas, the Cricut was the best thing she could have ever imagined. She has made lots of things for a lot of people, and pretty much every day comes up with some reason to cut something with the Cricut.

For the record, she did get a toy for Christmas--Fozzy Bear that she cannot sleep without.

Abram joined the Pillow Pet club with his new Wally the Big Green Monster Red Sox mascot.

Zachary loved The Muppets so much that he has made us call him Walter ever since we saw the movie at Thanksgiving time. I knew he would love to get this little Walter stuffed animal for Christmas. He takes it everywhere.

Last, but not least, on Christmas day was the opening of the big mystery family present. What kind of crazy idea did we have?

A marimba! When you have a house full of piano playing kids, who also love to play music on anything they can get their hands on, why not add a marimba to the house? Sure, it's huge, but the sound is really quite pretty. I have been amazed to see the kids take songs they know from the piano and just walk right up to the marimba and play it on there. Savanna made things easier by using her Cricut to cut out some vinyl letters for the names of the bars. Mostly for me...I was getting lost and messing up the songs.

We had a fun Christmas break, and had a lot of fun when my sister and her family came, and also the cousins from Connecticut came, for the week after Christmas. We topped off the break by having a quick stomach flu run through every person in our house....Luckily it left as fast as it came and we were all back to full health again within 24 hours of falling ill.

And then school started again, and now the high schoolers are in the middle of finals week! I have been busy fixing computers and training a new person at the dental office while the kids are at school, along with trying to get my groove back for running. I sort of slacked off for November and December--I didn't stop altogether, I just didn't make it out as often as I should have. Now it's time to kick it into gear because my race is 18 weeks away. I can run about 5 miles easily now, but I've got to work my way back up to be able to run 13.1, and to do it in under 2 hours, so I have my work cut out for me.

A broken promise

2011-12-23T21:05:00.000-08:00

Last week was pretty much shot for me getting anything accomplished other than caring for my two boys who are recovering from their surgeries. When we got home they couldn't even lift their arms to feed themselves or brush their teeth or do anything. And I was waking up every 4 hours in the night to give them their pain meds. I helped teenage boys do things last week I never expected I would ever do. But now they are up and getting all around the house and pretty self-sufficient, even if they are walking a little slow. Yesterday my claustrophobia (and clutter-phobia) got the best of me and I banished them and all of their pillows and blankets to the bedroom after a week of them sleeping and spending most of the day on the couches in the great room. They really are making a remarkable recovery.

So this week I have been a busy bee getting everything ready for Christmas weekend. I baked about 400 cookies and delivered them to many people, cleaned like crazy and planned a menu for breakfast, lunch and dinner for today through Monday, and spent most of yesterday shopping for food and getting any last-minute things we needed.

After such a hectic week of running a million errands, I made myself a promise that I wasn't leaving the house until we had church on Sunday. I left the caveat that perhaps Sherlock Holmes could temporarily lure me out of my house for a few hours, however.

Well, plans changed this morning and I had to break my promise to myself.

Savanna and Zachary were playing in the basement, and suddenly Savanna ran upstairs screaming and holding her ear. She was followed by Zachary who had a very scared look on his face. I knew something was very wrong, so I pulled Savvy's hand away from her ear and saw blood coming out of her ear. Never what you want to see. Anyway, I asked what happened and Zachary had been pretending to paint Savanna's face with a watercolor paintbrush (not the cheap kind, but an actual watercolor paintbrush), and for some reason he had decided to shove the brush into Savanna's ear. Bristles first, but as I said it was a real brush with a metal ferrule.

Savanna and I jumped in the car and drove to our local ENT, which luckily is only 2 miles away. Due to numerous eardrum ruptures during her early years, she was already a patient of record and the doctor just worked her right in to the schedule. Fortunately, it was a laceration of the ear canal and not a tympanic membrane puncture. He prescribed some antibiotic drops, and after a stop at the pharmacy we were on our way. Savanna's ear still hurts a bit, and is still dripping a little blood, but she is OK and that is what matters.

I had also forgotten about a commitment I had today which I also had to break my promise for. Savanna and Noah had a Christmas piano recital in which I played a duet with Savanna. The kids did great, and it was very fun to see them perform.

And then we went to see Sherlock Holmes. Wow. What a great movie!

So, it turns out I spent 8 hours away from home today when I had planned to stay home. But then I decided it had been a pie crust promise just like Mary Poppins explained....easily made, easily broken. And no harm done.

Here's to hoping tomorrow I can just stay home and enjoy the day getting ready for our big party with cousins tomorrow night.

Paul Revere...again

2011-12-21T11:15:00.000-08:00

You all know that I am in love with Paul Revere. He and Henry Knox are my Revolutionary War heroes. And you may remember this post from April when Paul Revere made me faint.

Well, more of the story is that Jacob had his ipod with him that day that I fainted. But Jacob got his ipod taken away while we were in NY the following week, and he didn't get it back until last week when he had his surgery. When we got home from the trip I put his ipod in my desk drawer and didn't look at it again. I had never looked to see the pictures he had taken in Boston. Turns out he had this beauty of my forehead. You can clearly see where I smacked my head on the bricks. I just had to share

This reminded me that I needed to do a book review of probably my favorite book I have read this year.

I highly recommend Paul Revere and the World He Lived In by Esther Forbes. Let's just say it didn't win the Pulitzer Prize in 1942 for nothing. The storytelling is amazing. Sure, it's non-fiction, but it is written as a story. You actually can smell, hear and taste old Boston. It tells the real story of who Paul Revere was and why he what he did to become an American legend, but it at the same time teaches what it was like to live in old Boston. For instance:

"The skyline was dominated by steeples and the whole town by bells. Everyone knew Christ's 'royal peal' and that New North's had a sour note. King's Chapel's was deep and sad. Old Brattle and Hollis had their bells. Folk would stop in the street to count the 'passing bell' tolling out the sex and age of the deceased. And they always ran to ask for whom the bell tolls.

"The bells rang wildly for fires or to call out the mob, joyfully for the repeal of certain acts of Parliament or the withdrawal of an especially unpopular royal governor. They tolled over 'tyranny.' They opened and closed the markets, and twice on Sabbath called all to church or meeting. These were the great bells--the very voice of Boston. Besides there were countless smaller ones. Handbells rung on the street advertising 'wonders' and sales, or that it was two o'clock and 'The Bunch of Grapes' was about to serve dinner. Schoolmasters rang for school, cowbells drowsed through the blueberry bushes and hardhack of the Common, and all day long, in hundreds of shops and houses, the tinkle, tinkle, tinkle of doorbells. In winter-time came the frosty sparkle of sleighbells as citizens rode out in their 'boobyhuts.'

"The music of bells is almost forgotten by modern ears. Then it was everywhere."

A forgotten post...The Birthday I'll Never Forget

2011-12-21T10:49:00.000-08:00

I should have written this post last September...like 15 months ago. I forgot I had these pictures.

My 38th birthday was pretty dang exciting. We were in Salt Lake city, and a family I grew up with invited my entire family to a birthday bash for me. Our families had not been all together in decades, and it was a very exciting day.

The party was at my friend's house, and it started off pretty harmlessly. We all had some delicious food, and then the kids went off to play in the basement. Within about 5 minutes, Savanna came upstairs crying. Now when the kids cry, unless they are vomiting or bleeding I tell them to shake it off and they will be fine. But Savanna was bleeding--from right next to her eye!

She had been playing foosball with her cousin, and he had pushed the stick from his side to kick the ball, but the other end of the stick was exactly at the height of Savanna's eye. It popped her skin right open.

Maybe if this had been a boy I would have just butterfly-bandaged it up and told him he would have a cool scar. But this was my precious girl! I didn't want her to have a scar on her face. So my mom and I left the party to find an emergency room where she could be stitched up.

The doctor originally wanted to just glue it, but I wouldn't let him. Of course, gluing is easier, and you don't have to give kids a shot to numb anything. But Savanna has a scar on her forehead from a botched gluing from when she was 2. I didn't want that right on her cute face. I insisted on stitches, and the doctor agreed that was a better fix for this cute girl's face. She didn't even flinch when he numbed her up. We were glad to have my mom with us, because we all were laughing about all kinds of things, and then Savanna laughed so hard that she snorted, which made us all laugh even more.

Two little stiches and she was as good as new.

We headed home the following day so the kids could start school. This is what Savanna looked like for her first day of school last year.

Let's get this party started

2011-12-18T07:14:00.000-08:00

I'm glad that week is over. Being away from home at the hospital when everything was hitting was really hard. But thanks to the prayers of family and friends, we all made it through last week and are feeling great.

The boys continue to rock their recovery. They came home Thursday night after breaking the hospital record for recovering from their particular surgery. They spend all day and night in our comfy great-room chairs surrounded by pillows, but I make them get up several times a day and take a lap around the main floor. Yesterday they even stood up at the bar to eat their lunches. They still can't lift their arms much or bend down, so I have to wash their hair, help them get dressed and reach their things for them, but they are doing really well. Maybe that's the Percocet they are taking talking, but things improve drastically for them every day.

We were very aware last week of the great blessings we have. While my boys were there for a corrective surgery with a quick, albeit quite painful, recovery, we saw many children who were in the hospital for very serious conditions. The first morning when Joel woke up he said, "Wow. There were a lot of babies born last night." I told him there were no babies born in that hospital, but the babies he heard crying had just been through surgery. He got teary and said that he had never realized that a baby would have to have surgery. And then there were the kids we saw walking the halls who clearly are struggling with major medical problems and we felt so grateful for the blessing of good health. At the same time we felt inspired by these brave kids pushing an IV pole around with 5 different bags going into 5 different tubes. They had big smiles and were as sweet as could be. It was so humbling to be there. The family next door to Jacob's room was there for their daughter's 14th surgery. Another dad I met in the elevator had been there for 5 weeks with his daughter, who said that everything that could have gone wrong with her surgery had gone wrong. And here I was leaving the hospital with my 2 boys who had made a miraculous recovery. No wonder I was so emotional last week!

Our friend (who is also our bishop) who lost his eye last week is feeling upbeat and better about his situation. Abram is great and completely at peace with the random events that led up to the whole eye injury thing. Mark is holding up as he has stepped in and taken care of the many church responsibilities that fell on his shoulders this week while our bishop is out for a few weeks recovering, including conducting and speaking at the funeral of the amazing man in our ward who died of cancer this week. Mark was able to keep his composure and say just the right things, which was a great blessing. We all loved this man and were inspired by his courageous battle with cancer.

Friday after the funeral I went to the kids' school and got them all out early. After a very heavy week, I was ready to get the party started and begin Christmas vacation.

The kids are all out of school this week. This means cookies, cookies, crafts, movies, more movies, some cleaning, and lots of fun. I love Christmas break. Hopefully I will be posting some pictures of the cute sewing projects I have been dying to get around to.

Now it's time to get this party started. Bring on the gingerbread men.

We're going home!!!!

2011-12-15T20:05:00.000-08:00

Wow! These boys of mine are tough. Plus, many people have been praying for their quick recovery. The hospital has never had a kid ready to go home from the Nuss Bar procedure surgery within 48 hours, but Jacob was ready. Joel followed suit and 48 hours after his surgery, he made a major turn for the better and stopped pushing his morphine button. Jacob has been discharged and now we are all sitting in Joel's room watching a movie waiting for 10:00 when Joel will have been off of IV pain meds for 8 hours so we can all go home! Usually kids are on morphine for 3 days and then the last day make the transition to oral pain meds. There is still a lot of pain when the guys get up or down, but that is under control with their oxycodone, which means they are ready to get out of here.

Here's what has happened since Tuesday when we checked in.

We took some "Before" shots

Then they waited their turns for the operating table.

This is Jacob's first "after" picture

Joel's surgery was about 4 hours after Jacob's. He had a little trouble getting enough oxygen after the surgery because it really hurt to take a deep breath.

The first night was a bit rough and the boys were hooked up to IV fluid and morphine, and they each had an oxygen monitor on their finger and a........catheter down below.

The day of surgery they were expected to do nothing other than rest and stay pain-free. Yesterday the goal was for them to get up once or twice and walk a little. Jacob decided he was feeling so good he did it about 5 times, which was enough to convince the doctor he was done with a catheter. He felt much better instantly, as you can imagine.

This was encouragement for Joel to get moving more. He started getting up and down by himself to show that he could be done with his catheter as well. Smart boys.

Jacob was the first to venture out of bed and walked down to Joel's room so they could see what the results of each other's surgery were.

They posed for this picture of their new chests.

Now as soon as Joel is unhooked from his IV we can leave. They left it in just in case he took a downturn and needed morphine again. They are both excited to go home and take showers to wash the hospital smell and grunge of recovery away.

I am so grateful that we had such a great surgeon who was able to fix these boys up. He said that Joel's pectus was much, much deeper than the MRI showed that it was. He will now know what life with more than 75% of his lung capacity feels like.

This hospital is very nice, but it will be wonderful to be home again. Sure it is nice to be here to have someone take such good care of them, but, as Joel said today, "I can swallow pills and watch movies at home. Let's get out of here."

Laugh or cry

2011-12-13T21:09:00.001-08:00

"The only way to get through life is to laugh your way through it. You either have to laugh or cry. I prefer to laugh. Crying gives me a headache.”
--Marjorie Hinckley

That about sums up my week so far. From a tragic accident during a game Friday night where someone dear to us lost an eye (that old idiom is no longer just an idiom to us), to the whole other chain of events which followed, to the passing away of a heroic ward member who had been battling cancer, to now sitting in a hospital with two of my boys who are recovering from a very painful surgery, it has been a wild week of emotional trauma.

The boys surgeries went well and they both are sleeping comfortably. Their chests are completely normal-looking. I have taken a lot of pictures, but I don't have the energy to think about uploading them now.
Hard times always bring the scripture from Isaiah 53 to mind: "Surely he hath bourne our griefs and carried our sorrows." When life seems to throw too much at me, I remember the gift of Jesus Christ and that he not only paid the price for my sins but also carried the weight of my burdens so I can endure.We have found reasons to laugh for certain. Jacob made me laugh today when I told him I was going to go use the restroom. He said, "Lucky you." He has a catheter for a few days to save him from getting up out of bed...We have been blessed with two strong and healthy boys who survived a painful surgery and an amazing surgeon who has changed their lives.

The polyp queen

2011-12-09T19:08:00.001-08:00

Well, I survived another colonoscopy. I am so glad I went. The doctor found 2 new polyps in the same area he found the one 3 years ago. They were small and pre-cancerous, but they were there. Now they are not there, and I don't have to go back for 5 years.

As I left the doctor's office, I had one thing on my mind. Food. Specifically a Burgerville chocolate peppermint milk shake. I went all summer and fall without giving in to the temptation of Burgerville milk shakes. But I figured that because I hadn't eaten in about 40 hours I could splurge on calories.

After an eventful day, I am ready for bed early tonight.

And so it begins...

2011-12-09T08:58:00.001-08:00

Maybe this is too much information, but I have to share. Because everyone should have a colonoscopy. At least everyone who loves their family should have one--even if you think you are too young.

Today is my colonoscopy appointment. I am expecting the doctor to find everything is just fine, as it has been only 3 years since my last colonoscopy. But with the polyp discovered last time, and the family history of colon cancer I've got going on, you never know. My dad should have been fine when they found his tumor that had been growing for at least 7 years only 4 years after his previous colonoscopy. Basically, you don't mess with colon cancer, and when there is such a simple procedure to screen for it, I am always surprised when people are afraid to go in.

Seriously, people say that a colonoscopy is the worst thing ever. Well, I can think of a lot of things worse, one of them being colon cancer. Another one is liver cancer which could have also have been prevented if the colon cancer had been detected before it had spread to the liver.

A colonoscopy is not the worst thing ever. It's actually no big deal. Sure, you go a day having only clear liquids for food, but so what? Did you know that Slurpees are considered a clear liquid? And apple cider, popsicles and jello are as well. Of course there is the night spent in the bathroom after chugging a bunch of MiraLax-laced Gatorade, but that's not a big deal either. It's a small price to pay. You just have to plan ahead and make sure it is a day that you don't need to be anywhere or accomplish anything critical. Your family can have Taco Bell

Of course, if you know someone who has battled colon cancer, you can think about him (or her) and how a colonoscopy saved his or her life and that makes any temporary inconvenience disappear. Today I'm thinking about my fantastical dad who is now 3 years cancer free after battling first colon and then liver cancers, and my amazing neighbor who is battling colon cancer like a champion with a big smile on his face.

December musings

2011-12-05T21:49:00.001-08:00

This picture is of Zack right after church Sunday. I love my big, sweet, snuggly boy.

All of our presents are here (Mark and I bought EVERYTHING online once again this year on Black Friday), and they are wrapped. It is just good to get that over with and then enjoy Christmas Eve. A ginormous box with a big surprise present arrived today. I am hoping it was a good idea....I'll let you know on December 26th.

You know that we do not do Santa at our house. Every now and then I am reminded why. If you don't know the whole story, here's a link to a post from a few years ago. I grew up having Santa come to our house, and Mark did not. My parents didn't ever use Santa to threaten us into being good, and I was not traumatized when I found out that Santa was a phony. I just can't lie to my kids. I am totally not judging people who do play up the Santa thing with their kids--unless they are like the lady I nearly punched in the face at Joann's the other day.

Her little boy was grabbing all the candy that they have right at the checkout, and this loser mom was getting frustrated with the little boy's tenacity. She finally used her meanest voice and scolded him by saying, "You know that Santa will not come visit little boys who do not do exactly what their moms tell them to do." The little boy was heartbroken, and put the candy back. I was so angry. Usually I only get angry at checkouts when someone with one item asks if they can cut me in line, but this day was a whole new level of checkout-stand-rage. I turned and glared at the mom. It wasn't just her tone of voice, but the way she threatened him was abusive to me.

Sure, as kids we all heard that if you were naughty you would get a lump of coal--my parents never said that--but we all knew it. And they didn't teach us the song "I'm getting nothin' for Christmas" for nothin'. I also grew up with the legend of the Weinachtmann who brought bad kids sticks and filled good kids's shoes with candy on December 6th. That's not what I'm talking about. This mom at Joann's was really maliciously threatening this poor little boy because he was doing what every single normal kid in the world does. It wasn't naughty. It was curious, and he likes candy. Who doesn't? It took everything I had to NOT crouch down and take this little boy's face in my hands and say, "You know what, dude? There is no Santa! Do whatever you want!"

But I didn't. I wish I had. I was just so upset about the way she talked to her kid.

The other day Savanna asked if we could get lunch at Panda Express. I told her, "Sorry, babe. But no mysterious fat guy in a red suit brings presents to our house, so we are saving our money for Christmas presents." She laughed her head off. And I felt completely liberated knowing that I could tell my kid that and she found it funny and knew it was completely true. At the same time she knows she is getting Christmas presents from her mom and dad who love her to death and Santa is a fun story and there are awesome movies about Santa. And Elves.

I'm not trying to persuade anybody to not do Santa. I just can't do it.

While I am ranting, here's another topic. Music. Lindsey posted a question on facebook the other day that got me thinking. She asked about new Christmas CDs. I had never heard of a couple of them, so I went online to look at them, because everything Lindsey likes is cool. I first went to She & Him, and although I do like the voice of "She" I was sad to see that they had purposely left off all songs about Christmas. Lots of snow, sleigh rides and Santa. But nothing about Jesus. I find it upsetting when an artist makes a "Christmas" CD with not one single song about Christmas. That is what I found on She and Him. Nothing about the true meaning of Christmas. It made me mad, so I didn't buy it.

I fell in love with The Lower Lights. I had never heard of them, but as soon as I found their website and listened to a couple of tracks, I ordered the CD. I love it. I love that it is not just "Holiday" music, but Christmas music. As in about Christ.

I actually love a mix of both religious and non-religious songs at Christmas time. The Carpenters Christmas Portrait is a perfect example. I love the new Michael Buble Christmas CD, which is mostly a "holiday" CD, but at least he threw me a bone with "Ave Maria." And Justin Bieber cared enough to throw in Silent Night and Drummer Boy. Even Jewish Neil Diamond has Christmas CDs chock full of both holiday and Christmas songs. Ever heard his Candlelight Carol? One of my all-time favorites. Go to itunes and check it out. I need a mix of both types of songs--fun and religious. That's what Christmas should be. Fun. And religious.

Speaking of Lindsey, she asked for more picture of Aubrey's dress. I aim to please, so here is one showing the full dress. Aubrey doesn't like this picture, and her dress looks a bit wrinkly because she left it on the floor after the dance and put in on for church the next morning when I took the photo. But it shows the whole outfit. I originally made a zebra-stripe bolero to go with the dress, which was a good concept, and it was really cute by itself, but when she put it on with the dress it just looked odd. Luckily she had a little black cardigan that did the trick.

This shameful picture is of Abram on November 30th. He grew out his beard for the entire month of November, and this is what it looked like. I was so excited for December 1st to see his sweet baby Abey face again. That's a lot of facial hair for a 17.5-year-old.

A random post, I know. But that's what's been going through my head the past few days.

Aubrey's dress

2011-12-04T20:56:00.001-08:00

Last night was Winter Formal at Aubrey's high school. She had the best dress of all the girls. We had a hard time finding a dress at the store that covered shoulders and more than 6 inches of thigh. We finally decided to make a dress.

We found a pattern and I added straps to it. We replaced the "boring belt" that the pattern called for made of the same dress fabric with a belt we made of a sweet zebra strip remnant. The dress cost $12.

A lot of other pictures I saw from the dance showed girls wearing not much more than a towel. Probably a very expensive towel, but that's about all the dress covered. Sure, people can choose what to wear, but I am always stunned when parents buy teenage girls "towel dresses," glitter them up, spray them with perfume and send them out with a boy. Some people probably think I'm a crazy mom because I made my daughter wear a dress that went all the way to her knees and covered her shoulders.

Abram didn't get asked to the dance, but he had a pretty great night that never could have been possible at a dumb old dance. He and a friend (who is a girl) went to a play in downtown Portland. What should have been a 20-minute drive took 90 minutes, as he discovered that she is just as directionally-challenged as he. I sent them with very detailed directions, but somehow they managed to end up 10 miles from downtown. They called me in a panic, and I was able to guide them to Portland, where they were only 10 minutes late and still got to see the play. They had the grandest of times. I didn't know that someone could actually get lost with a navigator and with detailed and correct instructions, but between the two of them they managed to do it. Luckily they both thought it was hilarious, and made it all the way home after the play without getting lost.

Senior pictures...or should I say picture?

2011-12-02T10:03:00.001-08:00

Here in Oregon, kids have senior pictures taken. This used to be a big market back in the day when there weren't too many professional photographers around. Now everybody has a friend who has a photography business, so I know it doesn't cost what it used to, but it is still a major production. It is not just a one-shot photo session wearing that weird black cape that everyone else wore as it was in my old high school days, but like 400 pictures with 8 outfit changes. Whatever. Everyone does it, so everyone does it....

Except for Abram.

He had his excellent photographer dad snap his picture a couple of weeks ago in the backyard for his yearbook picture. I think they took 12 shots to get the right expression. How many outfits did Abram wear? One. Did we buy him a new outfit? No. He put on his favorite Boston Red Sox shirt that is about 3 years old and headed outside with Mark.

Abram did shave the day before this picture was taken. But it was November 2nd, and "no-shave november" had begun.... Had I been in town, I would have made him shave. Someday he may wish he had not cared about no-shave November. But he is still such a cute boy, scruff and all.

He looks so much like Mark. I tell him he may look like his dad, but he is lucky he got his mom's big brain. Mark's pretty dang smart, but I have to take some credit for this amazing kid.

Abram applied to BYU last week. Nowhere else. He is true blue. Now we wait for the acceptance letter, and hopefully some scholarships. It was fun to help him write some essays last week for the BYU application and for the scholarship application. Hopefully someone else likes them as much as I did.

10 Reasons your dentist probably hates you too....

2011-12-01T12:44:00.001-08:00

I wish I could claim credit for this witty post. I lifted it (with permission) from this blog.

I saw a link to this post this morning on facebook. Normally I don't click on any links, but the title of this one intrigued me. After all, I really want my dentist to love me!

Maybe you won't appreciate the amazing insight this author-dentist has. But I sure do. All 10 of these scenarios happen every single day at the office.

Hopefully you are not the person this is talking about. It just goes to show there really are two sides to every story!

10 Reasons Your Dentist Probably Hates You Too

1. The first thing you say when you sit down in my chair is, “I hate the dentist.” Really?!? Did your parents teach you any manners? Did they ever teach you that it is impolite to tell someone you hate them the moment you greet them? What I really want to say back is, “aww, I hate you too.”

2. You come to your appointment, and it’s obvious you haven’t brushed your teeth in days. I’ve had some people with great hygiene come in and apologize because they’ve just eaten lunch and couldn’t brush. This is not what I’m talking about. I mean food and thick plaque everywhere. After 10 years of seeing blood and rotten teeth and some really nasty things, this is still the 1 thing that makes me dry heave. You know when you come to us that we have to be in your mouth. Would you clean your home before having company? Additionally, I have spent hours literally bending over backwards repairing your teeth. Could you at least pretend that you are caring for the work that I have struggled to complete for you?

3. After we have spent hours of meticulously repairing your teeth, you complain about the bill. Would you walk out of the grocery store with a bag full of groceries and expect not to pay? I’ve just helped you to continue to smile and eat comfortably, two pretty valuable things that help your quality of life.

4. I tell you that you have a cavity and you need a filling, and you wait months or even years to get the necessary work done. Eventually the tooth starts hurting. Two weeks of pain go by, and you call me on a Saturday night while I am at dinner with friends because your tooth that needed a filling a year ago and that started hurting 2 weeks ago is suddenly an emergency.

5. You come to me so I can help you, but you make it hard for me to do a good job. You wince and make faces when it’s not hurting. The idea that I’m hurting you makes me just as uncomfortable and stressed as you are. If it hurts, please tell me, and I can help you with that. But if it’s because you don’t like the whole experience, you are only causing me to work in undesirable conditions, making it harder to do my best. And when you push your tongue in the way, or you don’t open wide enough, it makes it physically impossible to get my work done. Don’t you want it to be easy for me to do the best job for you?

6. You call and say, “my tooth didn’t hurt before you worked on it.” You came to me with a cavity. I did not put it there. You did. I am simply fixing a rotten hole that was in your tooth. To do so, I must use a tiny drill to cut the rot out of your tooth. If I took a drill, cut a hole in your femur bone, and then filled it in with a foreign material, don’t you think it might be sore for a while? Same concept.

7. When we try to take an x-ray, you won’t bite down on it. We have to do this to see what is going on with your tooth. Without knowing the problem, we can’t properly treat you. I know, in some cases some people really can’t do it; but some people could and won’t just suck it up for 15 seconds. I’ve had x-rays too, and they hurt and dig into my gums, but I just do it.

8. You tell me that you bought my car for me after having a crown done. Contrary to how it seems, you actually didn’t buy me a car. You bought yourself a crown. I have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on an education, and have spent hours making this crown fit precisely in your mouth, so maybe you helped me make a portion of a student loan payment. But you certainly didn’t buy my car.

9. You no-show an appointment or cancel last-minute. Some things are unavoidable, but when it’s because your hairdresser got a last-minute cancellation and you had to take that appointment instead, this is just rude. Not only am I unable to fill the 2 hours of my schedule that I reserved specifically for you, but someone else who wanted to get in had to wait 2 weeks for his/her appointment. And on that note, when you have the first appointment of the day, and you show up late for your appointment, I am late for every other patient the rest of the day.

10. When I tell you that you grind your teeth, you deny it, as if I am accusing you of having a horrible disease or being a baby murderer. It’s not that bad to be a tooth grinder. I’m just pointing something out and maybe offering a way to prevent more problems in the future. This observation is concluded from signs or symptoms that are based on real science, not myth.

And along those lines… bonus #11. You tell me a diagnosis I make is simply wrong without listening to me. If you know so much, why are you coming to me? You do the filling or root canal yourself. You obviously don’t need me.

Aaahhh… I feel much better now.

If this isn’t you, I am sure your dentist loves you. You are probably the bright spot of his/her day. But it makes you wonder, how do you behave when you go to the dentist? And most importantly, are you making it easy for your dentist to give you the kind of care you want and deserve?

Zacky's best friend

2011-11-29T22:38:00.001-08:00

Zachary had his buddy Freddy come home from school with him today. They are in Kindergarten together, and they really are the cutest little friends. Freddy was a little timid about coming to our house today, so once we got in the car and were on the way home I thought I would break the ice a little bit with a question. Boy, did I pick the right question.

I asked Freddy if they had a fun Thanksgiving. He opened right up and started telling me every detail about how his mom killed the turkey in his grandpa's garage. He couldn't stop telling me about how exciting it was to watch the head get chopped off and all the blood and stuff coming out, and then his mom had to take out the heart from inside the turkey. He was waaaay too detailed for it to have been a made-up story. It was so funny.

When we got to our house, Zack showed Freddy around and they played with a million different things, first upstairs, and then in the basement. Then they settled down to watch a movie when the UPS guy came with the first of many Christmas boxes that will be arriving in the next few days. This box was HUGE! And clean! Usually boxes that arrive are somewhat dirty--at least too dirty for me to be OK with on my floor. But this one was shiny and new, so I brought it in, got out the markers and told the boys to get busy coloring the box. Freddy had the idea to make it into a school bus and they colored for the rest of the afternoon.

I made chocolate chip cookies for them, and Freddy was in heaven. He had never had milk with cookies before. He looked at us like we were crazy at first, but then he was hooked.

Then it was time to take Freddy back to school where his mom was picking him up. I asked her if the story of the turkey was true, and she admitted it was completely true. A friend who owns a farm had given them the organic turkey, and she had indeed slaughtered it herself. She said it was the first and the last time she would ever do that.

Next week it is Zachary's turn to go to Freddy's house. I wonder what kind of stories he will tell them about me.

Gift for the guy who has everything

2011-11-29T10:14:00.001-08:00

I bet he doesn't have one of these. That's because it was just made available yesterday. It's the Franklin Sensors ProSensor 710.

Mark's brother invented this gadget and has been working hard to get it in production, and another of his brothers is marketing it to get it out there where people can see how great it is. So I thought I would do my part to spread the word.

We have all used a stud detector at some point. Here's how it usually goes: I need to hang something heavy on the wall, so I grab the stud detector out of the garage. After about 20 swipes across a broad area on the wall, and 40 pencil marks trying to identify where the stud actually is, I put the nail or screw into the wall. Sometimes, even with multiple scans and marking up my wall, I still missed the stud and then had an unwanted hole in the wall that needed to be repaired.

Here's how it went with the Franklin Sensors version last weekend: I placed the sensor on the wall and three lights lit up in a row to show me exactly where the stud was behind the sheetrock. No sliding it back and forth. If you do slide it, then the lights change position on the display to still show you where the stud is hiding. It really is a great product. It would be impossible to miss getting a nail or screw into the stud using this ProSensor. It's almost like cheating--sort of like x-ray vision for sheetrock.

Most detectors only have one sensor inside, but this one has 13 that all work simultaneously, which is why it is so accurate. Also, with the wide display of 13 lights, the ProSensor shows you exactly how wide hidden objects are, and also will show if there are multiple objects behind the sheetrock. No sliding back and forth, and instant accurate location of all hidden object makes for quick work of a project, and no additional reapair of unwanted holes made in error.

I had been hearing about this product for two years, and I was honestly skeptical that it would actually work. But over Thanksgiving weekend we got to try one out on our walls, and it really was as great as I had heard it was.

It does cost a bit more than other sensors on the market, but nothing out there works like this does. In my opinion, the accuracy and ease of use make it worth the additional cost. I have never been able to use another stud sensor accurately.

I'm sure we all have someone on our gift list that is hard to buy for. This ProSensor 710 would make a great gift for any guy--and even for some ladies who appreciate a good practical gift as much as I do. Plus, while the kids are busy playing with their new toys on Christmas, the guys can have fun testing out their new stud sensor to see how it works.

Here'a link to the product on Amazon. Just in time for Christmas! Check it out.

Christmas time is here!

2011-11-26T23:40:00.001-08:00

Today we made our annual trek to Martins U-Cut to get our Christmas tree. It is an unwritten rule that if you have a 19-foot ceiling, you need at least an 18-foot tree. And that's what we got. A beautiful noble fir. It is always fun (not) to listen to people tell the same joke about putting a tree that tall onto a Honda Odyssey. Yes, it works. Yes, we've done it before. Yes, it will fit in our house. Yes the kids are all ours.....Same thing every year from every person at the tree farm.

Getting the tree up the hill and to the car is really the biggest problem with getting a tree that big. Once you get it on top of the van, it's not a big deal. And we were amazed once again at our Bowlings Last Stand tree stand that held up a hefty, tall tree without a problem.

The kids had fun hiding while we had the furniture pushed out of the way to bring the big tree into the house.

When we get ready for Christmas, we have to listen to a certain CD. It is Roger Whittaker's Christmas album. Once we have listened to that one while getting the tree into the house, we can move on to other Christmas CDs. But it has to start with Roger.

One good thing about having 7 kids is that I can make them carry all the boxes of decorations up and down the stairs for me. First, we had to pack away all the fall and Thanksgiving decorations. As they went downstairs with a box of Thanksgiving stuff, I had them bring up a box of Christmas decorations. It made quick work of a very big project.

Savanna and Zack got busy unpacking the Nativity sets today. Savanna is in charge of the big fancy one, and Zachary is in charge of the little wooden one. They take their jobs very seriously.

Some people are OK with just a few strands of lights on a tree. Some people are OK with about 10 strands of lights on a tree. Some people need 20. Some people need at least 30. That's us. Mark does everything first-class. Every branch gets wrapped up and down so that the wires are undetectable. This is why we don't have Christmas lights on our house--it would take too much time to do it right, so he just doesn't get started. I believe this tree had at least 32 strands of lights on it. And it is bright!

We all helped decorate it after Mark got the lights blazing. Seven kids, one mom and 3 ladders.

After we thought we had it all perfect, we shut off the lights to see what we had accomplished. It took us an entire day, but I think it was all worth it.

"It's time to play the music."

2011-11-23T23:54:00.001-08:00

It's time to light the lights....

I am so glad I went to see The Muppets in theaters! Wow, wow, wow.

Sure, I'm a muppet fan. Or at least I was until Muppets From Space--hated it and haven't liked anything since then. But Muppet Christmas Carol and Muppet Treasure Island, along with the classic Muppet movies are some of our families favorites of all-time. But thanks to dumb old Muppets From Space, we almost waited for this new movie to come out on blu-ray before watching it. That would have been a tragedy.

Fortunately, the theater near our house was not showing Hugo this weekend, which we had planned to see today. They have 3 theaters devoted to Twilight ***shiver***, so there wasn't room for all the weekend opening movies.

The Muppets was absolutely fantastic. Fun songs, hilarious random lines, a sweet story, and just a happy, fun movie. We were laughing out loud--all 9 of us--more times than I can count. And I have the songs stuck in my head. To me, you know it was a good movie when several catchy new songs are stuck in your head. I loved the songs so much that I came home and ordered the soundtrack from Amazon.

"Everything is great, everything is grand. I got the whole wide world in the palm of my hand."

"Am I a man, or am I a muppet? If I'm a muppet, I'm a very manly muppet. Am I a muppet or am I a man? If I'm a man that makes me a muppet of a man."

I can't even begin to tell you how much every one of us loved this movie. That's a lot of kids a lot of different ages who all truly enjoyed the same movie.

18 thumbs waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay up! Go see it!

Turkey time

2011-11-23T12:01:00.001-08:00

So our plans have changed for Thanksgiving. The party itself was always going to be at our house, but when I was going to be in the hospital with Joel, I planned a simple menu of ham and funeral potatoes, with Costco rolls and pies that Mark and his family could throw together without much effort.

But now I am here for the weekend, and we are having turkey. I bought a jumbo 25-pound Butterball last week for $10 just because it was so cheap. Now that big boy is sitting in a bucket of brine getting ready for the feast tomorrow. I have never brined a turkey before--always wanted to, just never did. We'll see if it makes a big difference.

I think I am also going to be a little crazy this year and make cranberry sauce!

Mark's brother is bringing Costco pies--which are Jill-approved baked goods, and his other brother is going to make fresh rolls at our house tomorrow, so that left me a little sad to not have a big baking project.

So I decided we will make some gingerbread turkeys with colorful icing tonight. I can't let this holiday go by without me baking something!

Now it's off to the dental office to pull down the Christmas decor from the attic for Monday, a trip to the bank and then the grocery store.

When the kids get home from school we will be off to our traditional day-before-Thanksgiving movie together. I really want to see The Muppets, but some people want to see Hugo. I was originally planning to be watching Under the Greenwood Tree on my laptop at the hospital today, which is what I would actually like to do instead of going to a theater. I have a hard time sitting through a movie. I need to move or do something while I watch--so much to accomplish in a day that I don't find it very fun or relaxing to go to theaters. I'd much rather wait a few months and then watch it at home on my TV while I can sew, iron, knit or pause the movie while I get up and move for a bit.

There is one movie I WILL be going to see in theaters this holiday season. No vampires for me. This is the guy I'm waiting to see on the big screen. Elementary.

Foiled again

2011-11-22T16:44:00.001-08:00

I took Joel today for a pre-operative exam with the surgeon. Although his lungs have cleared a bit, his sinuses are really congested and full of stuff. They decided it is best to postpone for a few weeks to give everything a chance to clear up, with the help of some antibiotics and a steroid. Now we are looking at Dec 13. No reason to do the surgery while his immune system is trying to fight something already.

So we will be home for Thanksgiving after all.

Change of plans

2011-11-15T12:06:00.001-08:00

Joel was all dressed in his gown and ready for surgery when things changed. The anesthesiologist listened to Joel's lungs as a routine thing. The look on the doctor's face changed into a worried expression. He listened again and again. And then he asked Joel to cough. Joel coughed. And up came a bunch of slime followed by many more productive coughs. At this point I knew we were going home, but the doctors all talked for about 30 minutes trying to decide what to do. They all agreed that his left lung is full of crud and there was significant wheezing and that proceeding today would greatly increase the odds of pneumonia or other complications.

Joel was a bit excited to go home because they had just explained the catheter he would have for a few days...

Anyway, everything happens for a reason. Why did Joel wake up with a bad cough on the day of his surgery? I may never know.

So we will try again next Wednesday and give his body a week to beat the virus he has right now. I just know it was the right decision to postpone. Having a major chest surgery when your lungs are already compromised is never a good idea.

Surgery tomorrow

2011-11-14T21:15:00.001-08:00

Joel is finally going to have the surgery that had to be postponed last May. He will have the Nuss Bar procedure to fix his Pectus Excavatum. It is minimally invasive, but very painful to recover from. He'll be in the hospital for 5 days, which means I will be there as well. It is a good thing we have so many responsible older kids to take care of things and drive everyone around while I am with Joel.

Here's a video if you are curious about what his surgery will be like.

I really have no idea what we are in for. I have been told that the pain is more than you would imagine. Hopefully Joel handles it well. The good news is that the results will be instant and he will have a normal chest when the surgery is over. Here's a "before" shot that Mark took tonight. I'll post an "after" shot when Joel is up for it.

Resumes

2011-11-13T22:12:00.001-08:00

I think some day I should teach a class on what to NOT put on a resume. Sure, there are lots of things you SHOULD put on a resume, but there are definitely things you should not. Over the past 12 years at the office, we have seen a lot of resumes. Hundreds. Mostly horrible. Mostly people I would not ever call back. Tonight I posted a job on craigslist for our front desk at the office. Within 10 minutes I had 5 resumes. All bad.

First, I watch for spelling. In this day and age of spell check, how can anybody send things with spelling errors? Sure, there is always a tricky one that spell check doesn't get because it may be spelled right, just a homophone used in the wrong context or something. But really...that's not what I'm talking about.

Second, I check for attention to detail--overall look, spaces, extra commas, consistency in verb tenses, etc.

Third, I look at their job history. Really, some people will send a resume where they have had 8 jobs in the past 2 years. Why would I look twice at that person? Those go straight to the trash.

Fourth, I look for statements that let me know that they are not interested in a long-term position. Like someone who is going to school pursuing a criminal justice degree and graduating next year. That's all fine, but not someone I want to hire and train in a medical office if they will be leaving next summer after they graduate.

Fifth, I look at where they live. If they live within 20 minutes I figure that is somebody who could be a long-term employee.

Anyway, here are a few good spelling errors from the first resume I saw today: Qualifacations, avalible, responcabilitys (spelled twice this way...not a good sign), and she earned her GED from a local community "Colege." Great. Another girl looked quite promising from her cover letter, but her resume referred to "ruber dams" and that she is "CPR certifided."

The second resume didn't have spelling errors, but she definitely lacked attention to detail. Her cover letter stated, "I am responding to the employment opportunity listed on your Web site. Please accept this letter and my attached resume as evidence of my interest, in applying for the legal receptionist position at your law firm with the starting wage of 11 dollars an hour." She sent me the cover letter she had written for another job listing--we are not a legal office, did not post the job on our web site, and I did not mention any starting wage in my ad. Perhaps this would have just been funny, but it was actually quite ironic because her next sentence says, "I am very detail oriented." Sure, honey.

The third resume wasn't much, but everything was spelled correctly. It is someone who admits she has no experience in the medical field, but is willing to learn and she has worked as an appointment setter at her current job for 7 years. I just might give her a call.

A busy week

2011-11-12T07:10:00.001-08:00

I abandoned my husband and kids last weekend for a trip to Utah. I spent last Wednesday with my mom, and met up with some old friends for dinner. Then Thursday I went to the annual Bradley Girls Party in St. George. I spent the weekend knitting, baking, laughing and having a great time with my favorite ladies in the world. Then Sunday night I spent with my family celebrating my dad's 65th birthday. It was very fun, because a couple of years ago we never thought he would have a 65th birthday.

Then I came home and played catch-up for all the things I had slacked on. Laundry and cleaning were first. And then it was time to sew. Last month I offered to sew a dress for someone in our ward who will be sealed in the temple tomorrow. I got distracted sewing all the Halloween costumes, and didn't get a chance to really sew her dress until this week. I finished it up last night, and luckily all the kids were home from school today so our house could get a deep cleaning. I told the kids we could go to PicoBerry when the house was clean, and they all pitched in and did whatever I said. We're all shiny now and ready for a big party at our house tomorrow night.

I got a few projects done today that have been waiting for a while. I have long had framed portraits of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington hanging in a hallway. About a year ago I bought portraits of 6 more founding fathers to hang in the basement. I framed them all, and then they sat there because I dreaded the project of getting 6 things to hang all perfectly in a row. But today I did it, and it looks awesome.
When I was in Utah with my mom, I took my first trip to Pier 1 Imports. I never had been there before, although there is one only 4 miles from my house. I found so many treasures! I found this cute owl for my kitchen wall.

And I found this set of 3 owl prints for the wall above my piano. It's exactly what I needed.

We have lived in our house for almost 10 years and the walls are all painted beautiful colors, but I have never hung anything up. I was waiting to find just the right things, and Zachary hated shopping so I didn't get too much of a chance to go out looking for just the right things before he was in school. Maybe I will get crazy and make some curtains or throw pillows here soon.

Colonoscopy!

2011-11-01T23:58:00.000-07:00

Has it been 3 years already? Yes, it has. Three years ago a colonoscopy saved my life. A pre-cancerous polyp was found and removed. My doctor ordered me to come back in five years and to instruct my siblings to have colonoscopies as well. This was not only because of what they found in me at my age, but also because of the fact that my father had colon cancer at a relatively young age.

And all of my siblings went in for their colonoscopies. 4 siblings, 3 of them also had polyps. So my doctor saved their lives as well by encouraging them to get checked.

So do the math. Dad with colon cancer+80% of his children with colon polyps in their '30s.

My doctor then decided that I should come back every 3 years. And it's that time again! Next month I go back for part 2. Not that I am excited to have a colonoscopy again, but I am glad to know that the technology is there to keep an eye on things (that's a horrible way to phrase that, but oh well).

This past year my next door neighbor was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer at age 46. 2 little kids, healthiest, fittest guy I know. He has done everything right, had absolutely no risk factors, and yet he has colon cancer. His case was almost identical to my dad's, including its location in the liver as well. I told him at the beginning he was going to beat it, because my dad had battled nearly the same thing and come out on top. He is fighting like a champ, and everything is looking like he will be a survivor.

Just like my adorable dad. We are so lucky to have him still around to tell the kids excellent bedtime stories and take them to the air force base. The kids love to hear his stories about everything, and they really love to see his scars from his cancer surgeries and hear the stories about where they came from.

Why did I write this post? Just to encourage everyone reading it to go have a colonoscopy. It's really not a big deal. Sure, it's not that fun, but it's not scary at all. The only thing scary is NOT having one done.

Halloween

2011-10-31T19:43:00.000-07:00

I finished up all of our costumes without a minute to spare. We first went to the dental office for the traditional pictures by the fish fountain and trick-or-treating along main street.

Abram wanted to be Abraham Lincoln. Before he was born, we were worried about naming him Abraham because I was worried he would get teased and called "Abe Lincoln." Abram was a shorter and easier name, and we liked it, so we went with Abram instead of Abraham. And then one day in kindergarten Abram told me that he wished we had named him Abraham like Abraham Lincoln.

And then as a senior in high school he decided to grow an Abe Lincoln beard and dress up like him for Halloween. I had purchased this pattern years ago hoping that somebody would want to be Abe Lincoln one day.

Noah wanted to be Pikachu. Our boys have had a Pokemon renewal lately. When Jacob was 5 I made him an Ash costume. And now that he is 15 he wanted to be Ash again. There was no pattern for a big Ash, so I just used a shirt pattern and made the sleeves and collar white and ran bias tape around the edges.

Joel was Buddy the Elf. Everyone loved this costume, and the collar is so fluffy.

Gingerbread Zachary.

And Mary Poppins Savanna. Practically Perfect in every way.

Pikachu Noah. Some people thought he was a banana....or a bumble bee. Guess they weren't up on their Pokemon classics.

In our family, we have a weird tradition. The kids get back from trick-or-treating and they all dump their candy in an enormous bowl. And everyone shares the candy. It's crazy, I know. It's a far cry from the way I was as a kid where we hid or candy bag in the closet where nobody could find it.

I have no idea how or why we started doing it this way, but somehow when the kids were little I did it one time, and it stuck. They are all sitting right now at the kitchen bar sorting through the big bowl of everyone's candy. After they go to bed I go through and throw away all of the sick candy that nobody is going to eat--and the jawbreakers that their daddy doesn't want anyone one earth to eat.

The other rule we have is that they have to eat a lot of candy all at once--and then brush their teeth. It's the candy-all-day-long that causes cavities, not the amount of candy. And then after 2 weeks we throw away whatever is left.

I don't know that I have ever made 6 costumes in one year. It's a new record.

Crafty Sunday

2011-10-23T22:07:00.000-07:00

The kids spent the entire day cutting paper and coloring all kinds of things. Our house was a disaster.

I made these cute gingerbread mummies this afternoon while I pretended I could not see the happy and creative mess the kids had made all over the kitchen table.

And then tonight at bedtime Abram needed a quick project made for AP lit tomorrow. For extra credit he could carve or decorate a pumpkin or other fall vegetable to resemble any major character from literature. When he asked me which character he should pick last week I thought Captain Ahab would be the easiest choice. I didn't know it was due tomorrow....

You may remember that I won a first place ribbon in 3rd grade for my vegetable art project. At my elementary school it was a big deal and almost everyone created something fantastic from all sorts of vegetables.

So tonight I came up with this great vegetable art project for Abram: 2 potatoes attached with a chopstick and another chopstick for the peg leg, forks for arms and a clove for the eye. A ponytail elastic and some black paper made a perfect eye patch. A little black yarn and some hot glue were the finishing touch to make Ahab's hairy head and chin.

Hopefully Abram's teacher likes it as much as he does. What we won't do for 25 points of extra credit.

A big scam

2011-10-21T19:58:00.000-07:00

Some people think the Better Business Bureau is a regulatory agency with some sort of power to force businesses to let consumers push them around. It is nothing of the sort. It is a club. The more you pay them, the more they will promote your business and recommend you to people who call to inquire. It's like a chamber of commerce--on steroids.

Over the last 12 years, a few people have threatened to "report" us to the Better Business Bureau (these are people who have dental work done and then feel like they should not have to pay for it even though they signed a form saying they were financially responsible), and we tell them to go ahead. The BBB is all a big racket. I never knew exactly how big of a racket it was. Until yesterday.

Anyway, a woman called me yesterday from the BBB. She was telling me about how our business was eligible to be accredited by the BBB because of our blemish-free business history with them. I asked her if this was a sales call and she assured me it was not--simply that our business record was brought to their attention as a business that deserved their utmost seal of approval and she just needed some information. She started asking me a bunch of questions about Mark, the office, how long we have been in business, etc. Pretty harmless, right?

After about 15 minutes of this I finally asked her flat out how much money this was going to cost me. She started on a spiel about how the BBB is a not-for-profit organization funded entirely by the dues of its members. I asked again, "How much?" "Well, our fees are based on the number of full-time employees a business has, and so in your case that annual dues would only be $975."

I laughed. I laughed hard. Really, how insane is that? Pay a meaningless organization $975 per year so that I can use their logo on my website? Do you know how many google clicks I can buy with $975?

And then I was mad. She had promised me up front that it was not a sales call--and it was. And then she tried selling me on all the benefits our company would reap if we would only join....which was a whole lot of nothing. I told her she had better move on to her next sales lead, because not a chance I was biting.

So perhaps this was a meaningless post to you. But just in case somebody out there thought that the BBB actually meant something, I just wanted to tell the world that it does not.

Jill's costume factory

2011-10-19T21:05:00.000-07:00

I'm off to a late start this year as far as costume-making goes. But today I knocked out two of them.

If you know nothing else about our family, you should know that we love gingerbread. Not sick gingerbread like most people make. But really good gingerbread that I make. We make gingerbread cookies all year long, and the kids have always loved to be read The Gingerbread Man story. It's sort of an obsession at our house. Plus, we like the part about "Run, run as fast as you can." Because that's what we do. We run. As fast as we can.

We also love Mary Poppins. Maybe not ALL of my kids, but most of them love it. I watched the movie at least 400 times as a kid, and my kids watch it a lot. I have every word memorized, and I sing the songs quite frequently. So naturally Savanna wanted to be Mary Poppins for Halloween. This costume was more just gathering things we already had (the hat, the bag, the coat, the umbrella, the scarf). I bought a yard of gray fabric to make an easy elastic-waist skirt, and we bought a spray of daisies to attach to the hat.

Who wants to play Tidy Up The Nursery?

Abram the piano man...and baby

2011-10-17T10:51:00.000-07:00

I have been going through our old pictures, and I found this one from 2006 of Abram playing the piano with baby Zachary on his lap.

Immediately I remembered we had this picture of me playing the piano with baby Abram on my lap!

Abram was always a nut about the piano. After he learned to crawl, he would crawl over to the piano and pull himself up to reach the keys. He was determined to play. He also loved to chew on the piano just where you can see his baby teeth might reach in this picture. We still have some teethmarks.

When he was a little guy I would push his high chair up to the piano while I played and we would play together. If I look huge in this picture, it is because I was 8 months pregnant with Aubrey...

Who knew that my little piano buddy would someday become a kid who rocked Rachmaninoff's Prelude #3 and other crazy piano pieces? I love to hear him play. Especially George Winston's Carol of the Bells. I sure will miss his playing when he leaves for college next year.

A birthday party and I fix the refrigerator

2011-10-15T23:02:00.000-07:00

All in one day....

Jacob turned 15 this last week. He is such a cute and nice boy. Jacob had no school on his birthday, which made a really fun day. Zachary had designed a cake for Jacob on paper a couple of days before the birthday, and then he directed Savanna and Aubrey in making his creation come to life. To quote Zachary, "It's even better than I imagined!" Zack put the finishing touches of the legs and the 1 and the 5 on the lower part of the cake. All I had to do was bake a cake mix and make some frosting!

The cake was to be 2 shades of orange with a smiley face with arms and legs in the center and the number 15 on the bottom.

But before we actually got around to eating the cake we had a minor emergency at the house.

The refrigerator was leaking a bunch of water all over the kitchen floor! Mark was soaking up the water on the floor and I was watching this huge volume of water run down the front of the fridge, down the grill and onto the floor. I quickly pulled out the bottom drawer to assess the situation. I could see that the drainage trough was completely full and pouring water out onto the bottom of the fridge, where it was then running out and onto the floor. I saw the drain tube coming down from the trough and realized that there was just one phillips screw attaching it to the back of the fridge. I figured that there must have been a clog in that tube. So I quickly got a screwdriver and a popsicle stick and detached the drain tube.

At this point, the water on the floor was dried up and I had the repair under control so Mark switched from clean-up mode to photographer mode.

The tube was not clogged, but the drain from the trough above was. So I grabbed a paper cup and set it below the drain, and then used the popsicle stick to perform a root canal. A huge piece of black gunk came out and into the paper cup, along with about 10 ounces of water!

This picture is of me just after I pushed the huge black mystery gunk down the drain and into the cup. Sick stuff.

Then we got on with our cake and ice cream.

And opening presents. Jake wanted some Pokemon stuff for his birthday...just like every 15-year-old.
Now that Jacob had a pillow pet the kids decided they all needed to get their pillow pets for a movie party. And so that's what we did. Watched a movie...except for Abram. His pillow made it, but he was off at the Homecoming dance at school.

A costume classic

2011-10-14T12:18:00.000-07:00

I have been trying to get all the pictures from old computers all centralized, and I found these treasures from Halloween 2005 today.

We had a Star Wars theme, and I know there are pictures somewhere of Abram as Han Solo. I didn't make his costume, though. It was just some goodwill pants, vest and shirt I modified. Jacob was Darth Vader, which was just a black jumpsuit and cape I made with a purchased helmet from Christmas the year before.

But this Yoda creation is all my own.

I used a pattern for the cloak, and created a little green dress for him to wear under the cloak. The hood was a creation. I used a basic hood pattern, but between the layers I put a layer of batting so I could stitch the wrinkles into the forehead and ears. I tried my best on the ear shape, but I think it turned out pretty dang cute. Especially because Joel is so cute.

For Princess Leia, there was a pattern fortunately. It was super easy to make, and I wish you could see the sweet hood on the back. I splurged and bought a wig for Aubrey as the fabric and pattern for her costume ran about $8.

Our costume collection is a mixture of home-made and Disney clearance. This Marie costume I got for $10 one year after Halloween. Savanna has always loved The Aristocats (all the kids have, in fact). So I couldn't pas sup on this cute little Marie. We love the movie Aristocats, but we hate real cats. How is that possible?

Fictional family fantasy

2011-10-11T20:35:00.000-07:00

I don't have a lot of magazine subscriptions, but one magazine that I do get in the mail is Real Simple. I was flipping through the new issue today and there was one section that caught my eye.

"What fictional family would you like to join?"

I love my family. Both the family I grew up in and the one I have now are actually perfect and I wouldn't change a thing. But sometimes it is fun to answer a brainless question in a magazine, right?

Some people had sent in insane answers. A couple of people had pretty good ones. But nobody had my answers. And here they are in no particular order.

I would love to be in the Cleaver family. Those boys were funny and wild and so darn lovable. And I want to be June Cleaver. Really, I do. I want to pack lunches and cook breakfast each morning, clean the house all day, look fabulous in a shirt-waist dress and heels and greet everyone with a kiss when they come home in the afternoon. And then at night I want to sit and knit after the day's hard work is done. Leave It To Beaver is our family's favorite show. It makes us laugh out loud. We are really strange, I know.

My second answer would be the Finch family. My own dad is pretty much the cat's pajamas, but Atticus Finch is the best dad in literature. I'd love to be Scout and have such a wise, honorable, take-no-crap-from-anyone but be-kind-to-everyone dad.

My last answer would be the Cartwrights. I love Bonanza. Seriously, why didn't they have a little sister? Horses are the only animals that don't totally gross me out, and I look so good in hats so I would fit right in. I would love to be a Cartwright with those big tough brothers. Plus, they had such a cool house! Who wouldn't want to live at the Ponderosa?

So those are my answers. What are yours?

The people in the background

2011-10-11T09:13:00.000-07:00

This is one of the pictures I took of Mark and Stephen after the marathon. It was after they had finally found each other, and then had made their way over to me for a close-up, non-stalker zoom lens photo. They are both having the highest emotional moment of their lives. They both had just reaped the fruits of months and months of early mornings, long and hard running and physical and mental discipline. You can see they are very happy and relieved.

After I looked at this picture on my big Mac screen at home, I noticed some other people did not have such a good day. On the far right you'll see Stephen (not my Stephen, but another). He has high black socks and a white headband. He started near mark in the corrals, and he was a serious runner. He had plans for a sub-3:00 marathon. He had his kids planted at 3 different spots along the marathon route to give him water bottles, and he had a pace chart on his left forearm to keep him on track. Mark remembers seeing him at mile 15, where they were both still on track for a sub-3:00 time. And then something went wrong for poor Stephen and he didn't finish the race. You can see from him face, especially when I zoom in, that he is very disappointed. Sure he is in the finisher's area eating a post-race banana, but look around his neck. No medal. And when you look at the race results, he did not finish. I have no idea what happened to him, but it is sad that for him it was not his day.

Another sad story in this picture is Jim. He is to the right of Mark in the background. He has a green race bib. He is standing with shoulders slouched forward and a sad look on his face. He is also missing the medal, and did not finish. His face just makes me so sad and you can see him looking around at all the other people who were able to finish. Maybe next year Jim will have a better race.

You can see the guy to the left of Stephen (my Stephen) named Assefa. You can tell from his face that he had a good race, is completely wiped out but satisfied with what he was able to do that day. And he has a medal--or at least I think that is a medal hanging around his neck and hiding under his race bib.

I also notice the girl in the pink tank top between Stephen and Assefa. I know from a couple of other pictures in this series that she has a medal. She is obviously having some post-race butt cramps. I can tell from her yoga pigeon pose--that's the best way to stretch out the gluteus medius after a run.

It is kind of funny to look at the people in the background of all the pictures I took. I wonder whose pictures I am in the background of, and what people are saying about me.

My weekend

2011-10-04T10:20:00.000-07:00

The big exciting news from the weekend is of course about what Stephen and Mark did on Saturday. Their runs were phenomenal. I am so glad I was there to see them both finish.

But while the boys were either driving the marathon course or resting their legs for the 2 days before the race, I was not just sitting around. I had planned to read a lot, and knit about 5 hats while lounging around the pool at the hotel.

And then we ended up renting a 5.0L GT Mustang convertible at the airport, and that all changed.

Mark never got a picture of me with the top down and wind blowing through my hair, but that is how I spent the entire weekend. St. George is such a beautiful area, and I drove that beautiful car all around, north, south, east and west of the city. And I didn't get any speeding tickets--which is amazing.

On Thursday morning Mark and I went to the St. George temple, and then we picked up Stephen from the shuttle. We went out to lunch and then Mark and Stephen decided to drive the marathon course. This is one thing I definitely do NOT enjoy doing with Mark. He stops and analyzes the course over and over, and it is very frustrating for me. So I just don't go along on those pre-race trips. I turned the keys over to Mark and Stephen, and I went shopping. Within walking distance of our hotel were: Ross, Target, TJ Maxx and an outlet mall. I hardly bought anything, but it was fun just to walk around and look without Zachary in tow--he does NOT like shopping. After a couple of hours Mark and Stephen called me and said they were going to drive the course again, so I walked over to a nail place and had a pedicure.

This was the most unusual pedicure. I have only had 4 pedicures in my life, but they have always been from women. This time a cranky woman up front yelled something in Hmong to to back room, and out walked a 50-ish year old Vietnamese man. I thought for sure he was just filling the foot tub on the chair with water, but then he sat down and pulled out his bucket of supplies and told me to sit down. So I did. And it was interesting. But he painted some beautiful flowers on my big toes, so that was good.

Friday morning the three of us decided to go to the temple again, and then I went out to lunch with a friend I grew up with but haven't seen in about 17 years. She was also it town to run the marathon, and it was so fun to catch up with her. She drove me to the race expo where I met back up with Mark and Stephen and took possession of the Mustang once again. I dropped the boys off at the hotel, and I took off on a 3-hour drive all around the hills, plateaus and valleys around St. George. It was a blast. I love the red rock and painted hills. I love to try to figure out what events and forces occurred to create the stunning geologic landscape of southern Utah. Wow!

I then stopped at Olive Garden and got take-out for their pre-race dinner, dropped it off at the hotel, helped the boys pin their bibs on their tank tops, witnessed the official "arm-swish test", and headed back out for some more driving in the dark. After a trip Iceberg for a grasshopper milkshake, I headed back to the hotel and quietly snuck into the room where Mark had been asleep for a couple of hours.

Saturday morning we all woke up at 4:00 AM to get ready for the race. The boys took the hotel shuttle to the race busses and I went back to sleep for an hour. I got to the finish line around 7:00 AM and picked out a prime spot for photographing the end of the race, even though Mark and Stephen had just crossed the starting line 15 minutes before that.

I've already written about the race, but I didn't tell you about the sweet medals. Best medal I've ever seen.

Maybe because it's not a medal. But it is also not cardboard....remember this?

It's a rock. A beautiful piece of red rock formed into a shiny disc. I love it. Perhaps it is the geology nerd in me, but I do love a good rock. I'm a sucker for igneous rock especially. I am in love with this "medal." Am I in love with it enough to actually train for a marathon myself? I don't know. I never thought I would ever want to run a full marathon, but this rock has me actually considering it just so I can have a rock. There were a bunch of perfectly normal-looking people in the finishers' area wearing these beautiful rocks around their necks, and I must admit that I thought to myself, "If that person can do it, surely I can, too."

First I have to see if I can work my way back up to a half-marathon without hurting my knee again.

St. George Marathon

2011-10-02T16:09:00.000-07:00

We just returned from our trip to St. George. I'm home and have now uploaded pictures from our newly-repaired camera, and I must say that I got some good ones. The picture above is of Mark as he got to my spot 50 yards from the finish line. He looked strong. He was very happy with his finish of 3:07:20, which was almost 8 minutes faster than he needed to qualify for Boston.

This a 7:09 per mile average, which is faster than most people can run even one mile, forget about 26.2 miles. That's about 4 minutes per mile faster than he was jogging when got serious about running almost 3 years ago.

He had been hoping to come in closer to 3 hours, but with the heat of St. George, he felt very good about what he had accomplished. The picture below is from the same series but shows a different look on Mark's face.

This random picture is of the 4th place winner who is Mark's age. His family was nearby me in the bleachers, and he is a professor at BYU who runs for fun with the cross country team. I just love the picture of his leg muscles.

And now for Stephen's story. Last year in Hartford, Stephen finished in 3:43, which was a great time, but still 13 minutes off of a Boston time. And then Boston shaved 5 minutes off of the qualifying times, so he was 18 minutes from a Boston-qualifier. Stephen worked his butt off over this past year and expected to come in close to 3:25. I had taken pictures of Mark and was looking through the pictures on my camera, as I knew it would be about 5 minutes until Stephen was going to run by. I almost missed him because he was so much faster than I expected him to be! Luckily, I caught a glance of him and was able to switch the camera mode quickly enough to capture these images of him just before he finished. He looked so fast as he finished that I thought everything was fine. I didn't know that he was actually in the medical tent where he had to spend about 30 minutes rehydrating. Anyway, Stephen had finished in 3:20:06, which was 5 minutes faster than he needed to to qualify for Boston. After I called Stephen's family and my mother-in-law to tell them all the good news, I made my way over to the finisher's area to try to find these speedy brothers.

I eventually found Mark in the finisher's area, but I could not go in, so we yelled across the fence to each other. He was standing with his friend Eric from his freshman year at BYU. Mark was concerned because he had not found Stephen, and it was coming up on 3:50 on the race clock. He was worried that something had gone wrong for Stephen and that he was finishing much slower than he had hoped. I yelled to Mark that Stephen had finished at 3:20 and had qualified for Boston.

A lot of things about the marathon bring tears to my eyes, and to Mark's eyes, but the moment that I told him that Stephen got a BQ, the tears came for both of us. Mark's emotions went from worried about his brother to pure joy that they will be able to run it together in 2013.

Mark and Stephen finally found each other, and I took this stalker picture of them from the 200 mm lens. It was a happy, happy moment when they met up.

Happy, happy brothers.

Snuggle Bug

2011-09-27T23:06:00.000-07:00

Zachary has always been a great snuggler. He still is. I don't know how long it will last, but I love it. I'll take it for as long as he'll give me snuggles. He always asks, "Mom, do you want to snuggle up on the couch with me?" I will drop anything I am doing to go snuggle up and talk to him or watch a movie.

Today after school Zack drew a picture of us snuggling, and he wrote, "I LOVE SNUGGLING MY MOM."

It made my day. I will keep it forever.

Camera drama

2011-09-26T10:31:00.000-07:00

One thing you should know about Mark is that he takes care of things better than anyone else I know. Nothing he owns has a scratch on it. He is very, very careful about everything.

When Mark and I went to Belize 3 years ago, we didn't come home with many pictures from our own camera because the first day in Belize, Mark's lens broke. Like really, really broke. Not because he dropped it, but it simply just came apart on the inside. It was sad, but we had lots of other family members with us who took great pictures and shared them with us.

We bought a new lens for Mark's 5D after the old one broke, and it has worked magnificently. He has taken thousands of great pictures in the years since he had his new lens. The lens is still working fine.

This trip to Belize, it was the camera's turn to die. It was super sad just as Mark was getting ready to take some pictures of us jumping off of rocks into the Caves Branch river with his motor drive, something choked in his camera and it would not work. That night at the hotel he took the lens off and discovered that the mirror inside of the camera had become detached somehow. Again, this wasn't because the camera had been mistreated. It just decided that day to come unglued. Luckily, 3 of our kids had cameras, and so we got some great pictures of Belize. Just not Mark pictures. And there is a difference, let me tell you.

When we got home, I looked online and discovered that about 1 1/2 years ago Canon had issued a service alert for the original 5D because the adhesive they had used for the mirror was bad and the mirrors were coming off....Really? Anyway, they emailed me a shipping label and repaired it for free. Hopefully it will be here tomorrow.

Before we went to Belize we bought the Canon waterproof powershot camera. The images we took were fantastic both in the water and out of the water. It is a fabulous waterproof camera, and I am so glad I bit the bullet and bought the Canon so that we could have such fun pictures of our water adventures and playing in the pool.

The last day we were in Belize, the display on the waterproof camera started to go out. It still took great pictures, the screen just had a bunch of lines through it. When we got home, I checked with Amazon, and because I had purchased the camera within 30 days, they said to return it to them for a full refund as it must have been a defective product. Imagine that---I ordered a defective product. What else is new?

So I sent it back and they gave me a refund. And I don't plan on buying a new one right away, because it will just sit on a shelf. I'll buy a new one if we ever need it again.

Abram's dream come true

2011-09-24T21:45:00.000-07:00

One of our friends likes to collect old things and make them look new. He is an artist, and everything he restores, fixes or arranges is perfect.

This friend showed up at our house the other night in an M-37. Not at all what we expected, but I must say that is an awesome vehicle. Abram immediately ran down to his bedroom and put on his original WWII army uniform, complete with belt first-aid kit and canteen.

Mark got to take it for a drive.

And then Abram pretended he was taking it for a drive.

I even got to take it for a spin, but that was after the camera was back in the house.

How to make a Disney Bolt costume (and Rhino, too)

2011-09-24T09:52:00.000-07:00

I have had a lot of traffic on my blog recently from people searching Google for a Disney Bolt costume. A lot of traffic. This blog post is for those of you out there searching to buy a Bolt costume, or who have asked me if you can buy mine. Hopefully if you don't sew, you have a neighbor or mom who does, because this really is an easy costume.

I made Zachary this costume 2 years ago (along with Noah's Rhino costume). Our family loves the movie Bolt. I think every kid loves that movie. There is no Bolt costume you can buy, so I used a pattern and made my own.

I used Butterick 3238, which is still in print. I made the bunny costume, but I changed the shape of the ears, and used the tail from the cheetah. I made the costume out of non-pill polar fleece: white and just a bit of pink inside the ears. I drew a lightening bolt and cut it out of a scrap of black polar fleece, and then used a satin stitch to applique it to Bolt's side.

On the hood, I bought some 1-1/2 inch red grosgrain ribbon and stitched it around the neck edge of the finished hood. I tucked the raw edges under, and edge-stitched along the 2 short and 2 long sides of the ribbon. I had a scrap of silver fake leather left over from a previous costume project, and I cut out a circle and used a black sharpie marker to illustrate Bolt's name on the tag. I then stitched that just below the ribbon at the center front.

So there it is.

Now for Rhino.

The easiest thing to do would be to use the same Simplicity pattern and use one of the other critters for the basic pattern. I did this for the hat, but I changed the shape of the ears a bit and moved them toward the center. However, I wanted Rhino to have really short legs, so I used this Simplicity 3639 (which I just happened to have from a previous costume) pattern for the body instead. I modified the arms, of course to not come to a point and to have an elastic casing at the wrist. I left off the tail and then made a little pink ball of a tail and stitched it on the back instead.

I used light brown fleece for the front, darker brown for the back, arms and back of the ears, and pink for the mittens, ear fronts and spats.

Hope that helps! If you are lucky you can get the patterns cheap and fleece half-price.

More fun in Xanadu

2011-09-23T23:22:00.000-07:00

Mark took the above picture of me on the pier at our hotel. The sun was setting and the light was very cool. I look a little crazy because I had just climbed out of the sea. My hair was still dripping wet with salty, 90-degree Caribbean water and it was 100 degrees outside. When you're in paradise with your family, who cares what you look like?

I knew that both make-up and a hair straightener would be pointless in Belize, so I left it all behind. I didn't even look in the mirrror except to brush my teeth. I had pretty much two hairstyles while we were in Belize. They are both what I call my Gidget hair. Either my hair totally flipped out at the ends

or I wore it in 2 tiny ponytails, like this:

Swimming was a huge part of our trip. We loved the pool, and we loved the sea.

This cute picture is one of my favorites. This little boy was out on the beach one morning in his jammies playing baseball with his brother. He even put on his Cubs hat to make it official.

We discovered a restaurant called Pinnochio. It is owned by Hans, a white-headed German man. He was so kind to our family, and we loved getting to know him and to hear his stories and learn about his life. He makes the best pizza I have ever had.

One random story that kind of goes along with our dinner at Pinnochio's is about Zachary. There is an old saying that bad things come in threes. Zachary's foot had three close calls while we were in Belize. First, at our hotel in San Ignacio, our electric teapot I had used to heat the water for the morning's breakfast was accidentally knocked over and spilled super hot water on Zack's foot. He screamed like I have never heard him scream. We rushed him to the bathtub where we dumped a bucket of ice on his foot, and he calmed down. Luckily the water had not been full boiling temperature, but it was very painful. And then two days later at Caracol, Zachary put his foot right in a nest of fire ants. That's right. Fire ants while wearing Keen sandals. And we heard the same horrible scream of pain we had heard when his foot was burned. Then two days later, while we were dining at Pinnochio's, Zachary managed to step on a burning citronella coil. Once again, the scream. We put ice on his foot, and he was OK. And then his feet stayed out of trouble for the rest of our trip.

We really loved staying at Xanadu in San Pedro. Here's a picture of the building we stayed in. We had the lower level of the building on the left.

These people were using a boat to move a fridge and mattress set.

This picture was taken at a restaurant. I love Zacky's crazy faces.

After 18 fun days and nights in Belize, it was time to come home. So we packed our suitcases full of souvenirs, and with our heads and hearts full of memories we boarded a plane and returned to our real life.

You don't see that every day

2011-09-20T20:48:00.000-07:00

One evening in San Pedro there was a family walking on the beach in front of our room. They asked the kids if they wanted to see the necklaces they had for sale. Almost everyone there asks if you want to buy some necklaces, and then they pull about 400 out of their pockets or a backpack. These people were very nice, and had two cute kids with them, and so we told them we would look at their necklaces.

While we were going through their vast collection of necklaces on the rocks by our hotel, their two kids were over playing at the sea shore. When next I looked over, I saw two little kids using a machete to try to crack open a coconut. I was stunned as the parents acted like this was a perfectly normal for a 3- and 4-year old to be doing. Aubrey went over and took some pictures because it was so funny.

We bought a few necklaces from them, and they went on their way. I'm hoping everyone still has all of their limbs.

It reminded me of a time that Noah was about 3 years old and he came into our kitchen with our machete from the garage. He held it up in the air and asked with a big smile on his face, "Can I use this?"

I tried to NOT freak out as I calmly told him "Not today," and swiped it out of his hands as fast as I could.

La Isla Bonita

2011-09-19T23:07:00.000-07:00

We definitely loved our time on Ambergris Caye. Belize is such a fun place to visit--lots of jungle adventures on the mainland, and then heavenly turquoise, warm water and white sand on the islands.

We stayed at Xanadu, which is still the best place on the island. Sure, the rooms might be a little groovy, but they are super roomy and incredibly clean. Also, each one has a full kitchen and living area. Their pool is wonderful, and the location south of the main town hubbub is very restful. The views from the rooms of the Caribbean are unsurpassed. You can just sit in a hammock or chair and read or just watch the sea. They also have a beautiful palapa dock to hang out on or swim off of.

We did a few adventures on the island, but mostly we just enjoyed the town and hung out. We all went snorkeling one day at Hol Chan/Shark Ray Alley. We saw beautiful colorful fish, rays, nurse sharks and all kinds of coral. The barrier reef is just about one mile from the shore, and it is teeming with an underwater wonderland.

The next day Mark, Jacob, Joel and Noah learned how to scuba dive. We went with Ecologic Divers, because Charlie is the best dive teacher in the world and the only guy I trusted to take my boys 30 feet under the water. Abram and Aubrey had ear infections and even being underwater in the pool was painful, so they skipped the diving. I am still traumatized from my experience 3 years ago when I felt like my eyeballs were exploding while scuba diving, so I did not dare to try again.

They all loved it, and went again the following day on a two-tank dive.

Another day we went out in sea kayaks. Now, I've kayaked dozens of times on the rivers here in Oregon, but never on the ocean. I absolutely love kayaking the rivers. It's probably my favorite thing to do. But I had a horrible time on the sea. The waves really got to me and made me vomit. Twice. To make this adventure even more exciting, the kayak Jacob was given was not exactly....seaworthy. After about 20 minutes the back was sinking. Turns out there was a plug missing. He and Noah tried for about 15 minutes to get it upright and get back in it, but it was impossible, so Mark loaded Jake into his kayak and towed the purple kayak back to shore.

Even though I was completely sea-sick, I still couldn't get enough of the crystal blue water--that was 90 degrees! It was also amazing how shallow the water is inside of the reef. You could see everything.

We loved swimming in the sea and playing on the beach.

Poor Savvy got sunscreen in her eyes.

Savanna and Abram both ordered chicken legs from the same restaurant for lunch. Abram's was "Kentucky Fried" chicken, and Savanna ordered her usual rice & beans with chicken.

The boys got some sweet necklaces.

We met Carvin' Marvin.

We drank a LOT of Fanta.

We went to church in our finest beach attire.

Savanna met some new friends.

The guy in the background owns this insane coati. If you walk too close to him he will put the animal on your head, even if you don't want him to. Coati.

Zachary read a sign at a restaurant that said, "No shirt, no shoes, no problem!" He immediately ripped off his shirt and posed for this picture.

We loved driving the golf carts around the town. We had 2 carts for our family, and I always ended up with the singers on my cart. Aubrey, Joel, Savanna and Zacky belted out every pop tune you can imagine as we drove around San Pedro. Everyone could hear them, and everyone started at us like we were crazy. Where did these kids learn to sing while driving around? Hmmm. I guess from their mother. But I couldn't talk them into singing show tunes. Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, Jason Mraz, you name it they sang it for the whole town to hear. Daytime, nighttime, anytime was the right time for singing at the top of their lungs.

Savanna the swim instructor

2011-09-18T22:29:00.000-07:00

I found a few minutes tonight to go through our pictures from the island of Ambergris Caye. We spent 6 nights here. It is truly a paradise. White sand, palm trees and the 90-degree water of the Caribbean right outside our door.

A lot of things happened while we were in the town of San Pedro, but I'll just post a quick one tonight.

When we arrived in Belize, Zachary couldn't swim. He wouldn't even get in the pool without a life jacket. And even then it was all he could do to stay in the water for more than 10 seconds. After the first 2 days at our hotel in Belize City, Zack was comfortable in his life jacket kicking and swimming all around the pool, no matter how deep the water was. I thought that was as good as it was going to get. Bt the time our other kids were 5, they were swimming like fish. But Zack has always been a big chicken around water. Not that there's anything wrong with that....just different than the other guys were.

Anyway, we swam every day we were in Belize, and at the hotel in San Ignacio Zack got more comfortable in the water, and would even put on a snorkel mask and put his head under the water. Wow! Could it get any better than that?

Well, it did. In San Pedro he continued to love the water--but only if he wore his life jacket. He was terrified of taking it off. But whatever. It was easy, he was happy, and I didn't have to worry too much about him around water when he had that jacket on.

And then one day Mark took the 5 oldest kids on an outing south on the island to look for crocodiles. I stayed back at the pool with Savanna and Zack to read my book. I sat in a chair in the super shallow part of the pool and read my book and watched Savanna hatch the perfect plan to get Zack to swim.

It turns out that this spunky little girl is an excellent swim instructor.

She gathered some little shells from the sand around the resort, and brought them to the shallow part of the pool. When I say shallow, I mean like 10 inches deep. She spread the shells around the floor of the pool, and then had Zack take off his life jacket and put on a mask where he would put his face in the water to see the shells. She then showed him how to float and keep his face in the water to gather the shells. It was very shallow, and Zack wasn't afraid at all.

Once he could gather all the shells from the shallow part, Savvy moved the shells down to the first step in the deeper part of the pool (the pool is only 4.5 feet deep at the center, by the way). And then without a life jacket, Zack went into the bigger pool and started putting his head under the water to gather the shells from the first step.

And then the second step.

And then the third step.

And then the bottom of the pool.

By the time Mark and the kids returned an hour later, they saw that the kid they had left wearing a life jacket was now diving to the bottom of the pool to get stuff. Nobody could believe what he had just learned, and really couldn't believe that Savanna had done it all herself.

Zack then added his arms and kicking and floating and became a great swimmer instantly. He spent the rest of our trip underwater as much as possible.

We filled an empty plastic pop bottle with water to use as a diving target. Zack picked that bottle off the bottom of the pool at least 100 times that day. Pretty much the coolest thing ever.

And then this random picture. We played Boggle while we were there, and this is what Zachary wrote on his paper while the timer was going.

Green Iguanas, Caracol, Big Rock Falls

2011-09-13T20:28:00.000-07:00

The hotel we stayed at in San Ignacio has a Green Iguana conservation project onsite. The give tours for a fee, or if you stay for 4 nights or more it is complimentary. It's a great photo op, but definitely not worth the price of admission if you had to pay for it. Anyway, they breed the green iguanas and take care of the babies until they are strong enough to release into safe places in the wild. The baby iguanas love to climb all over you. For the record, I did touch one of the baby ones. And then I washed my hands. The kids all loved having the iguanas running all over their heads and arms and backs and everywhere else. I just couldn't wait to get out of there. Do you know how bad iguana poop smells?

On Monday we went with our tour guide to Caracol. We also stopped at Rio Frio Cave (pictured above and below) on the way there. We didn't actually go down into the rio to see if it was frio, but it was a really cool cave.

Caracol is the largest Mayan site in Belize, but it is a horrible, horrible drive to get there. 2.5 hours on the worst road on earth. Seriously not worth it when there are so many more easily accesible Mayan sites in Belize. Sure it was great once you got there, but I told Mark when we got home that night that if I ever go back to Caracol, it will be in a helicopter.

One cool thing about Caracol is that it is about 2 miles from the Guatemala border, and so they have armed military escorts that follow the last car in, and also back out. And military guys all over the archaeological site. A few years ago they were having trouble with Guatemalan guerrillas stopping cars and robbing the tourists. That hasn't happened for quite a while now with the military presence.

Anyway, some pics of Caracol:

The best part of Caracol is the stop at Big Rock Falls on the way out. It is a beautiful waterfall that falls into a swimming hole, which drops into another big swimming hole. The kids had a blast jumping off of rocks.

Abram

Aubrey

Abram

Jacob

Joel

Mark

Noah

Savanna

Zachary

The rock at the bottom pool wasn't cool enough for some people to jump off of. They wanted to go cliff diving into the big pool, which is rumored to be about 40 feet deep. Our guide Diego led Mark, Abram, Jacob, Joel and Noah up the cliff where Mark, Noah and Joel jumped from about 17 feet, and Abram and Jacob jumped from about 25 feet. I stayed back with Aubrey, Savanna and Zack at the kiddie pool.

Abram's free fall from 25 feet. Sadly, where they jumped from I could not see because of the trees, and I missed taking a picture of Jacob's jump.

Joel

Mark

Noah

Having now been to all the tourist spots around San Ignacio, if we do it again, we will leave out Caracol, and make one long day of Barton Creek Cave, Rio on Pools and Big Rock Falls. The bumpy drive to the creek and the falls is tolerable and totally worth it. As much as we loved being at Caracol and seeing that amazing place and climbing the temples, we all definitely aren't excited to go there again. It's not that we didn't enjoy it--we all did. It's just that it is a really, really awful drive to get there.

But we would go back to spend an entire day at Big Rock Falls in a heartbeat.

This was our last adventure in San Ignacio. We loaded up the next morning and Diego drove us to Belize City where we took the water taxi to Ambergris Caye. That was an adventure in itself. The water taxi terminal is much, much nicer than it was 3 years ago. I couldn't believe it was the same place, actually. What was a 3-walled shack with a concrete floor, a disgusting restroom with a local lady trying to charge you $1 to use it, and a few benches is now a spacious air conditioned building with clean, free restrooms with toilet paper available. They even check your luggage now. We had to wait about 90 minutes for our boat, but it was a cool and spacious place to hang out and eat our lunch. Much cooler and less crowded than the 2 hour boat ride.

Next up: Xanadu

ATM cave, Xunantunich, and life lessons

2011-09-12T11:08:00.000-07:00

One of the greatest adventures you can ever have is a trip to Actun Tunichil Muknal (or ATM) cave. I did not go on this particular adventure, because it is very, very intense, and I knew that Zachary was a bit too young for it--not only because it is strenuous, but also it is 3 hours inside of a watery cave. We had all planned to go, but the night before we went, I just had a very uneasy feeling that Zachary should not go. So he and I spent the day together wandering around San Ignacio and getting to know some of the locals while the rest of the family headed off into the Mayan underworld.

ATM is about an hour drive from San Ignacio down a bumpy rock road. When you arrive at the parking lot it is a 45 minute hike through the jungle to get to the cave entrance. From there you have to swim across a very deep pool to the cave entrance.

For the rest of the trip you are either walking through or swimming through water, climbing over big rocks, climbing down big rocks, walking along high ledges inside of the cave, squeezing through narrow cavities inside the cave or some other adventurous and physically-demanding activity.

All along the cave you are shown mayan artifacts, such as pottery, skeletal remains from sacrifice victims, and altered cave formations which would produce certain shadows when fires were lit in the cave.

Because this cave is so wet and was untouched for so many hundreds of years many of the artifacts have been preserved by mother nature by turning things into fossils or attaching them permanently to the cave. At the end of the tour you arrive at "the crystal maiden." An entire sacrificial victim skeleton left untouched. Inside of a dark cave. Good times.

While the guys were in Xibalba, Zack led me around the town. We stopped wherever he wanted and went down whatever street looked interesting to him. San Ignacio is a small town, so we saw it all at least 4 times. One guy we really loved getting to know was Carlton.

He owns Back To My Roots, which is his shop where he sells his custom jewelry and other Belizean souvenirs. Carlton is awesome. He is a man at peace, and happy with where he is in life. He was so kind to our family. The kids all adored him, and we spent quite a while visiting him every day. I love the necklaces I bought from him. He's a great artist and just a great person. If anybody needs a gift for someone, just contact Carlton and give him a price and he will make you the most amazing jewelry he can for that price.

On another day, we took taxis to visit Xunantunich. It is another Mayan city that has been excavated by archaeologists. The great thing about Xunantunich is that it is very easy to get to. No bumpy roads. Just 6 miles west, over a hand-cranked river ferry, and 1 mile up a hill. The taxis can take you all the way to the parking lot, and will wait 2 hours for you before taking you back to San Ignacio. All for $30. Why will they do this? It's time for a tangent.

Throughout Belize, we were touched so much by the humility and happiness of people who have so little. They do their best, work hard, survive, and they are happy. The taxi driver that day taught me a great lesson. After I knew he was a nice guy, I started to get the money out from my running shoe. He laughed at me and told me that's what he does with his money when he goes to Guatemala (which was about 3 miles from Xunantunich). He then started to tell me about how his heart aches for the destitute people in Guatemala--this coming from a poor taxi driver in 3rd hand clothes with a very beat-up car who sits in the hot sun all day hoping to get 2 or 3 passengers each day. He told me that in Belize he has it good. "I can eat chicken 3 times a day. Those people in Guatemala don't have it so good." I had to hold back the tears. For the rest of the trip every time we walked through town, there he was standing by his car at the taxi corner, with 5 or 6 other taxis just waiting and hoping. He was so kind, and talked to us every time we went by. He was happy. He had nothing but a beat-up old car, but he was happy.

Anyway, Xunantunich.

We spent 2 hours climbing and exploring this beautiful place. From the top of El Castillo you can see forever. I loved it. I loved it so much that seeing the Belizean army guys with fully automatic weapons patrolling the place didn't even bug me. It was heavenly there. Hot, but heavenly.

On Saturday we went to San Ignacio's market. A huge block in town that sits empty all week is then covered with canopies, every selling everything. We had corn tamales baked in banana leaves for breakfast from this sweet family on the street. We saw where the locals buy their rice, beans and produce for the week. We saw where they buy their clothing--which is all just 3rd-hand stuff bought in the US or Mexico by the pound and then sold at this market. It's what everyone wears. If it fits and doesn't have holes in it--great! So humble.

It was a bustling market, and we spent hours there watching and walking and buying a few things. But one experience absolutely touched my heart and I will remember it forever. Sorry if you are not the religious type. But I am still going to tell this story.

At this market there was a beautiful Mayan woman with her son selling bracelets and necklaces at a little flimsy table. We stopped and bought a couple of things from them, and then went on with our day. We were sitting in a restaurant having lunch, and I had an idea pop into my head that I should go back to that lady and buy bracelets for all of my young women at church. At this point I just thought it would be a fun gift for them from Belize.

That morning I had randomly found $3 in a bag I was going through, and I stuck it in my secret money pocket along with a handful of Belize dollars. I didn't really pay attention how much it was. I just knew that it was more than we needed for lunch and a few things at the market.

Tangent again, this is the best skirt EVER! I bought two for our trip, and I wore them the whole time. They dry fast, keep you cool, and they have a secret zipper pocket for money and keys! You want one. Or two.

Anyway, I went back to the woman in the lovely green dress and told her I was going to buy 16 bracelets for the girls at my church back home. She got tears in her eyes. We talked church a little bit (she goes to a baptist church there in San Ingancio), and her cute son helped me pick out the 16 prettiest bracelets they had. I decided to get 2 necklaces for our sweet next-door-neighbor kids back home as well. I was not thinking about money at all. I just thought I had had this fantastic idea to buy souvenirs for my young women and neighbors.

This woman was telling me about how much they needed this money. She and her son were despairing after we had gone the first time because there were really no other tourists at the market that day, and they were in desperate need of some money. They had been without a phone for some time, and they had been praying to make enough money at the market that day to go buy a basic cell phone. The little boy hugged me and hugged me and hugged me. He was so grateful. The woman cried as she knew this was more than they had prayed for. I cried because it was so little to me.

And then it hit. I reached into my money pocket to get out the money, and I found EXACTLY the amount I needed to pay her. To the dollar, thanks to the $3 I had randomly found that morning. It hit me hard then that it wasn't MY idea to go back and buy bracelets, but that it had been God telling me to do it. He knew that this woman needed the money and had been praying for help. I was so happy that I had listened to that little voice and had gone back to help this beautiful woman and her son. The money was nothing to me, but it was everything to her. Those bracelets were nothing to her, but now mean everything to me--and hopefully to the girls I told this story to before I gave them to them. Truly, the fact that I had the exact amount of money in my pocket stirred my soul and I knew that I had been given the privilege of being an instrument in God's hands to help another person.

I always tell my kids, "You never know when you are the answer to someone's prayers." You just never know. When you get an idea, go with it. Don't second-guess yourself. Sometimes you won't have any idea what you have done. Sometimes you'll find exactly the right amount of money in your pocket and you'll know.

Barton Creek Cave and Rio on Pools

2011-09-09T10:54:00.000-07:00

The next part of our adventure happened in and around San Ignacio, Belize. It is a beautiful town about 9 miles from the Guatemala border, right in the heart of the Mayan Mountains. We stayed at the San Ignacio Resort Hotel. If you are ever heading for San Ignacio, this is the only place I would recommend staying. Sometimes you look at a hotel online and think it is going to be amazing, only to discover that the website has used photographs that in no way represent the actual hotel. But in this case, the hotel was even more beautiful and clean than the pictures made it look. As a bonus, they have a beautiful huge pool. The other "hotels" in San Ignacio are more like guesthouses. They are much cheaper, but not air-conditioned, and judging from the outside, I am sure they could not be anywhere near as clean, spacious and comfy as our hotel was. We stayed here 8 nights and loved every minute there.

The first day in San Ignacio we walked around the town and sweated like we had never sweated before. It is hot in the jungle, and it was very humid that day. But it was incredible. We had freshly picked tree-ripened bananas and Fanta made from local cane sugar for a snack. The town is small and everyone there is very friendly. Not in the way that people pretend to be friendly because they want you to buy something or give them money, but just friendly in the way that they were so happy you came to stay in the beautiful town they lived in. Granted, we are a freak show when we go anywhere with 7 kids, and that is a natural conversation starter, but we all noticed how nice and outgoing the people of San Ignacio were.

The next day we headed into the Mountain Pine Ridge forest for a trip to Barton Creek Cave and Rio On Pools. I highly recommend both of these places if you are planning a trip to Belize. At Barton Creek Cave you strap on a lifejacket and get in a canoe where you paddle about 1 hour into the darkness of a beautiful cave. Mayan artifacts were found in abundance when this cave was discovered, and some are left on display on high ledges inside the cave.

This adventure was interesting. I was horrified by the moldy, scummy lifejacket they gave me to wear. But not so much as I was at the car battery hooked up by jumper cables to the spotlight in each canoe. One tippy canoe could have electrocuted all of us. Apparently that has never happened, and the water is completely calm. Let's just say there are a lot of things you can get away with in Belize that you can't in America. Not that there's anything wrong with that--it's just a fact. Like putting a car battery in a tippy canoe, or riding in the back of a pickup truck. Here in the states riding in the bed of a truck is illegal pretty much everywhere. But in Belize, every truck you see (mostly little Ford Ranger-sized trucks) has at least 4 people in the back of it. Usually a few kids sitting up on the side, too.

Back to the adventure.

I braided Aubrey's hair while we waited for the canoes to be ready.

After a short walk in the jungle we came to the entrance to the cave. It is a very beautiful place, and there were some locust-type bugs in the trees that sounded like a weed-whacker or chainsaw. Crazy jungle sounds.

Such a lovely restroom.

Waiting for the canoes.

Random furniture in the middle of the jungle.

A walk to the cave entrance.

Down to the creek.

We got into our canoes and paddled into the darkness of the cave. The spotlight was great to be able to see cave formations, bats, and other interesting things. I have no idea how far the cave goes, but after about an hour the stalactites are so big and low that you can't pass in a canoe any longer, so you turn around and head back out.

My claustrophobia was definitely tested this day. I did pretty well, probably because I was paddling a canoe, which is one of my favorite things to do in the world, so I didn't have much time to thing about the cave collapsing on me, or the slimy cave walls I couldn't see in the dark, or what creatures might be living in that water.

In this picture I was telling myself to not worry about any fungus or other disease I might get from this mildew-filled and very stinky life jacket. Also trying to convince myself that putting a car battery into a canoe isn't really that bad of an idea.

Give me a paddle and I am happy girl.

After the cave, we had lunch and headed for Rio On Pools. Sadly, I don't have many pictures of this beautiful place. It is probably one of the top 5 beautiful places I have ever seen in my life--rivaling the Valley of the Ten Peaks in Alberta, Canada that made my cry when I saw it. That morning one of our boys said he would replace the battery in our water camera with the charged battery. Somehow he got distracted and forgot about it. We didn't notice until we got to Rio On Pools and the camera was flashing a low battery light. But Mark quickly snapped this picture before the camera died.

Just take my word for it--this place is outstanding. The river falls over dozens of huge granite boulders, and this forms many little falls and swimming pools. Lots of places to swim, splash and lay on the rocks. We stayed there for probably 2 hours until the thunderstorm was closing in on us and we had to get back to town.

Cave Tubing

2011-09-08T19:08:00.000-07:00

The tropical storm continued Sunday with lots of rain, and we just laid low at our hotel and swam at the pool. Monday morning the river level was finally down to a safe level where we could go to Jaguar Paw and go cave tubing. We first had to check out of our hotel and get all of our stuff packed up again for our journey to western Belize which would follow our cave tubing adventure.

David from cavetubingrus.com picked us up at the hotel and loaded all 9 of our suitcases into his big awesome van. We drove to Jaguar Paw and began our trek through the jungle to get to the put-in of our journey. In the jungle we saw lots of bats, and most people in our family sampled some termites for a little snack.

Zachary was intrigued with every leaf on every plant.

We finally arrived at the beautiful spot between caves where you put on your lifejacket and headlamp, sit back in a tube and soak up the beauty of Xibalba.

I have no idea how long the float is, probably a hour or so, but it is heavenly. After the cave section was over, we decided to jump in the river and just float in our life jackets for the remainder of the trip. The river is so warm and so beautiful. The kids loved floating along with the current.

At the end of the trip there is a great rock to jump off of into the river. It's about 10 feet off the ground, and we all took turns jumping into the river. Even Savanna was not afraid to do it over and over and over.

Then we had a delicious lunch

and loaded back up into the van. David drove us to San Ignacio for the next part of our trip. The kids absolutely adore David and we will never forget him. If anyone is planning to be in Belize, I highly, highly recommend that you contact David for your adventures based in Belize City. He is fun, knowledgable and goes out of his way to make your trip the best it can be. He is a great guy, and his wife is an amazing cook.

After such an adventurous day, the kids fell asleep within about 4 second of laying down that night.

Lamanai

2011-09-08T10:13:00.000-07:00

A little tropical storm can't get us down. I'm the weather girl, after all. Plus, where we live rain is cold. In Belize during a tropical storm the rain is actually warm. Sure, it's a ton of rain, but it is warm rain, which actually is quite refreshing. This picture was taken at our hotel while the kids were eating their waffles for breakfast under the pool patio roof. It doesn't do justice to the rain that was coming down, but it shows it was raining hard.

After breakfast we set off with David of cavetubingrus.com for a drive to Orange Walk town where we boarded a boat on the New River for Lamanai. Nate was our boat driver and Lamanai guide. He thought we were so funny for not being phased by the rain. Nate was amazing, and the perfect guide for Lamanai. He knew so much about the river, the birds, Mayan history and the city of Lamanai, but he shared just the perfect amount of information--enough to be interesting, but not too much to bore the kids. He was spunky and awesome, and the kids loved him.

When we arrived at Lamanai we were served a delicious Belizean lunch of rice and beans with stewed chicken. Fried plantains, too if you were feeling crazy. Savanna decided then and there that rice and beans was her favorite meal, and she ordered it at almost every restaurant we went to for the rest of the trip.

The boat ride to Lamanai is an adventure in itself. You cruise 30 miles up a beautiful jungle river to the New River Lagoon where you see the top of ancient Mayan temples peeking up over the jungle. Even when it is pouring tropical rain, the boat ride is still incredible. Fortunately for us the rain let up just before we got to Lamanai, and it didn't rain another drop for the rest of the day. We were all soaked, but the rain kept every other person in Belize from going to Lamanai that day, and it was delightful to have the whole city to ourselves. We climbed the three tall temples of Lamanai.

Nate showed us what a tarantula hole looks like,

and how to get the spider to come out and play. We also heard howler monkeys like I never imagined. Turns out they are called "howler monkeys" for a very good reason. The troops of howler monkeys were really talking to each other this day. I would have been sure it was jaguars we heard, but it was really just these insanely loud and talkative monkeys. We saw them all over in the trees, and near the end of the day we saw the 2 spider monkeys that live in Lamanai as well.

These pictures were all taken on top of the High Temple.

Climbing and exploring the temples.

David from cavetubingrus.com was such an awesome guy.

We climbed and explored for the day, and then loaded back up in the boat for the trip down river. The rain had stopped, so we saw a lot of birds. Big birds. Birds you don't see in the pacific northwest. It was really beautiful. As fun as the rainy trip to Lamanai was, I will say the dry ride back home was more enjoyable.

Some local guys out hunting fence posts. This was a canoe made from a hollowed-out tree and they were using planks of wood to paddle. It was surreal to see this ancient mode of transportation as we blew past in a motor boat.

I love Lamanai. I've been there twice, and if we ever go back to Belize, I will go back again. It is such an awesome place to see and explore. The view of the world from on top of the High Temple is something you can just never get out of your mind.

The adventure begins

2011-09-07T11:56:00.000-07:00

We are back home, and Aubrey got all our pictures uploaded last night. I took a quick look through them and grabbed a few to get this blogging started. In short, our trip was incredible. Even with 7 kids I would do it all again. I love Belize, and I especially love how much our kids fell in love with the country as well.

We left home on August 18th for the exciting red-eye flight to Atlanta. As Mark and I had been to Belize before, we knew a bit about what we needed to pack, and what not to pack. What we knew we needed was food. Snack food. When 9 people go out to eat, that can add up even in a 3rd world country. We figured that if we could at least have breakfast and snacks at our hotel every day, that would save a lot of money. So each person had a large suitcase, and each suitcase weighed precisely 50 pounds. Our clothes took up about 1/4 of each suitcase. The rest of the space and weight was crackers, rice krispie treats, granola bars, waffle mix, a waffle iron, an electric tea kettle, instant oatmeal, cookies, nuts, beef jerky, maple syrup, oil, mixing bowls and measuring spoons, Gatorade powder, Crystal Light powder, powdered milk, paper plates, bowls, cups, spoons, forks, paper towels, baby wipes, sunscreen, bug spray. I weighed and packed until each suitcase was at it's maximum.

After an hour delay getting off the ground, our flight took of for the 4.5 hour trip to Atlanta. 7 kids and no sleep on the plane. But they sat still and were happy to be going to Belize, so there wasn't any trouble. We got to Atlanta and had some breakfast at the airport, and then started the 3 hour flight to Belize. You know that I love clouds, and I can tell you I have never seen such beautiful clouds as we saw in the sky that day. Tropical storm Harvey was stunning. Big fluffy clouds miles and miles high. Actually, it was like a cloud poster (you know I had one on my wall as a kid, right?) where you can see every possible type of cloud all at once.

The Belize City airport is small, and when your plane lands it just parks on the tarmac and they wheel some stairs up to the plane. It's awesome. When you step off the plane in Belize, the air takes your breath away. Literally. The wave of heat and humidity just overcomes you. We then took 2 taxis to our hotel. Normally when you load up the trunk of a car, you close the trunk, or at least secure it if what is in the trunk doesn't quite fit. 9 large suitcases did not exactly fit in the trunks of 2 Crown Victorias, but what did that matter? We were in Belize. They just piled the bags in and took off with the trunks open.

Also in Belize, there are no lanes or traffic lights. It's insanity. Our two taxis were trying to pass each other the whole way to the hotel. If there is a vehicle in front of you, the car you are in must try to pass it. I believe that is the unwritten law. Blind corners, hills, curves. Doesn't matter. Just pass the car in front of you at all costs.

We stayed at the Best Western Biltmore Plaza. It had a nice pool, and a decent restaurant. Belize City is not the place you want to be out exploring, to put in mildly. But it is a good base for a few mainland adventures. We stayed at the hotel, swam and ate dinner there. We were all very tired and headed to bed around 8:00. We thought we were going cave tubing at Jaguar Paw in the morning.

But Tropical Storm Harvey changed our plans. It rained probably 3 inches that morning, which was enough to close the park due to dangerous river levels. We had hooked up with David of cavetubingrus.com for both cave tubing and Lamanai. He told us that we could not go tubing, but I told him that we were from Oregon and rain didn't bother us and surely there was something else we could do. So he worked some magic and switched our Lamanai trip to Saturday. We went DURING the tropical storm. Rain like I have never seen--and I have seen a lot of rain! I'll get to posting about Lamanai here shortly.

Homeward Bound

2011-09-05T04:55:00.001-07:00

This morning I watched the sun rise over the Caribbean Sea for the last time. We have been in Belize for 18 days and are heading home this morning. I can't tell you how much I love the people and places of this country. It has been an incredible trip, even with 7 kids in tow.

I will get to posting about the trip later this week when I am back home. Lots and lots of pictures from many photographers.

Timberline Lodge

2011-08-10T23:44:00.001-07:00

I started at tradition with the Young Women in our ward of going each summer and spending a night at Timberline Lodge. It is undoubtedly their favorite activity of the year. Timberline has rooms called "chalets" that are no more than bunk-bed rooms. Chalet #15 has 5 bunk beds, and room for lots of girls, and is really cheap. So we rent that room and all have a party. This year it turned out that a lot of girls were out of town or had other conflicts for the trip, so we only had 8 girls. But let me tell you, 8 girls and 2 women can have a lot of fun together.

This year we first went to Trillium Lake for a picnic lunch and hike around the lake. It is such a beautiful spot, and when you are there on a weekday, it isn't too crazy crowded. The girls decided to go "owling," which I learned means you crouch down and pretend to be an owl. Lots of owling going on everywhere.

The view of Mt. Hood from Trillium Lake.Our lunch spot by the lake.

After our hike we checked in to the lodge and spent hours at the pool. Then we went to our room and I cooked waffles. For our dinner we made waffles with strawberries and whipped cream, and educated ourselves by playing the game "Worst-Case Scenario". Then we went back to the pool for a couple of hours, and then back to the room for a round of "What If." Probably the funniest game ever. Usually somebody wets her pants when we play it, but this year I think we only had close calls.

I love my girls.

The view from behind Timberline Lodge.

More owls.

When you lose your scoops

2011-08-08T18:54:00.001-07:00

When I go on vacation, I take my cookie scoops with me. Unless I go to my mom's house, because I know that she has a great assortment of cookie scoops. But otherwise I take them with me because I love to make cookies. Whenever I can. I'm just that crazy. I'm pretty serious about my equipment.

We went to Bear Lake last week for Mark's family reunion. We stayed at the Laketown Lodge, which was an amazing and huge rental. I loved it there. We all had a blast and enjoyed all that the big, beautiful house had to offer.

It was a little crazy getting ready for it, because we went camping the weekend before, got home Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning at 6AM we were on the road for Utah. I was able to pack all of my cookie-making essentials--brown sugar, flour, sugar, cinnamon, oats, cream of tartar, chocolate chips, and my scoops.

I made cookies every night we were in Bear Lake. This was for about 50 people, so it was a lot of cookies. Snickerdoodles, chocolate chip cookies, monster cookies and pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. Each one needs its own size of scoop, you know.

Friday morning we had to check out of the lodge at 10AM. When you have 7 kids and all of their stuff it is a big job to make sure it all makes it back into the car. We checked and double-checked our room. I thought we had everything.

Then last night as I was ready to make our Sunday night cookies, I opened my drawer to get out the proper scoop and discovered I had left the scoops at the lodge. All of them!

I emailed the owner in a panic last night. Luckily the caretaker was there this morning and found my scoops and dropped them in the mail to me. And luckily the missionaries we had over for dinner tonight requested sugar cookies when I asked them what cookies they wanted. No scooping necessary.

The way we camp

2011-08-06T20:48:00.000-07:00

I grew up camping. My family camped at least two or three times each summer. Generally these were in primitive campgrounds up in the Uintahs, with outhouses, tables and a fire pit provided. But not much else. My parents never took us to a KOA or other cushy campground with showers, flushing toilets and swimming pools. When we camped there were other people around, but not right next to us making noise or cooking bacon at 6AM. We were pretty isolated. We also camped in a huge tent. I mean HUUUUUGE. I called it the Lehi tent. For those of you non-mormon folks, Lehi is a prophet from the Book of Mormon, and he and his family camped in the wilderness around 600 BC for quite some time. I imagine Lehi and his family had a tent like ours. And probably just as difficult to set up.

I have great memories of these camping trips. Sometimes with neighbors, sometimes with cousins and grandparents. Sometimes just our family. But I loved camping, and I loved cooking outdoors. I still do. I love my Coleman stove and my dutch oven. I was glad when I met Mark that he loved camping as well.

We take our kids camping. But the way we camp makes the primitive spots my family used to go look like a KOA. We either load everything we need into backpacks and hike miles and miles to a remote spot, or we load up the car with water, chairs, food, stove, tents, sleeping bags and pads and anything else we might need, and drive up a random logging road until we see a pretty spot to camp. No running water or outhouses for us.

We went camping last weekend to our favorite, the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Washington. We took off on a logging road off of the Curly Highway, and ended up with the most amazing view of Mt. St. Helens! It was beautiful. We pitched our tents, made a fire pit and got busy with camping.

We had delicious tinfoil dinners cooked on the coals, followed by my favorite type of s'mores: chocolate, marshmallows and crunched up graham crackers with a dab of peanut butter wrapped in foil and placed just near enough the fire to get nice and melty-gooey.

We did some yoga and watched the sun set over Mt. St. Helens. Then we bundled up for the night and had a pretty decent sleep.

In the morning we made Phillip's Breakfast, named after an old friend who made it for us when we were camping. Potatoes, onions, bacon and a little cheese all cooked in a big cast iron pan. So delicious, especially when camping. Scrambled eggs, too.

Our kids have fun finding whatever they can to play with. Sticks are very fun, and so is "bench hunting." This is when you try to find two rounds and a flat log to make a bench out of.

It's a fun adventure, and I always feel sorry for those poor suckers crammed into the park campgrounds as we drive by them in search of our little piece of heaven for our campground.

Yoga on a log. It's a test of balance.

Zachary made sure every bit of dirt was removed from this great bench seat we found.

Zachary really smiled this big the whole time we were camping.
Fire and sunset.

Savanna has awesome camping hair.

This picture of Joel was taken after he had taken a major fall onto the ground while walking through the forest looking for a seat for me to sit on while I cooked dinner. We thought for a moment we would be packing up and taking him to the ER for a broken rib, but over the next 2 hours, his pain went away, but he got some pretty cool cuts and scratches.
Joel was happy again.
Watching the sun set on Mt. St. Helens.

Kids choosing what they wanted in their dinners.

Joel chose to sleep in the back of the car.
The awesome bench we made.
Aubrey was a great chopper for our dinner makings.
Zack loves to help stir the eggs.
Our view.

Noah enjoyed our delicious breakfast.

And a little fake fighting to finish out the morning.

A busy summer

2011-07-25T06:28:00.000-07:00

The three oldest kids just got home from a 4-day Pioneer Trek. For four days, they pushed and pulled handcarts over the hilly and rocky Barlow Road, which actual pioneers used to get around Mt. Hood in the old days. They dressed like pioneers, ate like pioneers and slept like pioneers. They loved every minute of it, even though it was really difficult. They all learned a lot, and hopefully will remember these things for the rest of their lives. Some things they all learned:

1. They CAN do really hard things.

2. Oatmeal isn't so bad if you are really, really hungry

3. Being woken up by a mob at 11:30pm and forced to move your camp another 1.5 miles down the trail in the dark is scary and annoying, but they got a glimpse of how the Mormon pioneers felt being forced by a mob to pick up and move.

4. Just when the handcart seems too much for you to push up a steep hill, angels will come from nowhere and assist you.

5. Crossing 40-degree water with a handcart full of provisions is cold and hard, but possible when everyone works together.

It was a great experience for all of them, but I sure missed them while they were gone. My 2 drivers and 3 of my babysitters were gone. I had to drive the little guys everywhere and take them all with me. Not that I minded, but the little guys prefer to stay home and play rather than run errands with me.

Also, last week was the last day of school for Noah and Sav. Their charter school has a 200-day school year, with only a 6-week summer break. I have loved everything about their new school this year, but I can't say I'm crazy about the short summer. But Sav explained that it was actually fine, because by the time they got out of school, all the other kids were already bored with their summer, and now she has 6 weeks to have fun and not be bored. What a great girl. The kids love their school, even with the long days and long year. When a 2nd grader is doing long division and has a complete understanding of the ins and outs of fractions, you know the school is doing something right, even if they go to school into July.

The rest of the summer is going to be wild. Noah has cub scout day camp this week, and I just dropped of Abram and Jacob for their scout high adventure. They unpacked their trek stuff, and then packed up for a 5-night 6-day 340-mile bike ride on the Oregon coast. They will start today in Tillamook and put in 60-70 miles a day until they get to California. They will get home late Saturday night, and we'll be off on our next adventure the following morning.

We'll get up early and drive to Utah for Mark's family reunion at Bear Lake. Then we'll come home late Friday night so Joel and Jacob can get ready to go to scout camp the following Monday morning at 5am. They will be home for 3 days, and then it's off to Belize. I figured that Jacob has 4 nights left sleeping at our house this summer. That's pretty sad for me, because he's pretty much awesome to have around.

I just hope my 2 boys will be safe on their bikes this week. I can't wait to see them Saturday night. I'm sure they will be just a tiny bit saddle sore.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies

2011-07-14T11:09:00.001-07:00

There is a new cookie in my lineup. This recipe comes from the King Arthur Flour catalog. I love their website and their catalog. They have a great collection of recipes and a great baking blog. We just got a new catalog yesterday and this recipe was inside. I immediately had to try it.

First, I had to find mini peanut butter cups. The catalog had them for $6.96 for a 12-oz bag. That seemed a little steep to me. I vaguely remembered seeing them at Trader Joe's around the holidays, and sure enough, TJs didn't let me down. $2.99 for a 12-oz package.

One tip I would recommend is to keep the mini PB cups in the refrigerator. The first time I tried this with room temperature PB cups, and the mixer smashed them. I quickly shut off the mixer and finished mixing them in by hand and it worked fine. Next time I will chill the PB cups and then hand-mix them into the dough.

1 1/2 c all-purpose flour
1/2 cup (1 1/2 ounces) cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup smooth peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg
2 tablespoons water
1 1/2 c mini peanut butter cups

1) Preheat the oven to 375°F. Lightly grease (or line with parchment) two baking sheets.

2) In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.

3) In another bowl, (I use a Kitchenaid with paddle attachment, of course0 beat together the sugars, butter, and peanut butter until light and fluffy.

4) Beat in the vanilla, egg, and water, then stir in the dry ingredients, blending well.

5) Stir in the mini peanut butter cups.

6) Scoop dough onto the prepared baking sheets. Flatten each cookie to about 1/2" thick.

7) Bake the cookies for 7 to 9 minutes, or until they're set and you can smell chocolate. Remove them from the oven, and cool on a rack.

A riddle

2011-07-12T08:31:00.000-07:00

What do a magnificent frigate bird,

a brown pelican,

Mayan temples

and the Macal River

have in common? You guessed it. Belize.

It has been really rainy today, July 12th. The next 10 days here are going to be unseasonably cool and rainy. But you know what? I don't even care. Sure, I love to talk about the weather, but that's not what this post is about. This post is about our upcoming family vacation. 19 days in Earth's hidden treasure--Belize.

Now, there are many definitions of insanity. My personal favorite is Albert Einstein's: doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. But perhaps someone else might define it as this: taking 7 kids on vacation to Belize. Yep. We are THAT crazy.

I should mention that we are going in the low season, lodging and food are cheap there, and we are using 12 years worth of airline points from our dental office credit card for many of the plane tickets. We didn't win the lottery, and we have been saving up like crazy for this trip.

When Mark and I were there 3 years ago, we loved everything about Belize, and the whole time we kept telling ourselves that someday we would take all of the kids there, when they were all old enough to remember it. Zack will be 5 in a month, and he still remembers everything from when he was 1, so I think we are good. Also, Abram will be leaving us next summer and heading off to college, so this is our one chance to take everyone there before our family dynamics are forever changed.

We will spend 11 nights on the mainland, including 8 nights in San Ignacio near the Guatemalan border. Last time we were there we didn't explore the inner jungles of Belize, and we are going to have plenty of time to do so. I am so excited about this part.

We will then head to La Isla Bonita for 5 nights.

Belize has been calling us back for 3 years now. I can't wait to be there again. Luckily I got a jump start on my tan last week at camp.

Let the countdown begin!

Aubrey is 16!

2011-07-11T16:28:00.001-07:00

It sure doesn't seem like it has been 16 years since I first saw this girl with the big cheeks, red skin and black hair. The nurses at the hospital couldn't get over how much she looked like a little eskimo. She weighed 8 pounds, 8 ounces, and she was really cute.

That little baby with red skin and black hair turned into this cute girl with white skin and blonde hair. She was spunky and determined. She knew what was what, and if you weren't OK with that, she didn't care.

I love the above picture because it was Aubrey's third birthday. She woke up that morning, and told me, "I'm 3 now. I don't wear diapers anymore." Sure enough, she put on undies, and she was done with diapers. That was a happy day.

This picture is from today. Aubrey had her birthday yesterday, and then went this morning and got her drivers license. She is an amazing driver, and has been from the first day she sat down in the drivers seat. She has had dreams about driving her entire life (ENTIRE!) and somehow she just knew what to do. She always has watched me drive, and told me when to change lanes or signal. Now it's her turn.

Another big thing for Aubrey was that she got a cell phone today. We have made it our family rule to not give the kids phones until they drive. Aubrey is one happy girl today. Driving and a phone...but not at the same time, of course.

I now have two driving slaves to run errands and drive kids around. Tomorrow Aubrey will drive herself to her harp lesson!! After 7 years of driving her weekly across town, and waiting, it is her turn.

Back from camp

2011-07-09T19:19:00.001-07:00

No pictures. But I will tell you what I have been up to this week.

I went to girls camp and ran girls down the river every day. Before and after my rafting gig every day, I would wander around camp talking to girls, laughing my head off, and having fun.

I love the river. I love rafting. I love girls camp. It was a perfect week. The sun came out and the rain stopped. There were not a lot of mosquitoes this year, either. I loved every minute, and I look forward to doing the same thing next year.

Each of the first days, I guided a raft full of girls down the river with another guide or two. The last day at camp we play "Survivor." This game is a brilliant creation (not mine) that combines all of the camp certification skills the girls have learned during the week into one giant Amazing Race. They get clues and have to use all the things they have learned along the way--first aid, cooking (this is where they eat their lunch), fire building, knot tying, hair braiding, orienteering and other things, including how to save someone who falls out of a raft.

This job required us to tow our rafts upriver about 1/4 mile. We had to walk up one shore as far as we could, paddle across the current, walk up that shore, and then once again paddle across a swift current and then walk the raft through a swifter but shallow current to get it to the beach where the girls got in. It was hard, but it was worth it. There were 6 Survivor teams and 3 rafts, so we had to do this raft-moving twice. My quads have never ever been so sore as they are now from walking against the current through thigh-deep water.

Once each team found us at the raft put-in spot, the girls put on life jackets, grabbed some paddles and hopped in the raft. Then along our short trip, one of the older girls "fell" in the deep water and the girls on the raft had to pull her back in.

Did I mention the river is 55 degrees?

The first four teams found us fast--so fast that they were standing there waiting for me to get back upstream from my first trip so they could get in my boat. I loaded up my second team and headed downstream. Then I pulled the raft up on the beach and laid out in the glorious sun. I thought it would be not too long until the next 2 rafts came in, and then we would load up and be done. But it was 2 hours before the other groups finally found the raft put-in. They got stuck on the orienteering, during which they saw me laying in my raft on the beach, and then when they got their rafting clue they just figured that they needed to come back to me. Those 2 teams were very sad to find out they had to hike clear to the other end of the camp in order to get to the put-in.

Anyway, my body got some much-needed sun. So much, in fact, that I actually had people come up to me and say, "You look tan!" I've never been told THAT in my almost 39 years. But I honestly have a tan line--right where my life jacket was. And my rafting sandals. Sure, I've had burn lines plenty of times. But tan lines are something I usually don't get.

One of my favorite things on the river was the run I made Friday morning when we saw a big bird sitting on a log on the bank. So I steered the raft over to the band, and saw that it was a bald eagle. From its markings, I figure it was a 2-year old. It did not move. We were within 3 feet of it and it did not move. As we came closer we could see that the eagle had a big, fat salmon it was eating. The head was gone (everyone knows the eyeballs are the best part, right?). We had come upon it mid-meal and it was more afraid of us taking its fish away that it was of us hurting it. It just sat perfectly still and watched us float. We stopped as long as the current let us. I've never seen an eagle's eye up so close in the wild. This trip also brought sightings of a doe and her 2 babies, a whole family of cute common mergansers, and several osprey, one of which was soaring right over us, hovering and diving in the river over and over trying to find a meal. It was honestly like I had pre-arranged these sightings, or that they were fake because they were so unreal. This particular trip was a raft full of leaders who had not been able to go earlier in the week, so they actually thought it was cool to stop and look at the wildlife. A raft full of 12-year-old girls would not have cared.

Anyway, I'm home, cleaned up and really tired. Early bedtime for me. It was so fun to be surrounded by all the kids from home who had so much to tell me and ask me when I got home this morning. I missed them all. But not enough to ever stay home from girls camp.