10 days ago the Man of the House received a call from Battalion Head Quarters informing him that he was now on a list. This list is a list of National Guard officers who have not yet been deployed. He was also informed that a Colonel would be calling and “interviewing” him regarding an upcoming mission. Were he chosen for that mission, he would be deploying overseas next spring, in April or May. Apparently, once you are on “the list” they continue to consider you for missions until you have your turn at deployment.
Obviously, this is something we knew would come up some time. That is part of being in the military–especially now. However, the Man of the House kept getting transferred to a new Guard Unit every 18 months (this is typical for new officers) and the new unit was always just getting back from deployment. So it seemed like deployment kept getting put off into the nebulous future.
Sunday night the colonel called–though it was less of an interview and more of a giving of information. The colonel informed the Man of the House that they would make a decision and let him know within 24 hours.
Two days later, having heard not a peep, the Man of the House called Battalion HQ and they basically said, “We don’t know why the colonel would say you would know in 24 hours. They always take a long time to make these decisions.” So we resigned ourselves to not knowing for a month or two.
……The last 8 days have seemed like a month or two.
When the Man of the House initially told me what was going on, I confidently assured him that I had known deployment was a large possibility. I knew the kids and I would be just fine–we would miss him, but we would be fine. I’m surrounded by a huge support network of friends and family and everything would be totally manageable.
Then as we waited for news, I began to doubt myself. Was I being over-confident? (Not unusual for me) What if I failed to plan because I was over-confident? What if I was just wrong and we wouldn’t be fine at all? When would they let us know so that I could start preparing whatever it was I needed to prepare? What if they called back and said, “You aren’t going in April, you are going in November. You have 1 month to be ready.” I started to stress out and get all weepy and go through scenarios in my mind where I had to deal with having this baby by myself in December.
??????? IS THIS ME ??????
Then, one particularly depressing day this last week, I took myself and Cutie Pie to a little used bookshop nearby. Because, what can be more cheering when one is in low spirits than a new book–particularly a good Fairy-tale re-write novel with lots of handsome princes/useful farm boys and strong maidens who almost don’t need rescuing?
The first thing I read was: “Part of Preparation is believing that you will successfully deal with the challenge.” Hope was restored! It is okay to believe that we will be fine. Not only do I get to keep my optimism, my optimism means we have greater chance of weathering deployment successfully!
The rest of the book is sort of a collection of checklists and suggestions. How to be prepared financially. How to prepare and help your children. etc.
Here is what I realized: The man of the House may or may not be sent on this particular deployment. However, deployment is most likely inevitable and there are many things I can do now to make sure our family is ready when the time comes.
Not only that, many of the things I can do now will just make our family more prepared for life–Provident Living stuff. See, statistics say that soldiers are actually more likely to die in a car accident at home than to die during a deployment. Some of the things on the preparing lists were: *make sure both spouses know all the usernames and passwords to pay the bills online (If that is how you pay them, which we do.) *Make sure both spouses know what to feed the family and how to fix meals. *Make sure both spouses know where to find family records(birth certificates, shot records, insurance information, etc.) *Make sure both spouses can change the ink in the computer printer. *Make sure both spouses know how to care for the family vehicles. *Do both spouses know what must be done to keep the house neat and orderly? *Do you have a will? *Do both spouses know what stores to shop at for clothes for the children? *Do they know what clothing the children need?
I’ll be pretty much able to keep the house running if my husband spends a year in Afghanistan–because I keep the house running now. What I can’t manage, I can ask for help with. However, if I died in a car accident tomorrow, the Man of the House would be without access to much vital financial and family information. Not good. (p.s. He does know how to change both the ink in the printer and the oil in the car.)
So my stress is all gone now because
#1 I have permission to be optimistic and
#2 I have a whole book of checklists to go through now–checklists which will benefit my family and make us more prepared for life even if deployment never happens. Happy checklists 🙂
Was it worth $3.25 at the bookstore? Absolutely.
Plus, as you all know, now that I am prepared for deployment, it won’t happen. Just like when you are pregnant and you just can’t resist that cute baby boy outfit–you are sure to have a girl instead. Or when you decide you are done having kids altogether and you give away all your maternity clothes….we all know what happens next.
P.S. I found this cool picture, but don’t you think the wife should be holding like a vacuum or a frying pan or a lawnmower and not an AK47 (or whatever it is)?
I love love love to watch Project Runway. Since we don’t get cable TV (or any TV) I either show up at a friend’s house to watch it, or my sisters get a hold of a whole season at once and we marathon it. Now my daughters occasionally design fashion outfits and have runway shows. Peach Pie designed this new dress for me. I thought it was a giraffe at first, but she explained that the “spots” were actually apples and that it was a dress. Then it was all so clear-including the spacious allowance for my growing baby bump. One thing I can say about my girl, she knows how to design for real women. Something those kids on Project Runway don’t always know how to do.
Also, I bet you have all been wondering what we do at our house on a rainy Saturday Morning besides design high fashion. Here’s the scoop.
Bubba likes to make armor and weapons. Cutie Pie likes chase him, screaming, “kill, Kill!” in true warrior princess form.
The rest of the Pies like to make things with play dough. My super cute nephew, CandyBar, was visiting us while his mother was in the hospital bringing forth a new little brother for him. When he wasn’t on the table, CandyBar was playing with the toy horses we have in the animal box. Those horses kept him busy all day.
Monday was a no school day (teacher meetings or something) The girls have wanted to have a “Tangled” day–a day where they get to do all the things that Rapunzel does during her song. So Monday we invited a few friends over and had our Tangled day. We made pottery with bake-able clay, painted, read books, baked apple pies, had lunch, ballet, and painted faces with makeup.
Surprisingly, the girls all voted to skip mopping, sweeping, polishing, clean-up and laundry. I got to do all those ones, myself. And they wondered why we ran out of time and didn’t get to do chess, ventriloquy, candle making, more painting, and sew a dress…
Now they all are begging to have home school. I think they think home school would be like Tangled Day. I’m afraid it would be too….
And if you are looking for cute Halloween ideas or cute things to make for boys, check out my new favorite blog to read: The Train To Crazy Don’t you just want to go get a crochet hook right this second?!!
These are things I’m really wanting to buy right now.
Dansco Clogs
Sofft Black Heels
Simply Vera, Vera Wang earings
However, what I NEED is Maternity Jeans. I have lots of maternity capri pants but #1 it isn’t sandal/flip flop weather any more and I look dorky in sneakers & capris
#2 I am preggo enough that I don’t care to shave my legs any more.
But Bubba needs new jeans too–more than I do. So it’s the old sewing machine and helpful online tutorials for me. Yay.
This tutorial on Craftster is the best maternity jean tutorial I’ve seen. It took me 20 minutes from start to finish and that included the time I took to find the jeans, dig out an old t-shirt and thread, and get my sewing machine out of storage–where it has been banished while I’m in DIQ!!
Here is my result! I’m so proud!! Retail therapy is great, but the self-fulfillment that comes from making something useful out of stuff you already had is much more lasting.
1 Tutorial from Craftster. I *heart* Craftster!!
1 pair $7 clearance jeans from Lane Bryant that I was only skinny enough to wear for about a month. Perhaps they shrunk in the wash?
1 old t-shirt generously, albeit unknowingly, donated by my DH.
ha ha just kidding. I used my own shirt. I had one that was really too small that had a good lycra content for stretchy but firm.
I did 2 things differently from the tutorial. #1 I didn’t have to sew the zipper shut because I couldn’t zip it even 1/4″. I just cut the whole zipper out. I also didn’t cut off any of the jeans waist band in the back. They were low rise jeans and I wanted the belt loops. Just because.
**note scissors do not cut through rivets–even if they are gingers. The sewing machine needle will not penetrate rivets either.
#2 I made sure to cut the strip from the bottom of the t-shirt so I didn’t have to roll the edge and hem it. Duh! I also cut it wider than 6″ because I like the full belly coverage better.
Then after I finished sewing, I went to my friend’s house this morning and she loaned me more maternity pants, including a dressy black pair. It’s all I ever wished for. Life is good.
My Pregnancy Countdown ticker says I have 92 days left.
If I flunk my sugar test next month, that will minus 14 days off the total. YIKES! I’m so not ready yet!
Plus you know that means it is only 97 days until Christmas. Are you ready? I’m not.
Plus I am a little over 2 weeks into my first month of Sales Director Qualification with Mary Kay. The company gives us 4 months to meet the requirements, but my goal is to finish in 3, a.k.a BEFORE the baby is born.
I’ve been working so hard! I’ve done more facials in the last 2 weeks than I’ve ever done in a month. Right now, all I can do is keep working and hope the numbers add up to what they have to be by September 30th. I must just focus on the work I need to do and not focus on the worry. Worry won’t get me anywhere.
In just a minute I’m going to take a deep breath and leave this computer and get to work. I’m pretty proud of myself that I’ve had the house clean, dinner on the table and the laundry caught up–all while working 15-20 hours a week on my Mary Kay. That in itself is proof how much I’ve learned about time management and self-discipline in the last few years. I even went to the temple last week.
But I also grouched at my kids several times and let my 3 year old watch too much TV. So I’m not even close to perfect yet.
I keep worrying that part of my current efficiency is due to the fact that I have only 1 child not in school and 4 big kids who come home and do at least 1 chore for me every day. In other words, I’ll lose all this wonderful control over my life in December when the baby arrives. I have to keep reminding myself that it is a temporary and unavoidable thing–not being able to get anything done after a new baby arrives. Plus that new baby will be so much fun to cuddle and kiss.
I’m so excited about what is going on in my life right now and I am determined to keep working and not drop back into the old procrastinating me. The ostrich who liked to just stick her head in the sand periodically and pretend that nothing was going to fall apart if she just ignored it for a week or 2. As we learn in physics, 2nd law of thermodynamics, the entropy (disorder, randomness, chaos) of a system always increases unless we apply a counter energy or work.
So I’m off to work with a sense of urgency (not panic).
Pumpkin Pie is my second daughter. She is sweet and wholesome and good. She is my little nurturer, loves to play with baby dolls and loves to help with real babies. She sometimes changes her little sister’s diaper without me asking her to.
She was not friendly to strangers as a little child and glared at anyone who dared to look at her.
Her emotions are pretty polar. Either she is happy, or she is NOT. NOT happy = howling her unhappiness to the sky in complete and utter meltdown.
She loves to play the piano and hounds me until I give her a lesson. She practices that lesson without my ever asking her to. Often she will sit down and just try to figure out the next song in the book on her own.
She likes macaroni and cheese, nutella on graham crackers, and hot cocoa. Actually, she loves junk food so much that I have to just not have it in the house because she will refuse all real food if she thinks there are other options.
Actual pumpkin pie is my favorite dessert, possibly because my birthday often falls on Thanksgiving day. Also possibly because I can eat so much of it without feeling sick. I can even eat it for breakfast and suffer no ill consequences. The fact that pumpkin pie is my favorite does not mean that Pumpkin Pie is my favorite. I don’t have favorites. But it certainly is easy to love someone who is so often a willing, cheerful helper.
“Why would you read that book, you’re not fat?” DH asked.
Wasn’t that sweet of him? The answer is, I read it because, while I may not be fat fat, I feel like I have no control over my size–which I’d like to be a bit smaller but I am waiting until after I am not pregnant to do something, obviously.
It’s just that for the last 11 years I have been the amazing accordion woman, shrinking up and down in size to accommodate 6 babies. La Leche League will tell you that you loose weight breastfeeding and I have seen it to be true for some women. For me, my body hangs on to at least 10 or 20 reserve pounds until I stop nursing to make sure that baby has food.
It’s not so much that I want to be skinny. I’d just like to be the same size for maybe a whole year or two. I feel a little delirious dreaming about being the same size for 5 years in a row. About 2 years ago, I gave up on the fantasy that I would someday be as skinny as I was in high school and right before I got married. The truth is, that wasn’t a healthy weight for me and I had achieved it by not eating. So I just want to be a size and stick with it long enough to actually build one of those workable wardrobes that you read about that has a sensible amount of clothing that I can mix and match. Not a closet that has to have normal clothes, bigger size clothes, maternity clothes, post baby size clothes that I can still nurse in, etc.
But I’ve gotten off track.
The Fat Girl’s Guide to Life blows some serious holes in the whole “you have to have a certain BMI (Body Mass Index) to be healthy” rule. I love it. It confirmed some things that I have often thought from my own attempts to lose weight and watching people I love try to lose weight.
I know lots of girls who carefully watch what they eat and exercise at least 3 times a week and yet do not lose weight. At best, they lose and regain the same 10 pounds over and over.
I know lots of skinny people who say that losing weight is a simple matter of caloric deficit and getting of your fat butt to exercise. If a “fat” person insists that they do exercise, the skinny person will insist that it must be the wrong kind/not enough exercise. Yet these skinny people will eat large servings of ice cream twice a day and rarely exercise more than once a week but will stay complacent in their assumptions that anyone who wants to be skinny can be skinny if they just do the work.
Did you know: *A moderately active fat person is likely to be far healthier than someone who is svelte but sedentary. What’s worse, American’s (largely unsuccessful) efforts to make themselves thin through dieting and supplements are themselves a major cause of the ill health associated with being overweight.
NEWS FLASH! Dieting and Diet pills are BAD FOR YOU
* There is in fact no medical basis for the government’s BMI recommendations or the public health policies based on them. The BMI range correlating with the lowest mortality rate is extremely broad, from about 18-32 BMI, meaning that women of average height can weigh anywhere within an 80 pound range without seeing any statistically meaningful change in her risk of premature death.
*In a decided majority of studies, groups of people labeled overweight by current standards are found to have equal or lower mortality rates than groups of supposedly ideal weight individuals.
*Large scale mortality studies indicate that women who are 50 or even 75 pounds “overweight” will on average still have longer life expectancies than those who are 10 to 15 pounds “underweight” aka fashionably thin.
*Numerous studies have shown that weight loss of 20-30 pounds leads to an increased risk of premature death, sometimes by an order of 700%
**** If you would like to hear some common sense and stop blaming yourself for all those failed diets, then this is the book to read. If you would like to stop feeling like the reason you are fat is because you are lazy, dumb, low on will power, and unable to delay instant gratification, then THIS IS THE BOOK TO READ.
Here is my favorite favorite quote from Wendy (who is 5’7″ and weighs around 220 lbs. despite the fact that she spends an hour on a treadmill 3-4 times a week and lifts weights as well and sticks to a healthy, reasonable diet.) “Think about how much time you’ve spent thinking about that poundage, and the time you’ve spent punishing yourself about that poundage. Then I’d like you to imagine NOT doing that. Instead, imagine the relief you’d feel if you could walk past a plate-glass window without cursing your reflection. …. Now imagine if we all did it. The Fat Girls, the Skinny Girls…..all that free time on our minds that we aren’t using to rip ourselves to shreds. All that money in our wallets that we’re not going to spend on fat-free, sugar-free, taste-free sorbet. That’s a lot of minutes and a lot of money from a lot of women who have a lot of brain power.”
As I read this, I couldn’t help thinking, we are doing exactly what Satan wants us to do. We are obsessing about something that isn’t important. All of us intelligent, powerful women are using up our time stressing and worrying about whether we are fat and beating ourselves up about it. Think of all the good we could do if we quit worrying about fat.
So I have a new determination to not worry about what I weigh. I am determined to exercise moderately so that I can be healthy. I am determined to eat lots of vegetables so I can be healthy. But I am not going to worry about what weight comes along for the ride. I hope you’ll join me. 🙂
Cherry Pie got her nickname–which is short for “The Princess of Sweetness and Cherry Pie” (‘Hans My Hedgehog‘ from Jim Henson’s ‘The Storyteller’) because she was so breathtakingly beautiful as a baby. I seriously spent the first 2 weeks after she was born on the couch holding her and surrounded by a pink warm fuzzy cocoon of baby girl happiness. She was so delicate like a flower or a spiderweb in the sunrise, covered in dew. I spent hours just admiring her. At some point, Bubba (story to come later), who was 2 started coming up and biting my knee, and I remembered that I had 2 children who needed love and attention.
Aside from being beautiful, Cherry Pie has a tart streak which keeps her from being overwhelmingly sugary and unbearable. She is fun and sporty and she has a twisted sense of humor (one might say slightly evil sense of humor) that is really startling and funny. Example: One day at the dinner table, she suddenly held her fork over her plate in a very threatening manner and, addressing her food, said, “Tell me the truth or I will stab you!”
I can understand this streak because I always loved the really gory fairy tales as a kid. You know, like the Cinderella version where the stepsisters actually carve off part of their feet to fit into the slipper. The little birds sing to the prince about “There’s blood in the shoe, the bride’s not right” and he goes back to get the real Cinderella.
Cherry Pie also inherited my compulsion to draw and color on walls. I’m sure my mother feels that this is only just and fair. Ironically, this particular mess was made at my mom’s house. Sorry, Mom.
Cherry Pie is a collector which is why she also gets called “Magpie” from time to time. She gathers pretty things up and hides them in her drawer and other little nests in corners of her room. Sometimes the things are not exactly hers. She also gathers little scraps of paper and bits of stickers for her nests. When she was 2, she would pull out fat quarters from my quilting fabric stash and hide them under her bed. I would find her later petting them and calling them “pity, pity.” Again, a compulsion that I understand well.
Did I mention how much I love being able to use Picasa?
Well, some pretty strange people have been visiting my home. Luckily, my security camera caught most of them on film. Don’t worry, I’m sending the footage to America’s Most Wanted.
Question: Why have I not blogged for over a month??
Answer: I can’t find the cord to link my computer and my camera. waaaahhhh 😦
The DH says it’s around somewhere. I’m pretty sure he’s the last one to have seen it, and thus is GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY. He will receive no mercy when he stands before the tribunal. **after reading my post, the wounded DH went and found my camera cord for me–supposedly sitting on top of our broken printer in plain sight. Wasn’t that sweet of him? I *heart* DH. In addition to that, I got copies of lots of pictures taken by other family members and due to some pregnancy insomnia and my new super high speed internet, figured out how to make collages with PICASA. I *heart* PICASA.
We had a wonderful, wonderful vacation and truthfully I was having too much fun at the family reunion to use my camera much, so I don’t have very many pictures anyway (hanging head in shame)
The treats and games I planned worked well on the 22 hour drive out to Idaho. Best last minute bring along was a library book of quickie who-dun-it mysteries. The older kids enjoyed solving them for as long as my voice held out reading aloud. They even read some to each other after I quit.
On the way home, I decided that we ate as many snacks as we had and didn’t really need so many. So I bought less and everyone was mostly OK. We never felt sick from car food, so I think the choices were good.
The toys/coloring didn’t work very well on the way home. Although Bubba made some improvements to the pictures in Cutie Pie’s “Dora the Explorer” coloring book.
Everyone was so tired of being in the car. The kids just wanted to watch movies and everyone was tired of the movies we had. I considered Redbox, but didn’t want to drive around unknown towns searching for one.
I chose the DVDs we did bring along based on 2 criteria:
#1 what I thought I could stand to listen to while not being able to see it
#2 The kids would like to watch over and over
( the kids would have loved Mr. Bean. But the sound track to Bean is just canned studio laughter and a little background music. Not fun to listen to when you can’t see what is so funny. Also no good is any of the Lord Of the Rings Movies. That entire sound track can be summed up as follows: “da-nuh- nuh, du du dunt…I’m glad you’re here Sam…da-nuh- nuh, du du dunt…I’ll always stay with you Mr. Frodo…da-nuh- nuh, du du dunt…*beastial howlings and growlings*…15…16…17…My Precious…da-nuh- nuh, du du dunt.” repeat.
NO!
I only chose 4 DVD’s because I didn’t want movies kicking all over around the car. Four is how many fit in the glove box. Next time I will bring more than 4 movies–the DH and I got to hear “Tangled” and “MegaMind” about 14 times each. StarDust was less popular and only got watched about 4 times.
DH has a lower tolerance for repetition of kid stuff than I do, so when he couldn’t take any more, I put in “Fiddler on the Roof.” The kids watched it at least twice, and now if Bubba sings, “Do you love me?” to Cutie Pie (who is 2 1/2), she will say back very vehemently, “I wash your clothes and milk them!”
LOVE IT 🙂
So we broke up our drive out west by stopping at the highest peak in Kansas, Mount Sunflower. I can’t say we climbed it, because we drove up and parked on the top. It was about 9 hours into our drive and made a lovely rest stop.
Cutie Pie is hardly in any pictures because she didn’t stop running from the time I let her out of the car until the time I caught her and forced her back into her car seat.
A few hours later we stopped in Denver at our Priceline-won hotel. We ordered pizza for dinner and swam in the pool for over an hour. Peach Pie said to me, “Momma, I dreamed of staying in a hotel and this is just like I dreamed it would be.”
Lucky us, we got a room with 2 queen beds instead of the usual 2 double beds. DH, Cutie Pie and I took one queen bed and we lined 4 kiddos up on the other queen bed, with their heads from side to side, so they would have more room. It was quite the pile of humanity. (I never tell hotels how many kids we have because they invariably insist that I can’t put that many people in one room and must buy two rooms. But they also refuse to guarantee me adjoining rooms and I will not have half the family down the hall, let alone on a different floor. The DH and I would have to split up so as to have a parent in each room and that would be no fun. So we crowd in one room and make do.)
The next morning, refreshed and rested, we finished the drive to the family reunion (my dad’s family) where we spent 4 days and 3 nights camping at a place near Rexburg, ID.
We ate good food,
ran lots of relay races,
the little kids tunneled in the giant sand box,
and we talked and laughed ourselves hoarse.
(speaking of the giant sand box–my favorite part of the reunion place–My family was assigned to clean the bathrooms at the ranch on the last day. My dad commented, somewhat perplexed, that the women sure tracked a lot more sand into the showers than the men did. I pointed out that the women were the ones who supervised the showering of most of the 38+ little kids each day, and the mystery was solved.
I, myself, showered 4 very sandy little girls each day, hoping to reduce the amount of sand that was carried into the tent and sleeping bags. I’m sure that my efforts made a dent, but the tent was very sandy, nonetheless.)
The DH ran off with my sister’s DH for 24 hours to climb the highest peak in Idaho: Mt. Borah. –if you think you are seeing a pattern here, you would be correct. It is his goal to summit the highest peak in all 50 states. We have to fit a couple in on every family vacation. The kids and I are happily doing the little ones with him. He is on his own for Rainier and Denali.
One of the events at the reunion was Family History Skit Night. Each Family Group was asked to come up with a skit about one of our ancestors. All the skits were amazing and fun. The other family groups all did fun, spiritual skits. Of course, my family group (comprising my parents, all my siblings and their spouses and kids) chose the irreverent route. We picked my dad’s grandfather, James Edward and a particular event in his life. We set it to the tune of “The Beverly Hillbillies” theme song. I wrote up verses and then Dad helped me refine it until it was 100% historically accurate and balanced as far as length. No artistic license was allowed, even for the sake of a good rhyme or meter. (you know how at the end of each stanza the Beverly Hillbillies tune has sort of parenthetical expressions–well the rhythm of some of ours is WAY off–but it was really funny anyway.) We sang it and acted it out. My brother James (Jimmy) played James Edward.
You have to imagine it complete with a full stop after the first line and an argument–not even staged–about how I had supposedly started the singing at too high of a pitch. I swear, I was just trying to match Dad so we were singing the same note. It still ended up being a bit too high and got screechy on the last line of most of the verses. I blame nerves and the fact that we were trying to sing loud–the microphone had quit working.
Here it is for posterity, our family history skit:
Come and listen to my story ’bout a Mormon pioneer
Raisin’ horses and a family in the wild frontier
James Edward was his name and he married Bertha Lamb
And they moved to Canada to live and work the land
(soil that is, planting crops, growin’ wheat)
Well he had to dig a well, to meet the family’s needs
So he and Uncle Nels got one dug down 60 feet
The hired boy was careless and the windlass flipped it’s lid,
James dropped right down the well, the windlass landed on his head.
(knocked him flat, caved his skull, scalped him clean)
So Nels and the hired boy ran and grabbed a rope,
They pulled the windlass up, though they didn’t have much hope
Down they sent the rope again and pulled with growing dread
And up from the ground came a bubblin’ red
(blood that is, straight from his arteries, spurtin’ left, squirtin’ right)
**at this point, Jimmy smeared ketchup all over his face and continued squirting watered down ketchup from a bottle every so often. We had quite a mess to clean up when the skit was over.)
They carried him inside and they laid him on the floor
Then to fetch a doctor quick, they both ran out the door
The boy ran to Mountain View, the doctor wasn’t there
Nels took a team to Cardston and waited in despair.
(All he could do, just wait until the Doc came back)
Bertha put down dish pans to catch all the blood
No matter what she did, she couldn’t stop the flood
James wasn’t even moving–blood was spurting everywhere
She finally browned some flour and put it on his hair.
(or rather, where his hair should have been)
The kids were all a wailin’ and a cryin’ heaps o’ tears
But Bertha calmed them down and she quieted their fears
She said, “the Lord will care for us, have faith, do not despair.”
At 2 am the doctor came and sewed back James’ hair
(tried to, but his mangled scalp could hardly cover the gaping hole in his skull)
**my kids and my brother’s kids provided the wailing.
Well, true to Bertha’s faith, James recovered real soon
And survived many more accidents that couldn’t fit in this tune
The family grew in numbers, in strength, in faith, in love
And we can all be thankful for these blessings from above.
So there you go. Now you have a good glimpse into my family’s humor. If you need more, you can check out the birthday posts on my sister’s blog. She even has pictures from the family reunion!When the family reunion was sadly at an end, we drove down to Salt Lake, mercifully only a 3 hour drive, to visit the DH’s sister, Linda. We spent about 2 and 1/3 lovely days with her and her 3 girls. It was not nearly enough time! “Anne of Green Gables” was watched. Amazingly, the girls also watched “Tangled.” Ben got to see some of the movie he had, up to this point, only heard. Dress-ups were donned. Chickens were fed. The tortoise was petted. The sunbird bit everyone’s fingers. Linda cooked us delicious foods. We went and tramped around the huge (for a city) lot they just purchased and will be building on soon. I can’t wait to see it when it’s done. Linda’s DH is quite a green thumb and the landscaping will be breathtaking. They have over 40 houseplants–all of which made the move across country 2 years ago when they left their home in New York City. I am still amazed by this, as I have a total of 3 houseplants that I have managed not to kill, and they were large and sturdy when I got them.Our last evening with Linda, we went to the park for our first attempt at pulling together a family reunion for DH’s family. I got to meet Sarah and Rena for the first time. (I’ve stalked their blogs for at least a year now.) and re-meet his cousin, David, whose wedding reception we went to about 11 years ago. Also their cute, fun kids and spouses. We are so glad they came. I loved getting to know them all.
Then we headed North again and spent 3 days of heaven at my mom’s family cabin on the Weber River. Again, my sister Katie has pictures. I’m not sure how she manages to take pictures and keep track of her boys, but she is amazing like that.
The DH, Bubbah & Katie’s DH, Nate, plus Orville snuck off to go camping again.
I don’t think Orville had a great time, but it turned out that he was sick 😦 DH was, as always, super impressed with Nate’s fitness because he (Nate) was a faster hiker, even though he carried a pack and Orville most of the time.
After those 3 idyllic days in Weber Canyon, we headed back home to the Midwest. It was 37 degrees fahrenheit the morning when we left the Weber. Then next day as we crossed Kansas, it was 105 degrees fahrenheit. We were definitely going in the wrong direction is all I can say. We stopped at Panorama Point, Nebraska on our way home and bagged another highest peak.
We saw a dust devil. The mosquitoes were murderous. We stopped in North Platte for dinner. All I have to say is Perkins may be a Family Restaurant, but it isn’t easy on a family’s budget. $4.99 for a kid’s plate of mac-n-cheese with a few grapes on the side, ouch. We stayed at a hotel with free hot breakfast, but the DH was so anxious to get on the road again that he wouldn’t let us stay to eat it. 😦 Sad day. We ate cheerios in the car instead and Cutie Pie spilled hers in her car seat. That was nasty to clean out later, let me tell you.
I thought that last day in the car would never end. As we watched Nebraska and Kansas go by, I was so tired of the car that I thought pulling a handcart would be great fun and a nice change. The DH pointed out that we can go faster in 1 hour in the minivan than the pioneers could go in a week with their handcarts. I still sort of wanted to be out of the car and walking.
Now we are home and have to do stuff like clean house and weed the garden again. Truthfully, I’m happy to be home. But I sure do love all my family. They are the most awesome people on earth–the cool ones that I’m sure I’d never get to be friends with otherwise, but they are stuck with me because I was born in their family. 🙂
Marvelous Pigs in Satin 