That’s the Power of Love

I’ve mentioned a few times on my blog over the years that my first crush was Marty McFly. The original Back to the Future is one of my favorite movies. The other two are fun, but nothing holds a candle to the first one. 

For Christmas I purchased “ticketed experiences” for some of my family. For Scotty, Phantom of the Opera. For Daisy, Derek Hough. And for Chloe, Back to the Future the Musical. 

Back to the Future was last week. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I hoped it would be good, but in a world where everything is made into a Broadway production, I’m losing a little interest. But Zoe loves Back to the Future and theatre, so it was a great gift option for her! And I was curious and needed to find out how it was.

My Marty McFly duckie on my dash board

Within the first five minutes, I already had a hunch that I would want to see it again. The costumes were right out of the movie. The actors were fantastic (though no one can truly mimic Christopher Lloyd - it was more like Doc Brown if he’d been played by Dustin Hoffman or Henry Winkler, but sometimes you just have to embrace the actor as their own version of the character). 

I felt like I was watching Back to the Future happen right before my eyes! My favorite part was when Marty was playing the red guitar at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance. It felt like he was really there! Marty McFly!!! I shed a tear.

The show was delightful, in the opinion of this Back to the Future junkie. They made a few changes to the plot, but that’s kind of how it goes. It was funny, and the special effects were great. It had the essence of a Disney ride! The DeLorean was magical!

The theatre was offering student rush tickets (discounted tickets with a student ID - first come, first served), so two days later I went back with Daisy to see if we could get in. We made it! We were on the fourth row, stage right. Daisy got a coveted view of Marty McFly in his Calvin Klein underwear. 

I talked up the show to some friends and convinced a couple of them to go.

Sometimes being passionate about something makes me feel alone in the world, so it was nice of them to indulge me a bit. I realized my level of fandom is a bit intense, though. What can I say? That’s the power of love! And I love Back to the Future!

The Brittish Take Fan X

September Writing Challenge - Prompt #1:

Nerd Alert

Full disclosure: I included this prompt because I knew we would be going to Fan X this month. 

We decided to splurge a bit and take the whole family. Luckily, ages 10 & under are free because it cost a small fortune. Scotty and Nicky had been before, but the girls and I had never gone. I’ve always been curious, and as an enthusiastic people watcher, it seemed like a great place to go… um… judge people? 

I thought Fan X would have a lot of the following:

• Harry Potter
• Star Wars
• Lord of the Rings
• Mario Brothers, Zelda, & other video games
• Stranger things
• Nostalgic movies like Ghostbusters & Back to the Future
• Super heroes
• Minecraft
• Pokémon
• Doctor Who
• Board games & books

There was a little bit of all of that. But mostly it was anime. So much anime. And a lot of it was stuff I don’t want my kids to see - lots of p*rnographic manga artwork. Between that, the revealing costumes, and a bunch of people trying to hand us stuff while walking down the street, it felt a lot like Las Vegas. 

I didn’t know what 90% of the costumes were. I was kind of disappointed. Now that I’ve been, I don’t ever need to go again. 

BUT…

I looked forward to Fan X. Most of the cast of Back to the Future was there, and oh! How I wish I could have seen Michael J Fox - my first crush! I don’t need to ever meet him, but I would have liked to have seen him from a distance and checked that off my bucket list. Instead of seeing Michael J Fox, I saw the line leading to Michael J Fox and acknowledged the fact that Michael J Fox was technically in the same room as me. That’s good enough. We were *this close* to seeing Christopher Lloyd, but I wasn’t willing to wait around for him to show up. 

We did get to see these people - of whom I made a collage since photo taking is strictly prohibited unless you’re willing to fork over $80+. 

I was probably most excited about “Newman” and “Dean.” Daisy has been watching Gilmore Girls, and even though she won’t say it, I’m pretty sure she’s crushing on Dean. And it’s just nice to know that Wayne Knight hasn’t fallen completely from the earth. 

I wish I could have seen Pauly Shore. He had a strong presence in my childhood - “Hey, budddddyyyyy!” I can pretty much quote A Goofy Movie, Encino Man, and Son-In-Law from memory. His table was empty. 

Along with most of the cast of Back to the Future, there were several members of the cast of Scream. I loved Scream when I was younger and watched it all the time! All three original movies (I’m not proud). The only one who was scheduled while we were there was Neve Campbell, but Rose McGowan, Matthew Lillard, and Skeet Ulrich were also making appearances. Because of this, there were a lot of people dressed as ghostface. There were also a lot of Marty McFlys running around.

Therein lies my nerd alert. 

But really! There was just soooo much anime. 

So very much.

But let’s rewind to the time where I was excited to go to Fan X and didn’t know that it would be so heavily saturated in anime…

The night before the event, I decided I wanted to make costumes for my family. Last-minute costumes have been a trend in my life. I’ve been known to go to the DI on Halloween to buy components for a costume. Sometimes inspiration hits me late. On Thursday night, I started brainstorming ideas for family costumes. I came up with three options: Alice in Wonderland, Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder version), or Care Bears (Scotty would have been Grumpy Bear, for sure). It just depended on what pieces we could find at the DI on Friday morning. 

The DI opens at 9:00, so we rope dropped with the hoarders and started our hunt for costume elements. I sent every kid on a mission, and we had great success for our first choice of cosplay: Alice in Wonderland. 

Featured cosplayers:

Nicky as the Mad Hatter

Items purchased from DI: green shirt & yellowish overcoat (found in the women’s section) (crappy, old, moth-eaten men’s blazers were $20 at DI! Are you kidding me?) 

Items purchased from Hobby Lobby: soft felt (bow tie) and stiff felt (hat).

Items from home: green pants 

Daisy as Alice

Items purchased from DI: sexy Alice costume (removed apron), blue dress, white leggings, black boots.

 

Items purchased from Hobby Lobby: black headband

Zoe as the Cheshire Cat

Zoe, of all my kids, has the most ridiculous demands for her costumes. She likes to take a lot of creative liberties. I had to talk her out of several costume components that don’t suit the Cheshire Cat. She wanted to wear tie dyed pants and a bow tie (to name just a few of her requests), and I had to compromise with her because I wanted her to be recognizable at the Cheshire Cat. 

Items purchased from DI: baby Cheshire Cat costume (cut off skirt, which happened to fit Zoe) and pink jacket (one of our compromises)

Items purchased from Hobby Lobby: boa for tail, felt for ears and tail stripes, headband

Eva as the White Rabbit

I was planning on being the white rabbit (as an homage to my love of punctuality), but Eva wanted to be the white rabbit. 

Items purchased from DI: yellow dress, red overcoat (it had a hood, but I cut it off)

Items purchased from Hobby Lobby: headband, stiff felt for ears, soft felt for bow tie, white poofy ball for tail

Items from home: pocket watch, gray leggings

Britt as Tweedledee and Scotty as a playing card

After I surrendered the white rabbit to Eva, I decided to go for the Queen of Hearts. I had some costume pieces picked out (one of which was a plus-sized pirate shirt). I tried them on and had a plan for adding card suits and some gold bling, and then as I was leaving the dressing room, I saw a yellow waterfall cardigan that was the perfect shade of Tweedle. I quickly looked at red pants and found a pair of sweatpants. The combined cost of the two items was $6, whereas the Queen of Hearts costume pieces added up to $15, and I’d still have to buy additional items from Hobby Lobby to dress it up. Combine the savings with the fact that I’d choose sweatpants over a dress any day, and I was quickly converted to being a Tweedle!

Items purchased from DI: yellow cardigan and red pants.

Items purchased from Hobby Lobby: red hat, soft felt for collar, bow tie, and flag on top of the hat

Items from home: white shirt 

Scotty was at work and unavailable for a costume fitting, so we went with something easy to make and easy to size. I just bought a white tee from Hobby Lobby and stuck some felt on it.

I wasn’t sure how we would fit into the Fan X crowd with our costumes. We were definitely one of the more “wholesome” groups. We saw one person dressed as the Queen of Hearts and three other Mad Hatters. There was also one person in the same “sexy Alice” costume we had bought from DI. Other than that, Alice in Wonderland (and everything else Disney) definitely wasn’t a common occurrence at this year’s Fan X. I saw one Ariel, one Elsa, and one Peter Pan. Then there was a family dressed as the family from Onward, and their costumes were so good! Too bad no one really watches Onward… do they? 

We ended up staying at Fan X for about three hours. After we left, we walked over to the food court at City Creek and had dinner. Then we walked through the newly designed part of the plaza by the Church Office Building. We had to go the long way around the COB to get to the Conference Center where we parked. The farther away we got from the Salt Palace, the weirder we started to look. 

We stopped in the Conference Center to use the restrooms, and we talked to some of the missionaries. We were a bit of a spectacle at the Conference Center, but we thought, hey! We probably won’t be in cosplay at the Conference Center ever again, so we might as well live it up. 

After we left Fan X, I felt like I’d run a marathon! It felt so good to sit down and take of my hat (I don’t do hats), and it was nice to get away from the masses of people.

It’s cool to have gone once, but I don’t think I ever need to go to Fan X again. I think next time I’ll just park myself somewhere downtown and do some people watching without going in. I do enjoy seeing the costumes.

It’s What Fun Is

September Writing Challenge - Prompt #13:

Purchase

For Christmas last year, we decided to get season passports to Lagoon, our local amusement park. I have a love/hate relationship with Lagoon (which, as a child, I thought was called Little Goon). There are so many rides at Lagoon that I love! But I hate the lines, the crowds, the hot summer weather,* and don’t even get me started on their parking lot! (IYKYK) 

We had season passports seven years ago. Our kids were 9, 6, 3, and 1. It was hard to take them to Lagoon, and frankly, I didn’t care for the experience. I was in school, so usually it was Scotty that would take the kids while I did homework. After that season of Lagoon-ing, I was fine to not go again for a really long time. Thus, seven years passed before I would even consider going to Lagoon again. Then Black Friday 2022 rolled around, and we had no idea what else to do for Christmas, so we ordered Lagoon passes from our condo in California over Thanksgiving weekend.

After the first couple of attempts at taking the whole family to Lagoon, I was ready to pull my hair out. Zoe and Eva were horrible. They disagreed about every ride and constantly begged to play carnival games and buy junk food. No matter what we did, someone was mad. We couldn’t go on any rides as a family because one of them would always throw a fit and stay off the ride. It wasn’t that they didn’t like the ride - it was that they didn’t get to choose the ride. If someone else picked it, they had to pretend they hated it and refuse to go on it. Nicky and Daisy were miserable because Zoe and Eva were so difficult. 

We took a hiatus from family Lagoon trips for a while, and Nicky and Daisy started going with their friends instead. It turns out everyone has Lagoon passes. Has it always been this way? Have I just never noticed? Or was this year just a really popular year for our locals to go to Lagoon? The people in The Other County (the one Lagoon is in) always have Lagoon passes. But our county? I dunno. Have I just not been paying attention? Has everyone been hanging out at Lagoon without me? 

Anyway, we didn’t go to Lagoon for a while because it was hot, and we were busy. Then after all our camps ended and things calmed down a little, we started going again, and to my surprise, things got better with Zoe and Eva. Still not ideal, but better.

We found that if we went right when they opened and left by noon, things were quite pleasant. It wasn’t too hot or too crowded, and we got out of there before Zoe and Eva were completely burned out and ornery. I would always pack a cooler full of food, which we would usually leave in the van and eat on the way home. We bought reusable ICEE cups so they could get ICEEs at the end of each trip. 

Once we found our system, Lagoon became a lot of fun, and the passes were worth every penny!

It’s nice to go for a quick trip and not have to feel like we need to stay all day. We also don’t have to worry much about weather. On Labor Day we went to Lagoon in the pouring rain. We weren’t sure if the rides would be open, but we figured we could just leave if things didn’t work out - no big deal. Turns out, since there was no lightning, they were able to operate all the rides in the storm. We froze a little, but it was an absolute blast and one of the funnest and most memorable experiences of the season!

We still have another month and a half of potential (weekend) Lagoon visits, so I can’t make my final assessment, but at this point, I’m a little shocked to be able to say… I think I might want to do this again. 

*Lagoon is only open from April-October and the season begins and ends with weekend hours, so the peak of the season is June-August.

A Busy Weekend and a Whole Lotta COVID

With the influx in COVID cases (current variant: omicron), we are back to "distance learning." It's supposed to be for just this week, but we've been there, done that, and we all know it's best to be ready for anything. 

I'm currently being held hostage at my kitchen table by my four school-ing children. Last time we were distance learning, I didn't have to worry about Eva since she was in preschool. Now Eva is doing the same work that Zoe was doing when we started distance learning two years ago, which means I'm pretty much a professional first grader. 

Zoe is on a Zoom meeting with her class as I'm typing this, and all the kids are telling the teacher about how they have COVID or someone in their family has it (side note: Zoe's teacher is amazing. I am so impressed with her! Zoe has had such fantastic teachers thus far in her schooling). 

Our kids had a long weekend with no school on Friday (end of quarter) and no school on Monday (Martin Luther King Jr Day). We were supposed to go to Hamilton on Saturday (we got tickets for Nicky and Daisy for Christmas), but this week's shows were canceled due to... COVID! We'd been doing our best to stay healthy because we were worried that one of us would end up with COVID, and we wouldn't be able to go, but it turned out there was an outbreak in the cast. 

Thus far, we are still COVID-free, but pretty much everyday, I find out 2-3 people we've recently been with have COVID, so we can't possibly continue to dodge it. Scotty is supposed to go to Disneyland (a la a thrice rescheduled "brocation") in a few days, and it seems unfathomable that all 10 "bros" will make it. A few have had COVID in the past couple of weeks, so they're good to go. The rest are ticking time bombs. 

Over the weekend, we had the internal battle of "should we completely lock down and try to keep Scotty healthy, or should we go forward with life being as cautious as possible?" We decided to still go out and do things, but do so with as much safety and vigilance as possible. 

On Friday, I took the kids bowling. It ended up working out rather well because we were the only family there!

Eva didn't want to bowl, but we were able to convince her to play one game

Nicky is actually quite terrible at bowling

Zoe got a strike

We also went to Raising Cane's and waited in the super long drive-thru line for lunch (our local restaurant opened on December 14 - I only remember because it was my mom's birthday). Most people have told us that Raising Cane's is "just okay." We concur. 

After lunch, we went to the school to pick up the kids' Chromebooks and other materials for distance learning. 

That evening, my friend Christie brought me a birthday present. You may call me Patrick.

On Saturday, Scotty and I decided we really needed to get out of the house, so we went to Thanksgiving Point. First we went to Farm Country, and it was really fun! We got there shortly after they opened, and there was no one there yet. We bought some food for the animals, and they were all rather hungry, being early morning and all, so they were super excited to see us and quite competitive for our attention. 

My new besties

We took a tractor ride and Zoe rode a pony. 

Then we headed to the Butterfly Biosphere because Scotty had never been there before.

(We have a pass to Thanksgiving Point that let's us get into all the venues). 

We weren't quite ready to go home, so we stopped at Cafe Rio and got some lunch. I had a few gift cards and rewards, and then three vouchers for free desserts, so we got a lot of food for free. 

After Cafe Rio, we stopped at Scheel's to ride the Ferris wheel and eat some ice cream. They used to have those multi-flavored syrupy ice cream cones for super cheap, but now they just have the classic vanilla, chocolate, and twist, which is fine... but also disappointing. Our neighbor works at the Ferris wheel, and he hooked us up with free ice cream (which wasn't our intent, but a much-appreciated surprise). 

After Scheel's, we headed to the zoo, where we also have an annual pass. We scoped out the animals and rode the carousel (except for me because after 15 years of taking my kids to the zoo, I feel like I deserve to not ride the carousel and sit on a bench instead. Plus, I wanted to check up on news about Tonga).

Me not riding the carousel

If that wasn't enough, we also had a birthday party for my nephew to go to that evening. So you might say that Saturday was a bit busy. 

On Sunday, we had church where we were few in numbers and have returned to social distanced seating. We have also moved all additional meetings online. Nicky blessed the sacrament for the first time (milestone alert!), then he and Scotty took the sacrament to the homebound (where Nicky was able to bless) while I had an online meeting. 

We went and visited Scotty's parents (which is what we do most Sundays), and then we came home and made crunch wraps with some gigantic tortillas we got from the Food Bank (we have a lot of Food Bank food being distributed in our area, and we have multiple neighbors that bring us offerings from time to time. Our next door neighbor brought us a few packages of the giant tortillas, and we've had fun making LARGE food items with them).

On Monday, we didn't have any secure plans. We ended up going back to Thanksgiving Point because they were having a "Day of Service" where we could help put together snack kits for Granite Education Foundation. Some of my in-laws came, and after we finished the service project, we thought, "Heck! Let's all go to the zoo again!"

So we did. 

Then Scotty's mom offered to have the kids come to her house to play (glory hallelujah! I needed a break from them) so Scotty and I snuck off to Leatherby's and then came home and watched a show (i.e. I watched a show while Scotty slept on the couch). 

When the kids came back home, we had Family Home Evening and then went to sleep to dream about all the places we might have picked up COVID over the long weekend. 

Now here we sit with open laptops, living our best pandemic lives and wondering... what excitement awaits us this week? 

Tales of Creatures

We have a lot of creatures in our lives right now. This morning I was out in the garden, feeling dismayed about the ANTS crawling all over the place and the mystery BUG that is chomping on the leaves of my plants.

As I watered and picked a bucket of peas, I listened to an audiobook about ELEPHANTS. The more I learn about elephants, the more I believe they are my soul sisters. I mean, large-bodied animals that need to rest in the shade or cover themselves in mud because the heat takes a toll on them? Are we sure we're talking about elephants and not me?

After I finished watering the garden, I peeked in our BIRDhouse and found the most incredible thing!

I wish I could watch them all day, but I gave them their space and checked back in an hour and a half later to find this:

They are so ugly and so miraculous.

About a foot to the right of the birdhouse lies Zoe and Eva's MOUSE trap.

I mentioned the other day that we have quite the mouse infestation at our house. We always do. They're in our garage, sheds, and yard. Our neighbors have a field behind their house, so that's where they come from, and the mice like to come steal our chicken food.

We take measures to eliminate them, of course.

The other day, Scotty was taking said measures, and the girls decided they wanted to help, so they built this trap:

The mice are supposed to follow a trail of peanut butter. They go up the ladder:

Across the box and through the cup:

And into a popsicle stick cage:

They worked so hard on it, so Scotty and I decided to reward them by leaving a dead mouse in the trap. When they discovered it, they were confused as to why it was dead. We didn't consider the fact that they were trying to catch a live mouse. Oops!

I adore Zoe and Eva's creative minds and love that they worked together to build this mouse trap. 

Yesterday we went FISHing. 

Scotty took the day off work (for the first time in 2020) and we headed to the mountains. Normally fishing isn't my activity of choice, but I go along to be a good sport. This time I actually wanted to go. I even bought a fishing license, which I haven't done in years. 

And I actually caught some fish! 

In fact, all of us caught fish! Multiples! They were all really small, but for our current family situation, quantity is more important than quality when it comes to catching fish. 

The kids had a great time. Daisy, who is normally squirmy and finicky about everything, loves to hold the fish and release them into the water. I've never been okay with touching or holding a live fish (I'm not that hip on dead fish either, but I can touch it to cook it... sometimes I have to rely fully on tongs). Water creatures weird me out, and I scream and run. I can't help it. I make a total fool of myself. Their floppiness and their sliminess just get to me! And their weird, little mouths and unmoving eyes. Oh gosh! I can't even visualize it without getting riled up. 

(Hopefully you've concluded that the hand in the photo above is not mine). 

While we were fishing, I had a bag of Cheetos in my backpack. My backpack was unzipped, and I went to grab the Cheetos, and a CHIPMUNK came running out of the bag! 

Since a rodent had been in the bag, I wouldn't let my kids eat anymore, so we fully surrendered the Cheetos to the chipmunk. 

Well-played, you little chipmunk punk! Well-played!

The funny thing is, this isn't the first time a chipmunk has stolen my Cheetos while fishing. Years and years ago, it happened at Strawberry Reservoir, but it was a bag of Flamin' Hot Cheetos. The little guy just kept eating them and eating them. It was hysterical!

And thus ends the tales of the creatures for now. 

Take care of your Cheetos, friends!

Something Beautiful

outside.

Right now, I'm especially grateful for outside.

Horseshoe Springs

Something Interesting

Utah history.

I'm not a huge history buff. My problem with history is retention. I can study something historical with great interest, and then three weeks later, not remember it. It's like the part of my brain that files history doesn't work. History frustrates me because I have to keep learning the same things over and over.

I just want perfect recall. Is that so much to ask?

Anyway, despite my inability to remember historical information, I enjoy learning little tidbits about Utah's history. The best way to do this is to go out and experience it!

Two weeks ago we went exploring near the Great Salt Lake.

Salty Earth

Then last week we checked out the mines in Sunshine Canyon.

Note my shadow laying on the grate

This week we went to the Iosepa cemetery. 

Iosepa Settlement Cemetery

Mormon Church converts from Polynesia settled in

Skull Valley in 1889-1917 for the Church-owned

Iosepa Agriculture and Stock Company...

Their settlement located 1/2 mile to the southwest

and named Iosepa (Joseph) after Joseph F. Smith, then

president of the Church, flourished until 1917

when a Hawaiian temple was constructed. Most

of the islanders returned to their homeland...

many who succumbed to the hardship 

of the land are buried in this cemetery. 

The cemetery is all that remains of Iosepa. The reasons for the settlement are a little sad - discrimination played a role. But I love the reasons the emigrants came to Utah - they wanted to be near the temple!

Centennial monument dedicated by Presiden Gordon B. Hinckley

Most of the graves in the cemetery are from the late 1800's and early 1900's. Many of them are unmarked. There are quite a few infant graves. 

There are also a handful of recent graves. 

This is probably the coolest grave marker I've ever seen:

The guitar enthusiast was the most recent burial - August 2019. 

Some descendants of the Iosepans gather at the cemetery in celebration of Memorial Day each year. There is a pavilion with a makeshift basketball court, several picnic tables (which a young man did for his Eagle project), and a stage. One thing I know about Polynesians... they know how to party! And they truly honor their ancestors. 

Another unique feature of the cemetery is that it has a playground - the old, awesome, dangerous to modern-day children kind (our favorite kind)! We've been following the advisement to not take children to playgrounds right now, so it was a real treat to find one in the middle of the desert.