Ski Holiday

A few days before Christmas my mom took my brother and I skiing. Well, she skied and Nathan and I snowboarded. It was only the second time I have ever done it in my life. And last time I did it was 7 years ago. Even though it was long ago, I remember how difficult and painful it was. So you can understand why I was very VERY apprehensive about going.

I almost skied 2 years ago when I was about 6 months pregnant with Bibi. I don't fall down a lot when I ski and I was just planning on doing the bunny slope, so I didn't think there would be much of a problem. But I was about 75 (maybe 80?) pounds heaver than I am now, AND the day before I had gone maternity bathing suit shopping with my mom. The effort of only pulling those suits on and off made me tired and I had to sit down and rest in the changing room. So 2 years ago with my weight gain, pregnancy and fatigue on my mind I decided not to go skiing. Plus the day was cut short anyway because my sister-in-law tore her ACL within 4 minutes of getting on the slopes. GOOD TIMES!!

But back to this ski adventure. We went to Sundance and I was shocked to discover how big it is! I didn't know there were 4 different lifts! I didn't realize how many different run options there were. Sundance is definitely worth the price if you can go on a day that's not super crowded. Which this day wasn't

Nathan promised that he wouldn't ditch me and he would help me remember how to do it. And he was true to his word. The first run of the day was rough and it took me a while to remember how to turn, stand up and then finally maneuver the board. I was so slow on that first run that my mom decided to ditch us and run a few runs by herself. But she only got one more in! On the second run of the day I was much much better and we could stay together without problems.

Nathan later said that he always gets worried about trips like these because he loves having his mother along, but we tend to forget just how old she is! She's 60 (sorry mom, I just told the world your age) but she still does all the fun stuff with us so it's hard for us to remember her age. She still water-skis, and will get on those inflateable toys to pull behind the boat with her grandkids. She works out all the time, and If I suggesting hiking or backpacking or rock climbing the next time she came out, I don't think she would have any problem with any of those things. Actually, she didn't fall down even ONCE the whole day she skied. You know I cannot say the same! But he worries about the possibility of her hurting herself and then ruining her whole vacation. But mom isn't crazy! She knows her limits and keeps it safe.

Well, we had a great time. The baby got to hang out with her cousin all day, and I got a sore body for the next 5 days! It was worth it, though. Here are some pictures we took while up there. They were taken with a camera phone, so excuse the poor quality.



It snowed and rained on and off that day. It kept some people away from the slopes, and that's how we like it!
Thanks to my mom for the chance to go! And thanks for Nate for being patient with me as I forgot and then remembered how to snowboard. And thanks to the staff at Sundance for not laughing at me EVERY TIME I fell off the chair lift. Especially that one time where I miss-calculated how much time I had to dis-embark and I basically had to jump off the seat and I landed face down in a pile of snow. Giant bruises on my legs to show for that one. And a special thanks to Jules for leaving all her snowboarding stuff when she went to Texas. We hardly had to rent anything thanks to her!

Happy Boarding, everyone!

Curly Girl

At our family Reunion last week, my sister produced a book for myself and my niece to read and enjoy. It was called Curly Girl and it talks about the care and maintenance of curly hair, which all three of us have.

And while my hair is much MUCH less curlier than my sister's or my niece's, it's interesting to learn about the different things this woman suggests for those with curly hair who like to wear their hair curly.

First, she thinks that everyone with curly hair SHOULD wear their hair curly! So you should immediately throw out your flat iron, blow dryer (for straightening purposes, that is) and other like hair torture devices. She gives a few products to use, but she never comes out and gives NAMES. I wish she would just give a NAME! I mean "spray gel" what is that? Does leave in conditioner count as spray gel? What about a root booster? What about mousse? Can I put some in a spray bottle, fill it with water and call it "spray gel?" Also, she says your conditioner is very important (as you will see why in a minute) and so you need to make sure your conditioner is good quality and has all these things in it. Like emollients and humectants and the like. But she never says WHERE we can find these conditioners. Do I have to go to a salon? Does Pantene have these in them? Can you just give me a list of "acceptable" conditioners, PLEASE? (I understand, legally, why she can't do this. But it's still quite annoying for us in the real world who is trying to wrestle a 2 year old octopus-child in a shopping cart. Those people don't have 30 min to read the back of every bottle of shampoo to check if it contains the certain chemical formula she says to look for. Come on! Help a sister out!)

Moving on. She advocates throwing away ALL shampoo. She says shampoo is too rough on hair anyway, and is a disaster for curly hair which is much dryer than straight hair. So using your fingers, some conditioner and a little time in the shower is how your hair will get clean. And she says you can keep a little shampoo around for "spot cleaning" like you would spot clean a nice sweater. But never the whole head.

I don't know how I feel about all of her techniques. Like the certain way to cut the hair. I don't have hundreds of dollars to go and find the perfect hair stylist that will "talk" to each individual curl and find out where it wants to lay. Because to have everything PERFECT, I have to find the the Bob Ross of hair cutters. "Where does this tree want to be? How about right here. A happy little tree right here just coming out of the water." Nope, sorry. No time or money for that one.

However I would have to say that after about a week of doing what she says, I see a definite difference in my hair. I have less of a "halo" around my head because my hair tends to not be so dry. And I haven't had to use any dandruff shampoo for this whole time either! The moisturizing conditioner and my agitation while I scrub my head seems to be breaking up the loose skin cells and yet keeping things nice and moist. It really is making my curls cuter and more defined. I'm a believer. Until someone tells me my head smells from lack of shampoo, that is.

But seriously, what is spray gel? JUST ONE LITTLE NAME BRAND, PLEASE!?!?

The Cabin

Mom is selling the cabin. It's sad, but we knew the good times had to come to an end sometime. We have had that cabin for more than 1o years and we all have some great memories there. My husband has said that it's in the top 5 most favorite places in the world for him. He loves to be outside, relaxing under the trees. It is the embodiment of vacation and it will be missed. Here are some of my favorite things to do while there and the things I will miss most:

* Wakeboarding
* Drinking root beer (and letting my mom have "just a sip" of it herself)
* Falling asleep on a hammock after trying to read a book
* Playing SkipBo with my sisters
* Eating licorice
* Leaving the lid off the licorice tub so it gets hard and super chewy, and then listening to everyone whine about how SOMEONE left the lid off the licorice tub. So then I try to just take out a FEW pieces and leave them to get hard. But they always seem to disappear before I can go retrieve them. So then I just take the lid off the whole tub as retribution.
* Getting sunburned because I always forget to slather at least ONE part of my body and then taking a shower followed by a long nap to let the heat soak in
* Trying to convince my husband to get in the water
* Jogging down to the boat dock and then jumping in the water
* Smores and "skit night" by the campfire
* "Speerneck" stories
* Taco Bombs. And BFTT's. Actually, I don't think I will be missing those.
* One bathroom for 20-30 people
* My Aunt Lynda's crazy CRAZY antics.. And I mean crazy. Whether it's trying to convince people to eat the left over pizza crusts from 3 nights ago, or making clothes out of pillowcases, there is never a dearth of mocking material when she is around.
* Fresh blackberry pies
* Walking/riding down to the "swimming hole"
* A fridge so full of food it cannot close properly or even chill the food adequately.
* And finally, the battle that IS the yearly photo. I mean, we've only been doing this for 10+ years, but for some reason, something always goes wrong. Usually we know EXACTLY when the photo will be the first day of camping. "Hey, don't forget, family photo Thursday at 4:00 pm". But then there is always SOMETHING. Like a couple of kids are down at the swimming hole, or someone decides to leave early so we have to take the photo a day before, or someone forgot to ask a neighbor to take the picture so we scramble to find someone at the last moment. Or my personal favorite, last year, where mom decided to make dinner and then RIGHT BEFORE she announces it's picture time. So the food waits and gets cold for 45 minutes while we try to find a photographer and then proceed to give her 97 cameras to take a picture with each one. It's always something.

So here are some pictures of Trinity Center 2009. The last year we would all have those crazy wild times, even though we didn't know it at the time. (Thanks to my cousin Dakota. I stole them all from her)

The genesis of the FAMILY PHOTO. Notice how everyone is confused, there is someone trying to direct things, babies are crying, people are getting annoyed:













But then we always pull it together at the end:


Farewell cabin! Enjoy the next people who own you. But I'm sure they won't love you as much as we did.

Home

It's so nice coming home from a long trip. Even though we live in a little postage stamp of a home, it's ours. We have our routines here, and they are comfortable. It's nice being able to get back to normal.

Where were we you ask? Well the Bibbers my mother and I went to Missouri for about a week. We dropped off the coveted grandfather clock for my sister Sarah to pick up at a later date, and we got to see my brother's youngest daughter get baptized. We got to go to the lake and eat real Kansas City BBQ and it was just a great time all around. Here are some highlights from the trip:

* Taking off just hours after my baby's 2nd birthday party. (Party will be saved for another post) We wanted to get on the road sooner but there was a big issue with the trailer we were driving and the lights on it not working. Uhaul helped us out, though and we soon got on the road.

* Driving all through the night to get to Missouri Monday morning. There were a few times that the Baby screamed bloody murder because she wanted her mother (who was driving) and she wasn't being properly served. My baby gets HYSTERICAL and will do things to get my attention. She'll rip out her hair, stick her fingers down her throat to make herself gag/wretch/vomit, scratch herself, bang things and kick the DVD player. She knows that ALWAYS gets my attention. The good thing is that by the end of the week long trip, we had been in the car so much and traveling so much that she was used to it. The trip back to Utah had no screaming meltdowns at all!

* Going to the lake and getting up on a wakeboard! That hasn't happened in years. Maybe since I was married. I just gained too much weight, and our boat isn't the best for pulling people up on a wakeboard. But my brother's boat has a great tower on it and it's as easy as pulling yourself up on a ladder. I was so shocked I got up. I went around for a while but I was so tired from the previous day (when I went around on the super tube behind the boat) that I didn't have the strength to go very long. Next time for sure. But I got up! I'm just happy I got that far. Especially because as I strapped on the boots and slid into the water I IMMEDIATELY wanted to be out. That old nervousness of "you aren't going to get up, you will make a fool in front of everyone" was there. And I really didn't want that. I think I said "Oh, I really don't want to do this" but I stuck it out and did it! Hooray for me!

* Texting Lynn while at a BBQ place to ask her the proper protocol of saying "Yes Ma'am" to someone. I feel like I'm being rude when I don't reciprocate a "ma'am". I was told that if the person is older I should always say it, but THEN I got worried that I would offend someone by using ma'am when they were younger than me, and thereby telling them that I thought they were old. Lynn let me know that it doesn't really happen, and that if you are older than them and you still say it, they just look at it as respect. (Did I get that right Lynn?) I still feared doing it because I thought it would sound fake. But now I know the rules.

* Coming back from an outing to the park only to find a WATER MOCCASIN (also known as the COTTONMOUTH) snake chilling in the front yard. Actually, chilling about 3 feet from where my baby was just walking. OHHHHHHHHHHHHH MYYYYYYYYYYYYY CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!!!!!! We ran inside, locked the door and my sister in law proceeded to call everyone she could think of until she found a ward member to come over and kill it. Which is a big deal for her because Tina is a big animal advocate. Example? the day before I found a spider on the floor and told my 14 year old niece to take care of it (I don't do spiders, remember?) and they PICKED UP THAT SPIDER AND PUT IT OUTSIDE! ZZHHHHHHGGGGEEEE (audible shiver) But luckily they were smart enough or cautious enough not to take chances with one of the most aggressive and deadly North American snakes that was just chilling out right by the front door to their house. The snake got it's head taken off. And I rejoiced in knowing my child would not die that day.

Just so you know, while Tina was calling trying to find a snake wrangler, I took the broom from the kitchen and unscrewed the handle. I was not going to let that thing get away. So if it started to move, I was prepared to go out there and beat it to death. Seriously, it was FEET away from my child. I was mad, and it deserved to die.

*Going outside to pick Mulberries. They are pretty good, if you can look over the inch worms that you have to pick out (or eat) and the little stems that come off with the berry. You can just spit those out after you eat them. Don't try to take them off the berry, because it squashes the juice out. But going into the back woods of the Missouri wilderness might get you in trouble. Which brings me to. . .

*My mom got a little bit of poison ivy on her face just to the right of her mouth, close to her chin. (I call it the "zit spot" because every month I get one JUST ONE zit right there. At least it's only one, right? But isn't 30 too old to get a zit when I'm PMSing?) Anyway, as we were driving home and were pretty close to the Wyoming border, my mom says, "This poison ivy is really itching my face. But I'm doing good not to touch it. But I have another little itchy thing in my eye lashes. Can you look and see if I have poison ivy in my eye?" And being the inquisitive nice daughter that I was, I agreed. I should've refused. Because as I looked in her eye, I noticed that her lashes were particularly thick in one area. And as she blinked, they moved in response. And then I saw it. . .The tick in my mother's eye.

Now, I want you all to go get a mirror. Or look at a butter knife you have retrieved from the kitchen. But you need to know where this tick was. Take your eyelid, and flip it up as if you were going to do that hideously grotesque and macabre act of flipping your eyelids up on themselves. Don't do it all the way, just gently tilt up your lid until you can see the teeny tiny ridge of skin running JUST UNDER your eyelashes. The minutely small piece of skin between your lashes and your EYE BALL. And you will know where that tick had its nasty Lyme disease-carrying head buried.

My mom says she wishes she could've preserved forever the look on my face when I realized what it was. I was horrified, and couldn't even bring myself to look at it, especially when it moved its legs. Bleeeggch. I'm getting queasy now just thinking about it. We were going to wait till the next gas fill up so my brother could pull it out himself, but after about a 5 second wait I just couldn't think of that thing feasting SO CLOSE TO HER EYEBALL for another second and I said I would just get it.

If anyone knows anything about pulling out a tick, you know that you have to get the whole thing making sure the head doesn't detach. So I grasped that thing, and gave it a gentle pull thinking that was all I would need to do. Nope, it was really drilled in there. So I just pulled harder and success!! And I was pretty sure I got the head too. That thought was confirmed when I looked at the thing and saw 2 chunks of my mom's eye flesh still visible from its nasty little pincers. Mom bled a little, but was very VERY happy to have it out. She said even with the little blood in her eye it was much more comfortable than having it on her itching her. AND SUCKING HER BLOOD I should like to add.

For the rest of the ride home I kept checking my (and my baby's) hair and all over our bodies for the hidden ticks I knew were at that moment giving us Lyme disease. I didn't find any but that's probably because they saw the death of their comrade and ran for their lives.

* And finally, you will ALL think this is gross, but it made me just so happy. When I got into the upstairs shower that all the girls share, I noticed that there was hair on the wall. Isn't that awesome? ALLLLL my sisters put their hair on the wall while they are taking a shower. I don't know where we all learned it. Probably from each other. But it's so nice to know that the same trait is being passed down to my niece. And you should know that her mother (my sister in law) specifically TOLD her daughter to put her hair on the wall. Because after they pulled a hair ball out of the drain that was the size and shape of a large rat, they figured that was the best way to avoid it in the future. Makes sense to me! That's why I do it!

I love my family. It's good being home. I can't wait for the family reunion in July!

Wheels

My mom went back to Eureka driving another person's car. See, she didn't want to put the miles on her own car especially because she knew she would be back here in 2 weeks for a baby blessing. So she looked online and found someone that needed their car driven to the Bay Area. She's hopping on a bus there and will arrive back in Eureka tonight.

And I bet that doesn't really matter to all of you. But this will: I HAVE A CAR!!! For the next two weeks, this is what I'll be driving around:



Now the car itself is pretty cool. But I wouldn't car if it were some car that is old and falling apart. A car is a car! Just the fact that I have WHEELS is enough to make me so happy.

So people, what do you want to do in the next 2 weeks? I'm no longer a shut-in. Do you want to go to lunch? I can do that! Do you want to get our kids together at a park? I can do that too! Give me a call. I've got WHEELS!!

It's Baby Season

So I haven't posted in a while. I just didn't know what to write about. And I was reading a lot. And my mom just got into town. And why was she in town? Because it's BABY SEASON!!

First she made a stop off to Texas. Sarah had her 4th baby, and she was really hoping for a girl. She has one girl, two boys and I think she wanted to have another girl to make the sandwich family complete. Just like me, she didn't find out what she was having before, so it was a shock to her when she had a . . . .BOY!!! I know she's not upset. Her boys are BEAUTIFUL and brilliant and so much fun. I think she was happy about it.

Here is a picture of her kids and the new acquisition, Lincoln:















In the picture on the right you will see the three kids. From left to right their names are Jack, Noah and Isabel. Look at that smile on Jack. THAT IS ALLLLL MARSDEN. I don't know if they taught it to him or he came out of the womb looking like that. But he's got the look.

And here are some more family shots.

I just love this one of all three of them peering into the baby's face.

Sarah really does have some of the cutest smartest kids. Did I mention Jack is brilliant AND that he has a great lisp. Oh MAN, to hear him talk just makes you laugh.

So Sarah had this last kid natural, without an epidural. I'm totally going to do it next time. Now that I know what to expect and now that I know that drugs don't really work on my family's body, I'm totally going to go natural. She said she really couldn't tell a difference between going natural and the 3 previous with epidurals. I'm totally doing it.

So mom came to Utah but was saddened to learn that Nathan and Denisse's baby was being shy. She was a few days past her due date, and they told her that they wouldn't induce her until NEXT MONDAY, the day AFTER my mom will fly back to Eureka. This greatly upset my mom.

But then Monday night, we got word that some contractions were happening and then Tuesday morning we got a text saying they admitted her and THIS WAS THE DAY. My mom was SO grateful because it means that she gets to be here and spend the maximum amount of time with that baby.

And so they had their baby!! They named her Camila. Here are some pictures.















They were taken with camera phones, so please forgive the crappy quality. I'll try to get some better shots later. She was 7 lbs 7 oz and just teeny tiny. Holding her I felt like I was holding a shell of a baby. So light. So different from my massive chunker of a child and her ginormous thighs. I include some photos here so you know what kind of chunk we are dealing with:


The left leg is especially fat laden. (You can thank your daddy for those, Evi). Anyway, Denisse seems to be doing well. She leaves the hospital today so we'll see how the next few days & weeks go. Her brother, sister and mother are visiting from Mexico and will be here for the next month, so she'll have plenty of help. That's good. She'll need it!

And the 3rd baby of the season, Jake's baby boy, should be arriving in a few weeks. Mom will be coming out here again for that. I'll be sure to post pictures as soon as I can. I bet that kid is going to be HUGE!! We should start taking bets now.

And finally, for all you doubters out there. Here is a video of my child walking.



Why yes, we DO lure here across the room with food. (Those are Cheerios Dad is holding.) If memory serves me correctly, the first time we got a few steps out of her was because she was going for a cracker. My kind of girl.

See, everyone thought I was lying or exaggerating the truth. Everyone thought that maybe she was standing, or cruising and that being a super-proud first time mother I called that "walking." I'm telling you, she's been taking independent steps for almost two weeks now.

My mother was one of the non believers. She told me that sometimes skinny wirey babies walk that early, but never babies as "healthy" as Evi. (And yes, by healthy she meant FAT). But she was instantly proved wrong when Evi proceeded to walk across the room the first time I put her down on the ground.

Anyway, that's what's been going on here. I hope your week is going well!!

Baby Season 2009!! PAAAAR - TAYYY!!!

I Get Karma Points for My Childhood

My brother Jeff sent out this email with a bunch of pictures on it from my childhood. He had some pretty good ones and so of COURSE I must share them with you.

Exhibit #1:

This is a picture of my family at our family reunion in Eureka one year. I would suspect I was about 11 or 12. (1991 or 1992) Please notice the braces. Please notice the "heart shirt" I am wearing. My mother was (and still is) obsessed with hearts. Heart patch, heart blankets, hearts.

I think it also makes Jeff happy to see two of his siblings in University of Utah stuff. He actually bought ALL of us shirts from the U. He wanted us to wear them all the time. Oh, and please notice Sarah's hair. I think that's a perm/natural curl combo. My mom was always giving us perms. My perm has evidently grown out, and my natural curl hasn't arrived yet. Now you know why it took so long for me to realize I had curly hair: I had perm brainwashing all the years growing up.

Exhibit #2:

This is a picture of us, showing some of the effects of that constant perming.
So we are in the center of the picture. My mom is in that blue dress with Julie on her lap. Nate is sitting next to her and Sarah is on the other side. I'm the only one looking at the camera, but I'm almost all the way obscured. And of course, my father: Mr. Happy Pants. I think we were at some sort of Scouting event. But look at my mom's hair. You should know she has stick straight hair, so that is ALL PERM baby.

Exhibit #3:

A classic Halloween. This is Nate and Jake.
Basically we had 2 choices for costumes: Ninja and cheerleader. Thanks to Tina giving us all her old cheer outfits, we could wear them for years. (I'll try to get some pictures of those cheer costumes for future embarrassing posts). Anyway point simple, the boys were ninjas every year.

Exhibit #4:

Remember how I missed my calling as a ballerina? Well, after looking at this picture I don't think I was wrong in finding something else to do with my life.

That's me front and center with my arms open wide. My sister is the farthest one on the right standing up. Note the chiffon. Note the flowers in the hair. Please note the fact that I thought I was hot stuff. Commence mockery.

Exhibit #5:

Some cute kids.
On the left is Jake and Julie. You can always tell Jules in every picture because she has those red patches under her eyes. She's had them since birth and still has them to this day. Oh!! That dress she's wearing on the left was like her FAVORITE dress. One day we came home from one of Sarah's Jr. High basketball games and noticed that she was wearing that dress but not any underwear. Ahh, we were such raggamuffins.

And then in the picutre on the right, I belive that is Jules and Nate on one of our most beloved go-carts. We ran those things into the ground, but they were so SO awesome. So, I'm not 100% sure that's Julie, (it might be me on the cart) but just looking at the size of Nate tells me it is probably Julie.

The other reason I think that's a picture of Julie on the right is the fact that these are pictures that belong to Jeff. And Jeff was obsessed with Julie. She was HIS child, and he obviously preferred her to all the other kids. And with reason: he was there for her birth. He called her "Julie Bear" up until he met his wife who he then started calling "Tina Bear". But Julie went with him everywhere. He would take her on dates with him and all that jazz. I still harbor seething jealous resentment from it. Obviously.

Furthermore, the person on the go-cart is wearing boots and I NEVER owned any boots despite my begging and begging my mom to buy me some. We weren't rich enough to get more then 1 pair of shoes a year, and they had to be SCHOOL shoes. So white boots used primarily for fashion were out of the question. Anyway I'm pretty sure that's Jules on the Go-cart.

And finally, the culmination of all your hopes and dreams, what you have all been waiting around reading this lame post to see, here it is. . .

Exhibit #6

The Headgear. Oh the blessed blessed headgear. A pictures says a thousand words, so here, take a look at it.


I'm obviously on the far right. I had a pretty severe under bite and when my mom took me too the orthodontist in 1988, this was what they suggested I wear. You can see it's a metal frame with a plastic chin cup.

Let me just explain that chin cup: It was not fun. AZ is hot year round. Especially for a kid that runs around all the time, which is what I was. So That cup would sit on my chin and get all hot and sweaty and make my chin all hot and sweaty and break out in a horrible rash. Every day. Red chin EVERY DAY.

I don't remember too many people mocking me for the red chin, though. I think they all pitied me. And I had to wear it 24 hours for months, and then I got to just wear it at night. So by the time they saw me WITHOUT it (and just the red chin) they knew what it was from and it wasn't anything strange to them. But I need to find a picture of myself without the headgear on so you can see the effects of a suffocated chin.

There was also a little rectangle that attached to the top that was to sit on my forehead. But I got smart after a few months and got rid of it. So instead of having a square of red skin, I had a red line/scab because that thin little bar would dig into my skin.

So there you go. Those are a few pictures showing the horror that was growing up in my family. Aren't you thanking the heavens right now for your family? I thought so.

Home again, Home again. Jiggity Jig

Mar and I just got back last night from Texas. That's right, we had a REAL Texas Christmas. It was so great to be with my family and to just all get together. And of course to see Julie get married. I don't want to do a full time-line or day by day play back for you. It would just take too long. So here are some of the highlights:

* Santa found the house!! He came and brought presents to both Jeff & Tina's kids AND Sarah's kids. Christmas morning was so much fun and we had several beloved presents that classified as "room leavers" i.e. they made the kid so excited to open it he had to leave the room to show someone else in another room and/or put the beloved present in it's new home

*Even with all the pregnancy scares everyone was able to make it. We weren't sure Clarin would be there, her doctor might've grounded her. But she made it and it was a full belly bonanza. Seriously, so many pregnant woman. We were a sight walking down the streets of Six Flags. And so many ready to pop!! It made me realize how close these girls all are!!

* The gift exchange between siblings was so much fun. I don't think we'll ever do it again. Maybe we will. We'll have to see if we are all still into it. I got new luggage!! It was JUST what I needed and it was perfect. Marcelo got a video game. Great.

* Julie's wedding was beautiful and perfect and there was minimal mom/dad drama. The sealer said a great quote by President Hinckley that I cannot find. But he said that if we couldn't remember the quote (smart sealer, knowing we would forget almost all of the ceremony) we should remember these 1o short little words: If it is to be, it is up to me. Marcelo and I decided we want that phrase up somewhere in our house.

* Christmas day while we were eating and playing with our toys and did I mention eating? Well, while we were eating and playing and waiting for the rest of my family to arrive, my brother Jeff, My brother in law Chad and various random cousins decided to prepare and shoot off some rockets. They make them themselves and they usually have parachutes on them. They are just basically really cool. They took them over to the field next to their kids' elementary school. They set off the first rocket and they were looking at pictures on Jeff's camera and then Chad said, "do you smell burning?" Yup, they set a field on fire. They stamped it out and were THISCLOSE to calling the fire department. But they had enough people to stamp it out so they kept it under control. But many new shoes had to be bought.

* The day after Christmas (the day BEFORE the wedding) we all went to Six Flags together. The temperature was really good and we got really REALLY discounted tickets. It was NOT fun going with a baby. Don't try ever going with someone under 36 inches. There are absolutely NO "family" rides. But my sister (who is 6 weeks away from her due date) watched my baby so I could go on 2 rides with Marcelo. It wasn't SO devastating because more then half the rides were closed for the Christmas season. So of the few rides that were open, we went on the only 2 rides we wanted to go on anyway.

We did get to go on the Titan. This coaster climbs and climbs and climbs and then drops STRAIGHT down. As it just kept climbing and climbing, I thought to myself "I totally regret this decision". But it was really fun. Just so you know, Marcelo refused to go on it. He's such a scaredy cat.

* The wedding day went quite smoothly. We were there early, pictures were quick, and the torrential downpour that was taking place as we walked into the temple had cleared up by the time we left the temple. Almost like someone in the temple prayed for that to happen!!

* The night before the wedding my mom got sick. Up vomiting 6-8 times. Sarah was so apologetic because her kids had had it the week before. But my mom pushed through. The day of the wedding she was running on no sleep and no food. But she was such a trooper.

* It hit me the night of the wedding. I was 24 hours behind my mom but I had it all. The vomiting over and over again. Your body just wants EVERYTHING out. And it doesn't care if there is nothing in there, it will convulse until you get SOMETHING up, dang it! Well, remember how I sometimes pass out when I puke? At my 2:30 puke session, the last thing I remember is running to the toilet as fast as I could because the retching had already started. I think I collapsed when I was almost there, because I woke up with my back against the tub (which is next to the toilet) my head on the wall and vomit in my mouth. It was scary because my head was hanging back and the puke was still coming up even as I was passed out. I very quickly realized that I could've choked on it and died. There was puke all around me, on my clothes, on the wall, on the floor but not a drop in the toilet. No sir, that toilet was nice and clean.

And I think when I fell down was when I woke up my niece who was sleeping on just the other side of the door (it was a "Jack and Jill" style bathroom). Poor girl, I think I scared her. I know I scared myself!! I recuperated for the next 3 days and I was still puking the night before we flew home. It was a full 3 days of pukedom. Or as Kim refers to it "Puke Fest '08"

* Marcelo and I went to a nice Texas Steakhouse the night before we left. Sarah watched the Pesi and we had a good time. Well, he had a good time, but I was realizing that I most likely would be puking in a few hours time. My joy was a lot more muted. But the food was amazing. I'm definitely going back there the next time I'm in Texas. And this time I'm going to keep it down.

* And finally, did you know the tap water in Texas by my sister's house smells and tastes like dirt? I don't know how else to describe it. You smell it and it's very "earthy" and it smells just like damp earth. ("It has an oaky afterbirth." Ha!!) Kidding. But not all Texas water is this way. The farther south closer to Dallas you get the better it is. But her water is VERY strong. My mom was the biggest whiner about it. Most of us just drank the filtered Brita water, but mom went and bought big jugs of bottled water. I actually really appreciated it when I was sick. For some reason, while sick I had a really strong aversion to the water, even though I had been drinking it for the whole first part of the week with no problem. Strange.

I had a great time with my family and I wish that we could do this every year. I wish I had pictures to post here, but Marcelo left a bag at Sarah's house and it has our camera in it. I'll try to post some later, so please come back for pictures.

I've never been so happy to be back in Utah. I love being with my family, and I love traveling. But there is just something about being in your own space that makes you sane once again. Whenever I leave, I'm so thankful to be at home, wherever that home may be.

Post Thanksgiving Wrap-up

I really don't have anything to blog. I was going to blog about how my baby *ALMOST* has this night time sleeping thing down. We had like FIVE days in a row where she went down without me rocking her, and only woke up once for a night time feeding. But then the moment I start to get smug, I get slapped with some reality. She was awake (and crying) for hours last night. It wasn't a good night.

We are trying to "Ferberize" her. It seemed to be going well. I learned several things in just the first few pages of the book.

#1) My baby was sleeping too much during the day. I didn't think that was possible, but turns out it is. Less sleep during the day means more continuous sleep at night

#2) I think I was feeding her too much right before bed. So now we have solid food about 6 pm and then we get most of our dinner at 7:30 BEFORE the bath. It gives her time to get all the burps out and then she's ready to go down after her bath.

#3) I should let her put herself to sleep in the same way she needs to go to sleep at night. So if I have to rock her to sleep every night, then I'm going to have to rock her to sleep at 1 am when she wakes herself up from the REM sleep. However, If I let her put herself to sleep in her crib with a "transitional item" she will be able to put herself to sleep at 1 am when I'm not there.

#4) And finally, I need to get her in her own room. I didn't read this in the book. I'm just really realizing it's not working with her being in the room with us.

So those are the moments of clarity I've had this past week. Oh, and one more not related to sleeping schedules of my baby: If your brother leaves a pan of oil where your dog can find it and eat it, you should expect your dog to throw up many times for the next 12 hours. Maybe 7 times. Maybe it's greasy and has chunks of pineapple in it because someone gave pieces of pineapple to your dog and she gobbled them up. Oh, and olives too. There must always be olives in your dog's puke.

Ahh, good times. If you were wondering about my Thanksgiving, it was lovely. Thank you for asking. We went over to the House that MaxKyle is living in, and we had quite the feast. My mom for some reason decided that she needed to make 3 different kinds of pies, and she needed to make 2 of each. That means 6 pies. And there were only 13 of us eating. So if you do the math, that means each of us got about 1/2 of a whole pie. There was a ridiculous amount of pie left over. No worries, I took care of it over the next couple of days.

What else? What else? Evi is really cute these days. She sits up and is nearly crawling. She even almost pulled herself up on our coffee table the other day. She loves to eat rice and she loves to suck on ice cubes. She loves to bang her spoon on her high chair tray. She loves to smile and coo at her mom and dad. She hates it when mom leaves the room and she screams to get her to come back. (I actually HATE that. I think it's really annoying and is putting her on the pathway to being a spoiled little beast). She has her 6 month check up today and I think she's going to hate me after she gets her shots.

So that's it. I really don't have anything else going on. I'm very worried about buying Christmas gifts. I have no idea what to get everyone. At least Evi is taken care of: She's getting bath toys. I think she'll love them.

I hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving!!

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I've never been really into Christmas. My family doesn't have any traditions surrounding Christmas except one: we eat Chinese food on Christmas Eve. And if you really think about it, that's not too much. There's no Nativity re-enactment, no caroling into the wee hours, no reading of the Christmas Story in Luke, or even in the Book of Mormon.

We just don't do anything. I don't know if it's because of my father. See he was never into Christmas and almost always he would work on Christmas Day (he would get paid triple overtime to work on that day. So it was a win-win for him. He got to be away from his kids, spend the day bashing heads AND make money. So really it was a win-win-win)

Anyway, because we never really did anything cool on Christmas, I don't really feel any special attachment to the day. I mean, in the past Christmas was up there with the 4th of July or even like Halloween. I mean, free candy? Dressing up? Oh yeah, growing up Halloween was MUCH better than Christmas.

And then I started working for the she-beast. The succubus of fun. The black hole of holidays. When Lynn wanted a DAY yo go home to visit her VERY sick father (who might not see another Christmas), Jean didn't want to give it to her. (Surprise surprise, right?) And so holidays were never high on my list, other than for the reason that I got to get away from that horrible job. But I've always known that I had to go back.

But this year? This year, my friends, I get to ENJOY the Holidays. We will be starting with a little Halloween time. We have a baby to take around and everyone can ohhh and ahh at her and say she's adorable even though she's not going to be wearing a cute outfit. (I won't waste money on an outfit this year. She can't even walk!!) And we will spend some time with the ward and with friends. Maybe some spiced cider, friends?

And then we have some Thanksgiving time. The party is going to be coming here. Well, everyone but Sarah and Jeff. So 4 of the 6 kids and their families will be there. And guess where we will be having the dinner. Just guess. Not in my little rat-hole apartment. No-sir-ee. We are going to MaxKyle's huge house. All his roommates will be gone and we have the whole place to ourselves. We can get buck WILD with the turkey (and side dishes) and watch their large screen TV all day. I'm very excited.

Plus we don't have to worry about the "two dinners" like we tried to do last year. If you remember, last Thanksgiving was the first time there was a "division" of activities between my parents. We tried to do something with both of them on that day, but it didn't really work out. So this year we aren't even pretending. There will just be one activity, one meal, and my dad can just sit alone and think about the fact that he has pushed all his kids away from him.

And then, my friends, Christmas. But wait!! First we have some Birthday celebrations! First there is Allen and then there is Reagan. And I'm very excited to sing all the songs to both of them. And of course there will be cake. And probably some presents. And some more cake.

And then to Texas for a REAL Christmas. There will be nativity re-enactments. And Chinese food. And fondue (Chad's tradition) and maybe some Christmas Day Hot Tubbin'. I don't even care about presents. They really don't matter.

The best present will be that I will have a Summit-Free Christmas. I don't have to worry about getting a present for everyone in the office. See everyone in the office always leaves it to the assistants to figure out what they will get Jean. And we are in charge of buying it, and paying for it and wrapping it and then *hopefully* we get paid back from everyone. And then there could be a bad situation like last year where Jean decided not to buy presents for the agents and then they call me and are like "uh, are we getting presents this year?" and it's SUPER uncomfortable for me. BUT I DON'T HAVE TO DO IT THIS YEAR!!! I should call the new assistant and let them know what they have to look forward to. I really think they should be warned.

But It's not me!! It's not my responsibility. I get to sit back and live it up at the houses of others and just enjoy being with my family. You know, what the holidays are all about! It truly is the most wonderful time of the year.

Toilet Troubles

I don't clean toilets. I don't know if you have read on my side bar that I spend my days trying to get out of cleaning the toilets in our house. I don't do them. I will do everything else in order to get out of cleaning the toilets. I will wash the showers, scrub the floors, clean the sinks, do the mirrors, wipe the walls. I'll do all the laundry, fold it and put it away. I'll do all the dishes, make dinner and then clean the kitchen. I'll vacuum all the floors bathe the dog and then put the baby down for a nap. I will do all of this and and all Marcelo has to do is clean the toilets.

(Actually I don't put Marcelo's clothes away. I just fold them and put them in a basket for him to put away himself) But I do all these other things and I HAPPILY do it in order to get out of cleaning the toilets. That's how much I hate cleaning them.

Old roommates will remember that every time we would have cleaning days, I would trade with the other person who was doing the other bathroom and I would do their shower AND their sink in order to get out of doing the toilet. I cannot emphasize how much I hate cleaning toilets.

Why? Did I always have this aversion? Yes. It comes from growing up in my house. Let me tell you a story. See when we first moved into our house back in 1993, we put in new vinyl flooring in the bathroom. We actually hired a professional to do this because at the time we didn't know how to do it ourselves. And I don't know if you know how easy they are to install. I have probably PERSONALLY installed about 15 of them. And I can tell you that it is NOT difficult to remove and re-install the toilet. But this bonehead decides to CUT AROUND the toilet.

And of course, we needed a new toilet in about 5 years. Why is that? Well, because of the BFTT's of course. What are the BFTT's you ask? Well, those are the Bingham Family Toilet Troubles. And boy do we have them. We are notorious for clogging toilets, spending great blocks of time in the bathroom on the toilet and more than one of us have had a serious "explosion" issue at one time or another.

But back to my story. I'm sure we got the toilet because we were clogging the previous one so much. But there was a slight problem: The base of this new toilet was a narrow oval. But the previous toilet was a more boxy angular one. And because the vinyl had been CUT around, this mean that there was now plywood exposed at the base of our toilet.

Again, maybe you are all thinking "So what?" Well, there is one more thing you need to know. the 3 men living in the house had no aim whatsoever when it came to peeing in the toilet. Actually, my father was a raging diabetic for probably 6 years and he never knew. He would just keep getting up 4-5 times a night to go pee. (You would think that the fact that he wasn't pregnant but still peeing as much as a pregnant woman does would've made him realize that something is wrong) Anyway, in order to keep from waking up all the way, he would just whip it out and start peeing in the general direction of the toilet. He would listen until he could hear the sound of his pee hit the water and then he would know where to continue to go.

I'm not making this stuff up. Every morning there was a puddle around the toilet. We actually used to have a trash can next to the toilet by my mom moved it after she would routinely find inches of urine in it week after week. And it would mold over. It was really nasty. AAAND it would seep down into the plywood and just sit there. The plywood would soak it up and there was no way you could get it out. You would scrub and scrub and it didn't matter. Actually, once you cleaned the bathroom, the moist wood would release the odor that had been"fresh locked" in and it would be terrible. Who else's bathroom smells worse AFTER you clean it? But ours did.

And of course the boys never had to clean the bathrooms. They never had to clean up after themselves, so they never worried about peeing on the outside of the toilet. Our bathroom always smelled of urine. ALWAYS. 365 days a year. And we only had one bathroom, so there wasn't like any other option to where we could go to pee. Because of this, I became the world's fastest peer. I can be in and out of the bathroom in 40 seconds, and that INCLUDES the washing of the hands. There is nothing worse then sitting down and having the dank old smell of urine waft up to you from the floorboards.

So basically, I don't clean toilets because of the smells associated with them. But I have a wonderful husband. He NEVER MISSES the toilet. Since living with him, we have never had a toilet that smells like stale week-old urine. And even if we did, he would clean it up because, well, did I mention that I don't clean toilets?

And finally,the other toilet trouble we have is that we tend to drop our phones in the toilet. It must be a family habit. My mom has lost 2 in there in the last 6 months. And Jules just lost her phone in there last week when she was home. My mom could fish hers out but not Jules. Hers was REALLY lost. It got jammed in the pipe and they had to buy a new toilet cause it wouldn't come out.

Ha! Now that's a REAL toilet trouble.

The Fall Conundrum

Heather wrote a post about how right now in Arizona it was 94 degrees and she was so happy because it was the perfect weather! I remember those days. See, when I was growing up I always loved my birthday. Even though my birthday was in late September, it was always warm enough to go to the lake. It really was the perfect weather.

The fact that we went to the lake even in the third week in September and it was wonderfully warm meant to me that it was summer. So I always thought that September was summer. It wasn't until I was in college that I heard someone refer to September as a Autumn month. And my mind rejected it for a while, because September was warm, and summer was warm, so September was summer!! It's clearly an A=B, B=C so A=C situation.

Since moving to Utah, I have come to realize that there ARE 4 seasons. In AZ you just have 2 seasons: 1)Hot and 2)Getting ready to get hot. And that brings me to my next story. An embarrassing little tidbit from my freshman year of college.

So like I said, AZ has no seasons. So things are either brown or light green. The green comes from the eucalyptus plants. What do you expect? It's a desert people!! Deserts are brown!

But then I moved to Eureka. Eureka is the opposite of Arizona. But I've already written a post about Eureka. Actually, Lisa said that it reminded her of Forks, WA from Twilight when I was describing it. THAT IS MY TOWN!!! When I started reading that book, I immediately thought of my town because that's just what it's like. It's green, covered with forests, there is a Native American Tribe close by. I'm not kidding. If there wasn't a Forks in real life, I would've put down money that they were talking about my home town.

But back to my point. Eureka is green all the time, every day, every moment of every day. All the trees stay green year long, and it's beautiful. I know I've talked about how the trees on the mountains go right into the ocean. It's great for someone like me who loves the color green.

So my freshman year of college I was a young and naive little girl of 17. I loved being on my own, and I loved being at school. I had never lived somewhere where it snowed on a regular basis, so I was looking forward to experiencing that.

One day I was walking home from my Friday anatomy lab and I was admiring the mountains and how tall they are and how they were so close. But then there was something wrong. I didn't know what was going on, but I knew just who to ask.

I walked in and found the person I was looking for:

"Catherine, What is going on up on the mountains?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, there is something weird up there. Like some little red dots or something. What's happening?"
. . .Pause. . .
[cue condescending tone] "Uh, those are the TREES, they are changing COLORS."

I felt like an idiot, and her tone let me know that I should feel exactly this way. It's not my fault that I've never seen the trees change color!! I mean, I've always heard of that happening *in theory* but I had never experienced it for myself. And having never seen it before, I didn't know that the trees turned at different times. I thought they all simultaneously turned red together. I think that's what threw me off more than anything: They were just dots of red among the green. It's not what I was expecting.

So if you are from my home town, I want to just clue you in on a little bit of information: The trees in Utah change colors pretty drastically, and they don't change all at the same time. Oh, and the people that grow up in Utah will make fun of you for not knowing this.

P.S. When my brother Jake moved to Utah out here 1 year ago we were driving around with him and I told that story. He wasn't paying attention to my story and only caught the moment when I said, "and then I was walking home and I saw something on the mountain. And I noticed there was something there." And RIGHT THEN he looked up to the mountain and said, "Hey, what's up there on the mountain? What's that red stuff?" HA HA HA!!! See, I'm not the only one!! Eureka will do that to you. You think all trees are supposed to be green always and you will question yellow and red trees forever.

Colorado pictures

Here are some great pictures from Colorado. I don't know if you really can get the hilarity of the situation from these pictures. Or my frustration at the lack of some other choice besides chocolate cake. And please don't look at my double chin. I'm working on it!!

So here is my brother, my sister, my oldest cousin and myself trying to put together the archway. Notice the look on my oldest brother's face. I guess these pictures DO show our true feelings about the situation.


We were all supposed to that thing where you put it between your legs and ride it like a broomstick pony. But my mom took the picture too soon. Blast her trigger finger!!

Anyway, here is a picture of all my siblings. My mom really wanted all of us there. Red stage curtain, anyone? Wood paneling? CHECK!!
And here is a picture of all of us:


My mom was picking lint off of me. That green blanket I brought was 100% fuzz. Classy.

And this is of course pre-haircut. I still need to post a picture of my hair. But I don't have anywhere to go, so I don't have any reason to do it. Someone needs to invite me over so I have some reason to do my hair.

So much to tell!!

I really have so much to tell, I don't know where to start. I guess I'll just start typing and see where it leads me.

Firstly: Julie is engaged. To MaxKyle. I know, shocking. Remember how we weren't allowed to even BE THINKING about marriage or SUGGEST that they might be getting married? Like on Thursday I was on the phone with my sister Sarah and Jules was in the room and I said, "NO PRESSURE JULES, but IIIIFFFF you were to get married where would you do it?" And she said Dallas. That tells me that they've already talked about where they would get married, but again, we were not allowed to ask her questions!!

And so Sarah hears this and says "Oooookay. So should I start buying some furniture now? Like give me a time line. Are we thinking December? Or the Spring? Give me a hint here. Do I need to start looking for extra beds on Craig's List?" And Julie says, "No, not at all. Not December. Definitely not December. We'll see about the Spring. But still probably not then either." And then she follows it up with her standard excuse, "We've only been dating 3 months!!"

Well That was Thursday. Two days after she came home. So Friday she went off to spend an evening with MK again, and my mom prepared to driver to Vernal in the next morning (to visit Jake, of course). Well, the next morning I TOTALLY eavesdropped on my mom and Julie's conversation right outside my window.

Sure enough, he gave her a ring that night. He wanted to show her that he was serious about her. He didn't expect to ask her to marry him, though. (according to him) But that seems really dumb. "Here is this ring, it's a diamond. It has a gold band, But I'm not asking you to marry me. Even though I want to marry you, but I'm not asking. I just want you to wear this ring, you know if you want to. Or you can agree to marry me if you want to. But NO PRESSURE." Weird.

I really like the fact that :
#1 He bought the ring without talking to her AT ALL. That takes some balls. He did a good job. It's a beautifully simple ring and she loves it.
#2 He didn't ask my dad permission. That just would've been a BAD SCENE. Kudos to him for not even going there
#3 He didn't talk to her about the marriage and then wait to give her the ring 1 week before they got married and THEN consider themselves "engaged." They are mature enough to call a spade a spade: They are getting married, so they are ENGAGED. I wish they could teach a seminar about this simple law of common sense to the idiot girls here at BYU. Hell, make it a whole course if you think you can't grasp the concept in a few seminar classes.

Jules was pretty sure she knew her answer. She's really level headed about things, so there wasn't really any giddiness and crap like that. But here's the kicker. We asked her when she's getting married and she says, "December" BWAA HAAA HAAA!!! So I guess Jules is level headed about most things except making declarative statements that she almost immediately rescinds.

So we are all going to Dallas for Christmas. It's going to be a party that might or might not be catered by Taco Bell. That's MK's favorite food, and he really wants the reception food to come from there. My mom might have a problem with that, we'll see. Oh and Julie is moving to Dallas. Lucccccky. I want to get out of Utah, too.

So a week later we were off to Denver. It was craziness as we were getting ready to go, but eventually we were on the road. The pathway there was pretty uneventful. Nothing to report there. But once we got there, ohhh buddy!!! I think I'm going to do this in my tried and tested "time line" post. Enjoy!!

Friday:
12:30: We get on the road traveling to Denver. Jake decides to bring his brand new wiener dog. She's 5 months old. I'm scared she's going to pee on or bite the face off my baby because she's still a puppy. Jake says he's going to buy a kennel and keep her kenneled the whole trip. I feel better about it.

2:30: We arrive at Price for a "snack break." We buy ridiculous amounts of cheddar popcorn, sandwiches, sunflower seeds and gummy bears. It holds us off until 8:45 pm when we stop for dinner

10:55 we arrive at the Hotel. Sarah had already arrived by plane and she was in the hotel. Here's how the rooms were divided: Me, Evi, Mom, Jules AND Sarah in a room with 2 double beds. I would complain about how tight it was, but Jeff & Tina and their FIVE kids were in the same kind of room. In another room was Nate, Denisse and MK. And then Jake and Clarin had their own room. My mom, Jeff, Sarah and Julie stay up really late talking and laughing. I really do like my family. If we aren't making fun of my mom, then we are making fun of each other. You have to have a tough skin in this family. And be prepared to be made fun of for the same crap over and over again.

3:00 pm: We finally go to sleep

Saturday:
8:00 am: Finally get out of bed. There is a free continental breakfast where we are. It's not a crappy breakfast, either. It's really good. Waffles (with one of those waffle makers that flips over) and cereal and bagels and toast and Hostess cupcakes. Because no breakfast is complete without some sort of lard filled chocolate cake.

8:30 am: While eating breakfast, my mom comes in in her bathing suit. Yup, she went for an early morning swim with most of Jeff's kids. See, my mom made SURE to get a hotel with an INDOOR, HEATED pool. Not only did it have that, it also was open 24 HOURS!!! I mean, what more can you ask for? My mom was in heaven. (I don't know if you are aware my mom has a little water addiction. Yeah, it's a main focal point in her mind always when we travel.) Don't worry, she wasn't only in her bathing suit. she had on a towel and a shirt. But she was definitely fresh from the pool.
While at the breakfast the mother of the bride informs us that she will be going to the chapel to do some decorating for the reception and that if anyone would like to come help her, we would all be welcome. In the history of declarative statements, never has a more understatement been made.

10:00 am: We drive to the chapel and unload. Who is there? Well, from my family it's Jeff, Tina and their 5 kids, Sarah Nate, Denisse, Me, Evi and Jake & Clarin. From Clarin's side it's her mom, her dad and her brother. Oh I was already worried about this, but I guess we just follow their instructions, right?

10:03 am: Wrong. As we get to the chapel, we notice that Clarin's mom has a "schematic" layout of how she wants it to look. Apparently, she borrowed the schematic and all the decorations from someone else. That meant that she really had no idea what she exactly had. And she had no idea what to do with it.

10:15 am: She shows the schematic to my mom

10:21 am: Still showing the schematic. Let me explain the schematic. You could look at it for 30 seconds and know what was going on. Yet she takes so long to explain it. She has this schematic in her hands and is explaining it for the next 2 hours. I am not kidding when I say this. For a long time our family was under the impression that there was some sort of complicated mechanical engineering diagram and description on that paper. When we finally got a look at it, it immediately became a source of mocking because of its simplicity.

Also, because the mom was explaining this horribly elementary schematic for 2+ hours, she didn't direct anyone else. We were all standing around waiting for her to give us a job. She never did that. She just looked to the schematic hoping it would tell her what to do.

10:30 am: After watching her look at that paper and walk up to random people and show them the paper, I decide to get to work on my own. I open a box. It looks like some sort of trellis or archway. I decide to put it together. How hard can it be?

10:50 am: It's hard. It's not a regular trellis. It doesn't have the normal archway shape. I can see that several of the bars have numbers on them and my RMYL degree helps me out in telling me that #1 is attached to #2 and so on. But not all the bars have numbers. And it seems that while there are 4 bars with a #1 on them, there are six bars with #2 on them. So there are 4 legs or 6? Can I see a picture? Are there instructions anywhere? Anything? I am afraid to ask the mother for fear she might show me the schematic again.

11:04 am: Sarah and I give up. We tell the mom that there just won't be a trellis. We are sorry, but there is nothing we can do without a picture or some idea of how it's supposed to look.

11:05 am: Clarin's brother walks over and tells us that he knows what it should look like. Not only that, but HE HAS ASSEMBLED THIS EXACT TRELLIS PREVIOUSLY and do we want him to tell us so we can put it together?

11:06 am: I am so frustrated that I walk away without a word to him. I think he gets the hint. What idiot sits and watches you struggle for 45 minutes with something for which he has specific knowledge of it's assembly? So mad

11:30 am: There is some sort of stringing of wires going on. All according to the schematic of course. Then they realize that the schematic was crap and so we have to take down all the wires and basically start over again. So after all that schematic praise, we throw it out and make out own plan

12:20 pm: Jules and MK go to find a gas station. They *SAY* it's so they can get a drink, but I think they needed to make out again.

12:25 pm: The other mom is still trying to use the schematic to decide where to put the tables. I am just now noticing that there is NO ONE else helping. There are no ladies from the ward, there is no one at all but my family. I ask my mom why and she said she thinks it's because they don't live in this town. WHAAAA??? Why are they having it here, then? Apparently because they USED to live here 3 years ago. So imagine if I were having a baby. I used to live in Logan, but now I live in Spanish Fork. Well, Instead of having my shower in Spanish Fork, I have it in Logan. Do you think people will drive 3 hours to come to my shower? Especially when they only have a few weeks notice? Especially if this shower takes place at the exact day and time of the General Relief Society Broadcast? Yeah, I wouldn't have been there either. So that's why we had no one to help.

12:30 pm: Jeff, Nate and Denisse have given up and are in the foyer hanging out.

12:45 pm: My mom realizes that we are only like 20% done, and of that 20%, her family has done EVERYTHING. She knows that if her family checks out, nothing is going to happen. She goes and naggs everyone to get going

12:47 pm: While standing on a table to drape tulle on the wires hanging from the ceiling (don't ask, I don't want to explain it) I fall off the table. Luckily I wasn't holding my baby. But I do make a fool of myself. And then I felt dumb.

1:15 pm: Food arrives. We eat and pretend that we aren't where we are right now. We don't see an end in sight.

1:20 pm: A friend comes and starts to help Clarin's mom put lights and Tulle and Ivy on the trellis. They seem to be doing a lot of yakking, very little decorating.

1:30 pm: Someone else arrives and starts ironing tablecloths. There are only 7 circular tablecloths that she has to do. It take her 2 and a half hours to do this. I am not kidding.

2:00 pm: I notice that after 40 minutes Clarin's mom has only been able to put on strand of lights on. I am frustrated. Why can't she work and talk at the same time? What is the matter with this family? Where is the father? Oh, he's taking a nap on the couch. Where is the brother? Gone, just gone. Friends? One is yakking and distracting the mom and the other is taking a butt-long time to iron 7 small pieces of fabric. We have the tables up but are waiting for cloths to put on them. Clarin went ad bought stuff to make centerpieces and it is taking her about 45 min to complete each one. And I have just heard a rumor that there will be no food. I am not looking forward to the evening. I want this to be over.

2:00 pm: I start to look around for crap I can do so I can get out of here. I also start to think up excuses to get us out of here. Baby is a good one. I can also pretend to get the runs really badly. Nothing gets everyone movin' like a diarrhea scare.

2:20 pm: Clarin's mom gets up to show that damn schematic to one more person. I pounce on the trellis job that still only has one thing of lights on it. I finish the lights, the tulle, and the Ivy in 10 minutes. AND I was talking to my sister the whole time. IT CAN BE DONE!!! WHOOO HOOOOO!!!

2:30 pm: We realize that Clarin is having problems with the centerpieces. I come in a save the day (of course) Just kidding. But I walk in and in 15 minutes I have done 3 centerpieces. AND I was babysitting my crazy nephew Maxwell and my niece Rayce who was being difficult and grabbing things out of my hands. Even with all those distractions I was able to get three done. What is wrong with this family? Whatever

3:00 pm: We finally leave. Naps are taken, pools are swum in, and showers taken. It's lovely. I want Tina to cut my hair, but she doesn't have time to do it. She instead says that she'll bring her scissors to the reception and during a quiet down time, she'll cut it there. I'm excited.

7:00 pm: We go to the shower. Sure enough, there is no food. NO FOOD!! You are having a reception at a DINNER TIME and inviting MORMONS, an you don't have food? What is the matter with you? All they have is a tray of fruit. And not a fancy spread either. We are talking grapes, melon and pineapple. We are not pleased. Oh, there also is a chocolate fountain. But the *brainiacs* that compose her family decide to assemble and fire the thing up without reading the instructions. This meant that there is never a smooth flow of chocolate and things get stuck down inside the motor and frequently clog it up. OH, and here is what they have to dip in it: Graham crackers, Nilla Wafers (which are just blonde graham crackers!!! Try a little variety people!) and marshmallows, which I don't eat. I did not partake. I am angered

7:30 pm: My rage does not abate when I realize that there is ONLY flavor of cake: chocolate. I SPECIFICALLY ASKED ABOUT THE CAKE SITUATION AND I WAS ASSURED THAT THERE WOULD BE SOME OTHER CHOICE BESIDES CHOCOLATE. Flames shoot from my ears, molten lava flows from my mouth. I am mad. This evening and weekend as a whole have JUST been ruined.

I could put up with annoying people on the 8 hour drive there, I can put up with incompetence in reception decorating. I can even put up with the lack of food (when there is a promise of non-chocolate cake here and a real meal after we leave). But I will not, I SHALL NOT accept the cake situation. Who does that? I mean, who buys a GIANT chocolate sheet cake and THEN makes her fancy two-tiered decorated cake ALSO chocolate? UUUGHHH, I was so mad. It officially ruined everything and I wanted to leave right then.

I was not the only one. Our family make up well over half the guests there. There was no dancing, silly music and crazy people. My family was DEFINITELY the fun table of the evening.

8:00 pm: I get my hair cut SHORT. Whacked would be a good way to describe it. I love it. You might even get to see a picture of it. We'll see. . .

9:00 pm: It's over. We are done. We start to put up the chairs.

9:05 pm: Clarin's mom comes over and asks Tina who told her to do it. Tina says, "I just do what I'm told" basically pushing the blame onto some other phantom person. The mom is still upset. She says, "Well, since it started late, we are going to go until 9:30." WHEN WILL THIS TORTURE END? Ughhh!! Let us out of our misery already.

Nathan decides to clear out the chapel his own special way. He decides to "smoke them out." And how will he do this? Why with the BFTT's of course!! He picks a group of people standing around and he goes in and pretends to joint the conversation. About 10 seconds into it, he turns around and puts his bum in the center of the circle and then lets out a silent but deadly gas explosion. And then he just walks away. Oh boy does it work!!

And he had us all in hysterics. Watching everyone clear out and then in just a few minutes the smell was everywhere. And it lingered like you wouldn't believe. And he did it over and over again. It was the best part of the night.

9:30 pm: We finally get out. And then we get to go have some real food. And the weekend was basically over. And not a moment too soon, if you ask my opinion.

So that was a really long post to basically say the following: My family is hilarious and chocolate cake sucks. Man, I am still mad about that. I think that I will go to a cake store and sample the different kinds of cake just to gt some good cake. I'M PISSED ABOUT THAT CAKE!!! Who wants to eat some cake with me? I promise it won't be chocolate.

MaxKyle?

Someone asked about "MaxKyle" and I thought I should explain because you will probably be hearing a lot about him.

MaxKyle is from Dallas and his first name is Kyle. His whole family calls him Kyle. But when he came to school here in Provo, he introduced himself as Max, which is his middle name. Why such the difference? I don't know. But that's the way things are going around here.

So I named him MaxKyle. All together. One word. MaxKyle it is. It also helps because we have a nephew named Max. It keeps everything clear, concise and understandable.

And who is MaxKyle? He's Julie's man. He drives a bullet bike. He works at FedEx. He goes to school and he's CRAZY about Jules. And she's pretty nuts over him. How nuts? Well she was in Thailand and was supposed to stay until March. Then March got moved to Christmas. And then October because maybe MaxKyle could come and visit her. But that fell through. And so she came home Tuesday. As in 2 days ago.

Fishy, isn't it? Well, it gets better. You see, she made us drop her off at his house before we took her home so she could bathe. She hadn't taken a shower for 4 days, she hadn't slept for more than 2 hours in a row over the last 3 days, and she was still wearing the same pair of undies. But even in this state she wanted to see him.

BUT HEAR THIS!! YOU MAY NOT TALK ABOUT MARRIAGE WITH JULES! DON'T HINT AT IT, DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!! ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT IT? STOP IT!!

It's so funny because they are so crazy about each other, but they don't want anyone to assume that they will be married. And I actually agree with that. I mean, they've only known each other for 3 months, so that's a pretty smart move on her part.

Anyway, MaxKyle is a staple around here. He was at Jake's wedding and he will be coming in the crazy caravan with us to Colorado. He came to my Birthday lunch today, and he's over at our house every day after work. It's a good thing we like him.

Wedding Bells

I know that everyone is wondering about this, because I made reference to it in my last blog. Yes, Jacob is Married. (Actually, that's ALL anyone commented about in my last blog. WTW?) I'll answer all of your questions. I know what you are asking because we've heard it for several weeks now:

Q: Wow!! Isn't he really young?
A: Yes, he is. He just turned 19 in April. She's 21, maybe 22 already. He's only done one semester of school and really doesn't have too many life experiences. But they want to be married and no one can stop them.

Q: Didn't that happen really fast?
A: Yes, They've only known each other since January and maybe even February. They've only been talking marriage since the 3rd week in August. Actually, back around the 24th of July, he and Clarin BOTH said that they were thinking about going on a mission at the same time and then coming back and maybe hooking up after the mission.

Q: So what happened?
A: No one knows. Were they really thinking about going, but then something "happened?" Or were they just telling us a line about the mission so we would be happy? No one knows what really happened But all of a sudden they told us they were getting married on October 14th. We all thought "Holy Crap!! That's soon!"

But it was to get worse. Two days later they came over for dinner and they said, "Oh yeah, we are going to get married in 3 weeks. On the 13th of September." Uh, what? Why so soon? Well, apparently they wanted to have it that weekend because her brother was going to get military leave and they wanted him to be there. So that's why they moved up the date.

Q: So the brother was there, right? He came to the wedding
A: No. I think they were lying about that.

Q: Why would they lie about that?
A: I don't know. No one knows. Everyone thinks that there was "ANOTHER" reason that they needed to get married, and move up the wedding a whole month. And the brother thing was a believable lie at the time. But no one is saying anything, and no one is asking. I guess we'll know if that's really the case in a few months, right? No reason asking about it now when we'll know about it soon enough.

Q: So you were able to go to the wedding, right?
A: No. I bought my ticket to Eureka the 7th of August. And he didn't announce his wedding for another 2 weeks (around the 20th of August). And he HAD to have the wedding on the 14th of September, the day before I got home. Why did he have to have it that day? Because the brother was coming home, remember? But then we know he lied about that. So basically no one knows why they "HAD" to have it that day, but it meant that no one was there.

Q: Is Jacob happy?
A: He really is! I don't think he knows what he's gotten into, but I think that right now he's happy. She's very mothering to him. She calms him down, and I think she's really a good influence on him. They've been through a lot together, and I think they will be good for each other. I think they need to get things together and go to the temple too, but they have a year to get their stuff together.

Q: So will there be a party? With Cake?
A: YES!! There will be two. One in Colorado in 2 weeks, and one in Eureka around Oct 11th or so. My mom and I went to pick out a cake for the Eureka reception cause we needed to order it quickly. (They didn't' really care what it looked like or anything. They're just showing up). We got to taste many different kinds of cake. They were awesome. Anyway, back to the reception in Colorado. My mom has talked ALL the kids into coming for the reception. Jeff and family from Missouri, and Sarah from Texas. And all the people that are in Utah? My mom is renting a 15 passenger van to haul us out there. Here's a list of the passengers: Mom, Me Marcelo, Evi, Nate, Denisse, Jules, MaxKyle, Jake, Clarin AND Clarin's brother. Yes, a random stranger will be in the car with us. It's going to be a party on wheels. Don't you wish you could be there?

Q: Ahhh, is that why you had to work at your mom's place?
A: Yes. Jake said he wanted the Eureka reception at her place. My mom's house isn't in the best condition. It's a home that was built for a great life in the 1930's and really hasn't been renovated too much since that day. It smells like wet wood, and the kitchen is SUPER MENOS EFFICAZ. If it were me, I would have it at the chapel, or at the local bar down the street. But that's what he wanted. Anyway, While I was there I cleaned out cabinets, painted, cleaned windows, laid sod and moved furniture. It was not my kind of vacation. I was kinda glad to be gone. And that makes me sad to say.

Q: So we know that you weren't at the wedding, who was there?
A: Not too many people. My mom, Nate & Denisse, Marcelo. Some of her family, a few friends. There were less then 20 (Including the bride, groom and the bishop that married them) MaxKyle went to the wedding!!! He's my sister's boyfriend, but my sister wasn't there. She was in Thailand!! So MaxKyle got to there, but not me. Great.

Q: So, I didn't see your dad on the list there. Was he at the wedding?
A: No. He wouldn't go because my mom was there. It pissed off Jake and Clarin and they wanted him to be there. They told him that he should just come and peek in and be there for the wedding and my mom didn't have to see him and he didn't have to see her. But he said no. And then he said, "Why does your mom have to go to everything?" Uh dad? Are you serious? Has she missed any big even in the lives of her kids? You haven't even seen your most recent granddaughter! Don't get mad at her for wanting to support her kids.

Q: Will your dad be at the reception?
A: Uh, a-no. Again, my mother will be there. Too bad for him, like I said before, it's going to be a raging kegger. Without the keg. Replace the keg with cake. It will be a raging caker. I'm so excited. The only thin that will kill my cake buzz is if it's chocolate. ATTENTION ALL THOSE WISHING TO GET MARRIED. THERE IS NOTHING WORSE THEN CHOCOLATE WEDDING CAKE. LEAVE IT ALONE. YOU DON'T WANT IT.

So that's basically it. Ask me any other questions and I'll be happy to answer them for you. Here are some pictures (cuase I know you wanted to see them.)