Yellow Wallpaper

Yes, I'm counting down the days until school is back in session. I think the kids are too, even though it's been a pretty fun summer so far. The other day I was talking to a friend who works full-time and she agreed with me that it feels better to go to work during the school year when we know the kids are happily involved in their routine and busy at school. At the same time, though, it's nice to have seasons in life and I remember just two months ago how ready for change I was. I will say that summer mornings are so much simpler for me since I only have to get myself ready and out the door.  I started the summer with a very quick trip up to Portland for my sister's graduation with a doctorate in nursing practice. I flew up Sunday afternoon and came home on Tuesday afternoon--I think I was only gone for about 48 hours. It was a lot of fun; the agenda was basically eating lots of delicious food, hanging out, and attending the graduation. We accomplished all those thin...

Remember how in February I really got into exercise and made some great progress? Well, then in March I totally fell off the wagon. I haven't exercised at all since then. School and work and everything just got overwhelming and I've been kind of down all month. I know that exercise would probably help with that feeling, and probably fix some of the sleep issues that have been creeping back into my life. I should try again to get back in the habit. Obviously I totally fell off the blogging bandwagon as well. Looking back over my calendar I don't see anything too out of the ordinary that would make this month feel so stressful. Well, actually I only really ended up with one kid-free weekend instead of my usual two. Out of the past five weekends, only one has been completely without the kids. This weekend they were mostly with Mr. Fob, but my dad came into town on Friday evening to watch S-Boogie's play, so yesterday I picked them up for lunch with their Grandpa and then...

Last weekend we went down to Vegas to visit my parents for a few days. The kids had Spring Break, and since I had to take time off work to be with them anyway I thought a trip would be fun. It mostly went well; we listened to a  Harry Potter audiobook during the drive that kept everyone entertained. The weather was warm and sunny, but not horribly hot yet. Spending a few days in the warm sunshine was great for everyone, though it made the cold and snow here in Utah a bit more unbearable after we got back. Since this is a good time of year for being outside there, we took advantage and spent a lot of time doing nature-related activities. One day we went to Springs Preserve and spent hours in the museum there learning all about the history and ecology of the desert. It was a lot of fun; the kids could have spent all day in the museum I'm sure. The next day we drove out to Red Rocks and spent time at the visitor center learning even more about the desert, then did some hiking and...

I'm sure everyone is dying to read a play-by-play account of our Fall Break vacation. Right? Well, even if you're not, I'm going to write it down so I can remember it all some day. This year I decided to take the kids on a little road trip down to Zion National Park. I don't remember when I got the idea exactly, but a few months ago I realized that I had never been there and that it would be a fun place to go for Fall Break with the kids. Plus I had not used any of my vacation time this summer (because I hadn't really earned any yet), and if you work while your kids are in school then you have to figure out something to do with them when they have time off. I'm not going to take time off during all of their holidays, but Fall Break seemed like good timing. We left on Thursday afternoon; I had planned to leave a little earlier in the day but I ended up going in to work for a few hours and we just weren't ready to go until later. I thought it would be fun to...

 There aren't any kids in these pictures so I can put them on my blog. I don't think I've put pictures on here for years. This year I decided to go on a trip for my birthday. I got some extra money from my tax return, and I just wanted to go do something different. I went up to Oregon because my sister lives in Portland. I flew up Tuesday night and spent the night at her apartment. The next morning (after a stop at Voodoo Donuts for a maple bacon bar) we drove out to the coast and spent a few days there. It was a lot of fun. Our first stop on Wednesday was Cannon Beach. I love Cannon Beach; the town is small and beautiful and the beach is gorgeous. I had originally thought of staying there, but even off-season it was more expensive than I would have liked. We walked down the beach and enjoyed the scenery. It was fairly cold most of the time I was in Oregon; I knew it probably would be when I scheduled the trip, but I like the beach even when it's cold. After Cannon...

Now that my show has aired I can finally talk all about my trip and the taping. Despite the fact that I did not win, I still had a fabulous experience. I wish I could do it again just because it was so much fun (and I'd love another shot at some money, of course). Alas, it is a once-in-a-lifetime gig so I guess I'll just have to write it all down here so I can relive the memories any time I want to. I tried out back in March and knew that I would be in the contestant pool for about a year. Since this was my fourth tryout (and the third that landed me in the contestant pool), I really was not holding my breath waiting for a call. When my mom was here in July we decided to take the kids to Thanksgiving Point one morning. As we walked back in the house after lunch the phone was ringing; I checked the caller ID and nearly peed my pants when it said "Sony Pictures" with a California number. They invited me to come down to Los Angeles for a taping on August 30th. That was ...

Remember when I actually used to talk about my life on this blog? That was fun. I've taken an unscheduled blog break for about a month or so and I think it was good to recharge. It feels a little weird to take up the reins again, but I miss blogging and I want to get back into it. Some of my personal highlights from the last little while: We went to Hawaii for about two weeks. It's been nearly four years since we went back and it was a lovely trip. I think I spent a little too much time stressing about it being a fabulous trip and so I should have relaxed and enjoyed it more, but it was nice. I also didn't fulfill my goal of taking more pictures; part of that was the fact that I'm not great at taking pictures, and part of it was the fact that our camera starting acting weird and actually died before we came home. We also officially hate United Airlines because we ended up with major delays both coming from and going to Hawaii. I don't ever want to spend half the ...

Last Tuesday afternoon I was reading one of my usual blogs (instead of grading papers) and mentioned to Mr. Fob "hey, that play you were interviewed for is going on this weekend. Wouldn't it be fun if we could go?" My question wasn't really serious, of course. But then we started talking about it, and then we started looking up trip prices on the internet, and then we called Mr. Fob's sister to see if she could watch our kids, and the next thing we knew, we had bought ourselves a trip to the Bay Area for the weekend. I think my motivation came from an interest in the play, the fact that winter here is long and brown and I always miss California this time of year, and the thrill of doing something absolutely spontaneous. I spent a lot of time before last Friday afternoon wondering if we were doing 'the right thing'. I have no regrets today. We were blessed with beautiful weather the entire weekend and I got a nice dose of green plants, sunshine, and flower...

I've heard enough horror stories about camping with small children to be wary of driving a six-month-old clear to California just to go camping. I think the dire warnings helped me prepare my mind for the worst, and then when it didn't happen I managed to have a good time. I could tell the baby was not very happy while we were there; she became very clingy and cried a lot when anyone else held her. I think this was a combination of not being on her regular schedule, being outside in the sun and wind a lot, and being with a lot of people she's never seen before. When we got back to my parents' house in Las Vegas last night she became happy and smiling and even went right to sleep in her own bed. While we were camping she ended up sleeping with us, but still slept all night. That was partly due to the fact that the weather was unseasonably cold. I am so, so grateful that we brought the Ergo carrier because she spent most of her time snuggled up in it hiding from everyone...

I apologize, again, for the delay in posting last month's 'reading roundup'; it seems to be getting harder and harder to get those posts up on time. I need to stop waiting until the end of the month to review all the books because then I tend to lose my enthusiasm for it. I don't know if it will happen this week because we're on vacation. Yesterday we drove to Las Vegas and are spending a few days with my parents. Usually the drive to Vegas is fairly quick and we don't like to stop much. This time we decided to take our time and stop more often to enjoy the scenery. I'm still deciding if I like this approach or not. First we had to stop in Fillmore to feed the baby and eat some potato logs. Then we spent a while at Cove Fort for their annual 'Cove Fort Days'. It was a lot of fun; the kids loved the demonstrations of pioneer crafts and the baby got a nice long nap in the front pack. We went for a ride on a covered wagon pulled by mules and ate free ho...

Last Saturday morning we packed up the car and headed south. We ran into a blizzard just before Fillmore, ate our peanut butter sandwiches quickly while shivering on a picnic bench at a rest stop, found green leaves in Saint George, and saw beautiful wildflowers in the Nevada desert. When we finally got to Las Vegas, Little Dude and S-Boogie spent an hour running around in Grandpa and Grandma's backyard enjoying the sunshine. They also soaked themselves with the hose while helping to clean and refill the pool. Despite the sun it is still a bit too chilly for swimming in the big pool, but they love playing in the hot tub. We had a nice Easter together and I felt inspired by the Conference talks I was able to watch. It felt ironic to me to be receiving so many good ideas for how to better teach my children the gospel while at the same time giving in to their cries of "I hate Conference" and letting them play in the backyard. I wasn't really prepared for either Conferenc...

I'm back from my weeklong adventure to the beach and feel a need to blog about it, but am not sure where to begin. I don't think my audience really wants a daily play-by-play and I don't think I feel up to typing that much out. It really did turn out to be a good time and I think the kids had a blast. We stayed at a campground here that was across the highway from the beach, so every day we spent some time there playing in the sand. The high tide came up in the afternoon, which freaked out Little Dude and he spent a lot of time playing on the rocks instead of the sand. As a mother I naturally worried about this and spent a lot of time trying to entice him onto the sand. And of course on our last evening there he fell hard and sustained a nasty injury on his forehead. I was scared we were going to have to drive the hospital because it was bleeding a lot, but it actually turned out to not be very wide and has healed nicely. We spent most of our days just hanging out and pla...

Well, actually I'm off. For a week. Yesterday the kids and I drove down to Las Vegas to my parents' house, and then today we're going down to California to spend next week camping by the beach. The campground has WiFi, but I decided not to bring the laptop and just enjoy myself as much as I can. Mr. Fob was unable to make it because he doesn't have vacation time yet, but the truth is he probably got the better end of the deal. Hopefully today's drive will not be as arduous as yesterday; I think that having S-Boogie ride with grandma will make everyone a lot happier (except her little brother). And that's the best thing about this week: not only do I get to spend time with my family but my kids do too. I'll let you know how it goes on Saturday.

I've never been a very spontaneous person; usually I like to plan things out exactly and follow my plan without deviation. Although I've graduated from writing out lists of my planned outfits for trips I still generally plan ahead as much as I can. But then this weekend we drove down to Saint George for a family reunion with Mr. Fob's family. I woke up in Saint George on Saturday morning and realized that we were quite close to my parents' house in Las Vegas and that the kids haven't been there for nearly a year. So despite the fact that I only packed clothes and diapers for two days the kids and I drove down there on Sunday morning (after a trip to Target for church clothes and extra diapers on Saturday evening). It turned out to be a great idea and we had a relaxing few days involving lots of swimming, fresh basil pesto from the garden, and Grandpa spoiling the kids with a trip to the Shark Reef complete with souvenirs. The drive back today by myself was less tha...

We pulled in last night at eleven after a long drive and a fun-filled weekend away with family. I thought I'd write a quick run-down of our vacation: Thursday: We woke up bright and early at 4:30 with Little Dude, who informed us "it's Christmas in my bed". Thankfully we got him to go back to sleep until a more reasonable hour. Then we opened our presents, ate some breakfast, packed up our things, and hit the road (with only one small stress-induced argument). Then we drove through the desolation that is I-5 in northern California, dodging giant tumbleweeds and raging dust storms. The kids fell asleep somewhere in the mountains and slept through Los Angeles so we delayed dinner until Orange County. The only place we could find that was open was a McDonalds in Mission Viejo. We were all starving and tired so even the crappy service didn't mar our fabulous Christmas feast. The kids even got matching My Little Ponies. We were all very excited to pull into our hotel a...

I've been planning on writing another whiny post for a few days, since my week hasn't been going so well. I've mostly recovered from my illness, and S-Boogie has had a great time at her first few days of kindergarten, but it's still been a less-than-stellar week. Thankfully our little mini-vacation today helped turn things around for me. So now we get a positive post instead. My younger brother came out to San Francisco on Thursday for a quick little business trip. He had to leave today at noon, but I thought it would be fun to try and see him for a little while. By the time we drove down and met up with him, we really only had less than hour to hang out. It was still nice to see him and we took a few pictures to prove that our paths had crossed. We stopped by the famous Ferry Terminal farmer's market and got some tasty pastry (and over-priced orange juice). The market is heaven for food lovers like me, but the truth is I'd probably be just as happy with my loc...

Science Teacher Mommy recently blogged about a "perfect day" they had, and it made me jealous of all their vacation fun. Don't worry, though, the jealousy didn't last too long since we're still on vacation and still having a lot of fun with our family and friends. I don't know if yesterday and today were totally "perfect days", especially since we didn't go anywhere spectacular, but they sure were nice. Last night we went camping with Mr. Fob's brother and his wife and baby, and Mr. Fob's sister and her daughter and neighbor (does that make sense?). We've never taken our kids camping and don't own any equipment, but my brother-in-law is a master camper and took charge of selecting a site, cooking, and building the fire. Thanks a lot! S-Boogie thought her first camping trip was fabulous, and it actually went really well. We got up there around dinner time, spent some time getting things set up and eating, went for a short hike to ...

I have officially been humbled and will no longer be optimistic about air travel with small children. Especially on Southwest Airlines. The kids and I just got back from spending a few days in Las Vegas visiting my parents. S-Boogie and I had spring break this week so I thought it would be fun to get away for a few days somewhere warm. When I sat down to buy the plane tickets that were on sale it turned out that trying to find cheap flights to Vegas was harder than I thought. The biggest problem was that most of the flights were not direct and there is no way in (you know) I'm taking a flight with a layover with small children. So I optimistically booked us on a Tuesday afternoon flight (naptime) and an early Sunday morning flight (butt crack of dawn). Both flights were 15o minutes of pure torture for all of us. First of all, both flights were completely full. So no carseat or extra space for Little Dude. I'm kind of glad he's almost too old to be a "lap child" si...

When we left for Portland on Friday afternoon I was having serious doubts about our decision to get away for a weekend. It was snowing, Little Dude spent most of the car ride picking off his band-aids and complaining about owie fingers, and what should have been a three hour trip turned into six thanks to a major traffic jam and a very slow waitress at Shari's . But our usage of a Shari's coupon paid off after we got to our friends' home and broke out our free marionberry pie. It gave us the fuel we needed to stay up until two thirty in the morning talking. Yes, four responsible adults who knew that there were six kids in the house all primed and ready to wake up at seven threw caution to the wind and stayed up insanely late. Then we spent all of Saturday in our pajamas ignoring the kids and talking some more. We even ate the rest of our pie while they were in the other room watching a movie. It was a blast. I'm glad we took this little break since I'm heading off t...

First of all, I just wanted to say thanks to everyone for your kind comments on my previous post. There's a little article about the incident here , if you're interested. I talked to my dad on the phone tonight and he reported that most of my family has been able to gather for the funeral. I wish I could be there tomorrow, but I hope that keeping them in my thoughts and prayers is good enough. Thanks to all my readers for your sympathy even though you don't know my family personally. Several friends have posted this new meme , which I think is kind of cool. We travelled a lot last year, sometimes for happy events and sometimes for not so happy reasons. But here's a list of the places I stayed overnight in during 2007. I only hope 2008 is not quite so hectic. Roseburg, OR El Cerrito, CA Elko, NV Orem, UT Smoot, WY Baker City, OR Orem, UT (two trips in a row) Salt Lake City, UT Spanish Fork, UT Orem, UT (again--hi Lika!) Makakilo, HI Pahoa, HI Cannon Beach, OR Beaverton,...