Onward and Upward

This week doesn't seem in any way remarkable, but, since we're in the business of documenting our family life for posterity, we perservere.


On Monday, we drove up to Provo so that Dan can get some research done at BYU. In the meantime, the kids and I have been enjoying our time reconnecting with family and old friends. On Tuesday, my sister brought her kids over and the cousins ran around with abandon.


Wednesday morning, we took the kids to get new pictures (Andrew's 5-year-old pictures and Evelyn's 3-year-old pictures). It's amazing how much easier it is to get a 5 and 3-year old to cooperate than to get a 3 and 1 year old to cooperate. They were actually pretty good--and big hams. Unfortunately, we seem to have used up our share of cosmic good luck taking pictures. After pictures, we were supposed to meet Sarah in American Fork to transfer some sleeping bags from Bubby and Poppy. However, we realized enroute that I'd left my cell phone at home, charging, and, of course, then we missed Sarah at the rendezvous point. We waited for 40 minutes, then Dan had to go to work. And, of course, Sarah showed up 5 minutes later (she'd gotten lost on the way over).


Thursday morning, I went for an early morning run. I've been trying to do this more regularly--usually at least 2-3 times a week, but this one was noteworthy because I felt so great that I kept running. I ran 5 miles, which is quite possibly the farthest I've run in my life.


Later that morning, I took the kids to the Bean museum (the local natural history museum). They enjoyed looking at all the animals--and trying to identify some of the local birds (I'd taken them in hopes of preppingthem for our bird watching outing on Friday). As we left, I noticed three blond boys standing by the door, waiting for a grown-up to join them. Two of the boys were strangers, but one of them looked an awful lot like an old friend of mine. So I waited for a minute--and sure enough, one of my oldest friends (Cristie Charles) showed up. She was watching her step-brother's kids, which explains the two strangers.


My kids, enchanted by the idea of other kids, were happy to go back into the museum, so I had a wonderful hour or two talking with Cristie (we followed them to McDonald's for lunch) and the kids had fun playing with each other.


On Friday, I met up with another old friend, Jennie Jerome, and we went bird watching with the kids. We went out to the Provo airport dyke and saw lots of different birds: red-wing blackbirds, yellow-headed blackbirds, an egret, a cormorant, a great blue heron, a pelican, swallows, mourning doves, tanagers, and I don't remember what else. It was fun--what was most fun for me was seeing Andrew get really into the idea of bird watching. He had his own pair of binoculars (an old pair of mine) and now he wants his own bird guide. Personally, I'm already envisioning a time a few years in the future when I can have my own personal birding companion.

Friday afternoon we tried to atone for Wednesday's mishap with Sarah by meeting Sarah, Aaron and kids in Heber City, at Granny's (a local joint known for its shakes). This time, we actually made it on time (and, not coincidentally, remembered my cell phone). We didn't have much of a visit, but it was fun to see them. (Lots of "fun" this week--apparently my vocabulary is limited this week).

Yesterday morning we went with my mother to the cemetery where my grandparents are buried. My grandfather was a WWII vet, so they're buried in a veteran's cemetery. It was a little tender to me, since I missed both of their funerals (my grandfather died right before finals week my first semester in graduate school; my grandmother died when I was 7.5 months pregnant with Andrew and I couldn't fly cross country) and had never been to the cemetery. My aunt Tera brought her granddaughter with her: my cousin's two-year-old Evalynn. The two "Evelyn's" (both named after my grandmother) enjoyed running around in the grassy field near the cemetery. And I have to laugh everytime I think of my cousin's daughter, with her bright red curls and my grandmother's name. When I told my grandmother I was thinking of naming Andrew after her (if he was a girl), she said (if I'm remembering right), "Oh shit." (She was never one to self-aggrandize). She also hated red hair (she told my mother, when I was born, that "there's always dye"). She did, however, like me, in spite of my red hair. Somehow, it seems fitting that she has a red-haired namesake.

In the afternoon, while Evelyn napped, Dan went to see Thor, I wrote, and Andrew watched Mythbusters with grandpa. When Evelyn woke up, we went to the toy store. That might have been a mistake. Not because we spent a lot (I bought a birthday present for my niece, but that was all), but because Andrew was determined to find something to spend his money on, so he watned to look at everything--and he didn't want to wait around. Evelyn wanted to touch anything with buttons. That meant that most of the trip went like this: "Andrew, wait. Andrew, slow down. Evelyn, come on! Evelyn, we're going now."

We're looking forward to a rainy memorial day tomorrow and reunions with the cousins. We hope all our readers have a safe, fun memorial day as well.

nothing much

After the excitement of the last week or so, it was kind of nice to have a couple days of quiet. (Not that we didn't enjoy the excitement!)

We had a day or two of fairly miserable weather (snow Wednesday; hail Thursday--or was that Friday?). In any case, we've been cooped up for a while. Things got nicer yesterday, so the kids played outside with the neighbors for a while; Dan and Poppy managed to get the sprinkler system up and running, and I "budged" the house (an Eves-ism for a thorough cleaning, usually before a trip of some sort, stemming from Trisha's habit of refusing to "budge" until the house was clean). The kids did help a bit, but it's hard for them to sustain an interest in deep cleaning for long. Suffice it to say that the bathroom and fridge are now thoroughly cleaned; the bedrooms (including a few corners that hadn't seen the light of day in a shamefully long time) are cleared, swept, and dusted, and I am in general feeling much happier about my status as a homeowner/housekeeper.

Today we had a little adventure--but not the kind you generally want to have. We were enjoying a calm spot in sacrament meeting (Andrew was coloring; Evelyn was laying on her stomach looking at a sticker book), when Evelyn suddenly announced, "Mommy, I'm peeing!" Note carefully the present tense--not "I need to go," but "I'm currently doing it." And she was. A sinister dark stain was seeping across the pale purple pew cover underneath her. Dan rushed her to the bathroom (too late); then I took her home for clean clothes and some towels to clean the pew with. I'm not sure who was more traumatized by the experience: me, Dan, or Evelyn (who cried all the way home).

There, and back again.

If you follow our blog at all regularly, you already know about our nightmarish trip out to Dallas to visit Matt and his family. But we're happy to report that, although we may at times have felt like this:

Or this:
Once we arrived, we mostly felt like this:

(Incidentally, these are all pictures of Evelyn in her birthday present from us--a fairy outfit). You'll be pleased to know we made it back without incident--although I was half convinced the entire time that something was bound to go wrong: our flight would be delayed (worse, cancelled), our luggage would get lost, our car would be stolen when we got to the lot. In actual fact, everything went boringly as expected. Except, of course, for the snow we ran into as we neared home. Seriously. It's mid-May. Aren't we done with snow yet?

But I have to admit that cooler temperatures here meant that it was really nice in Dallas-instead of the high 80s from the week before our visit, we had days mostly in the temperate 70s (Saturday it didn't even crack 70). One of the women in church told me she was glad that they could orchestrate such nice weather for our visit. I bit my tongue and didn't explain that the same cold front that brought the nice weather also kept us in Vegas for two days.

Of course, Sunday's post to the contrary, we didn't spend all our time in Vegas at the airport (although it felt like it! When we got off the plane and walked into the same wing where we'd spent so much time fruitlessly waiting, Dan and I both had the eerie sense that maybe we'd never actually left the building . . . but we have pictures to prove we did!)

On Tuesday, before any of the flight fracas, we had lunch at Maggianos, walked down to see the pirate ships in front of Treasure Island (and took pictures, but since the kids were never a) looking at the camera or b) looking in the same direction, the pictures hardly seemed worth posting), and then went to the natural history museum. Turns out, it was a pretty nice little museum. The kids liked all of the animal displays, although they were bored in the recreation of King Tut's tomb (which was one of the most interesting parts for Dan and I). The museum also has a dinosaur room with animatronic dinosaurs. Once the kids got over being scared of the T-rex and triceratops going at each other in the entrance, I think they actually enjoyed it.

The picture here is bad, but that's a feathered raptor you see behind the kids. (They still wouldn't look at the camera at the same time--a problem we had most of the trip).


They also had a little room with some hands on activities for the kids. Here, a glass dome lets you see inside a fish tank.


Afterward, we killed time before check-in by playing at a little park behind the museum. It was perfect--not too hot, and we were the only ones there. After check-in, we went swimming with the kids in the hotel pool.


The next two days you already know most of, from the previous post. I think, in an effort to make up to the kids for the misery of spending so much time, we may have overcompensated. The kids got to ride the carousel *and* some of the quarter rides at the mall where we went to replenish our wardrobe (Andrew and Evelyn wore and slept in these same outfits for two days straight--and if you've ever seen kids eat, you'll know why that was a bad idea).

However, I suppose no one can be stranded at the airport forever, and on Friday we finally actually made it to Dallas. That first day we just hung out with Matt, Laurie, and the kids. I tried to befriend Clara and only succeeded in making her cry. (She *really* likes her mom; in consequence, she looks askance at most other adult women. I considered it a big success that, by the end of our visit, she actually let me hold her for fifteen minutes or so, as long as I didn't let her see her mom). I should add that Andrew kept pestering me to take a picture of Clara, and I didn't, because I was sure I had one--but it turns out he was right. No pictures of Clara from this trip. (This is particularly sad because she is a pretty baby). We'll have to rectify that when they come out in July.

Friday night Matt and Laurie took us to a little El Salvadorean restaurant and introduced us to pupusas--a kind of flat baked pancake-like thing with cheese (or other filling) inside it. They were really good--and they allowed us to check off one more letter on our world-cuisine tour: "N" for "Nicaraugua," whose food (so Matt tells us) is quite similar.

On Saturday, we went to the Dallas arboretum. We've heard a lot about it from Bubby and Poppy, but we wanted to see it for ourselves. It was beautiful--if a bit crowded. The day, despite the sunshine, was cool and breezy (mostly in the upper 50s). It was funny to hear people complain, though, about the cold. We also saw several brides and quinceanera candidates (I'm not sure what you actually call them) in their full formal gowns. Evelyn was entranced with a little hispanic girl who wore a pink formal gown with a full hoop skirt (clearly an attendant for a wedding or quinceanera). I also watched this same little girl fall down and then start crying because she couldn't get up unaided in those huge skirts.


In one section of the park, they had a children's garden with a pioneer theme; in addition to a covered wagon and teepee, children could explore a pioneer house and a miniature pioneer village. Evelyn thought she was in heaven--what could appeal more strongly to a domestic little girl's sensibility than a bunch of houses and dishes to play with? (If you think there are more pictures here of Evelyn than Andrew, you'd be right. The kids wandered in separate directions here--I had Evelyn and Dan had Andrew . . . and I had the camera).



As a last hurrah before we left the gardens, we let the kids play in the water at the frog fountains. (Laurie had warned us to bring dry clothes for the kids). By the time we left, the kids were all thoroughly drenched.

Sunday, of course, was church. I didn't get much out of Sunday school, because I was distracted by Clara, who was flirting shamelessly with me from the safety of her dad's arms. But I did enjoy Relief Society, where we talked about the importance of working on our talents (something I've been thinking about a lot lately and may have to post something about on my other blog). For dinner, we had turkey and mashed potatoes. I think that may have been our only home-cooked meal--not because Laurie and Matt weren't willing and able to cook, but because all of us (visitors and hosts alike) enjoyed the excuse to eat out for a change. (Well, to be fair, we did help them eat leftovers on Saturday).

On Monday, Matt took the day off of work and we all headed out to Fair Park, home of (at least) 10 different museums and the site of the Cotton Bowl stadium. (Also, apparently, the site of the Texas State Fair, which claims to be the largest state fair. Judging from the size of the complex, I'm not surprised). We bought museum passports which let us into 7 of the different on-site museums; we went to three of them: the Museum of Science and Nature (which included a children's museum); the Children's Aquarium; and the Texas Discovery Garden (a butterfly garden).

The kids loved the children's museum in the basement of the museum of science: they got to "milk" a fake cow, explore a miniature farm, learn about water flow (I think) by playing with water and ducks, crawl through a child-sized ant-hill, putter around a home, play in a sandbox, dress-up; pretend to be firemen, etc. Aside from the hordes of school groups there, I don't think the kids could have imagined anything better. (As an adult, I was bored a considerable portion of the time--although the heat sensitive screens were cool.) It was fun, though, to see the kids' excitement. Leo's enthusiasm radiates through his entire body.



The upstairs portion of the museum was much cooler--there was a pyramid shaped sorter that created a normal distribution (I had to throw that in for my parents, who would have liked it) and some cool exhibits that explained how the body works to burn energy, how DNA sequencing gets used, and what kinds of physical forces create a tornado.


After lunch, a nursing break for Laurie, and a quick trip through the Natural History portion of the Nature and Science museum (the exhibits were nicely put together, just small), we headed for the Children's Aquarium. I think this was one of the highlights of the entire trip for Andrew. There, the kids were able to touch sting rays (Andrew and I got to feed them some shrimp--a very peculiar sensation, since the rays don't actually have teeth, but they manage to snuffle the food off your hand) and handle horse-shoe crabs. We saw one of the keepers feed the moray eels, which apparently have a second set of jaws that they can thrust out to grab their prey.


Last, but not least, was the butterfly garden--an enclosed, well-heated, structure full of plants and, of course, butterflies. I usually can't take good close-ups of living animals (my children included), but I thought these pictures turned out pretty well.

Monday evening, we ordered Chinese food and Matt and Dan did themselves proud by making sure there weren't too many leftovers.

Tuesday, our final day in Dallas, we took the kids to the zoo. Matt was back at work and Laurie was watching a friend's daughter while her friend attended a funeral, so it was just us this time. The zoo was a nice one--with large habitats for the animals, and (my favorite part) a monorail ride around one of the areas with a guided tour of the animals. (The area surrounding the zoo, however, is a bit ghetto Laurie tells me; apparently, a week or so ago the entire zoo was evacuated because a robbery had taken place nearby and the criminal hopped the fence into the zoo. I'm glad she didn't tell me this until afterwards; just like I'm glad I didn't know her mother's story, about the previous owners of *our* house being held at gunpoint after robbers broke into the house, until yesterday).

We started out with the children's zoo--a playground area with exhibits for some of the smaller and more domestic animals, like this turtle.

All of the goats in the barnyard were named; we got one of the junior zoo-keepers to point out the goat named Jasper (an Eves' family name), so that we could get a picture of Evelyn petting Jasper. (Jasper, however, refused to lift his head for me, so this is all you get).


Here's Andrew in front of the condors (he'd been asking me about them earlier in the week, wondering if it was possible to see them in Utah--I thought he'd be excited to see them in person. But he doesn't look too excited here, does he?)



Tuesday night, we had dinner at Salt Grass, a big steak house place. Dan had chicken-fried steak, the kids had macaroni and cheese (Laurie and Matt marveled at how much Evelyn ate; the most they'd seen her eat all week). Matt and I both had grilled chicken (although mine also came with some coconut shrimp, which I ordered mostly for Dan, but which I tried and actually enjoyed), and Laurie had a pot roast. Very good, but I think we brought home almost half of the food in leftovers.

That night, Laurie's mom arrived, so we had a full house for one night (and lots of tired, over-excited children). And now we're back. With the heat on.

And I'm done. Whew! Are long blog posts as exhausting to read as they are to write?

Poseur

I don't know where she gets it from, but this girl likes to pose for pictures. As proof, I offer the following (most of these were taken at the Dallas arboretum; the last one was taken at Fair Park in Dallas):

Rule #1: Always Expect the Unexpected (or, The Third Time is NOT the Charm)

So, our big plan this week was to get out of town to visit Dan's brother in Dallas. Turns out this is easier said than done. Our flight was scheduled to leave on Wednesday, so we drove down to Vegas a day early to enjoy some time with the kids, go swimming, and generally hang out. So far, so good.

Wednesday morning, we had a bit of a hiccup. We got up on time, made a quick trip to Trader Joe's and were at the airport well before our scheduled flight. However, when we got to the gate, we found out the flight had been cancelled, due to weather problems. We trekked back to the ticketing booth with our kids, and got reassigned to a flight at 5 p.m. that evening.

We drove around town for a while, had lunch, came back to the airport, back through security, and back to the gate. There, we waited. And waited. By 5, the marquee read that the flight was delayed until 7:50. Dan and I contemplated the challenges of arriving after midnight with small children. At 6:40, this flight, too, was cancelled. So back, again, to ticketing. Evelyn fell asleep on my hip while I was talking to the agent.

They put us on a flight out at 8:30 in the morning. They gave us boarding passes and we went back to our hotel from the night before. We had to get toothbrushes from the front desk, as our luggage--naturally--had already been sent to Dallas. And the next morning, we were back, again, at the airport. We were confident this time would work--after all, the third time is the charm, right?

Apparently not. When we got to the airport, we checked the big board of departures to find our gate, only to find the one word that made our hearts sink to our shoes: cancelled. None of the other flights to Dallas were cancelled--just ours. It was starting to feel like Groundhog day--a kind of science-fiction nightmare where we were never going to leave the airport. Luckily, this time we hadn't actually made it through security, so we headed back down to ticketing. However, US Air couldn't get all four of us out until the next (Friday) morning. The agent, not unsympathetically, suggested we go talk to the ticket agent at American (our first two flights were with American, the Thursday morning was with US Air, since American had no more spots available that day). At this point, we were considering trying to a refund, taking the money, and just driving to California.

We talked to the American Airlines agent. She told me we couldn't get a refund--after we accepted the first reassignment for the cancelled flight, we lost that option. She also couldn't find us any earlier tickets out. However, she did take pity on my and changed both our outgoing and return tickets, so that we'd still have the same length of stay (rather than lose two days of our trip to airline issues).

We spent the morning at the outlet mall, getting new swimsuits, pajamas, and clean clothes for the kids. We spent the afternoon at the swimming pool at our hotel (the one advantage to being stranded in Vegas is the abundance of inexpensive, but still nice, hotels).

Finally, Friday morning, we actually made it out of the Vegas airport. I have to admit, until the plane actually lifted off the runway, I wasn't sure we actually would leave. But we had clear skies the whole way.

We'll post more later about our real vacation.

Happy Mother's Day

Three years ago, I spent mother's day in the hospital, after the unexpectedly early birth of my daughter. (We've really planned our births well--I spent Christmas day in the hospital with my son, and mother's day with my daughter. If we have another one, I wonder what holiday we'll get then?) As hard as that day was for me (we were just realizing that she wouldn't be coming home with us when I went home--she had another two plus weeks to stay), it was also a sweet reminder of why we have mother's day in the first place. I know a lot of women dislike mother's day--I don't make the mistake of thinking that any mother (myself included) is perfect, but I do like the idea that there is a day set aside for us to remember our mothers. (Speaking of which, I should call mine!)


It's hard to believe it's been three years (almost) already. Evelyn will be 3 on Tuesday.

However, because we've got a busy week ahead of us with family, etc., we decided to have Evelyn's birthday party early. Wednesday morning saw us with a house full of little girls (6, including Evelyn) and 3 boys (mostly brothers). Now, I have to say that I'm not normally a fan of big parties for small children, but in this case it was hard to avoid--our neighbor has triplets who are Evelyn's age and friends of ours.

Here's Evelyn on the morning of her big day--and Andrew, who doesn't quite know how to deal with not being the center of attention.

Since Evelyn--big surprise--wanted a princes themed party, princesses were the order of the day. I gave each little girl a little notebook that said, "A princess must be . . . " and we hosted a princess academy. For each royal characteristic, we had a little activity, at the end of which the girls got a sticker.

A princess must be well-dressed (I didn't want to say "beautiful," because I want my daughter to look beyond just the surface aspects of a princess). I found some inexpensive plastic shoes for the girls, and they borrowed some of Evelyn's many tutus.

And a princess must be creative, so we made foam crowns.

A princess must be graceful and athletic--so we tried dancing. However, that didn't work too well in the plastic shoes (Evelyn crashed on her partner just moments after this picture).

A princess must be kind. . . . the girls helped a stuffed penguin find his missing friends. (I hid stuffed animals around the room).

A princess must be healthy . . . we adjourned to the dining room for some cheese, crackers, and fruit.

And finally (because I was feeling inspired by the Princess Knight book I mentioned last week), a princess must be brave. Andrew and his friends agreed to put on dinosaur masks and act like dragons, and the princesses had to frighten them off with their magic bubbles. Everyone (dragons and princesses) enjoyed this one.


Then each girl was able to exchange her foam crown for a "real" crown, signifying that she had successfully passed the princess academy. (Although at least half of the girls preferred the foam crown).

Afterwards, we had pink cupcakes and then presents. And I don't have any pictures of the cupcakes because we couldn't find the camera. The cupcakes were also rather plain (as my birthday cakes go), partly because, having made 48 cupcakes for a fund-raiser on Monday (that's another story entirely--you can read something about it on my other blog), I didn't feel up to anything fancy. And partly because a bathroom emergency (meaning, he made a mess in the bathroom) on Andrew's part at a critical moment in the frosting process meant that I didn't have the time. Anyway, no one seemed to mind. They were pink (bright pink) which was all Evelyn cared about.


My mom was in town this week, partly for Evelyn's party and partly to help watch my kids while I dealt with finals. (My final exam was the very last slot on Thursday). But apparently, her real purpose was to come weed my yard. With ruthless efficiency, she weeded my *entire* garden spot (which I wasn't planning on doing since I didn't figure we'd be able to get in a garden this year). This is just one more reason why my mom is terrific--I wish I had her stamina for gardening! In any case, it was fun to have her here.

After she left, things got pretty quiet. I spent much of yesterday grading while Dan took the kids out to do things like buy a soaker hose for our now cleared garden. But we survived, and had a lovely quiet morning this morning. Andrew gave me a mother's day card (actually a book) about him and Evelyn making me a mother's day card . . . a very "meta" moment that the English geek in me appreciated. And Dan gave me the present I've been requesting for the past couple Christmases . . . a book (350+ pages) of our blog, from 2007-2009 (now we're only a year behind! Guess what I want next year . . . ). Somehow, seeing the concrete version of this blog made me appreciate what an accomplishment this is. We may not have many readers, but we have a real record of our family life. It was fun to look back through it and reminisce about things I would never have otherwise remembered, like the prayer Andrew gave when he was two, and asked Heavenly Father to bless everyone, "except for Reginald Von Hoobie Doobie" (a character in Mo Willem's book, Edwina, the Dinosaur who didn't know she was extinct).

One final picture for the record: this is what happens when Evelyn goes into the bathroom unsupervised and finds my eye shadow. She almost got her eyelids (eyebrows are close, right?). And if you look closely, you can see pink marker by her mouth, the remnants of the coloring orgy she and Andrew indulged in while I was trying to finish grading one more paper. (Of course, if I'd realized they were coloring each other and not paper, I would have intervened much sooner!). I didn't think to take a picture, but they were quite a sight. Andrew colored his arms and legs orange, "too look like his soccer shin guards," and Evelyn decorated her legs with lovely pink and purple squigglies.