Three Tales

The Ladybug's Tale

Last night Scotty went for a run. When he came home, I noticed something dark on the back of his neck. My first thought was that it was a tick since he’d just returned from camping a few days prior and had found three ticks on him while he was gone. 

Upon closer inspection, I realized it was a small ladybug. Scotty was about to get in the shower, so he took the ladybug off his neck and put it on the bathroom counter.

A day later, the ladybug is still in the bathroom. So I guess it just lives there now. 

Yes, this photo was taken from the toilet. Don't judge me!

A Tale of Big, Dumb Ideas

While Scotty was camping, I was desperate to keep my girls busy. We have an old playset in our backyard that we started to refinish several years ago and never finished. 

I decided to get out all my old paint from the garage and shed and let the girls paint it however they wanted. I knew it wouldn't be pretty, but I imagined them painting rainbows, flowers, and sunsets and having a joyous time.

Instead, I got this.

I have regrets.

The Tell Tale Tooth 

Throughout our marriage, Scotty and I have always thrown our change into an old pot and cashed it in every few years or so to use toward a vacation. It's usually enough to sponsor a few gas station snacks on a road trip. We call it our "pot money."

Today, Nicky and I went to the bank and cashed in our coins for an upcoming trip. The bank teller has to take the coins and dump them in a machine to count them. Then we can cash out in bills or deposit the balance in our account. Every time we do this, the teller brings back a few random items from our pot - usually car wash tokens, Canadian currency, and a stray thumb tack or golf tee. 

Today, the teller returned with our receipt for $102.95. Then he said, "Here's your screw, your key ring, and your tooth."

Then he handed me the inventory, and sure enough, there was a tooth. And a weird looking tooth, at that. 

 

In shock, I stuttered, "I have no idea why there was a tooth in there!" but every word felt like a cover story for some sick tooth fetish or something. There is a walk of shame I didn't previously know, and that is when your bank teller finds a tooth in your money and places it in your hand, and you have to leave the facility. 

I really didn't know where the tooth came from, but when Scotty got home, the mystery unraveled... kind of. When I showed Scotty the tooth, he said, "Oh! It's my grandpa's!" You see... Scotty inherited some of his grandpa's teeth. I don't know why his grandpa's teeth aren't in his grandpa's mouth. But apparently Grandpa had some gold crowns, and he kept his teeth to sell someday, and those teeth now belong to my husband. As you can see from the photo, the crown is missing from the tooth. Scotty sold it for a few bucks, and somehow the rest of the tooth ended up in our pot. 

How? Why? That is the remaining mystery as well as how and why the teeth were removed from Grandpa's body in the first place. 

Summer Summary

In many ways, this summer was different from previous summers, but in other ways, it was a typical summer. The kids were home from school (normal). It was really hot (normal). We started off strong with lots of nurturing activities (normal) then got lazy and spent the rest of the summer watching TV and laying around all day (normal). 

Here's a little rundown of our summer highlights:

We went on weekly hikes... until it got too hot for this mom

We did chalk art almost every day... until it got too hot for this mom

We made a slip 'n slide in Grandma's backyard

We took a day trip to Logan (twice) and ate COVID-style in parking lots

We bought new dutch ovens and made some great meals

We went fishing (I went on this trip, but Scotty took the kids on a few trips without me so I could have a break)

We had a water main break up the street from us, and the road buckled

We had at least four sets of birds hatch in our backyard

We hunted for treasures 

The girls had dance classes later into the summer than normal to make up for lost Corona time

We bought a bidet

We went camping over Memorial Day, Father's Day, and the 4th of July. 

We did a dance costume photo shoot and had an outdoor dance concert

We did puzzles and played lots of board games

Everyone except Scotty had at least one dentist appointment

We went "park hopping" (this is where we hit several parks in one day and spend 5-15 minutes at each. We went to 16 parks in three park hopping sessions).

We 75% finished our basement (we still need to finish the closets)

We did lame, cheap fireworks

We grew sunflowers

We picked out carpet

We watched Hamilton. Lots of times. 

Nicky completed his Eagle project

We spent a weekend in Wyoming

We grew a tomato (our garden struggled a little bit, so yep. ONE tomato. From 15 tomato plants)

We went to a few lakes

I'd say we had a pretty darn good summer. 

Rats and Boars and So Much More

My last post was written from the church gym while protecting my laptop from flying basketballs and tucking my feet way under my chair so my girls wouldn't run my toes over with their scooters.

Motion blur is a way of life

There was no school that day, and I needed to A) do some work in the primary room and B) get my kids out of the house to a place where they could burn off some energy.

None of this has any significance other than to say, wow! Time flies! That was two weeks ago!

Here we are at the end of January already!

I've lost my New Year's momentum, as is expected by January 23rd. The good thing is, I didn't set any goals for this year, so losing my momentum isn't going to amount to any degree of failure. What I've really lost in the past few weeks is the air of excitement that I feel when the year changes, and it's okay for that to go away, but I do miss the burst of energy that accompanies it. 

I toyed around with the idea of making some resolutions for Chinese New Year instead of New Year this year (how many times can I say 'year' in one sentence?) It's a good idea, really, since New Year's Day is my birthday. I shouldn't have to make big life changes on my birthday. Especially changes that have anything to do with health. What am I supposed to do? Forgo all my free birthday meals? I don't think so! But Chinese New Year gives me a little bit of time to party hard for my birthday (i.e. eat all my free food) and still make resolutions. 

My decision: I have none. I'm just as likely to give up on my resolutions for Chinese New Year. But I like setting goals. I have two days to decide. 

-----

Side note: This is the year of the rat in the Chinese zodiac, which reminds me of one of the complications of being a New Year's baby. 

I was born in 1984, and a lot of my friends and classmates were born in 1983. It shouldn't matter, but as a child, this caused some division. For example, at church, we were put in classes by the year we were born, which meant some of my friends were in a different class than I was. It also affected when we could take driver's ed in school. 

Likewise, whenever we did Chinese New Year activities at school (which, I swear, was a regular thing), I was isolated as a rat while my friends were boars (I had friends born in 1984, so I don't know why it was such a big deal, but all I saw was separation from the boars. They might as well have worn matching t-shirts and hollered a special boar chant while I cowered in my sad, little rat corner! Oh, to be a a boar!)

Well, little did I know... all the Chinese zodiac placemats had led me astray. I found out in my twenties that, because I was born before Chinese New Year in 1984, I actually was a boar. 

I spent the first two decades of my life believing I was a rat. 

Maybe I'll go to therapy someday to address this. Hopefully it will be an exciting, new opportunity for my therapist, since it's probably not very common for someone to come in to work out their issues with being assigned to the wrong Chinese zodiac sign for over twenty years. 

-----

Anyway, the past two weeks have been busy. Mostly with good things. I've taken on some new volunteer tasks at my kids' school. We've had some family events, like my sister-in-law's birthday party for which I was asked to bring a veggie creation. I made a "keto-friendly birthday cake:"

My SIL loves the beach - hence the palm trees

We've spent a lot of time at the temple. I went 2.5 times last week - twice for endowment sessions and .5 times driving from temple to temple trying to find somewhere to get Nicky in for baptisms in under three hours. The shortest wait was at Oquirrh Mountain which was 90 minutes, but the temple is so small that there was nowhere to wait other than standing against the wall by the recommend desk. Bountiful, Draper, and Jordan River all had up to three hour wait times. It's a good problem to have - too many people doing temple work! But we ended up going home because it was late at night.

In addition to that, I joined a book club and went to our first meeting (other than my book exchange that I've done for the past twelve years, I've never done a book club, so this is new for me). And, for the first time in almost two years, I went and spoke at a Relief Society event. The last time I spoke was in April of 2018, and while I was preparing for that event, I felt a prompting from the Spirit that told me I needed to take a break for a while. I felt really good about it, too. I love speaking. Really. But I knew I needed to set it aside for some time. So this week, I spoke for the first time since then. They asked me to come to their ward and speak on the Book of Mormon and the Come Follow Me curriculum. It went well, especially considering how out of practice I am. I planned this presentation with a lot of discussion (to align with the goals of Come Follow Me), and the women were so great to respond. 

I've had sick kids off and on. Last week Eva had a fever with no other symptoms. She slept for an entire day! Dare I say it? It was wonderful! Then Zoe got a barking cough. It really only lasted a day and a half so it wasn't too bad, but I did keep her home from school - bringing her to a total of 17 absences this school year! Oi! (she missed three weeks for her tonsils and subsequent hemorrhaging, and then we went to Disneyland. I've never racked up absences like this, and of course it's my kid that's the most behind academically). 

In October, my in-laws took us to Hale Theatre see the Addam's Family, and we had to be evacuated 15 minutes into the show because a cast member in the other play (Phantom - which is different than Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera. Just throwing that out there because I only learned recently that there is a different Phantom musical that was written at the same time) bumped the sprinkler head with a piece of the set and set off the alarms and flooded the basement of the theater. Hale Theatre gave us all ticket vouchers and concessions coupons to come back and see another show. Last week we went to see Seussical. It was such a fun show, but it also stressed me out because there were aerialists in the play, and I spent the whole time envisioning myself as an aerialist, which repeatedly ended in me plummeting to my imaginary death. 

Aerialists, you have my respect.

Now off I go to do the next right thing** (which is pretending to eat the Play-Doh meal Eva has been lovingly preparing for me for the past half hour). 

*Except for in sacrament meeting, but I've never been assigned a topic I love. 

**The Frozen II soundtrack has slowly wormed its way into my life. Darn you, catchy Disney tunes! You did it again!

Christmas in July

For Christmas last year, Scotty (kind of) bought me Hugh Jackman tickets. I say "kind of" because I caused a few problems. You see, Scotty and Brian (my friend Christie's husband) had secretly conspired to buy us the tickets, but Christie and I had also secretly conspired to buy ourselves tickets. So Scotty and were both online trying to by tickets... for me.

Scotty will tell you that I am not fun to buy gifts for. I confess, I don't make it easy. 

Luckily Scotty caught on that I was trying to buy tickets, so he told me that he wanted to get them for me for Christmas. I then had to tell Christie that she was getting a ticket from Brian for Christmas. And then I told Scotty to buy four because I knew I would have at least two other friends who would want to come!

The tickets were purchased in early December, and then we waited the long seven months until July 11th.

Our friends Carlie and Lynsie joined us for the concert, and you guys!

You.

Guys.

It was just really, really good. 

So good, in fact, that the minute I got home, I looked up tickets for the next night's show (after we bought tickets, they announced a second date). I would have done it! I would have bought tickets for the second night!

And there were several options still available!

The thing that stopped me was the fact that Scotty was out of town, and I didn't feel like it would be right for me to ask someone to watch my kids so I could go see Hugh Jackman for a second night in a row. 

But Christie went the second night. With floor seats! (never in my life have I wanted floor seats at a concert until this. This is the one I should have been on the floor for!)

I suffered the greatest FOMO of my life. 

He was amazing! What a talented and gracious man! 

And so easy on the eyes. 

One night of Hugh Jackman will never be enough. 

Never.

Be. 

Enough. 

Our Anniversary Tradition

Last week, Scotty and I celebrated our 16th anniversary. By "celebrated" I mean we remembered it was our anniversary after Scotty had left for work, and we texted each other, "Oh yeah, happy anniversary!" I had to work at the school that morning and then our girls had their dance concert that night, and there wasn't a minute to spare.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again:

MAY IS CRAY!

Young people everywhere, I urge you to not get married in May! It's too late for me, but you can save yourselves! And your mothers! For heaven's sake... think of your mothers!!! My children will not be granted any wedding funds if they choose to get married in May. 

Or December.

(Oh my gosh, I'm going to be an awful mother-in-law!)

 

Even though Scotty and I didn't get to do anything alone together for our anniversary (but we will... eventually... when it's no longer May... and when we are in the same country) we have a tradition that we were able to squeeze in between dance concerts, church responsibilities, and school functions. 

Since our wedding anniversary marks the day we became a family, we like to do something to celebrate with our kids. Every year (usually on the Monday of our anniversary week, but this time we had to go for Wednesday because our kids got in trouble on Monday for fighting, so their consequence was postponing) we have what we call our "Familyversary Dinner." 

We draw for food assignments (entree, side dish, dessert, drink, etc) and then we go shopping together. Each person picks out whatever they want for their food assignment, and then we come home and prepare the food and eat dinner together. Usually I try to make it "fancy" with a table cloth and candles, but we've had a few close calls with the candles, so we've stopped using them for now. I also used to use wine glasses, but every year someone spills, so I decided they don't spark joy and got rid of them. This year we resorted to paper plates, and we had an extra kid at our house. Whatever. We got it done. 

 

When we started this tradition, we did $5 for each person to get whatever they wanted for dinner, but we usually ended up with a lot of ice cream and cookies or a meal where everything was orangs and covered in cheese. So for the past three years we've done assignments instead to provide a little balance. We still end up eating a lot of junk food, but sometimes there's a nutrient in there. We kind of have to stick with things that are easy to fix since we don't want to come home and spend hours fixing food from scratch. So sometimes the kids end up picking something like Lunchables or mac & cheese. It's all good. We have a lot of fun with it!

This year's menu included:

Daisy (entree): chicken nuggets

Me (entree): Totinos pizza

Nicky (drink): Capri Suns

Eva (side dish): Club crackers and cheese

Zoe (side dish): strawberries

Scotty (dessert): pumpkin chocolate chip cookies

 Here's to 16 years as a family! With many more to come!

Color Running 2018

Over the weekend, we did our neighborhood Color Run. My friend Jennifer puts this event together every year. We didn't make it the first couple of years because of other activities, but we've gone for the last four. I usually have some of my nieces and nephews sleep over and join us, but Nicky had some merit badge classes and couldn't come, so we just kept it to our three girls.

{Nice and clean at the start}

My mom and my mother-in-law usually volunteer as color throwers. My father-in-law just retired so this was the first time he's been able to come. He seemed to think he could get away clean. The grandkids proved him wrong.

{Watch your back, Grandpa!}

{Grandma and Grandpa}

 

{Grandpa, Grandma, and the girls}

This was also the first year my step-dad came. He wasn't too enthusiastic about getting covered in color, but he really liked attacking other people. Scotty has never been a fan of the color. He's okay with having mud in his ears, but not color.

 

{My step-dad throwing red on Scotty}

The after effects are intense. Eva's hair holds on to the pink and purple for a few months, and as you know, my face is stained. I thought it was gone, but I went in the bathroom at church on Sunday, and I could see purple around my nose still. Its always funny to see all the kids at church with lingering color in their hair. The towheads are the best.

{Daisy}

{Zoe}

{Eva}

{Why I have a purple mustache}

We've had some really bad air here from the fires, so you can see how the air is hazy in the photos. Icky! I like to think the color dust in my nose filtered out all the smoky contaminants.