lost files

I went to McDonald's today to get Carter a fish sandwich meal.  As is custom, the teller asked what would we like to drink with that.

"Rootbeer," I answered since I was ordering for my son.

"I'm sorry. Our soda machine is not working," was the reply from the speaker box.

"Well I guess we won't be having anything to drink then will we?"  I shot back. Apparently I am in a mood. It must be from the incompetence of the vet's office and my own stupidity at forgetting something at Lowe's, thus requiring another trip for me down there.

We got Carter a smoothie instead.

In the mean time enjoy some pictures from the lost files. I was going to title this post Better Late than Never, but I think I have at least one other post already titled that.

Olivia designed her own pumpkin this year and made a sweet diagram for me to follow to make the face.  Ethan did most of his himself.  And I loved the smell of the pumpkin. Carter did math homework while all this was going on.

Halloween Alaska style. Yep, we are in full snow mode here.  I lost track of how many times we have done the driveway since Halloween and we are in the single digits all this week.

Here is me loving on Buckwheat. He goes home Tuesday the 22, so I wanted a picture with him!

Carter skiing with me up Hatchers Pass.  This hill is a long slow 1 mile up but a sweet smooth 1 mile down.  

In October we rode the tram to the top of Alyeska (which is opening on November 22 for skiing BTW). I know of no other place on earth where you can sit on the chair lift and see the ocean at the same time.  Beluga whales are often spotted out there in Turnagain Arm.

Olivia was Hermione and Ethan was a Math Teacher.  This is what they look like before they get their snow clothes on.

She's a pretty cute Hermione huh!

And my math teacher.  All the kids said he was the scariest costume they saw all night!

The terrible no good day.

Have you ever read this book?  Well I feel like I lived it yesterday.

I woke up feeling kind of bleh.  Or meh.  I had no real commitments but a house that looked like a bomb went off and I had started a new book so I debated skipping the gym and coming home and going back to bed with it instead.  But no, I have committed my self to go to the gym so I got dressed in my workout clothes.

Then I couldn't find my running shoes and was almost late to school. And Olivia was irritating me with her whining over not wanting to wear what I picked out for her for PICTURE DAY (honestly, I don't really care what she wears and you can sometimes tell, but picture day is the one day I go ballistic on).

Shoes found and kids dropped off I stop for my Diet Pepsi and look up the valley to see glorious sunshine.  It is way too nice of day so I decide to head out to the trails in the woods.  And heck it is Friday!  I should do a little jig for making it through another week.  One that felt like it should have ended on Tuesday...

So I stop at home, grab some snacks, bear spray, my dog Champ, and my new camera and head out.

Oh it was glorious. I was right to come out here. All the trees are golden and the shining sun was just the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. It was so quiet.  Champ was even being good and listening to me and not pulling on the leash.  I took a trail I hadn't been on before and was so happy with my Road Less Traveled choice.  My heart was singing.

My new camera was awesome. It fit in my pocket and took great pictures.  I stopped at a  little stream and was taking shots of water rushing over rocks and of Champ on the leaf covered trail.  Then I thought, "No makeup be darned, I am going to take a picture of myself out here on this awesome day!"

So I take off the wrist strap to transfer the camera from my right to my left hands, stretch out my left arm to get the angle I wanted and snapped the shot.  Then in making the short commute back to my right hand and into the right pocket of my jacket: disaster.

The camera slips from my fingers and in slow motion hits the bank of the stream and slides over the edge. For a second I think it is going to stop on the slight outcropping of dirt about a foot above the stream, but no. Its momentum carries it forward and -Plop.  It lands in the stream, tumbles once with the flow of the water and stops against a rock maybe 4 inches from its near perfect dive.

Slow motion breaks as I jump into ankle deep water and retrieve the camera. In one motion I open the battery door and take out both the battery and the SD card. I am so upset I know my hike is over and I take 2 steps down the trail when I stop and turn around to see my keys back at the bank of the stream. I count that as nothing short of a miracle that when I stoop to get my keys I just sit and start to cry.

Oh and there is Champ right on me licking my face to help me feel better.  He is seriously in my lap at this point and I am trying to push him off and I am yelling at him to leave me alone, but then I am glad he is there and I sit for a while and negotiate life.

I make it home (during a thankfully uneventful walk out and a phone call to JaDee on the way home in the car where I tell him, "At least I wasn't eaten by a bear." and he says, "Yeah, but I would still have the camera and chances are you would have had some great bear pictures on it..." thanks hon). and do what I call "Poll the Audience," from Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, and post my dilemma on facebook.  I look up a few websites, and put my camera in a bowl of rice in a warm spot above the mantle in my living room.

I got nothing done.  All day. I was so depressed!

Oh and when I got home Buckwheat had gotten in the garbage while I was gone and had it laid out across the kitchen and into the living room. (He is another funny story and had been earning time in Solitary Confinement, aka the Kennel, while we were out of the house but he recently was getting time off for good behavior- yeah he messed that parole board up).

Then I got a bobbi pin stuck in the agitator of the washing machine and for the life of me cannot get it out and I am afraid it will snag something and ruin it.

Then I got some bad news in the mail, in the box we don't use for the general population and often go for weeks without checking. In fact, my own mother doesn't have this address.

Then the kids come home and I have not done a darn thing and the house is still a mess.

Then JaDee tells me he found another $200 snow machine and he is on his way to get it. Of course it doesn't run yet, but he has high hopes. And of course it looks like something we dragged home off the side of the road (oh because we did) and parked it in our driveway as some kind of white trash art deco piece. (Don't worry, neighbors, it will up on blocks in my garage as soon as the motorcycle finds it home for the winter under a big attractive blue tarp).

But then we went out with friends and had a great time. I was still dressed in my hiking clothes (they had dried out by then:) and I still hadn't showered or put any makeup on. And the nice thing about Alaska is that there really isn't a dress code and  last night, I was for sure the one in the room you could look at and say, Well, at least I look better than that poor thing.

And it ended on a good note.

General Conference...the anticipation

This weekend marks the 180th Semi-Annual General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. When I was a kid this weekend meant sitting in a dark chapel while we watched the speakers broadcast via satellite to us in New York.   They were painfully boring weekends where we had to get dressed for church even though none of my classes were held that day in lieu of the world wide broadcast.  It was dark and hard to see my crayons as I sat at my mothers feet trying to draw and keep from dying from boredom.

When I went to BYU I was faced with my first conference weekend in Utah.   The internet was in its baby stages (BYU didn't even have its own e-mail accounts back then) and it never occured to me that  we could watch it on TV in our own homes (or packed around the dorm room television or plugged into the local radio station). So I got dressed and walked down 9th East to the church building and sat in a dark chapel with about 3 other people.

I wondered where everyone was.

Turns out they were in packed around TVs all over campus.

I was better prepared next time.

Later as a newly married couple we were in Delaware for our first General Conference together.  No TV, no radio out there and the Internet still a baby, I showed JaDee the art of getting dressed for church to sit in a dark chapel (they always listened to it on the radio in WY).  Our ward did a massive potluck in between the morning and afternoon session and it was a great weekend.

Then even later still and back in UT I grew accustomed to rolling out of bed at 9:45 and wrapping up in a blanket to watch the 2 Sunday sessions in our home on local KSL channel 5.  Saturday sessions were heard in the car on the way to soccer, or while I was painting a bedroom or while we cleaned out the garden and the garage.   October Conference is when we always dug up the tomato plants whether they were ready or not.  It was time to winterize!

Now in Alaska and the age of Dish network and the Internet, we can still get conference in our home.  Our first conference here the website was so jammed we couldn't get it but we logged on to radio KSL and listened.  The last conference we had Internet connections for every session and it was just like being back in UT tucked under a blanket on my couch.

I kind of miss the old days in the dark chapel.  The thought of recreating it for my kids and taking them to our own local chapel (which always broadcasts the event for anyone who cares to wander in) makes me a little ill.   I mean, look how easy it is to just stay home in our jammies and unwashed hair to listen to the voice of our prophet and apostles?  Why would I make more work for myself and drag them in our Sunday best to the church?

I guess I really appreciate all the hard work it was for my parents to get all 5 of us to each and every conference growing up.  Little tote bags packed with crayons, snacks and paper.   Countless trips to drinking fountains and bathrooms to break up the monotony for little bottoms, older siblings being separated with a parent in between, and even better when I, as the oldest, could take either Courtney or Stephen, as babies, out to the hall to walk around, get drinks and explore dark classrooms and the stage in the gym. I remember when Ben and I used to fight over the job to do that!  Thank goodness there were 2 of them!

The bottom line is my parents taught me that General Conference was important.  They taught me slowly and patiently that it was important.  They taught it to me so that when I was on my own and faced with the choice to watch or not that I chose to go.

Now I have to figure out how to show my children that this is important for them.

Happy Conference!

PS- if you have BYU TV on your dish network plan you can watch conference at 10 AM and 2 PM Mountain Standard Time.

PPS- we always have cinnamon rolls on Sunday morning.  Thanks Linda for the great recipe!  It is now in our family!

peace

Amber and her boy Ammon photo courtesy Amber's Website

I have a friend in Perry who for the last 3 and some years has been battling stage 4 Inflammatory Breast Cancer. Her 5 children range from just older than Carter to Olivia's age. She and I were pregnant together this last round 4 years ago. And shortly after her baby was born came her Stage 4 diagnosis. They gave her 22 months.

She made it 42.

Last night she passed away.

We all knew it was coming. But it is still never easy to hear. I am sure the hardest thing about her battle was knowing she would be leaving her kids. They are a great family.

Read about her here. Please. Her example will change your life.

Bless you, Amber, now at peace.

picture full

Olivia with her dress I got for free at our Stake's clothing exchange and her Build a Bear, Zoe, the Zebra in her pink evening dress on the way to pre-school show and tell. Usually she tries to take her toilet paper "Flying Things." But to let her teachers know I buy my daughter real toys, and do not force her to play with trash, (like the grungy ribbon she brought the week before) I talked her into bringing Zoe.

I am getting better at Olivia's hair. I have been inspired by some little hair do blogs I keep stumbling across. One day we actually got it pretty cute and she wore a dress to pre-school so I snapped some pictures of my little girl growing up.

And our grand friends J and J with their 3 kids moved last week!! The witness protection program had to relocate them (j/k, but they do ask to remain anonymous on here) and we are SOOOO SAD!!! J was my shopping buddy, decorating buddy, and BFF in Alaska. I tell ya, if it wasn't for her, I totally would be living with my mother in law waiting for JaDee to get done with Alaska. And her kids were my boys BFFs as well. The games these guys came up with! Oh we are going to miss them.

Monopoly Marathons were a favorite all last winter with J's kids. We had one last hurrah hours before their plane took off. They have an interesting set of house rules that include auctioning off unclaimed property. Ethan seriously knows the whole board by heart. Next time you see him ask him the rent of Indiana with 1 house and I guarantee you, he knows what it is.

And the last time I put these decorations away was when we were getting ready to move.



I can't believe it was this time LAST YEAR that we were getting ready to turn our lives upside down. But all in all we are doing great here. We just miss you all so very much.


And my new favorite thing ever is this:


A Scentsy mini lite. When it comes to fall I love the smells. While damp leaves may smell good outside I want cinnamon, and cider and cloves inside. This totally does the job and my house won't burn down! For all of you in Perry Alyssa Braegger (Linda Bergeson's daughter) sells it. Highly recommended!

I hope you are not someone I visit teach because if you are seeing this now then you won't be surprised when I give you this for October's visit. I actually made these at Kaye's house this weekend.

And here is Olivia with a Flying Thing tied to an emery board. I think the Flying Thing in this picture is actually being a parrot with the "real" parrot she has in the other hand.

applesauce

What else says fall besides homemade applesauce!

We ate it before we took pictures of the finished product. But rest assured it tasted good. Especially on Whole Wheat pancakes. And JaDee added cream on top of that to make it taste even more like pie than it already did.

I just put in apples, water and cinnamon. Then cooked and cooked and cooked it at a slow boil until it turned into applesauce!

Adoration

I commented on my sisters blog that I do what I can to maintain my children's adoration of me. For example, Carter has a friend who claims to have "Deep Thoughts." Well anyone who grew up in the 90s knows that Jack Handy is the original deep thinker and so I tell Carter that his friend is nothing but a plagerizer (how do you like that for a made up word). And I then tell Carter how cool I was to have been around when those Deep Thoughts were first coined. See. Adoration maintained.

With the upcoming school year fast approaching (for us it is Wednesday Aug 19!!!!) I have a son in Jr. High, one in 3rd and a pre-schooler. All of which will be away from me part or all of the day. Thus I will be competing for adoration with teachers. The archnemesis of mothers everywhere.

How can I compete. What with tap dancing, salmon egg hatching, big band playing, science experiment blowing up, story time and name tags on a desk. All of it new and exciting and nothing like what boring old mom does at home. She just makes us do chores and yells when the aren't done.

I don't stand a chance.

I guess a part of me will admit that I am glad my kids have always had an adoration for someone other than me. Someone who helps me open their eyes to the whole big world out there in a context outside of home. Someone who will take the time to raise black widows (Mr. Jeffs) and direct a play (Mrs. Barker) and tell a joke everyday (Miss Bird) and run a mile (Mr. Nichols) and hatch salmon eggs (Mr. Herbert).

Because the long and the short of it is I need these people and appreciate their help in educating my sons and daughter.

So good luck this year to all you teachers and students heading back to school. I will be anxiously awaiting for the sound of the bus as it drops my kiddos back on my doorstep, filled with knowledge and inspired to make a go of this great world.

I'll even share some adoration with you.